Ghoul by Brian Keene Page B

match the singer 's, while Doug and Timmy gathered the dead plants and tossed them into the back of the wagon. When they were finished, they would dump the debris in the mulch pile behind the shed.
    “Han Solo is a pussy,” Doug said, clutching a handful of withered flowers. “The Doctor would totally kick his butt. You guys are high.”
    “The Doctor doesn't even have a real spaceship,” Timmy said. “He flies around in a telephone booth.”
    They were arguing about who would win in a fight, Doctor Who or Han Solo from Star Wars. Barry revved the tractor, drowning him out in midsentence.
    Then Doug shouted in fright.
    They didn't hear his cries at first, over the roar of the tractor's engine. Doug shouted louder. Barry engaged the parking brake and leapt off the tractor, and Timmy whirled around, expecting to see Ronny and the others giving Doug an atomic wedgie or something. Instead, their overweight friend had cast his dead flowers aside and was pawing at the ground. His left leg had disappeared into the earth from the knee down. His screech echoed across the graveyard.
    “Relax, man.” Barry ran over to him and extended a hand, while Timmy turned off the tractor. “My old man will hear you.”
    “Get me out of here. Something's got my ankle!”
    “It's just a groundhog hole.”
    “Something's biting me!”
    Timmy and Barry suppressed their laughter. The entire scene looked pretty comical, Doug floundering, his arms flailing wildly, his glasses sliding off his sweaty nose, and his leg deep inside the ground.
    “It's not funny, guys. It hurts!”
    “Take my hand.”
    Doug grasped Barry's outstretched hand desperately, and Barry pulled him up. Fresh soil clung to his pants leg and sock. His sneaker had come off, and remained beneath the surface. There was blood on his sock.
    From deep inside the hole, something squealed. It sounded angry.
    “Jesus Christ!” Doug collapsed onto the grass and drew his wounded leg up, slowly peeling off the tattered sock. Five shallow but ragged scratches marked the flesh around his ankle and calf, as if he'd been raked with long fingernails or claws.
    “Are you okay?” Timmy asked, concerned.
    “No, I'm not okay. I fell in a hole and something bit me. Look at my foot, man. Does it look okay? I'm bleeding.”
    Barry and Timmy glanced at each other, ashamed of their initial reaction.
    “Didn't you see the hole?” Barry asked.
    “There wasn't one,” Doug said. “The ground just caved in. Like it was a trap or something.”
    Timmy and Barry examined the hole. It didn't look like a groundhog's den. The size was wrong. It was too big for a mole, but too small for any other type of burrowing mammal. Furthermore, it didn't look like it had been dug from above the ground. There was no dirt piled off to the side of the hole. It appeared to have been dug from beneath the earth, as if something had tunneled up from below, and this small portion had then collapsed. Timmy knelt by the hole. A subtle breeze blew against his cheek. He wrinkled his nose.
    “There's air down there. I can feel it on my face. But it stinks.”
    “Who cares?” Doug rocked back and forth. “Look at my ankle. I could get rabies.”
    “Your ankle is fine, man. Just put some Bactine on it or something.”
    “But that won't stop rabies. That kills you. You foam at the mouth and stuff.”
    Tuning him out, Timmy focused on the strange opening. The odor was terrible, but he couldn't look away.
    “You guys heard that noise, right? It didn't sound like a groundhog. I wonder what this is?”
    “Sinkhole,” Barry said. "Graveyard's been full of them lately. My dad says there must be a cave or something below. We've had little holes like this opening all over the place. Sunken tombstones, too.
    They fall right down halfway into the ground. That squeal was probably just air rushing out."
    “Air?” Doug sighed in exasperation. “Then what bit me, you moron?”
    Timmy ignored them both. His mind swam with the