Tommy and Doug seemed caught up in their own worlds. Tommy was talking incessantly about a big-titted checkout girl at the IGA who’d had an eye on him earlier, while Doug matched him word for word with talk of carbs and headers and how it wouldn’t be long before his Ramblin’ Rambler was “street lethal.” Neither one of them seemed to notice the silence. But Larry did. There was not a cricket chirping anywhere. Not a frog, not a buzzing insect. Nothing. It’s just too late in the year, he tried to rationalize, too cold already for insects and reptiles. But he’d heard such sounds just hours before, when they dropped the Millers at the Danner gate.

“Hey, you guys? Maybe I really should wait at the car. My stomach . . .”

They both stopped and looked back at him. In the limited light Larry couldn’t tell whether Tommy was smiling or sneering. Tommy reached into his jacket, pulled out his mask, and slipped it over his head. It was a rubber face of Tor Johnson, the star of vintage grade-B horror movies; squat, bald as a bullfrog, the mouth agape, and the eyes rolled back as in his most memorable film roles. There, in the middle of a country road, at night, the dead actor’s blank countenance with a Daiwa cap perched atop it was curiously more unsettling than any of the other ghoulish masks from Tommy’s box. “Too late to back out, Larry,” Tommy said in a muffled voice. “We’re all in this.”

“Oh, let him go,” Doug shrugged. “He just—” Tommy cut him off with the wave of an arm.

“Don’t screw with my fifty bucks, Larry,” Tor Johnson said. “Now, c’mon.” He started back up the road, still wearing his mask. Doug followed obediently, and then Larry. This time there was no small talk of tits and hot rods. Tommy dictated silence, and the others obliged. Larry’s queasy feeling remained. This is just a joke. We’re just playing a joke. That’s all.

“Lighten up, Tommy,” Doug was saying up ahead. “This is getting to be a drag. If you’re gonna start acting like a shithead, I’m outta here.”

“You forget,” the one in the mask pointed out, “I’m driving.” He motioned them off to the right. “Here’s where we go over.” When the moon next peeked out of hiding, they saw glimpses of brick through the underbrush.

Using the Red Chopper, Tommy cleared some of the weeds and tanglevine away from the wall, being careful to leave enough to aid in climbing. The wall itself was nearly eight feet tall. They would need all the handholds they could get.

“Dougie, you’re first,” Tommy decided.

“Why me?”

“Because I said so.” Tommy puffed out his chest and threatened with the ax. Whether he meant it or not was hard to tell with Tor Johnson covering his face. “Just climb the wall and tell us what you can see. Now, is that so hard? Or are you the chickenshit Larry said you were ’while ago?”