

## **The Still**

## James Michael Rice

© 2010 by James Michael Rice. This collection is based on his short stories "Dream Evil", "The Lateman", "Reflections" and "The Pleasure Tribe", 1986-1988. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

eBook version: FormattingExperts.com

Smashwords Edition

# 

# Dedication

My friend, Stacey Dupont Perry, and my brother, Jay, both offered valuable suggestions that helped to make this book much better than it was. Also, a special thanks to Alexandrea Matthews for offering her insightful suggestions on this revised e-book edition. Finally, to all the friends and family members who continuously inspire me with their words of encouragement. This is for you.

# 

# Author's Note

While I have taken many liberties with the geography of Southern New England, the Hockomock Swamp is indeed a real place. Not only is the swamp home to many rare species of flora and fauna, it is also rumored to be the paranormal epicenter of New England.

Claims of Sasquatch-like creatures, panthers, giant birds, UFOs, mysterious lights, and a wide array of other unexplained phenomena have been reported in and around the swamp since Colonial times. Many of the stories contained within this book are based on local folklore and eyewitness accounts which have taken place over a span of many years.

As for the validity of such claims, that is up to you, the reader, to decide for yourself. However, one thing is for certain: If you ever decide to explore the area, don't go there alone...

# 

#  Table of Contents

LOVE LIKE CANCER

THE LATEMAN

REFLECTIONS - PART I

THE STILL

GWENDOLYN REESE AND THE CLOSET DANCERS

REFLECTIONS - PART II

ETERNITY DRIVE

REFLECTIONS - PART III

IT NEVER SLEEPS

#  Love Like Cancer

The visitor stared at the yellow man, and the yellow man glared back at him. The silence that settled between them, however maddening, was not absolute; it was punctuated with inhuman sounds; machines that beeped and whirred; rubber soles that squeaked on the linoleum floor just outside the open doorway; the hysterical wail of a car alarm somewhere in the distance, suddenly strangled short in mid-cry.

At the moment, Steven Parker, the man sitting in the visitor's chair, could not imagine a hell worse than this. Eons seemed to pass before he finally roused himself to speak.

"It's finally starting to warm-up out there," Parker exclaimed with an unconvincing smile, quickly looking away to study his work boots while his words died in the stale air. He gazed out the window, to where a maintenance man was trimming the lawn along the edge of the parking lot. This wasn't much of a view, but Parker had grown tired of looking at the yellow man's leathery skin; the claw-like fingers with the yellow-brown nicotine stains; the milky, unfocused eyes. This was not the friend he once knew, this joyless sack of bones; it was an albatross, a curse, an abomination.

It would have comforted Parker to know that this would be his last loathsome trip to Hevven Memorial Hospital. His stomach turned at the mere thought of the sterile décor, the smell of sickness that seemed to penetrate every thread of fabric, every molecule of air, the feeble attempts to gloss it all over with faked pleasantries and vapid conversations, the latter meant to avoid, yet somehow highlighting, the stark reality that everywhere, everywhere, death was creeping forward to embrace the living. As he reflected on these things, Parker found himself confronted by a sudden revelation: he wanted the yellow man to die, and not out of any sublime faith in God's will, or some misguided sense of altruism. He wanted the yellow man to die because the yellow man repulsed him, and these prolonged visits to the Cancer Ward were a total fucking drag.

The yellow man's real name was Robert "Buddy" Soulever, the owner of Soulever Brothers Construction, a shrewd and tenacious man who shrugged off the indigence of his childhood to eventually become a self-made millionaire. In life, Buddy had possessed the build of a lumberjack with a temperament to match. In death—or rather, in the midst of death—he more closely resembled a pile of sallow skin pulled taut over a skeleton of twiggy bones.

