Cycle of the Werewolf   ::   Кинг Стивен

Even Grandfather Coslaw, who could usually be counted on for sympathy, hadn't been impressed. “Nobody is cancellin der fort of Choo-lie, boy,” he said in his heavy Slavic accent. He was sitting on the verandah, and Marty buzzed out through the french doors in his battery-powered wheelchair to talk to him. Grandfather Coslaw sat looking down the slope of the lawn toward the woods, a glass of schnapps in one hand. This had happened on July 2, two days ago. “It's just the fireworks they cancel. And you know why.”

Marty did. The killer, that was why. In the papers now they were calling him The Full Moon Killer, but Marty had heard plenty of whispers around school before classes had ended for the summer. Lots of kids were saying that The Full Moon Killer wasn't a real man at all, but some sort of supernatural creature. A werewolf, maybe. Marty didn't believe that-werewolves were strictly for the horror movies-but he supposed there could be some kind of crazy guy out there who only felt the urge to kill when the moon was full. The fireworks have been cancelled because of their dirty rotten curfew.

In January, sitting in his wheelchair by the french doors and looking out onto the verandah, watching the wind blow bitter veils of snow across the frozen crust, or standing by the front door, stiff as a statue in his locked leg-braces, watching the other kids pull their sleds toward Wright's Hill, just thinking of the fireworks made a difference. Thinking of a warm summer night, a cold Coke, of fire-roses blooming in the dark, and pinwheels, and an American flag made of Roman candles.

But now they have cancelled the fireworks… and no matter what anyone says, Marty feels that it is really the Fourth itself his Fourth-that they have done to death.

Only his Uncle Al, who blew into town late this morning to have the traditional salmon and fresh peas with the family, had understood. He had listened closely, standing on the verandah tiles in his dripping bathing suit (the others were swimming and laughing in the Coslaws' new pool on the other side of the house) after lunch.

Marty finished and looked at Uncle Al anxiously.

“Do you see what I mean? Do you get it? It hasn't got anything to do with being crippled, like Katie says, or getting the fireworks all mixed up with America, like Granpa thinks. It's just not right, when you look forward to something for so long… it's not right for Victor Bowle and some dumb town council to come along and take it away. Not when it's something you really need. Do you get it?”

There was a long, agonizing pause while Uncle Al considered Marty's question. Time enough for Marty to hear the kick-rattle of the diving board at the deep end of the pool, followed by Dad's hearty bellow: “Lookin' good, Kate! Hey, hey! Lookin' reeeeeel… good!”

Then Uncle Al said quietly: “Sure I get it. And I got something for you, I think. Maybe you can make your own Fourth.”

“My own Fourth? What do you mean?”

“Come on out to my car, Marty. I've got something… well, I'll show you.” And he was striding away along the concrete path that circled the house before Marty could ask him what he meant.

His wheelchair hummed along the path to the driveway, away from the sounds of the pool-splashes, laughing screams, the kathummmm of the diving board. Away from his father's booming Big Pal voice. The sound of his wheelchair was a low, steady hum that Marty barely heard-all his life that sound, and the clank of his braces, had been the music of his movement.

Uncle Al's car was a low-slung Mercedes convertible. Marty knew his parents disapproved of it (“Twenty-eight-thousand-dollar deathtrap,” his mother had once called it with a brusque little sniff), but Marty loved it. Once Uncle Al had taken him for a ride on some of the back roads that crisscrossed Tarker's Mills, and he had driven fast-seventy, maybe eighty. He wouldn't tell Marty how fast they were going. “If you don't know, you won't be scared,” he had said. But Marty hadn't been scared. His belly had been sore the next day from laughing.

Uncle Al took something out of the glove-compartment of his car, and as Marty rolled up and stopped, he put a bulky cellophane package on the boy's withered thighs. “Here you go, kid,” he said. “Happy Fourth of July.”

The first thing Marty saw were exotic Chinese markings on the package's label. Then he saw what was inside, and his heart seemed to squeeze up in his chest. The cellophane package was full of fireworks.

“The ones that look like pyramids are Twizzers,” Uncle Al said.

Marty, absolutely stunned with joy, moved his lips to speak, but nothing came out.

“Light the fuses, set them down, and they spray as many colors as there are on a dragon's breath. The tubes with the thin sticks coming out of them are bottle-rockets. Put them in an empty Coke bottle and up they go. The little ones are fountains. There are two Roman candles… and of course, a package of firecrackers. But you better set those off tomorrow.”

Uncle Al cast an eye toward the noises coming from the pool.

“Thank you!” Marty was finally able to gasp. “Thank you, Uncle Al!”

“Just keep mum about where you got them,” Uncle Al said. “A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse, right?”

“Right, right,” Marty babbled, although he had no idea what nods, winks, and blind horses had to do with fireworks. “But are you sure you don't want them, Uncle Al?”

“I can get more,” Uncle Al said. “I know a guy over in Bridgton. He'll be doing business until it gets dark.” He put a hand on Marty's head. “You keep your Fourth after everyone else goes to bed. Don't shoot off any of the noisy ones and wake them all up. And for Christ's sake don't blow your hand off, or my big sis will never speak to me again.”

Then Uncle Al laughed and climbed into his car and roared the engine into life. He raised his hand in a half-salute to Marty and then was gone while Marty was still trying to stutter his thanks. He sat there for a moment looking after his uncle, swallowing hard to keep from crying. Then he put the packet of fireworks into his shirt and buzzed back to the house and his room. In his mind he was already waiting for night to come and everyone to be asleep.

He is the first one in bed that night. His mother comes in and kisses him goodnight (brusquely, not looking at his sticklike legs under the sheet). “You okay, Marty?”

“Yes, mom.”

She pauses, as if to say something more, and then gives her head a little shake. She leaves.

His sister Kate comes in.