Ezekiel Feinstien watched the streets a lot. It started because he had rheumatic fever. Now the rheumatic fever was gone, but so also was the strength of his heart. Ezekiel at twelve was as healthy as he would ever be. He learned to cope by reading books, painting pictures, and watching the street below from a second floor window. He also walked around the block slowly every day and then, when he was safe once again in his sparse room, he painted what he had seen and what it was he wished he had seen. The other children ignored him. His mother worked somewhere uptown, and she taught him at home in the afternoons. He watched the street by day, while she slept, and at night when she was gone. He would watch until he fell asleep on the cherry rose cushions of her genuine antique rocker.

"Ezekiel," his mother said to him. "You should talk more; talking never hurts. I should invite children from the neighborhood so you learned to talk more. You must be lonely. If we're still here, we'll go to camp together this summer." He tried to be friendly with the kids on the block. There were still a few. But they couldn't sit still, and he couldn't run. It wasn't any good. He painted smiling faces in the school bus window.

"I'm not lonely -- honest, " he answered. And that was the truth. Before she went to work, she held his head beneath her chin and rocked him as if he were an infant. "Five hours, only five hours, Ezekiel, then I'll be back. You know where to hide if they should come." They: those of human society with gravel souls, drained of their humanity by concoctions with strange names -- school boy, strain, ice, horse, rachet. The rocker made the sound of crickets deep within its bones and her leather skirt stuck to his leg. He painted his mother again, smiling, safe.

Danger stalked the streets, more at night then in the daylight, but it wasn't that safe in daylight either. The bold dealers and their hangers-on were everywhere. He heard that dealers broke into houses and took them over. Selling. Shooting up. Then they would move on leaving shattered families searching the ashes for sweeter memories. The news no longer reported the details, especially if it happened in The Meadows.

He remembered from when he was little, a succession of groups tried to chase the dealers away. The newspapers talked about a great cleanup of The Meadows again and again. Perversely, the streets became worse. Except for those few still living in The Meadows, no one talked about cleanups anymore. He painted sunny streets, but he only knew his own four: Potter, Sixth, Tucker, and Seventh; these streets limned the rectangle of his daily walk. These were the streets that he knew and therefore painted. Strangely, this block remained untouched, a curious island that persevered.

Beneath the streets something evil took notice.

It's hard to see changes when they happen slowly, but Ezekiel was a painter and it seemed to him that the evening shadows were changing of late. He mentioned it to his mother who said it was probably because the seasons changed. The light comes from different angles, she said. Ezekiel knew that his mother was brilliant, but also that she didn't know everything. The strange shadows happened just before and during the early stages of moonrise. Like ragged black bed sheets, they fluttered up from the curb, curling into the hedges, and across the Baxters' yard, and then they were gone. When he made his daily trip around the block, he would stop there and look down into the black slot of the storm sewer.

Sometimes Mister Tommily sat on his porch during the day. That was across the street from the storm sewer hole. Mister Tommily had a short-barreled shotgun. Ezekiel saw it. He thought that the man let him see the shotgun on purpose. Mister Tommily never spoke in the early days. He would just watch like an ebony statue in clothes. Finally one day Ezekiel heard him say. "You seen 'em too haven't you, boy?" Mister Tommily had one of those basso voices that carried.

"Seen what, Mister Tommily?"

"Them black things that come out of that hole at night. Keep getting more and more -- more and more."

A Herr's potato chip truck followed by a mini-school bus passed between them, and when Ezekiel could see again, the old man was standing with the shotgun pressed against his corduroys. The three Jackson children skipped by oblivious to danger even though their own house had its share of bullet holes.

"Yes, I've seen them, Mister Tommily."

"Thought so. I seen 'em too, from my window, only my eyes aren't good anymore, and I wasn't sure until I seen you snooping around that hole." He turned and pulled the storm door to his home open, but then he turned back. "You, your mom, need any help, you just come running on over here?"

"Yes, Mister Tommily. . . . Thanks." The old man was bent and stiff, but Ezekiel thought he was the strongest person he ever knew or heard of. He determined that he would paint Mister Tommily that very night.

In the daytime the hole was just a hole. He could hear the water running down below. It would take another fifteen minutes to finish his circle of the block. Half way down Potter Street two dogs looked both ways before dashing across. A cool breeze reminded him that nightfall approached, and he shuffled off to Buffalo as his mother, the most beautiful lady in the whole world, would say. Shuffle off to Buffalo.

Two expensive German motor cars passed him by; the dealers had arrived even earlier. There was nothing to worry about; they wouldn't stop yet. They would drive the streets for a while first, looking things over; then they would stop - somewhere. Some would get out, and then the cars would drive away only to come back in the dark of the morning. Some dealers lived with the Klendenings on Seventh. Lottie Myers told him that when he first came out.

She was skipping the chalk blocks at the bottom of his front steps. He didn't remember how the blocks got there; they were there forever, chalked originally by someone's mother and renewed by a thousand children since -- eternal, fading -- but, like spring, continually remade.

Ezekiel sensed things, frightening things that came ever closer. He didn't know what to do, and so he decided that he would go out to face the black things while his mother slept. Face your fears and they will disappear. That was one of the carefully collected and memorized wisdoms his father left him. Face your fears. Ezekiel asked himself why he needed to go down and face them. There was no answer. If Mister Tommily hadn't seen them also, he could have kept attributing the black wrapping things to his imagination. He wished his father would come home again. He tried to hold the features of his father's face clear in his mind, but it became harder and harder.

Death is the enemy, the great evil. Love is as strong as death, and good is as strong as evil - but no stronger. Something massive grew annoyed at tiny pinpricks.

