Free Little Doors by Paul di Filippo Page A

your sons.”
     
    6
     
    The car was a ’78 Thunderbird, in fair shape. Andy and Dawn had come up in the world since he got the job at the mill.
    It was a Sunday. The car was alone on the road. The sky overhead was a seamless, variegated grey, like felted lint from a dryer vent.
    The car passed through the center of town, heading west on Highway 61, away from the mill. About a mile beyond the last house, it made a U-turn and headed back. It detoured through the hollow where the Reverend Wade Demure kept church. Sounds of ragged singing issued from within the asphalt-clad tenement, a dismally joyful noise that sought to rise heavenward but only filled the hollow like clammy fog. The woman with the disease-wracked face contributed a recognizable gargle.
    The car navigated through residential streets, uphill and down, wandering aimlessly. Like a dog chained to a stake, however, its movements were bounded by a central pull, an almost gravitational force at the heart of its existence: the mill.
    Simon and Peter were in the back seat. Peter sat on a little bolster apparatus of molded plastic. Simon still used the infant carrier that had once been his brother’s. The passage of time, the friction of its two passengers, had worn the smiling faces off the multiple suns, restoring them once more to a frightful primeval obscurity. Both boys were carefully belted to keep them safe from accidental injury.
    Dawn said, “Let’s be getting home, Andy. It’s almost lunchtime, and the boys must be hungry. We had enough of a holiday drive.” Dawn turned and hung one arm over the seat. “Ain’t that so, boys?”
    The boys said nothing. They seemed stupefied, bemused, almost drugged.
    Andy’s grip on the wheel was tetanus-tight. “Just one more stop, Dawn. I want to show the boys where their daddy works.”
    “Aw, honey, they ain’t old enough to appreciate the mill. ’Specially little Simon.” Dawn reached over the seat to adjust Simon in the carrier. Her position was awkward, and she succeeded only in pushing Simon’s bonnet down over his eyes, so that his backward view of the objects they flew from—the landscape which seemed almost to push them away, to hurl itself in retreat from the car—was cut off.
    Andy did not reply, but simply drove on.
    The vast parking lot of the mill was empty, save for the lone car of the security guard, who, sitting bored in his gateside booth, waved the Stiles family through when Andy explained what he was about.
    Andy parked the Thunderbird near the main door of the mill.
    Dawn said, “Aw, Andy, why you stopping? The boys can see the mill good enough from here. Can’t you, boys?”
    Andy did not reply to Dawn because he did not hear her. Moloch was speaking to him. This was unique. Moloch had never spoken to him outside the mill before. It must be because he had stopped taking his pills.
    “You have brought your sons to Me, Andrew. This is good. You exhibit strength of will. You are almost assured of learning a very important truth: your whereabouts. But you are not quite done. You must bring the boys inside, to see Me.”
    “What about Dawn?”
    “She cannot come.”
    “What’ll I tell her?”
    “You must decide.”
    Andy levered open his door. He stepped out and opened the rear door on his side. He unbuckled Peter and pulled him out. Then, leaning in, he removed Simon from his carrier.
    “Andy,” said Dawn, “what’s going on?”
    “I got to take the boys inside for just a minute.”
    “I don’t know, Andy. Is that smart? It could be dangerous in there for a child …”
    “Everything’s shut down. Ain’t nothing that can hurt them.”
    “Oh, all right,” said Dawn. “One minute.” She moved to get out.
    “No, honey, just me and the boys. It’s—it’s personal. Man to man. I want to show them what they got to look forward to when they grow up.”
    Dawn settled back into her seat. “Of all the silly notions,” she said, although she seemed rather pleased. “I hope