The Talisman

of every player on the Los Angeles Dodgers . . . but disturbing, disorderly images kept breaking in. He kept seeing Morgan Sloat tearing a hole in the air. Wolf’s face floated underwater, and his hands drifted down like heavy weeds. Jerry Bledsoe twitched and rocked before the electrical panel, his glasses smeared over his nose. A man’s eyes turned yellow, and his hand became a claw-hoof. Uncle Tommy’s false teeth coruscated in the Sunset Strip gutter. Morgan Sloat came toward him, his bald scalp suddenly rippling with black hair – but then Uncle Morgan was coming toward his mother, not himself.
    ‘Songs by Fats Waller,’ he said, sending himself around another circuit in the dark. ‘“Your Feets Too Big”. “Ain’t Misbehavin”. “Jitterbug Waltz”. “Keepin Out of Mischief Now”.’
    The Elroy-thing reached out toward his mother, whispering lewdly, and clamped a hand down over her hip.
    ‘Countries in Central America. Nicaragua. Honduras. Guatemala. Costa Rica . . .’
    Even when he was so tired he finally had to lie down and curl into a ball on the floor, using his knapsack as a pillow, Elroy and Morgan Sloat rampaged through his mind. Osmond flicked his bullwhip across Lily Cavanaugh’s back, and his eyes danced. Wolf reared up, massive, absolutely inhuman, and caught a rifle bullet directly in the heart.
    The first light woke him, and he smelled blood. His whole body begged for water, then for food. Jack groaned. Three more nights of this would be impossible to survive. The low angle of the sunlight allowed him dimly to see the walls and roof of the shed. It all looked larger than he had felt it to be last night. He had to pee again, though he could scarcely believe that his body could afford to give up any moisture. Finally he realized that the shed seemed larger because he was lying on the floor.
    Then he smelled blood again, and looked sideways, toward the door. The skinned hindquarters of a rabbit had been thrust through the gap. They lay sprawled on the rough boards, leaking blood, glistening. Smudges of dirt and a long ragged scrape showed that they had been forced into the shed. Wolf was trying to feed him.
    ‘Oh, Jeez,’ Jack groaned. The rabbit’s stripped legs were disconcertingly human. Jack’s stomach folded into itself. But instead of vomiting, he laughed, startled by an absurd comparison. Wolf was like the family pet who each morning presents his owners with a dead bird, an eviscerated mouse.
    With two fingers Jack delicately picked up the horrible offering and deposited it under the bench. He still felt like laughing, but his eyes were wet. Wolf had survived the first night of his transformation, and so had Jack.
    The next morning brought an absolutely anonymous, almost ovoid knuckle of meat around a startlingly white bone splintered at both ends.
    12
    On the morning of the fourth day Jack heard someone sliding down into the gully. A startled bird squawked, then noisily lifted itself off the roof of the shed. Heavy footsteps advanced toward the door. Jack raised himself onto his elbows and blinked into the darkness.
    A large body thudded against the door and stayed there. A pair of split and stained penny loafers was visible through the gap.
    ‘Wolf?’ Jack asked softly. ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’
    ‘Give me the key, Jack.’
    Jack slipped his hand into his pocket, brought out the key, and pushed it directly between the penny loafers. A large brown hand dropped into view and picked up the key.
    ‘Bring any water?’ Jack asked. Despite what he had been able to extract from Wolf’s gruesome presents, he had come close to serious dehydration – his lips were puffy and cracked, and his tongue felt swollen, baked. The key slid into the lock, and Jack heard it click open.
    Then the lock came away from the door.
    ‘A little,’ Wolf said. ‘Close your eyes, Jacky. You have night-eyes now.’
    Jack clasped his hands over his eyes as the door opened, but the light which boomed and thundered into the shed still managed to trickle through his fingers and stab his eyes. He hissed with the pain. ‘Better soon,’ Wolf said, very close to him. Wolf’s arms circled and lifted him. ‘Eyes closed,’ Wolf warned, and stepped backward out of the shed.
    Even as Jack said, ‘Water,’ and felt the rusty lip of an old cup meet his own lips, he knew why Wolf had not lingered in the shed. The air outside seemed unbelievably fresh and sweet – it might have been imported