A Map of the Dark. John Dixon

      Rusch straightened up, smiling.

      Chuck said, “So?”

      Rusch’s mouth fell open.

      Carner hooted in a high, girlish voice.

      Chuck said, “I don’t care if he kills the whole family.”

      Omsted started laughing; then Carner, too. Rusch shoved Chuck backwards, called him a stupid little shit, and crossed Huron Street in front of a truck. The truck blew its horn, but Rusch gave it the finger and kept walking. Omsted sat down on a fire hydrant, laughing and holding his stomach.

      After a while, Omsted said, “Squirt, you’re all right” and the three of them continued walking. They caught up with Rusch at Ontario.

      Ontario Street was where Legion Park started. It stretched five blocks up the hill and ended in a picnic grove at the top. The grove was full of oak trees, their yellow leaves on the ground. On the flat part below, elms had dropped red leaves onto the street. A tennis court took up the corner by Ontario, and behind it were a swing set and a shack that gave out bean bags in the summer. There was a mound of dead leaves against the shack where kids had made a leaf fort.

      Across the street, on the corner, was the house where Evelyn Schmidt lived. It was a crumbling white house with a front hallway shaped like a church steeple, crooked steps down to the sidewalk, and a bare apple tree in the front yard.

      When the boys reached Rusch he was standing with his arms folded, staring at the house. Carner bumped him in the back of the knees and said, “What you looking for? Ghosts?”

      Rusch said, “You think she’s still in there?”

      Omsted said, “She’s dying. They took her to the hospital.”

      “She ain’t going to the hospital. She wants to die at home,” Chuck said.

      Rusch said, “How would you know?”

      Chuck said, “My ma’s friends with her.”

      Rusch and Carner and Omsted all looked at him.

      “She was.”

      Rusch said, “I hope she ain’t touched her lately.”

      “I didn’t say she touched her. I said they were friends.”

      Rusch said, “I told you he was an idiot” and started down the block past Evelyn’s house. Omsted and Carner followed, laughing. When Chuck tried to follow, Rusch turned around and shoved him. “Stay away from us, cancer boy.”

      Chuck fell on the sidewalk. He got up, wiping his hands on his jacket. “I don’t have cancer.”

      Omsted told Rusch to knock it off.

      A door banged in the backyard of a house a few doors down. A fat kid in an old coat threw a brown bag in a garbage can and ran back inside.

      Rusch pointed through the yards and said, “There’s your old house, asshole. Why don’t you go back there and give Putzie’s brother cancer?”

      Then a door creaked and someone was coming out of Evelyn’s house.

      Carner screamed “Shit!” and ran into the middle of the road.

      Rusch ran after him, waving his arms over his head, screaming, “It’s Evelyn’s ghost!”

      Carner screamed again, like he meant it this time, and took off up the hill with Rusch behind him, still waving his arms. Omsted winked at Chuck and trotted off after the other two, picking up speed the closer he got to them.

      The Schmidts’ front door banged shut, and David’s sister, Connie, was standing on the porch holding a jack-o’-lantern in her arms. She grinned at Chuck over the top of the jack-o’-lantern, but Chuck turned his head as though someone in the park was calling him and took off running towards the shack.

      Halfway to the shack he cut up the hill, kicking up leaves as he ran into the picnic grove. He cut back to the road and came out of the park where the other guys should have been by now, but they were still a block below him, walking backwards, staring down the hill at Evelyn’s house.

      As Chuck came up behind them, Carner was saying, “He’s probably in her house eating cookies.”

      Omsted said, “He ain’t nuts.”

      Rusch said, “Let’s clear out before he finds us again.”

      “I already found you,” Chuck said.

      They all jumped. Carner yelled, “Jesus Christ!” and wheeled around.

      Rusch said, “She see you?”

      “I think she chased me. I cut through the park.”

      Carner said, “She’s dying. How could she chase you?”

      “She ain’t dead yet.”

      They walked up the hill, Carner ahead of the others. When a flock of geese flew over the park Carner stopped to watch them. Rusch collared him and spun him around to face Omsted and Chuck. Carner tried to shrug him off.

      “Carner almost pissed his pants. I’ve never seen him so scared.”

      “I was scared because you were screaming.”

      Rusch messed up Carner’s hair and let go of him. Carner yelled “goddamnit” and walked out into the road to comb his hair.

      “Get a crew cut,” Rusch said.

      The others walked past Carner to Elm Street, the entrance to the subdivision where the nice houses started, houses with garages built into them and driveways in front instead of an alley in the back. By the time they reached Maple Street, where Chuck and Omsted lived, Carner had caught up with them. He and Rusch cut through a backyard to the street where the big houses were, the ones with yards like parks behind iron fences.

      Chuck’s house was on the first block of Maple Street. Omsted’s was at the end of the second, where the road ended in a field of bare, black trees whose thick branches stretched across the sky. The sun was setting and the sky behind the trees was orange, then yellow, then green.

      “God, I hate winter,” Omsted said, looking up at the sky, his mouth tight.

      Chuck said, “You think what Sister Brigitta said was true? About God remembering when it was our turn to die if we didn’t give up trick-or-treating for Evelyn tonight?”

      “By the time I’m ready to die, God ain’t gonna remember who Evelyn was.” They kept walking towards the black trees and the orange-green sky.

      When they got to Chuck’s house, Omsted stopped by the mailbox and said, “My brother’s not really gonna kill Putzie Van Vonderan tonight.”

      “He’s gonna beat him up though, ain’t he?”

      “He might.”

      “Did Putzie do something?”

      “He’s a farmer. He don’t have to do nothing.”

      A crow cawed over their heads, disappeared among branches at the end of the road.

      “He tried to say hello to my brother’s girlfriend yesterday.”

      The crow cawed at them from the end of the block.

      “It’d probably be better if you didn’t tell anybody.”

      “What do I care if some farmer gets beat up?”

      “You’re all right, squirt.” Omsted punched Chuck on the shoulder, said, “later,” and took off at a run.

      Chuck yelled, “What time are you going there?”

      Omsted turned around, walking backwards, and said, “Late.”

      “I could go there with you.”

      “You got trick-or-treating to do.”

      “I