Far into the night, sirens howled -- new age wolves loped in canyons made of brick. Where Ezekiel lived, those who could move had moved. Houses with blackened eyes and open mouths crowded together. Even the ladies in short skirts were gone. Cars raced darkened streets. Shots rang out, sometimes rapid and short and sometimes rattling on and on and on. Shouts, then screams like cats mewing. When knocks came, his mother and he clutched together and said "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want ..." So far the knocking had always stopped -- eventually. Ezekiel painted the bars on the windows stronger and the doors heavier and thicker.

The street light on Seventh and Potter blinked on, faded, and then glowed strong. Ragged shadows raced across the Baxters' short lawn paused and then disappeared into the alley. The beginnings of them. He checked the painting of his mother. In high heels, high hair, high leather skirt, and crimson lips, she smiled out of the frame -- safe. Waving weak fingers at her, he turned to tiptoe down the stairs. The television, ever on, blared the sounds of Hollywood Squares. He removed the chains and released the deadbolts. Memorizing the corner shouldn't take that long. Even now the fearful shapes must be fluttering from the gutter hole. Face your fears and they will disappear. A penny saved is a penny earned.

Once outside, he slipped the key into a sidewalk crack that only he knew about. That was so that if the raggies -that's what he called them-- caught him, they would never be able to find the key to enter the house -- if raggies needed keys. Now that he stood on the sidewalk, he just wanted to get it over with and return to safety.

He moved as fast as his heart would allow without fluttering. The result was a shuffle. But it wasn't far, just to the end of the block. The street was empty. The Seventh Street light cast long shadows. His heart began to flutter, and he bent over and breathed deeply before starting again. The Leer lights were on as well as the Finley's, the Cantwell's, the Baxter's, the Myer's, and the Tommily's. The lower windows and doors all had heavy vertical bars. Now he was nearly there and there were no raggies. He stopped and kneeled on the sidewalk twice to catch his breath. And finally he was to the opening itself and still there were no raggies. He looked back along the sidewalk toward his own front steps. Could it be that the raggies were some kind of illusion? Across the street he could see Mister Tommily in his window. His head was dark against the light. His head nodded; he was talking to someone, probably his wife. Ezekiel's mother said that old Mr. Tommily's wife was ill and that's why they couldn't move away.

There was nothing, nothing at all. Ezekiel was glad. He was glad because there was nothing, and also because he had the courage to do what he set out to do even though his heart leaped like a trapped bird. However, in his excitement he had walked too quickly. He was going to pass out because the world had turned all silvery and that was a sure sign. He turned to find a place to lie down, and that's when he saw the largest raggie he had ever seen and it was still. It was still against the broken trellis for Baxter's Morning Glory vine. The trouble with raggies is that you can't tell which way they're looking. Their form is indefinite. This one stood still, and it loomed upward a storey in height. Perhaps it watched him. It probably did. And then Ezekiel felt the pressure and roughness of the sidewalk against his face and chest and knees. In the fleeting instant before blackness there was a fluttering around his head and a high pitch squealing that sounded like "we found it, we found it, we found it," speeded up like a tape played fast.

####

When he became aware again, it was to the sound of his mother's screams. They were choked and ugly things that you would make by screaming on the intake. "Give him to me. Give him to me," were discernable.

"I'll carry him, Missus Fienstien. Ain't that old. This boy has no weight to him at all."

Ezekiel lifted his head.

"What happened? What happened?" his mother said. She walked backwards and tilted her head to look into Mister Tommily's face.

"Them black things had him covered up all over his head, missus. I could only see his feet sticking out. Fired both barrels right through the pile, being careful to miss the boy of course. Scattered them all to hell and back."

"What black things?" His mothers face was incredulous. "Black things?"

"Ask your boy. He knows. Squealing like pigs, they was. First time I heard that."

"I'm, I'm okay, Mister Tommily. You can put me down," Ezekiel said.

Still Mister Tommily carried him up the front steps to his house and through the door and into their plain but cozy living room leaving Ezekiel's mother trailing behind. He set Ezekiel down on the recliner. No one ever sat there because it was his father's favorite chair. Ezekiel felt guilty.

"I think you should stay in after dark, boy," Mister Tommily said on his way out. He said it no differently from one who might ask for the bread to be passed.

After his friend left, Ezekiel was surprised to see his mother throw herself violently against the door. She made moaning animal sounds as she slammed the bolts into place and threw the latches, then she turned and her face was twisted red and she rubbed her fists into her eyes like a child. "God damn him! God damn him! God damn him!" she said. Her unseeing eyes searched wildly. She took breath after enormous deep breath.

"Who, Mister Tommily?"

"No," she answered, but that brought her away from the far place, and her eyes found him. She rushed to him, pulled him up bodily from the chair, and, twisting back and forth, she crushed him to her breast. His mother was strong.

She didn't go to work that night, and someone called her on the telephone at least three times. His mother, lying on the bed fully dressed, would leap up and hurry from the room with the phone when this happened. She cursed in the hallway. He heard her shout, "send anybody you want, Errol, I'm not coming, not tonight ... maybe never." When she came back, she would be crying, and she would run her fingers through his hair before lying down again.

Later, when she fell asleep, he went into his room and brought back his pastel sticks. He saw a saddened angel sleeping and he drew that, but then he changed the figure into a smiling one with golden highlights. Ezekiel was of the clear opinion that his mother exemplified womanly beauty. There was no one as beautiful as she. No one. He thought she slept and breathed more easily when he was done and she did.

