William Royden

But over the past few years, Corning had come to doubt entirely that the task had truly been completed.

He believed that the girl named Gretchen Plauser had survived somehow and had been sheltered in Robinsong since that time by people who surely knew how destructive she was.

Cording told me how every act of madness, every unnatural emergence, and every corruption of reality in Robinson was due to Clouser's presence, and how she had to be found at all costs.

He needed help from people he would not tell me about, but without documentation of her effects on the town, he would not get it.

He told me not just about Gretchen Plauser and Robinson, but of two other small, unnoticed areas in this world where a similar sickness had descended over people who were unaware that anything was truly wrong.

It was obvious that Cording could not rest as long as these places continued to fester.

I believe the only time Cording ever spent in the United States was spent in Robinson, two or three times a year if he had to.

He was an old man with the body of someone in his thirties.

He reminded me to keep to the confidentiality agreement I had signed at the beginning of the day, and that was when I knew he might not be long for this world.

If he was so deluded into thinking that I or anyone could possibly go to my grave without confessing the events of that day to a single person, his mind was not operating logically.

I wondered how many other people he had unwittingly brought into his secrets.

I realized what I had to do to bring the night to an end.

And so I did it.

I used the payphone inside the restaurant to call my grandfather.

When he answered, I concocted the most plausible lie I could to get him out of the house.

I asked him to drive well outside of town to rescue me from car trouble.

Of course he offered to help me.

When it was done, I went back to the table where Cording was waiting.

He said, let's go.

With night came temperatures in the 40s.