Gone was any resemblance to the Buddy Soulever who had once been the fearless center of his high school football team, the young scrapper who once took on three grown men in a bar fight at Rusty's Cantina in his home town of Hevven, Massachusetts, and had walked away without so much as a hair out of place. After months of chemo, that thick head of sandy blond hair had become a forlorn memory, diminished to little more than a few scattered wisps that sprouted at random from a spotty scalp. Also gone were those mischievous blue eyes, the mischief replaced by a look of perpetual self pity and the blue replaced by a filmy gray. It would have been nearly impossible for a stranger to judge his true age. He could have been sixty, perhaps even seventy years-old. Few, even those who were closest to him, would have guessed that Buddy had just turned fifty-two last month.

In spite of these things, after dozens of visits, Parker had discovered that he was beginning to lose all sympathy for his friend and former mentor. Somehow, somehow his friend was gone, replaced by the living skeleton that now glared at Parker from the cold comfort of its funerary bed. Buddy was not the kind of guy you wanted to feel sorry for; he was the kind of guy you met up with at the Ninety-Nine to toss back a few beers after a hard day's work; the kind of guy who got riled up watching football games on television, and who could always be counted on to crack loud and often inappropriate jokes whenever a group of pretty young college girls walked by. Moreover, Buddy was disgustingly wealthy, and it was always a struggle to pity those with means. But what it really boiled down to, in Parker's mind, was this: If a hot-tempered, dauntless millionaire like Buddy Soulever could get cancer, then anyone could. That glaringly obvious fact, above all else, is what bothered Parker most.

At last, the yellow man picked up his notebook and began to write. Parker refused to look at him, but he could hear the pencil as it moved across the paper, and the sound made him clench his teeth until his jaw began to ache. It sounded, to Parker, like a rat scratching around inside the wall of an old house. It was a sound with which he had become all too familiar over the course of Buddy's infirmity. Still clenching his teeth, Parker continued to stare out into the parking lot. The trees were mostly bare, but the little brown buds were starting to emerge, the grass was thicker, greener, and the sky was the kind of clear, optimistic blue that made you feel as though anything were possible; all signs that summer was creeping back into New England. Summertime in New England, reflected Parker, is there anything more beautiful in this world?

Meanwhile, one claw-like hand moved slowly across the paper, feebly clutching a pencil in its grip, as the other claw-like hand steadied the pad. Finally, the scratching stopped and the yellow man held up the notepad so Parker could see what he had written there:

Got any smokes? I'm dying for a cigarette!!!

Parker read the message. Shook his head incredulously. The yellow man sighed through his nostrils, and something deep within him made a sound like a child's rattle. His milky eyes stared back at Parker with a look that bordered on contempt. This was yet another thing that Parker hated about coming here, to the hospital. He was tired of this repartee—if that's what you could call it. Why did Buddy have to be so damn stubborn? Why couldn't he just use the damn voice box to speak? At this point, who cares if he sounds like a goddamned robot?

"Sorry," Parker muttered. His large, calloused hands fidgeted restlessly. "But even you must see the irony in your choice of words."

The yellow man pulled one arm out from under the crisp white hospital sheet. With no small amount of effort, he held his hand up in the air with the knuckles facing the ceiling. One by one, the arthritic fingers curled down, leaving only the middle one aiming at his former employee. Cancer or no, he had not lost his sense of humor.

"Look," Parker went on, "not that you would be allowed to smoke in a hospital anyways, but the worst thing you can do in your..." He fumbled for the proper words, but could not find them. "Shit, I mean, you can hardly breathe as it is, Buddy."

Before Parker could even finish, Buddy had already begun to scrawl a new message on his notepad. After a moment, he flipped the notepad around so that Parker could see his latest handiwork:

Don't be a prick!!

Just be a pal and give me one FUCKING CIGARETTE!

These last two words were written with reckless abandon, with the bold and jagged lines of an angry child, the tip of the pencil all but perforating the page. The effort of writing the note had taken its toll, and Buddy felt his flabby chest muscles clench as he was overtaken by a terrible coughing fit. Still hacking, Buddy ripped a tissue from a box on the table beside him, just in time to catch a stringy wad of phlegm as it erupted from his mouth. Giving his mouth one final swipe, Buddy rolled the tissue into a sticky ball and dropped it into the plastic waste basket that squatted on the floor beside his bed.