In the morning, they walked down to the corner together where the raggies attacked. His mother wore a long house dress and low-cut tennis shoes and she smoked a cigarette and held herself around the middle as they walked. Her beautiful hair was down and held in place by a plastic head band. They had breakfast together for the first time in weeks. The sun stained the day, and she looked content.

"Don't know how we're going to live, honey. Have no idea why I feel so good this morning, because if Errol doesn't give me my territory back, it's going to be tough."

"I'll paint some money, mom."

"You do that, baby." She pulled him to her side and laid her head on top of his for a few short steps.

The opening was still there as it had been for years. Some leaves and a candy wrapper were caught in the grate.

"I called my wife's sister, Mayuu," a deep voice said.

They turned to see Mister Tommily sitting on the top step to his wooden porch. They could see that someone had slit the pads on the kitchen chairs he kept on the porch. White fibers protruded from what was left and scattered puffs of white littered the gray landing boards.

"Good morning, Mister Tommily," his mother said. "Thank you so much for coming to Ezekiel's assistance last evening. I'm sorry if I seemed inhospitable; I was just so confused. I don't even know what attacked him; he called them raggies. Was it people?"

"I can't say that I know, Missus. My sister-in-law is a Mamaloi; she calls them duppies, and she ain't coming no where near this place to find out any more. Says they got enough trouble with them in Trinidad on account of the millennium."

Behind them, the front door of the Baxter's house opened. It was Diane Baxter, a husky scowling woman who invariably wore mens' coveralls. She held the barred storm door half-way open from the inside and peered.

"Hello, Mrs. Baxter," both Ezekiel and his mother said at the same time.

"Hello, Ezekiel," Mrs. Baxter answered ignoring his mother completely. Then she pulled the storm door shut, and slammed the inner door.

They walked across the street to talk with Mister Tommily.

"I would like to talk with you if I could, Missus. I wouldn't want your boy to overhear. So if he could wait out on the porch, I think that would be best," Mr. Tommily said, leaning on his porch railing. He made no comment on the ruined porch furniture.

As they mounted the wooden porch steps, two black limousines cruised down Potter Street. They rolled slowly past Ezekiel's home and then they stopped in the middle of the street even with Mr. Tommily's porch. Their tinted windows slid down in both cars and faces with sunglasses stared misanthropically. The three on the porch, thinking at first that perhaps they should know these people, looked back questioningly. Then Mister Tommily said, "Maybe we all should go into the house. Come with me." He pulled the storm door open and then more or less pushed Ezekiel's mother through it, while drawing Ezekiel along behind him. The boy turned to see if they were still out there as the inner door closed. They were. The cars hadn't moved. The faces still resonated anger and hatred.

"Elwood. Elwood," a weak and quavering voice said from the room's gloom. "Elwood. Is that child in here? In here!"

"Yes, both he and his mother are here, and that's where they are going to stay until we're done talking, Gladys, so just make up your mind to it."

Ezekiel picked out the still figure in a swirl of white and yellow bedclothing laying on a daybed against the wall farthest from the front door. Now she turned her withered potato face toward them, licked her lips, and then looked straight upward again. They all waited silently for what, Ezekiel didn't know.

"Come with me, boy. There's some chips and ginger ale in the kitchen. Your mother and I need to talk some."

As he led Ezekiel toward the kitchen, the thin old voice in the living room said, "For God's sake, Elwood, give him to the snake before he kills us all."

The house smelled musty and sour. The wallpaper peeled in places. Tied bundles and cardboard boxes of newspaper were stacked along the wall and around the upright piano. A picture of a uniformed soldier and his lady sat on the piano. Someone had mopped and waxed the worn out linoleum in the kitchen.

Mister Tommily made him a spot at the round kitchen table. He dumped some potato chips on a paper plate and poured the boy a tall glass.

Old Mister Tommily's voice carried in the house as well as outside. Ezekiel heard most of what was said. His wife cackled intermittently. Sick and even dying she had come to the time when her opinion no longer mattered.

"Her sister says the raggies, as Zeke calls them, influence weak people to do evil things. And they been looking for the next coming since the last coming is what it is. Now with the millennium and all, they're going crazy, she says."

"Millennium?"

"Children with special gifts, they want them dead before they get a chance to grow up - all of them."

Ezekiel heard his mother's gasp. "Ezekiel doesn't have any special gifts or powers; he's just a normal little kid."

"Missus Fienstien, your boy was born in the millennium year wasn't he?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Have you taken notice that you live on the only untouched block in The Meadows? Seems like where you live is invisible to hoodlums."

"Well ... I don't know-"

"Look, I'm not saying any of that old stuff has any truth to it, Missus. Just old time superstition, if you ask me. But there is a strangeness to what's going on here. So I asked Mayuu what to do, and she said get him away from here, because now that they've found him, everyone near him is in danger. Either that or .... well, never mind that."

"We can't leave here! The children's hospital. The free clinic. Ezekiel. Ezekiel," his mother called from the living room. He could hear the tightness in her throat as her voice started to go up the scale. "Ezekiel, come; we're leaving."

As they passed her on their way out, the old lady raised her hand and croaked, "sacrifice. Sacrifice it." Her withered hand clasped and unclasped.

At least the people in the long black cars were gone. A peaceful sunlight illuminated his block. Two girls played hopscotch while their little brother tried to get a pigeon to take a pebble from his fingers. As they walked slowly home, he thought about it and wasn't sure that he could remember enough to paint old Missus Tommily well or even better. He would try, but it didn't work unless the picture was good.

####

"It seems quiet out there," his mother said. "Do you think that perhaps Mister Tommily frightened off those raggy things."

