The screaming’s incredible. The screaming won’t stop.
Blood spills from TV-Arnie’s gaping trap; a dark scarlet stain spreads like fire, racing down his throat to his chest. His brow slips to a flutter. He tries to pry that small hand from the stick, but he just doesn’t have it. He’s growing weaker with each fleeting breath, breaths he knows will be his last.
TV-Randy stands cold. He’s trembling, mind spinning, not at what’s happened, but at what he’s seeing now. What they’re all seeing now.
The kid’s eyes are raging red hellfires—nasty little eyes. TV-Arnie sees them, yet they’re not the source of his latest shriek-fest; it’s that stick, that butt-ugly stick, that stick that is wrenched from his throat. It’s there in his face, held high in place, crooked and slick with his blood.
Again comes the hell, again comes the fire, and TV-Randy steps back as it strikes at his heart. It misses, just misses, but his luck has run out. The stick stabs his arm and he lets loose a shriek, one nearly as shrill as those shrieks in his ears.
TV-Tony panics. He takes TV-Simon by the hand and they start up the hill. They don’t get too far before yelling for help, because TV-Trooper, the one whose wife skipped out with a True Value bag boy, the one who lost his best friend to time and to darkness, has finally arrived. His eyes are as hard as nickels, and like the eyes he so fears, he’s watching, always watching, watching that boy in the toque … watching that stick as it rises again.