Winter Moon

"What is dead?"

"Lifeless."

"What is lifeless?"

"Without life."

"What is life?"

"The opposite of death."

"What is death?"

Desperately, Jack said, "Empty, hollow, rotting."

"Bodies are."

"Not forever."

"Bodies are."

"Nothing lasts forever."

"Everything lasts."

"Nothing."

"Everything becomes."

"Becomes what?" Jack asked.

He was now beyond giving answers himself, was full of his own

questions.

"Everything becomes," the Toby-thing repeated.

"Becomes what?"

"Me. Everything becomes me."

Jack wondered what in the hell he was talking to and whether he was

making more sense to it than it was making to him. He began to doubt

that he was even awake. Maybe he'd taken a nap. If he wasn't insane,

perhaps he was asleep.

Snoring in the armchair in the study, a book in his lap.

Maybe Heather had never come to tell him Toby was in the cemetery, in

which case all he had to do was wake up.

The breeze felt real. Not like a dream wind. Cold, piercing. And it

had picked up enough speed to give it a voice. Whispering in the

grass, soughing in the trees along the edge of the higher woods,

keening softly, softly.

The Toby-thing said, "Suspended."

"What?"

"Different sleep."

Jack glanced at the graves. "No."

"Waiting."

"No."

"Puppets waiting."

"No. Dead."

"Tell me their secret."

"Dead."

"The secret."

"They're just dead."

"Tell me."

"There's nothing to tell."

The boy's expression was still calm, but his face was flushed. The

arteries were throbbing visibly in his temples, as if his blood

pressure had soared off the scale.

"Tell me!"

Jack was shaking uncontrollably, increasingly frightened by the cryptic

nature of their exchanges, worried that he understood even less of the

situation than he thought he did and that his ignorance might lead him

to say the wrong thing and somehow put Toby into even greater danger

than he already was.

"Tell me!"

Overwhelmed by fear and confusion and frustration, Jack grabbed Toby by

the shoulders, stared into his strange eyes.

"Who are you?"

No answer.

"What's happened to my Toby?"

After a long silence: "What's the matter, Dad?"

Jack's scalp prickled. Being called

"Dad" by this thing, this hateful

intruder, was the worst affront yet.

"Dad?"

"Stop it."

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

But he wasn't Toby. No way. His voice still didn't have its natural

inflections, his face was slack, and his eyes were wrong.

"Dad, what're you doing?"

The thing in possession of Toby apparently hadn't realized that its

masquerade had come undone. Until now it had thought that Jack

believed he was speaking with his son. The parasite was struggling to

improve its performance.

"Dad, what did I do? Are you mad at me? I didn't do anything, Dad,

really I didn't."

"What are you?" Jack demanded.

Tears slid from the boy's eyes. But the nebulous something was behind

the tears, an arrogant puppetmaster confident of its ability to

deceive.

"Where's Toby? You sonofabitch, whatever the hell you are, give him

back to me."

Jack's hair fell across his eyes. Sweat glazed his face. To anyone

coming upon them just then, his extreme fear would appear to be

dementia. Maybe it was. Either he was talking to a malevolent spirit

that had taken control of his son or he was insane. Which made more

sense?

"Give him to me I want him back!"

"Dad, you're scaring me," the Toby-thing said, trying to tear loose of

him.

"You're not my son."

"Dad, please!"

"Stop it! Don't pretend with me--you're not fooling me, for Christ's

sake!"

It wrenched free, turned, stumbled to Tommys headstone, and leaned

against the granite.

Toppled onto all fours by the force with which the boy broke away from

him, Jack said fiercely, "Let him go!"

The boy squealed, jumped as if surprised, and spun to face Jack.

"Dad! What're you doing here?"

He sounded like Toby again.

"Jeer, you scared me!

What're you sneaking in a cemetery for? Boy, that's not funny!" They

weren't as close as they had been, but Jack thought the child's eyes no

longer seemed strange, Toby peared to see him again.

"Holy Jeer, on your hands and knees, sneaking in a cemetery." The boy

was Toby again, all right. The thing that had controlled him was not a

good enough actor to be this convincing. Or maybe he had always been

Toby. The unnerving possibility of madness and delusion confronted

Jack again.

"Are you all right?" he asked, rising onto his knees once more, wiping

his palms on his jeans.

"Almost pooped my pants," Toby said, and giggled.

What a marvelous sound. That giggle. Sweet music. Jack clasped his

hands to his thighs, squeezing hard, trying to stop shaking.

"What're you ..." His voice was quavery. He cleared his throat.

"What are you doing up here?" The boy pointed to the Frisbee on the

dead grass. "Wind caught the flying saucer." Remaining on his knees,

Jack said, "Come here." Toby was clearly dubious. "Why?"

"Come here, Skipper, just come here."

"You going to bite my neck?"

"What?"

"You going to pretend to bite my neck or do something and scare me

again, like sneaking up on me, something weird like that?" Obviously,

the boy didn't remember their conversation while he'd been ...