“You forgot this,” Brad said, handing him the knife.
Alan took it from him. It was sharp and dirty and the handle was grimed with sweat and lime.
“Thanks, kid,” he said. He reached down and took Billy’s hand, the way he’d done when it was just the two of them. The three eldest sons of the mountain stood there touching and watched the outside world rush and grind away in the distance, its humming engines and puffing chimneys.
Brendan tugged his hand free and kicked at the dirt with a toe, smoothing over the divot he’d made with the sole of his shoe. Andy noticed that the sneaker was worn out and had a hole in the toe, and that it was only laced up halfway.
“Got to get you new shoes,” he said, bending down to relace them. He had to stick the knife in the ground to free his hands while he worked. The handle vibrated.
“Davey’s coming,” Benny said. “Coming now.”
Alan reached out as in his dream and felt for the knife, but it wasn’t there, as in his dream. He looked around as the skin on his face tightened and his heart began to pound in his ears, and he saw that it had merely fallen over in the dirt. He picked it up and saw that where it had fallen, it had knocked away the soil that had barely covered up a small, freckled hand, now gone black and curled into a fist like a monkey’s paw. Marci’s hand.
“He’s coming.” Benny took a step off the hill. “You won’t lose,” he said. “You’ve got the knife.”
The hand was small and fisted, there in the dirt. It had been just below the surface of where he’d been standing. It had been there, in Clarence’s soil, for months, decomposing, the last of Marci going. Somewhere just below that soil was her head, her face sloughing off and wormed. Her red hair fallen from her loosened scalp. He gagged and a gush of bile sprayed the hillside.
Danny hit him at the knees, knocking him into the dirt. He felt the little rotting fist digging into his ribs. His body bucked of its own accord, and he knocked Danny loose of his legs. His arm was hot and slippery, and when he looked at it he saw that it was coursing with blood. The knife in his other hand was bloodied and he saw that he’d drawn a long ragged cut along his bicep. A fountain of blood bubbled there with every beat of his heart, blub, blub, blub, and on the third blub, he felt the cut, like a long pin stuck in the nerve.