Demon Box

“Everything gotta live,” Blackbeard had answered. “And everything gotta give.”

Stewart skidded to a halt in the gravel. Blackbeard grabbed one end of the stick before the dog could release it, wrenching it viciously from the animal’s teeth. This time Deboree, moving with all the speed the adrenaline could wring from his weary limbs, had stepped in front of the hitchhiker and grabbed the other end of the stick before it could be thrown.

“I said don’t throw it.”

This time there was no averting the grin; the man looked straight at him. And Deboree had guessed right about the breath; it hissed out of the jagged mouth like a rotten wind.

“I heard what you said, fagbutt.”

Then they had looked at each other, over the stick grasped at each end between them. Deboree forced himself to match the other man’s grinning glare with his own steady smile, but he knew it was only a temporary steadiness. He wasn’t in shape for encounters of this caliber. There was a seething accusation burning from the man’s eyes, unspecified, undirected, but so furious that Deboree felt his will withering before it. Through the bean stake he felt that fury assail his very cells. It was like holding a high-voltage terminal.

“Everything gotta try,” the man had said through his ragged grin, shuffling to get a better grip on his end of the stake with both leathery hands. “And everything gotta—” He didn’t finish. Deboree had brought his free fist down, sudden and hard, and had chopped the stake in twain. Then, before the man could react, Deboree had turned abruptly away from him and swatted Stewart on the rump. The dog had yelped in surprise and run beneath the barn.

It had been a dramatic and successful maneuver. Both hitchhikers were impressed. Before they could recover, Deboree had pointed across the yard with the jagged end of his piece and told them, “There’s the trail to the Haight-Ashbury, guys. Vibe central.”

“Come on, Bob,” Blondboy had said, sneering at Deboree. “Let’s hit it. Forget him. He’s gangrened. Like Leary and Lennon. All those high-rolling creeps. Gangrened. A power tripper.”

Blackbeard had looked at his end. It had broken off some inches shorter than Deboree’s. He finally muttered, “Whatever’s shakin’,” and turned on his heel.

As he sauntered back the way he had come into the yard, he drew his knife. The blond boy hurried to take up his saunter beside his partner, already murmuring and giggling up to him. Blackbeard stripped a long curving sliver of wood from his end of the stick with the blade of his knife as he walked. Another sliver followed, fluttering, like a feather.

Devlin had stood, hands on his hips, watching the chips fall from the broken stick. He had glared after them with raw eyes until they were well off the property. That was when he had hurried back up to his office to resume the search for his sunglasses.

He heard the whine again, returning, growing louder. He opened his eyes and walked back to the window and parted the tie-dye curtains. The pink car had turned around and was coming back. Entranced, he watched it pass the driveway again, but this time it squealed to a stop, backed up, and turned in. It came keening and bouncing down the dirt road toward the barn. Finally he blinked, jerked the curtain closed, and sat heavily in his swivel chair.

The car whirred to a stop in the gravel and mercifully cut its engine. He didn’t move. Somebody got out, and a voice from the past shouted up at his office: “Dev?” He’d let the curtain close too late. “Devlinnnn?” it shouted. “Hey, you, Devlin Deboreeeee?” A sound half hysterical and half humorous, like the sound that chick who lost her marbles in Mexico used to make, that Sandy Pawku.

“Dev? I’ve got news. About Houlihan. Bad news. He’s dead. Houlihan’s dead.”

He tipped back in his chair and closed his eyes. He didn’t question the announcement. The loss seemed natural, in keeping with the season and the situation, comfortable even, and then he thought, That’s it! That’s what the revolution has been doing lately, to be honest. Losing!

“Dev, are you up there? It’s me, Sandy…” He pushed himself standing and walked to the window and drew back the curtain. He wiped his eyes and stuck his head into the blighted afternoon. Hazy as it was, the sunlight nevertheless seemed to be sharper than usual, harsher. The chrome of the little car gleamed viciously. Like the knife blade.

“Houlihan,” he said, blinking. The dust raised by the car was reaching the barn on its own small breeze. He felt it bring an actual chill. “Houlihan dead?” he said to the pink face lifted to him.

“Of exposure,” the voice rasped.

“When? Recently?”