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“A situation. A seriously crazy situation.”

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. I wish I knew.”

“Where are you?”

“Jill Swift dumped me yesterday, and nobody’s returning my phone calls, and some mannerless intruder left a giant mess in my kitchen—”

“Mannerless intruder?”

“—and there’s a casket in my garage with something in it.”

“Where are you?” Fat Bob asked again.

“I’m at home. It used to be home. I don’t know what it is now.”

“You don’t sound like yourself. You sound ... almost angry.”

“I’m not angry. I don’t believe in anger. I’m nonplussed.”

“I’m going to have to google that.”

“I’m a little scared, too.”

“You want me to come there?”

“That would be good. I mean, if it’s not an inconvenience.”

“I was about to go to dinner.”

“I can’t wait five hours.”

“Is this something you should call the police?”

“Not if I want to stay out of a psych ward.”

“Just remain calm. Remaining calm is who you are.”

“Maybe bring a gun.”

“I always bring a gun.”

“Bring a really big gun.”

WAITING FOR FAT BOB TO COME TO HIS AID, BENNY REMEMBERS HIS BOARDING SCHOOL ROOMMATE

On his first day at Briarbush Academy, thirteen-year-old Benny was escorted to his shared room in Felthammer House, one of the two dormitories that, with other buildings, encircled the quadrangle. The other dormitory was Kentwhistle House. In all endeavors from sports to academic achievement, the boys of Kentwhistle were the rivals of the boys of Felthammer. The master of Felthammer House, Mr. Drew Drudge, introduced Benny to his roommate, fourteen-year-old Jurgen Speer, and directed them to shake hands and recite the Briarbush anthem followed by the sacred oath of fealty to Felthammer House. Jurgen Speer knew the anthem and oath by heart, but Benny needed to read them from a card provided by Master Drudge. When this ceremony concluded, Drudge instructed the boys to tell each other about themselves, and then left them alone.

The spacious room offered an attached bathroom and two closets. There were two beds, two desks with chairs, two leather armchairs with footstools, two smaller chairs for visitors, and a four-shelf bookcase atop a small under-the-counter refrigerator.

Enthroned in his armchair, directly opposite Benny’s armchair, Jurgen Speer had the air of an evil starship captain in the making, biding his time until he became old enough to command a death star and destroy entire planets. He was pale and kept his black hair slicked back with Vitalis or another styling oil. His fingernails appeared to have been filed into points until they were reminiscent of the claws of a feral cat. His ginger-brown eyes contained enough maroon pigment to be unnerving, and his stare was as discomfiting as the muzzles of two pistols.

Although Benny was pretty much the same size as his roommate and possessed of a more athletic physique, he felt swallowed up in his armchair, while Speer seemed to fill—todominate—an identical piece of furniture. The floor lamp beside Benny cast a cone of hard white light on him. The reading lamp next to the other boy had been dimmed so that it bathed him in an amber glow, pooling soft shadows in his eye sockets while simultaneously conjuring an eerie glow in those maroon-brown eyes, as if a film-industry lighting specialist had spent several hours refining the scene. Both windows were covered with blinds, and darkness gathered in the corners, like congregate demons with ill intentions.

Although Master Drudge had instructed them to get acquainted, neither spoke for a few minutes. Benny’s silence was a consequence of too much weird life experience, which had so precisely calibrated his weirdometer that the needle was pegged out at theEXTREMELY CREEPYend of the dial from the moment he’d shaken his roommate’s hand. Jurgen Speer’s cold reserve suggested he understood how to use the power of silence to make others uncomfortable and manipulate them.

When at last Speer spoke, his voice was soft and invested now with a note of friendship, yet it brought to Benny’s mind the image of a serpent coiling. “There’s something special about you, Ben. I see there’s something special. You’re so calm. Self-possessed.”