If I show up at your house ten years from now and find nothing in your living room but The Readers Digest, nothing on your bedroom night table but th… - Stephen King

And almost idly, in a kind of sidethought, Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.

As we walked back to the block, Brutal spoke to me in a low voice, so not even Dean and Harry, who were setting up the last of the chairs behind us, would overhear. "I done a few things in my life that I'm not proud of, but this is the first time I ever felt really actually in danger of hell." I looked at him to make sure he wasn't joking. I didn't think he was. "What do you mean?" "I mean we're fixing to kill a gift of God," he said. "One that never did ary harm to us, or to anyone else. What am I going to say if I end up standing in front of God the Father Almighty and He asks me to explain why I did it? That it was my job? My job?"

He told himself that everything was fine — he only had to look at the sleeping dog on the floor if he doubted — but in the middle of the night it was hard to be an optimist. When the dawn was still long hours away, bad thoughts took on flesh and began to walk. In the middle of the night thoughts became zombies.