Parker bowed his head and pretended to examine his work boots, unable to conceal a thinly veiled look of disgust. He attempted to make small talk for a while. How about that draft trade, Buddy? The Patriots will be unstoppable this season. I don't know about you, Buddy, but I for one can't wait for the summer to get here. They say it's gonna be a scorcher. I guess that global warming ain't that bad for us New Englanders, y'know? You know, the company's doing fine, Buddy. You don't have to worry about that, my friend. We just got that new Mystic Power contract...

Buddy only stared out the window with vacant eyes, not even feigning interest. It was no great secret that he would not live long enough to see the coming summer, never mind the Patriots' pre-season opener in Foxboro. As for the future of Soulever Brothers Construction, the small empire that was Buddy's brainchild and legacy, the yellow man found that he cared nothing for the company, or its future endeavors. In fact, the fruits of his labor could wither on the vine for all he cared. The yellow man was both childless and divorced. His recent diagnosis—two to four months to live—combined with the fact that no woman would want to come near him, let alone screw him, assured that he would remain childless and divorced through the bitter end. Realistically, it would have been impossible for him to father a child anyway, since the chemotherapy had likely lowered his sperm count to nil, but it would have been nice to at least have the option—and the hope—that some part of him would live on after he was gone.

The stark reality that he was the last of the Soulever bloodline was only now beginning to dawn on him. His parents were long dead and his older brother, Teddy, a childless bachelor himself, had died of throat cancer four years earlier, eliminating the chance of any would-be heir to the Soulever throne. It was as though cancer had waged a personal war against the Soulever family. This sudden revelation, that he was not only a victim but a target, bothered Buddy far more than his own impending doom.

Cancer. Motherfucking cancer. First Teddy and now me, he reflected. Buddy never knew how his parents had died—he was so very young at the time, and his memories of them were vague at best. It wasn't until he was a grown man that he'd finally found the courage to ask, and that's when Teddy told him, while lying on his own death bed in some other cancer ward, that their family had a history with cancer.

A history with cancer! What the hell was that supposed to mean, anyway? Buddy wondered. He thought it sounded like something you'd say in reference to a former lover, not a terminal disease. Now me and my ex, thought the yellow man, we sure as shit got a history. We loved each other so goddamned much that it ate us alive. It burned so intensely that it devoured us. Even during the divorce, that love burned and burned, only then it had turned into a bitter, twisted thing that felt a lot like hatred. But maybe all hatred is borne of love, thought Buddy. Had he read that in a poem somewhere? Buddy couldn't remember, but he thought it was possible. He had never had much of a mind for poetry. Maybe that's why we hated each other so damned much...because we loved each other too damned much.

Buddy turned this around and around in his mind. Odd that he had never had these thoughts before. He wondered if this was a sign that the end was truly near, like some brief flash of light before the darkness came. If only he had realized these things before, perhaps he could have saved his marriage. Our love was pure in the beginning, and over time it transformed into hate. No, not transformed. It metastasized. Yes, that sounded about right. Perfect, actually. Our love metastasized into something ugly and malignant, something like cancer; it just ate and ate and ate, until there was nothing left to consume.

He reflected on these things as Parker droned on. Licking his lips, Buddy considered writing another message to Parker, this time flat-out demanding a cigarette. Never mind the fact that Buddy had hired Parker, a high school dropout with no skills or experience, out of pure pity, and in doing so saved the boy from a life of menial, dead-end jobs. Never mind the generous salary, the yearly raises, and the Christmas bonuses, all of which had given Parker the financial stability to support a wife and baby girl and to eventually move them, all three, into a nice little house in the country. There was also that one time, many years ago, when he had loaned Parker a small fortune to save that same house from going into foreclosure after Parker had gambled away several paychecks on some "surefire" bets that did not pan out. Parker had been so thankful for Buddy's endorsement, he had actually wept. Now here was Parker, that ungrateful bastard, refusing to acquiesce to a simple request from a dying man. Hell, all Buddy wanted was one lousy cigarette!