"If someone shot me with a double-barrel, you wouldn't see me coming back," Ezekiel answered without raising his eyes from his Morilla pad. They had stayed downstairs as the evening came on and so he had brought down his brown paper bag of pastel sticks so that he could work while his mother watched television and did her nails at the same time. He was planning to paint some money.

"You need another EKG and your prescriptions filled. Maybe I should call Errol and see if he would let me work tonight."

It was a statement, but also a question. Ezekiel knew that. "I'll be alright, mom. I think that the raggies aren't ever going to come back, or at least not for a long while. Not after what Mister Tommily did to them, man - both barrels. Pow. Pow. Did you notice that the dealers are gone? I haven't heard or seen cars go by all evening."

She called, but she carried the phone upstairs with her so that he couldn't hear. Ezekiel thought that was silly, but he didn't say anything; he knew what a prostitute was from reading books and looking at magazines and watching television. She returned with a teary red face. It tore at Ezekiel's insides. "Is everything okay, mom?"

She sniffed inward, sighed, and then pulled herself together for the ten-thousandth time. "Yes. I'll be able to work. It'll just be somewhere I didn't expect, that's all."

"I love you, mom."

"I love you too, Ezekiel. Are you sure you'll be all right?"

"Sure, the streets are like they used to be. Besides, I can always get into the crawlspace." The row homes had half-cellars with two-foot high crawlspaces. Child-sized holes broken through the parting walls over the years joined the whole row of homes for anything small enough to crawl through.

"Then I'm going to start getting ready, darling. He's going to send the car a half hour early tonight."

"Look, see." Ezekiel turned his pad and held it up to show his mother the picture of her holding up a bag of gold. The coins in the top of the bag twinkled like the stars.

"You are getting so good at that, Ezekiel." Her pretty face cleared even though her eyes were still red and she smiled. "It even looks like me. ... Really, anyone could tell. But. But."

"What?" he said an expectant but unsure smile coming to his lips.

"Couldn't you draw me in a house dress, instead of my working clothes all the time?"

"Oh, but you look so beautiful like that. The most beautiful--"

"Yeah, I know. The most beeyoutifull gurl in the whooole worlt." Her face brightened this time as she rose to her feet. "Well, let me get started, bumpkin."

Ezekiel knew the whole door locking procedure by heart, and it was complete before his mother reached the bottom step. By time she crossed the sidewalk he had hobbled to the window to watch her. A silver Eldorado sat idling in the center of the street occupying both the left and the right lanes, but it didn't matter because there was no traffic, no screams, no shots, no sounds. It seemed that the few families on the other side of Potter Street had felt the peace however temporary it might be; all three houses were lighted top and bottom and their glow washed out over the shadowed sidewalk. Silhouettes appeared and melted away in as yet unshuttered golden rectangles. The moonlight filled the other three fourths of the street. You could read a newspaper as his father once said. His mother walked past the curb, but then she looked down. Ezekiel saw her crouch and pick something up. She turned to him with a smile. Now he could make it out. It was paper money. She came mincing back to the house as quickly as she could in her high heels, and Ezekial heard something being pushed through the mail slot. It was the bill. The car's horn rudely blared two, three, four times. He waited and seconds later he saw her hurrying back to the silver car. It was a twenty-dollar bill. "It was all that the luck could do," he said, turning the bill in his fingers. "Now if we had only played the lottery or something like that." But he knew that his mother would never risk money buying a lottery ticket, no sense even mentioning it.

Five hours. No, it would be five-and-a-half tonight. He pulled the steel security shutter down, latched it, and took his art supplies to his mother's bedroom and the cherry rose cushions. First he took his picture of Mister Tommily and redrew the lines, squared the shoulders, and filled in the hollows until Ezekiel thought that he had a picture of the man 20 years younger. Then, one by one, he took his masterworks, as he called them, from behind the curtains and lined them up in the open spaces along the walls. Then he turned the rocker to face them and seated himself. They were good. Very good. Well perhaps the paintings of the row houses along his block could use freshening. He rocked forward and squinted. Were they that dark before? ... No. He slid from the rocker again and drew closer to his treasures. No. They had darkened; he was sure of it. Ezekiel felt a chill. Assurance turned to uncertainty. This had never happened before; what did it mean? He could feel his heart trip and stutter, and so he willed himself to calm down and breathe smoothly. In out. In out. It wasn't long before he came to realize he was breathing to an outside beat.

The street. A beat had begun out there. The beat was low but Ezekiel could feel its throb through the soles of his feet, insistent, gathering, growing, encompassing more and more. Leaving the worry of his disobedient paintings, he made his way to the window. The night had turned suddenly dark. Vehicles drove by slowly nose to tail --snakelike- silent except for the deep thump of their combined car radios, like the softly beating heart of some huge single creature. He looked as far as he could to the left, where more cars made the turn onto Potter Street. Boom boom. Boom boom. Boom boom. A light flickered to the right. It was the Seventh Street corner light. Black things flowed up from the curb in a clotted stream, spiraling and boiling into the air - spreading over the building tops in a dense thickening cloud.

The kitchen door leading in from the back yard, had he locked it! Had he? He couldn't remember. Slipping from the rocker, he started for the kitchen downstairs. If his heart had taught him one thing, it was not to run in wild panic. He held the bannister with both hands and cross-stepped his way carefully down the stairs to the first floor. He thought that he or his mother had locked the door, but now he wasn't sure. To remain out of sight of anyone in the kitchen as long as possible, he padded close to the outside wall of the dining room, and then he turned to approach the kitchen doorway from the side and not directly. With his head against the wall, he stopped. Was there a sound?

