I woke disoriented. It was dark. I felt movement beneath me. It took time to realize I was across the backseat of Johnny's Chevy, and he was driving. My shoulder hurt; it must have been where I hit the ground. My clothes were stained with grass and dirt. I ached all over, and my throat felt raw.
                    “Johnny?” My voice was a raspy whisper. I worked myself into a sitting position and looked out the window. It was still dark.
                    “I think it's all right, Howard.” I found his voice disturbingly calm. All I could see was the back of his head, his long blond hair.
                    “What happened? What was that?”
                    “I'm not sure. I'm not sure.” An edgy tone was beneath the calm.
                    “You all right?” I croaked.
                    “I think so.”
                    I began to speak, but decided against it. It hurt too much. It hurt to talk, to move, to think. I slumped back and stared out at the night. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. I needed to block everything out. I kept seeing the thing in the basement, and I wanted it out of my mind.
                    It was then I noticed the radio was on, very low. It had to still be Steve G, playing a comedy record, I supposed. The voices were so low that the words were indistinguishable, but the tones and phrasings of the speakers were ridiculous, absurd, broad. I sat and let the rhythms of the wordless voices calm me. It wasn't until we were almost in Crafton's outskirts that I realized I hadn't been listening to the “Bohdi Tree” at all, but to the religious programming that came on after Steve G had left the airwaves.
                    At that moment, I didn't feel there was any irony in this. Though I was disinterested in what was being said, the useless words of the sermons, I felt like there was something more real in the voices, not speaking in parables, but speaking in tongues, a truth unvarnished by language. I was aware of the ridiculousness of this flight of fancy, but I followed it, curious as to where it would lead my thoughts. Away from the thing in the basement, I hoped.
                    As we reached downtown, I let the muted colors of the night-washed buildings sink into my eyes. The world is a magical place at night. Everything is the same, but so different. The darkened streets of little city, bereft of people, detached from the business of the day, seemed to come from someplace else, a place more removed from the outside world than its daylight counterpart, open to things and ideas more fitting of a town deep in the woods, ideas that had been banished in the light of the modern world. As we stopped at one of Crafton's three stoplights, there was no one else about, except for another car, behind us at the light.
                    Suddenly, I was knocked forward, off of the seat.
                    The car behind us has bumped into the Chevy. I looked out the back window and could see the headlights blinking on and off. At that point, I was mostly just confused and disoriented.
                    When I turned around and saw Johnny, then I was frightened. His skin, always pale, looked translucent, as if he had a pale blue light bulb in his head. That was disturbing enough, but the look on his face, of barely controlled rage, muscles tensed, teeth bared, was worse. His eyes dilated until they seemed almost all black. That's when my stomach turned to cold water, as I looked at a parody of my best friend's features.
                    Everything moved like a slow motion shot on television sports program. I watched as Johnny turned toward the door and opened it, climbed out of the Chevy and walk to the car behind us. The driver had stopped playing with his lights. And I could see it was a white Ford Mustang and knew immediately whose it was, that Fred guy, one of Mickey Monroe's buddies, one of Mickey's Monkeys.
                    Fred and whoever was in the back seat were getting out of the car, and Johnny moved back slowly, as if poising himself for something. A fight?
                    I fumbled to push the passenger seat forward and dragged my carcass up and over, practically falling over as I reached for the door handle, then actually falling over when the door gave to my pressing. I rolled over and worked my way to my knees, then slowly to my feet. I could hear yelling, but not the words. As I worked my way around the Chevy a figure emerged from the passenger side of the Mustang.
                    “Howard.”
                    It was Glenn Street, from chemistry class; he and I used to crack jokes about Mr. Feeney from the back of the classroom. He stood there, towering over me, the school's star linebacker.
                    “Just wait in the car, Howard. OK.”
                    “What happened to Johnny?” I looked out in the direction the others had gone, but I couldn't see anything.
                    “I know. Those guys are assholes,” said Glenn. He gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
                    I tired to focus my eyes. The angry yelling started again.
                    “Man,” he said looking at me, “what the hell have you guys been drinking? You look like death eating an onion.”
                    “I think we'd better…” I started towards the sounds of the yelling.
                    “We'd better wait here. You can barely walk. You're going to have enough of a hangover as it is, man. Those creeps would probably punch you just for fun.”
                    I stared at him for a moment.
                    “I needed a ride home from a party. You know I don't hang out with those jerks.”
                    We stood there. I was leaning on Johnny's car, trying to listen to what the voices were yelling about.
                    “So what'd you make in Feeney's class?” asked Glenn.
                    That was when the yelling changed to screaming.
                    I started to walk, then jog, then run toward the source of the sound. The screams were endless, long and incredibly shrill. And it was wrong, acoustically wrong, like the sound of a human being screaming out in the open, no matter what their lung capacity couldn't have sounded like that. It had layers of tones and timbres, and seemed to shift through space, as if my head was stuck in an echo chamber and Hell was on the other end.
                    Johnny and the others weren't on the main street, and even though I could sense the general direction of the sound, it was unclear. I swerved left and right, past the Post Office, the drug store, the vacuum cleaner repairs, the coffee shop, the tobacconist, the barber shop, the dress maker. I turned the corner where the old bank was. The sound was loud and full and made me think of the time Aunt Bess took me to hear Beethoven's Fifth performed.
                    And there was Johnny, standing in the middle of the street, his arms outstretched. He looked as if light radiated from inside his body; a blue glow emanated from him. His skin looked deathly white, and his eyes were completely black. His face registered no emotion besides concentration, and he was staring down on the two shapes writhing on the ground.
                    The objects were swirling and twisting, seeming to actually alter in size, an obscene blending of colors. The complexity of the strange geometry of the objects was mesmerizing, as they formed and regrouped flashing tones and textures. Soft to hard, angular to round, the protean mass constantly altered. For a moment, in one, I saw what was once a human face.
                    And I knew where the sound was coming from.
                    “Dear sweet Jesus,” said a voice from behind me. It was Glenn. He had tears in his eye, which seemed to glow from the light. “Dear God. Oh, Lord.”
                    I stood there, watching, unable to leave. And Glenn kept mumbling on and on about God and Jesus. And the shapes grew smaller and the sound lessened. And Johnny stayed there, in the same pose, as the things seem to fold into themselves and disappear into nothingness.
                    Then there was silence. Stillness.
                    After what seemed like ten minutes, Johnny looked up. Then he turned his head and stared right at us with his pitch black eyes.
                    “I think,” he said, slowly, with great effort, “you'd better leave.”
                    I agreed. I turned around and started to run, but noticed Glenn was still in the same place, now just mouthing words, still talking to God.
                    “C'mon.” My throat still ached. I grabbed his shirtsleeve and pulled. I punched him in the arm. I tried to not look at Johnny.
                    “Move, damn it!” I rasped, as I pushed the linebacker. After a few more pushes, I left Glenn standing there, his mouth still moving to unheard words. I left him and my best friend in the downtown.
                    The night sky was turning into a pink dawn as I ran as best as I could toward home. My lungs burned and my muscles ached. And my mind wouldn't stop screaming.