Charnel House by Fred Anderson

was only one beer. He popped the tab and chugged until the can was empty, then he crushed it in his fist and slammed it into the trash. Two points . His eyes watered and his throat burned and he felt a massive belch building in his stomach, but the beer already seemed to have doused the candle-flame of worry. He plucked another from the case and went into the living room.
    The old woman had returned to her book, the cigarette dangling from her mouth. A thin streamer of smoke curled up and around the halo of her wild gray hair. The boy was still there. He looked exactly the same, except he had turned a little so that he was now facing the window near the door of Garraty’s trailer, where Garraty stood peering through a half-inch gap. It was like the kid had some kind of freaky x-ray vision and had watched Garraty make his way through the trailer to the room where he was now.
    Or like he’s not really there, and you’re imagining every bit of this, the same way you imagined all those things last night.
    He took a pull from the can and considered this.
    The boy mouthed Toomey at Garraty, and watched him through half-lidded eyes caked with dried blood.
    The woman turned a page in her book.
    Garraty finished the beer in one big gulp and let the blind fall into place. Fuck it. He knew the kid wasn’t really there, knew he couldn’t be there, but if his mind was going to insist on playing tricks on him he was going to prove it once and for all. Put the dead back to rest, so to speak. The deadbolt snickered back when he twisted the knob, and he pulled the door open and stepped out onto his homemade steps. The kid hadn’t gone anywhere. Out here, Garraty could hear the soft mutter as he chanted his one-word soliloquy, but the more he thought about it the more the words seemed to be coming from inside his head rather than across the way.
    Toomey. Toomey. Toomey.
    Even more evidence that it was his mind fucking with him. Garraty tossed the empty beer can back into the trailer—he didn’t want to give the old bat over there any ammunition—and descended the stairs and started toward the boy. The concrete pad was warm under his bare feet. Honeysuckle was in bloom somewhere nearby, and the sweet scent filled the air. He felt the weight of the boy’s flat dead gaze on him. For a figment of his imagination, he sure looked—
    “Joe Garraty, you get some clothes on or I’m calling Sheriff Langston!” the old woman shrieked, and Garraty blinked stupidly over at her. He understood the individual words just fine, but their collective meaning was having a little trouble penetrating the thick layers of cotton batting that still seemed to be so tightly wound around his head. She was launching herself from the rocker now, the paperback tumbling forgotten through the air. “This ain’t that kind of neighborhood, there’s nice people here! Keep away from me, you pervert! ”
    Understanding coalesced in the cool fog of his mind as the gist of her words came together, and his eyes dropped to look down at himself in a dreamy kind of slow motion. He wore nothing but yesterday’s tighty whities, only they weren’t really so tight or white anymore. The front was yellowed from last night’s pissapalooza when he hit the kid with the car, and the briefs were so old there was plenty of sag in the elastic. His balls were practically hanging out, jangling around against his legs like a couple of kiwis in an old sock as he crossed the lane. Who needs nightmares about forgetting to get dressed when you can to it for real? he thought in stuporous wonder. What a sight he must be, lurching toward her trailer in his skivvies, one hand wrapped in bloody paper towels and duct tape!
    He looked up at the gray-haired woman, thinking I’m no pervert, lady, this ain’t what it looks like, but before he could even open his mouth to say anything red flowers bloomed in his vision and bright agony exploded in his right temple as an atomic bomb went off on the