Hearing nothing more, he continued to the point where he merely had to lean and poke his head around to see into the kitchen. But what was that? A scritching noise, as if a doorknob were being turned, came either from the outside or from the cellar door. Leaning slowly into the doorway he saw nothing. But then he did, through the narrow panes in the outside door, the shape of a head - only a shadowy silhouette. It nodded and bobbed, and then came that sound. Ezekiel saw the door knob turn first left then right. But it was locked. All four deadbolts were in their vertical position. The shadow in the door window became more distinct as whomever it was, pressed his face close. Within a short time the shadow receded and was gone and Ezekiel sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. During the whole time, the booming sound from the street vibrated the walls, and now he listened. There was a difference. A new sound blended with it, like a siren only thinner. Someone screaming. He needed his paints.

Back upstairs he pulled the rocker to the window. The night which had started so bright and beautiful had turned cavernous. The cars were stopped now and many sat with all their doors open. He saw people, strange people. They were shouting, laughing, cursing, and banging on doors. None were being opened willingly. At the end of the block where Mister Tommily lived, men were hammering at the front door with sledge hammers. Figures moved onto and off of the porch.

Then Ezekiel saw where the screaming was coming from. It was Missus Baxter. Three men were dragging her up the center of the street. He saw her fall to her knees in an attempt to resist. But one large figure reached down into the roots of her hair and pulled her to her feet with her head sharply to one side. As large as the woman was, she could do nothing but move steadily towards Ezekiel's home. Her legs gave way several times but the hand in her hair pulled her up and drove her onward.

By now the Findley and the Cantwell's front doors were wide open. New screams added to the noisy confusion. Some men leaned casually against the porches while others jogged in and out of the homes. As Ezekiel watched, the upstairs front windows of the Findley's home turned orange. Then they exploded outward, not violently, but softly. First the cross-hatch of panes folded and tumbled out over the porch roof, followed by the curtains whipping like flags in a high wind. Almost immediately, smoky maroon flames licked at the wooden siding from the window openings, and within a few more seconds the flames turned brilliant orange-white as they tasted the outside air. And they lengthened, swirling, reaching farther and farther. The men who had leaned comfortably against porches moments before now walked to the center of the street to watch.

Directly below, Missus Baxter pointed at his house for her captors. As a matter of fact, she seemed to be pointing directly at his window. They all looked up. He went to the phone at his mother's lamp table and dialed 911. It rang for what seemed an eternity. Then a voice answered "This is the 911 operator."

"There's fires on our street and people are breaking into other peoples' houses," Ezekiel said into the receiver.

"Where are you?"

"1122 Potter."

There was a pause. "Yes, we are aware of that one, but the fire departments will not be able to respond for hours. There are fires, and street cave-ins all over tonight. Be prepared to leave your house until the situation can be brought under control," the voice said. The receiver clicked and then emitted only a dial tone.

Ezekiel, struggled into a warm sweater and began gathering things into his yellow and red backpack. The time to hide was here, but it was still too early for his mother's first check-up call. The streets sounds where blended now from a hundred new sources and the cumulative effect was relative silence. That was why Ezekiel heard the pounding on the kitchen door at the back of the house. The heavy thumps repeated in cycles of three. He made his way to the front door, kneeled down, and opened the mail slot. The heat from the street rushed against his eyes. And there was something else about the street; It was bright again, only this time not moonlight bright, but fire orange bright. The other side of the street was on fire, and maybe more than that. Perhaps the fire had already spread to this side, and because he was in his house, he couldn't see it. Then the scene in the street disappeared as someone on his steps moved by the mail slot. They -people - were on his steps!

The hammering on the back door continued, and that was the direction that he had to go to get to the cellar and the crawlspaces. He thought about the crawlspaces and where they would lead him - abandoned houses for the most part. Were they occupied now? Where were the Raggies? Perhaps whomever it was at the back door was merely seeking shelter? Dragging his knapsack behind him by the strap, he moved into the kitchen. Now a heavy slow pounding began on the front door of the house. He slipped along the kitchen wall to the cellar door. He could see where the back door had loosened and now quivered and rattled at each blow. There was a flashlight in the basement. Was that rustling sound coming from down there? There was no time left. He slid back the bolt on the cellar door and reached for the doorknob.

But wait. How would his mother find him, or he her? Where would he go? He knew nobody. The police. He hadn't seen them at all today. He didn't even have money to call anybody. His mother often left change in the forks and knives drawer. Letting go of his knapsack, he chugged on over to the counters and pulled out the silverware drawer. His vision began to blur, the outline of everything became silvery, and the hammering became louder than thunder. Ezekiel drew in careful deep breaths to avoid losing consciousness. Then he peeked into the right, near corner underneath the lining paper. There was 35 cents! He took it, tip-toed back to the cellar door, grasped the strap to his knapsack in one hand, the doorknob in the other, and quickly pulled it open.

BREAK - BREAK - BREAK - BREAK - BREAK - BREAK - BREAK

Blackness wrapped around his face. Blackness in his mouth, his nose, his ears and eyes. Blackness! Ezekiel fell to the floor smashing his face, and the blackness left. There was only one choice left - the back door. He got up with his arm wrapped around his face, which was just as well because his nose spurted blood.

