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see.”
    He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to look at his friends. “I can see, but not with my glasses. I can see without them. It’s not blurry. I can see without my glasses.”
    â€œWait.” Trembling, Gage pulled up his shirt, turned his back.
    â€œMan, they’re gone.” Fox reached out to touch his fingers to Gage’s unmarred back. “The welts. They’re gone. And…” He held out his wrist where the shallow cut was already healing. “Holy cow, are we like superheroes now?”
    â€œIt’s a demon,” Cal said. “And we let it out.”
    â€œShit.” Gage stared off into the dark woods. “Happy goddamn birthday to us.”

Three
    Hawkins Hollow
February 2008
    I T WAS COLDER IN HAWKINS HOLLOW, MARYLAND, than it was in Juno, Alaska. Cal liked to know little bits like that, even though at the moment he was in the Hollow where the damp, cold wind blew like a mother and froze his eyeballs.
    His eyeballs were about the only things exposed as he zipped across Main Street from Coffee Talk, with a to-go cup of mochaccino in one gloved hand, to the Bowl-a-Rama.
    Three days a week, he tried for a counter breakfast at Ma’s Pantry a couple doors down, and at least once a week he hit Gino’s for dinner.
    His father believed in supporting the community, the other merchants. Now that his dad was semiretired and Cal oversaw most of the businesses, he tried to follow that Hawkins tradition.
    He shopped the local market even though the chain supermarket a couple miles outside town was cheaper. If he wanted to send a woman flowers, he resisted doing so with a couple of clicks on his computer and hauled himself down to the Flower Pot.
    He had relationships with the local plumber, electrician, painter, the area craftsmen. Whenever possible, he hired for the town from the town.
    Except for his years away at college, he’d always lived in the Hollow. It was his place.
    Every seven years since his tenth birthday, he lived through the nightmare that visited his place. And every seven years, he helped clean up the aftermath.
    He unlocked the front door of the Bowl-a-Rama, relocked it behind him. People tended to walk right in, whatever the posted hours, if the door wasn’t locked.
    He’d once been a little more casual about that, until one fine night while he’d been enjoying some after-hours Strip Bowling with Allysa Kramer, three teenage boys had wandered in, hoping the video arcade was still open.
    Lesson learned.
    He walked by the front desk, the six lanes and ball returns, the shoe rental counter and the grill, turned and jogged up the stairs to the squat second floor that held his (or his father’s if his father was in the mood) office, a closet-sized john, and a mammoth storage area.
    He set the coffee on the desk, stripped off gloves, scarf, watch cap, coat, insulated vest.
    He booted up his computer, put on the satellite radio, then sat down to fuel up on caffeine and get to work.
    The bowling center Cal’s grandfather had opened in the postwar forties had been a tiny, three-lane gathering spot with a couple of pinball machines and counter Cokes. It expanded in the sixties, and again, when Cal’s father took the reins, in the early eighties.
    Now, with its six lanes, its video arcade, and its private party room, it was the place to gather in the Hollow.
    Credit to Grandpa, Cal thought as he looked over the party reservations for the next month. But the biggest chunk of credit went to Cal’s father, who’d morphed the lanes into a family center, and had used its success to dip into other areas of business.
    The town bears our name, Jim Hawkins liked to say. Respect the name, respect the town.
    Cal did both. He’d have left long ago otherwise.
    An hour into the work, Cal glanced up at the rap on his doorjamb.
    â€œSorry, Cal. Just wanted you to know I was here. Thought I’d go ahead and get that