“You see, Frank found out the hard way that the dark things lurking in the night don’t haunt old houses or abandoned ships. They haunt minds.”

“They came looking for dark and terrible revelations and instead found out something even more dark and terrible: that their lives were trite and boring.”

“And watch out for Molly. See if she does anything unusual. There’s something I don’t trust about the way she exploded and then came back from the dead like that.”

“Falling in love with a house or a car or a pair of shoes, it was a dead end. You save your love for the things that can love you back.”

“I had seen that look before, on the faces of tourists visiting the Texas Book Depository in Dallas where Lee Harvey Oswald took the shots at JFK. I took that tour and met some conspiracy buffs, all of us standing at the gunman’s window and looking down to the spot where the motorcade passed. It’s right there below the window, an easy shot at a slow-moving car. No mystery, just a kid and a rifle and a tragedy. They came looking for dark and terrible revelations and instead found out something even more dark and terrible: that their lives were trite and boring.”

“…all the king's doctors and all the king's pills couldn't make Frank's waking nightmares go away.”

“Fred whispered, “Okay. If I don’t come back, and say they don’t got my body, like if Justin eats me or somethin’, tell everybody you don’t know what happened. Make it mysterious. And then a year later spread rumors that you’ve seen me wanderin’ around town. That way I’ll be like fuckin’ Bigfoot, everybody claiming to have seen me here and there. Legend of Fred Chu.” John nodded, as if he were committing this to memory. He lit his own firebombs, glanced up at me and asked,“You got any final requests, in case this don’t end well?” “Yeah. Avenge my death.”