Black shadows curled and wrapped through the doorway and then up toward the ceiling like bonfire smoke. He heard their faint squeals of "Wee wee wee weee," as he used all of his strength to push the cellar door closed. Then they were on him again, in his hair, wrapped around his shoulders and head. With his hands pushed ahead of him, Ezekiel made his way to the kitchen door and began loosening first the chains and then the deadbolts. There was no need to see to do that. All that he knew was that he needed air, lots of it, quickly. As he twisted the last latch, gunfire erupted on the back porch. There were three shots and then the door flew open taking him with it against the kitchen wall. The Raggies began to unwrap themselves and raise to the ceiling. A large figure bustled into the kitchen, turned to close and re-bolt the door again, and then reloaded his double-barreled shotgun.

Ezekiel remembered the shotgun and that's how he identified the figure. It was Mister Tommily; only it was a young, strong, and quick Mister Tommily. The voice sealed the knowledge. "You okay, boy?" It rasped and rattled like the commuter train on Market Street.

Not waiting for an answer, the huge man pulled some newspaper out of the kitchen trash and rolled it into a long taper. "They don't like fire much." Above them the Raggies that had made it into the kitchen plastered themselves to the ceiling and now started to flow like liquid shadows toward the kitchen doorway. "You stay here," Mister Tommily said as he drew his thumbnail across a wooden match and it flared into light and heat. "You ... just ... stay ... right ... here," he said, as he looked up at the ceiling and began following the night creatures with his flaming taper. "Nope, they don't like fiiiiire."

Ezekiel stuffed one of the kitchen floor runners into the space under the cellar door while he waited for Mister Tommily. One of the living room windows shattered with a harrowing crash. Having little luck breaking down the front door, the people outside had begun battering the security shutters. Upstairs, Mister Tommily's shotgun roared twice, and then a pause, and then the gun roared twice more. Outside, at the street level, there was an answering volley of lighter, sharper shots. Within a minute he heard the heavy footsteps of his friend stomping down the stairs again and he went into the living room to meet him. Mister Tommily was holding his right upper arm. Blood seeped out between his fingers.

"Mister Tommily, you're hurt," Ezekiel said.

"The arm will heal. We can't stay here, boy," the man said. "They found someone's ladder. They're concentrating on this house now. Everything across the street is burning."

"Your wife, is she safe?"

The man pushed his lips out and shook his head. "She's safe now." He looked at some place far away. "Gladys is safe forever -- no more suffering. House burned. Everything gone." With a shake of his head, Mister Tommily pulled himself back to the present. "Now I got to get you out of here, boy. Those poor fools out there want to destroy you, and you know what?" Mister Tommily didn't wait for his answer. "They don't even know why. ... I know who is responsible for giving me my youth back. I'm no fool. There's got to be a reason for it. Maybe you don't even know, but I know. I got to take you somewhere, and make them start looking for you all over again. ... Mayuu says they'll never stop, but at the same time they're none too smart either. Time is running out here. Get your stuff together, especially your drawing tools."

"I can't leave, Mister Tommily. My mom isn't home yet. She won't know where to find me." Ezekiel looked into the man's face pleadingly.

"They just haven't come around back yet. Soon, real soon now, they're going to do that. When that happens, we're trapped in here, boy. ... When will you hear from your mom?"

Ezekiel turned to look at the kitchen clock. It was almost 10:30 P.M. "First call anytime now. If she's with a customer, she'll call right after."

"We'll wait a few minutes then. When she calls, tell her that we'll meet her at the Schoolhouse Lane, Baptist Church. That's out of The Meadows -- safe."

"I will, Mister Tommily."

"You got any tools around here, maybe something I could use when I run out of shells?"

"My dad had some when he lived here. Only they're down there." Ezekiel pointed toward the cellar door and scrunched his face in a pained expression.

"I'll go take a look." Mister Tommily reached for another section of the newspaper and began rolling into a tight cylinder. "You get out of sight, in the living room or upstairs."

Since the only other phone in the house was in his mother's bedroom, Ezekiel gathered his things and started for the staircase. The hammering had stopped, leaving an eerie silence behind. In the upstairs hallway, Ezekiel knelt on the floor and began pulling pictures out of his backpack and examining them one by one. As he turned to the drawing of his mother, the whole house quivered with a tremendous impact. He could see thick chalky dust rising up the staircase at the end of the hall. Being careful, he raised himself to his feet and shuffled to the top of the stairs. Below, bricks and pieces of cement littered the foyer.

"Mister Tommily," he called. "Mister Tommily."

There was no answer. Now he heard angry cursing voices. The phone rang. With tottering steps he rushed as fast as he could back to his mother's room. By the time he reached it, Ezekiel knew that he was going to pass out, and his eyes filled with frustration. He fell to his knees, and took three more short strides on his knees. His hand touched it just as the silvery world turned into a world of darkness. The Parisian beige telephone, designed especially for cosmopolitan tastes, rang and rang.

Camp Tunkaugu. They, he and his mom, had fun. Boisterous carefree summer, they laughed. A camp for exceptional children the application said. Now they advertised it as the miracle camp. Twelve of the children who attended the year before had spontaneous remissions. Tony Castilladi showed signs of nerve regeneration. Ezekiel and his mom won the box turtle race, or rather, their box turtle won the box turtle race. Now there was a waiting list, and because he was there the year before, the social worker said that he might have to sit out a year. Especially since they got their application in late, but not that late. He was going to miss Camp Tunkaugu and the friends he had made. He painted all of the miracle children. He knew his mother would miss it too.

A rough hand clutched his shoulder. The trees and grass of Tunkaugu appeared more and more like his mother's bedroom.

"Let's go, boy. Times a wasting."

Ezekiel looked up to see a great shadow over him. A hand took him by the jaw and gently shook his head.

"I can't carry you with this arm. You're going to have to walk."

