Farewell Summer

"Over," said Quartermain. "There are just a few more things I want to make sure of. It's what you would call the joyful aftermath. Bleak, remember the collection of oddities and medical freaks we put together one summer for a town fair, all those years ago? Do you think we could find those jars? Are they up in an

"I suppose so. But why?"

"Find them. Unlock them. We're bringing them out in the open again. Gather our army of gray. We have work to do. It's time."

Click. Hummm.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A HUGE QUESTION MARK, PAINTED ON A PLY-wood shingle, hung over the tent entryway. The tent had been erected on one side of the lakefront grounds, and the entrance gave way into the darkness of a haphazardly constructed plywood lean-to museum. Inside was a series of platforms on which were no freaks, no beasts, no magicians, no people. Somehow, overnight, this mystery tent had appeared, as if it had pitched itself.

Across town, Quartermain smiled.

That morning, in school, Doug had found an unsigned handwritten note in his desk. Its message was simple, written with black ink in large block letters-"the mystery of life explained.??? at the lake-front. LIMITED TIME ONLY." Doug passed the note among his friends, and as soon as school let out for the day, the boys had rushed down here, as fast as their feet could carry them. Now, entering the question mark tent with his friends, Doug was incredibly disappointed. Migawd, no bones, no dinosaurs, no mad generals at war, he thought. Nothing but night-dark canvas and flat platforms and… Douglas peered. Charlie squinted. Will, Bo, and Tom came last into the smell of old wood and tar-paper. There wasn't even a curator with a tall hat and baton to guide them along. There was only-

On top of a series of small tables were a number of large one- and two-gallon jars filled to the brim with a thick, clear liquid. Each jar was topped by a glass lid, and each lid had a red number on it-twelve in all-each number, painted in a shaky hand. And inside each of the jars… maybe that was it, at last, the things implied by the huge question mark outside.

"Heck," muttered Bo. "There's nothing here. What a gyp. So long, you guys."

And Bo turned, pushed the tent flap aside, and left.

"Wait," said Douglas, but Bo was already gone. "Tom, Charlie, Will, you won't leave, will you? You'll miss out if you go."

"But there's nothing here, just some old jars."

"Wait," said Doug. "It's more than just jars. What's in the jars? C'mon. Let's look closer."

They edged up to the platform and crept along, staring into the jars, one after another. There were no labels to tell them what they were looking at, just glass and liquid and a soft light that seemed to pulse within the liquid and shone on their eager, sweaty faces.

"What is

that stuff in there?" asked Tom.

"Gosh knows. Look close."

Their eyes moved along, darted and stayed, stayed and darted, fastened and examined until their noses dilated and their mouths gaped.

"What's that, Doug? And that? And that one there?"

"How do I know? Move!" Doug went back to the beginning of the row and crouched down in front of the first jar so his eyes were level with whatever was inside it.

The big bright glass jar held what looked like a giant cold gray oyster. Doug peered at it, mumbled something to himself, then stood up and moved on. The boys followed.

Suspended within the liquid in the next jar was something that looked like a bit of translucent seaweed or, no, more like a seahorse, a miniature sea-

And the glass jar after that held something that resembled a skinned rabbit or a raw cat with its fur shucked, getting bigger…

The boys' eyes moved, darted, stayed, flicked back to examine the first, second, third, fourth jars again.

"What's in this one, Doug?"

Five, six, seven.

They all looked and it might have been another animal, a squirrel or a monkey-sure, a monkey-but with transparent skin and a strange sorrowful expression.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven-the jars were numbered but had no names. There was nothing to hint at what the boys were looking at, what it was that froze their veins and iced their blood. Until at last, at the far end of the row, near the exit sign, they reached the last jar and all leaned toward it and blinked.

"That can't be!"

"Naw."

"It is," gasped Douglas. "A baby!"

"What's it doing in there?"

"Being dead, dummy."

"Yeah, but… how…?"

All their eyes swiveled to rush back-eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five and four and three and two and one-to the first jar, the one holding the pale little oyster curlicue.

"If that's a baby…"

"Then," said Will, all numbness, "what in blazes are all those creepy things in the other jars?"

Douglas counted backward, then forward again, but stayed silent, his icy flesh all goose bumps.

"I got nothing to say."

"Upchuck, Doug, upchuck."

"Those things in the jars…" Doug began, face pale, voice paler. "They're-they're babies, too!"