they were twins , halves of the same whole , and thad was terrified to find himself drifting out of his body , drifting along the phone line , not all the way to new york , no , but halfway ; meeting the monster at the center of this umbilicus , in western massachusetts , perhaps , the two of them meeting and merging again , as they had somehow met and merged every time he had put the cover on his typewriter and picked up one of those goddamned berol black beauty pencils .