He pressed down on the floor and struggled to his feet, keeping his gaze on Mister Tommily while the here-and-now rudely shouldered dreams of summer camp aside. He walked slowly out into the hallway using his hand against the wall for support.

"Tommily, you up there?" a voice from down below said. "We only want the boy, man. Don't be foolish. Give him up."

Mister Tommily guided him along the hallway toward the back of the house and the spare bedroom.

"You don't come down we're going to burn your ass out. You hear me up there?" the voice said. "I'm coming up. I'm not armed. I just want to talk."

The stair treads creaked. The bottom three always did.

Mister Tommily took four quick steps in that direction and stretched to peek down over the top step. He held a hatchet hanging loosely in his left hand and the shotgun in his right. The loud crack of a pistol split the silence and he pulled his head back, pointed his shotgun blindly down the stairs with one hand and the gun bucked and roared. The strange smell of gunpowder drifted up the hall. It was something like burning brake linings. "Come on. Come on," Mister Tommily urged. Ezekiel could see that the side of his head was bloody.

"Where can we go?" Ezekiel asked.

"The only direction where they ain't -up."

A sound came from his bedroom.

"Oh, oh. I thought so. The ladder again," Mister Tommily said grimly. In two steps he was to the bedroom door where he paused for only a split second before lowering the old double-barrel and pulling both triggers. "... You boys is kind of slow learners aren't you," he shouted, his upper body twisted as he scanned the room for visitors he may have missed.

There was an empty bedroom at the end of the hall. That was where the access door to the attic was. "Where's the stepladder? How do you get up there?" Mister Tommily asked, after Ezekiel led him through the door.

"Inside the closet."

It was only the matter of a few moments and the access door was open. "Can you climb the ladder?"

"Yes."

"Well get on up there, we haven't got all day."

"I didn't have a chance to speak to my mother." Glass clattered in his mother's bedroom, and, right after that, they both ducked as bullets ripped into the ceiling over their heads.

Mister Tommily shook his head. "She called. You didn't answer. That was all the information she needed. Probably more than she needed." Ezekiel was halfway up the ladder when Mister Tommily placed a hand like a baseball mitt on his buttocks and stuffed him the rest if the way up into the blackness.

The attic was low. Even Ezekiel couldn't stand. He felt boards beneath his hands and knees. There were no windows. Once up here he was trapped. This was the end of the line. "Mister Tommily, you down there?"

"Yeah, I'm here, boy. I was going to open the window like you jumped out of this here room."

Shots erupted. Glass splintered. Ezekiel clapped his hands over his ears.

"Looks like that trick isn't going to work. They're already out there," Mister Tommily said. "I better go into the hall where maybe I can keep them downstairs and away from the windows. I only got four shells left and no telling about them. Bought during the Korean War, Remington Nitro-Express. After that I'm just going to have to wear this hatchet out on them is all."

"Would you turn the attic light on? The switch is just inside the closet door," Ezekiel asked. It was only a single 60 watt bulb, but when it came on it felt like the sun on a winter morning.

Another voice, somewhere far off in the house, spoke. "Tommily! You come down now and there's no hard feelings."

Then Ezekiel heard Mister Tommily's voice again. "Now why in the world should I do that?"

"Well, for one very good reason. We set the house on fire, and you're going to get your ass burned off. ... I'm only trying to do you a favor here. Why you so worried about the kid. He yours?"

"What kid? He's gone."

"Gone? How can he be gone? We got this house covered, man. He ain't gone. Besides, if he's gone then what are you shooting up the place for? ... Nah, he ain't gone, Tommily. You must be some kind of a fool. Now you get your ass out of there or you're going to be cooked meat. That's all I'm saying."

Ezekiel smelled smoke. Overhead, the sheathing boards looked smooth and firm. There were some knotholes but the wood protected from the weather like it was looked as strong as when it was new. The sound of gunfire erupted from below and he heard the flat boom of Mister Tommily's shotgun twice more and then twice again. Time was running out. He took his beige drawing tablet out and began sketching the ceiling overhead as fast as he could do the job well. The magic didn't work for rough sketches; he had learned that. It took at least a day to get a painting right. He didn't have a day. He didn't have an hour. But he had to do something.

A hand grabbed the edge of the attic opening. It spread far out like a spider. The end of the fingers tightened and an elbow and the top of a head came into view. Ezekiel stared unable to move. It was Mister Tommily. "You're on your own, boy," he said when his head appeared. He gasped and grimaced, or was it a smile? "You got the power. Reach for it. Find a way," he said. "I have to leave you now." With that, Mister Tommily disappeared and there was a crash in the room below. Ezekiel crawled over to look down. Mister Tommily made a human 'X' on the floor.

Curling smoke filled the attic slowly starting at the top. He was alone. "So long, Mister Tommily. See you." He wondered why the lights were still on. Perhaps the wires came up on the side of the house away from the fire. At any rate the light couldn't last. Now he rubbed in a dark stain between the joists he had drawn. The stain was darker on one side than the other, but that only made it look more real.

"I rebuke you," Ezekiel said. He had heard that in synagogue. It sounded like a terrible curse at the time if he remembered correctly. He was having a hard time breathing and was coughing almost constantly. "I"-cough-"rebuke you," he repeated fastening his tearing eyes on the pad before him. Grasping the pad tightly in both hands he shook it. "I rebuke you." Smoke threaded up through narrow cracks between the flooring planks. At the edges, where the roof met the flooring thick smoke seeped upward. His knees were becoming hot from contact with the floor. He looked up with streaming eyes. There was a black area and a foamy substance spread from the crack where the left joist met the roof sheathing and flowed toward the right. Ezekiel put his face almost to the floor and took a deep breath. Then he got to his feet, put his hands on his knees and his head against the center of the rotten spot and pressed upward. The roof gave way a little! He stooped down and thrust himself up as hard as he could. His head broke through and it wasn't that hard! With his head out, he gulped in fresh air. The sky around him leaped in reds and blacks and yellows. Everything burned. The roof around him erupted smoke and glowed red in spots. He worked his shoulders and the wood crumbled away until he was out into the night all the way to his waist. His stomach heaved, and he felt even weaker. But he hardly had to do more than simply fall over to find himself out on the shingled surface.

