First off: I am loving this story, it was captivating the first time around but you've managed to make it even more so (which is pretty much a given since anyone who's read the WC version knows most of the main points in the plot). I especially love the added stuff with the urban legends, they're creepy.

Second comes the Picking of the Nit: Perhaps I'm just particularly stupid (I've been off all day, honestly) but this bit confused the heck out of me, especially the last sentence.

Colm was his last line of defense, the place he went when he had no other resource left. It had got him through his mother's death, through pneumonia a few years later, a couple of hard times in Railburg. Colm was the one who had called Joseph from a bus station in Hoboken, begging for help because he didn't have anyone else and Grace was dead. Colm wasn't strong, but if he went there then Colin could be a shield, when his other defenses failed him.

I re-read it a couple of times and I still can't tell if I've gotten it all straight in my head, who's protecting whom and so forth. Maybe that's what you were going for, what with the feverishness and whatnot, I dunno. Ack, bed time.

Hope you enjoyed your incredibly tender potroast :P

P.S. thank you for sharing this story with us, it's awesome.