Having done that he reached back into the hole and grasped the edge of the wood. While the roof was not high pitched like some, he could have begun rolling and then been unable to stop. Fire shot out from under the eaves beneath and to the right of him like water pouring from a hose. Below the level of the roof at second story level and beyond reaching flames, shadowy things patrolled back and forth searching or waiting. Below them, men in every manner of dress from expensive suits to undershirts watched and waited. They seemed to have all gathered at his house. Ezekiel began a laborious and slow crawl toward the Sixth Street end of the row. The land raised at that end and the drop to the ground was less.

"I seen that kid up there!" someone below shouted.

Ezekiel flattened against the hot roof. The heat against the side of his face was unbearable. And as his eyes searched for escape, he could see the flames marching toward his position.

"I don't see anything," someone else said.

"I saw something moving up there."

"That's the flame and smoke. Makes everything look like it's moving. The kid's dead already."

Lying down like this he couldn't see the speakers and so it followed that they couldn't see him. He began to roll along the asphalt shingles and discovered that he could travel without using too much of his waning energy in this manner. Occasionally, the fire enhanced wind would force the fire down into a long red tongue licking and searching at the unburned roof. Ezekiel knew that, that tongue would turn anything with fur, feather, or clothing into a ball of fire. It kept pace with him, the forward edge staying just ahead of his progress. Behind him, the night sky turned to red and yellow and the roof curled like cardboard in the heat.

Sirens wailing in the night came closer to his part of The Meadows. Perhaps they were only four of five blocks away now. Finally he reached the end of the building. Neither he nor the fire could go any farther. There were other fires in The Meadows. Now that he was past the center of the conflagration, Ezekiel could see the sky glow in three directions. Perhaps the entire Meadows would be gone.

With numb exhausted arms and legs, the boy cast about for a way down. The fire was a little behind him, not much. The roof roared like a waterfall. Perhaps three minutes remained -no more. One good thing was that at this end the drop was much less. And there was something else, if he remembered correctly; there was a thick bush below on this corner of he building. He should know because he walked past it at least once ever day when the weather was good enough. His mother called it a Bee Balm bush, but she was wrong more often than right about plants. With quivering legs he pushed himself to the very corner. He could feel the intense heat on his knuckles as he gripped the lower edge. It --the bush-- was still there. When he looked over he could see the top of the bush highlighted only eight feet below. He rolled off with his hands over his face to protect it. What was the point of waiting? It seemed that the bush hardly broke his fall at all, but it must have because he ended up somewhere near the center, with his clothing pierced and ripped in half a dozen places, but yet he was conscious. Above him the flames leaped, searching for him, but they were too late. He backed out on his hands and knees. Now the Bee Balm bush was divided into two parts. His hands were bloody and his face was scratched, but he was safe. He rubbed his hands together and struggled to his feet on quivering legs. A hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Got you, little man," the voice said. "Just come with me and don't try no funny stuff."

A not too gentle hand shoved him in the direction of the open street. As they walked out onto Potter Street, Ezekiel took stock of his captor. The man had a wide brimmed Panama hat on and a white suit. When he turned to look at Ezekiel, Ezekiel could see all of the gold chains hanging from the man's neck. "Okay, now don't lay back on me, Zeke, time is money. Lost enough tonight already. Get into the car." The man swept a finger at a silver Eldorado sitting at the opposite corner of 6^th Street and Potter. There was a head stuck out of the window, his mother's. A man, probably the driver, stood at the door so she couldn't leap out. His mom paddled one arm at him to make him hurry.

"I think I'm going to pass out," Ezekiel said.

"No you ain't," the man said. He grabbed him under one arm around the chest and carried Ezekiel to the car.

"Oh, Ezekiel you're safe, you're safe," she said when Errol stuffed him into the seat beside her. Then her eyebrows peaked way up, and she made her lips disappear between her teeth.

"I've decided something, mom."

She swallowed and straightened her face. "What, darling?"

"I know where there's a photo of the whole blue world against a black sky. It was taken by one of the astronauts. You know what I'm going to do?"

"No, what?" She licked her thumb and tried to rub the dirt off of his face. He hated when she did that and so he squinched his face.

"I'm going to paint that picture and I'm going to make the whole world glow with goodness."

"Wonderful, darling. That will be real nice."

Something evil roared in frustration beneath The Meadows and the whole street shuddered.

"Our house is going to burn down, mom."

"I'm glad, Ezekiel. I'm very glad. We'll find somewhere else to stay. You're safe and that's all that matters to me. Houses, money, husbands, they come, they go."

"We'd have money if you'd only buy a lottery ticket, mom," Ezekiel said as she tucked her jacket around him.

She crushed him to her and pooched his lips with her fingers. "We don't have money to waste on foolishness."

"Here," Errol said, as he leaned over from the front seat. His fingers pressed a roll of hundred dollar bills flat as he held them toward Ezekiel's mom. "I'll take you to the Latimer Oaks for tonight. Then you find yourself a place to live. Then you give me a call when you're all settled. How's that?"

THE END

About Ezekiel:

Lee