Buddy actually grasped the pencil in his hand as he considered jotting down a quick little note to remind Parker about these many acts of charity. In his mind, he had already written the note, and Parker was blubbering like a baby as he exited the room, on his way to the store to buy a pack—no, fuck that, make it a carton—of Marlboro reds, Buddy's tobacco of choice. But some thin strand of decency prevented him from writing such a message, not because he felt bad about laying a guilt trip on the poor fellow, but because it seemed indecent to remind a friend about such favors, even if that friend looked at you as though you were something he'd like to scrape off the bottom of his shoe. Besides, the thought of gripping that pencil again made Buddy's head swim. In fact, it made him feel downright exhausted just thinking about it.

***

After an hour or so—in truth, he was not sure exactly how much time had passed—Buddy glanced back at the chair that Parker had occupied, the visitor's chair, and was not the least bit surprised to find that it was empty.

Prick didn't even have the common courtesy to say goodbye, thought Buddy. He smiled at this little victory, somewhat amused by the fact that he would no longer have to indulge his young protégé. Score one for the dying man!

Tethered to the rail of his bed was a remote control, an antiquated gadget that was roughly the size and shape of a brick. Buddy lifted it just enough to hit the POWER button and settled back against his pillow to watch JEOPARDY! On the opposite side of the bed was another small rail with a completely different control attached to it; this one held a single button that controlled his morphine drip. Buddy pushed the button twice and the television host's congenial voice—was it Alec or Alex? Buddy could never remember which—began to fade, replaced by a black and dreamless sleep.

***

Later that night, Buddy awoke to the flicker of the small television that sat perched on a ceiling mount in the corner of his room. The morphine had run its course. He was wide awake now, and restless as hell. He picked up the remote and flipped through sixty or so channels of absolute shit, finally settling on the Discovery Channel.

As he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, he felt a hitching pain from somewhere deep inside of him. Twisting, he leaned over the bed rail to hack up a fibrous wad of phlegm into the waste basket. When he was a teenager, they used to call those things lungies, or loogies, or something like that. The coughing fit lasted nearly ten seconds, which was a long time to go without breathing, and ended with him clutching his stomach with one hand and using the other to wipe away a sliver of phlegm that clung to his bottom lip like a blob of jelly. When the pain passed (in truth, it never fully passed, but only became more tolerable) he reached over and pressed the morphine button again. Pressed it once, twice, three times, knowing no matter how many times he pressed the button, the dose would be regulated, and the pain would only be blunted ever so slightly.

On the television, a male narrator was describing what the world would be like if the human race just up and vanished. The narrator's voice was deep and passive, almost indifferent, as scenes of a desolate New York, one overrun by vegetation and wild animals, flashed across the screen. Something about the narrator's voice struck a chord in Buddy, and he found he could relate to the indifference about the end of days.

When the show was over and the credits began to scroll across the screen, he picked up the remote control in a trembling hand and clicked the POWER button. There was a soft crackle, like a static electric discharge, and then the screen went suddenly black.

Darkness flooded the room, broken only by the otherworldly glow of his IV and EKG monitors. As the morphine worked its way into his bloodstream, Buddy closed his eyes. Now, the darkness was absolute. He thought that this must be what it is like to live inside a womb. For some reason he could not articulate, this thought seemed to comfort him. He closed his eyes, listening to the rhythmic bleep of his heart monitor.

After a time, the yellow man slept.

***

Sometime later, during the small hours of the night, the yellow man's second visitor arrived.

An unfamiliar sound dragged Buddy out of the warm embrace of a morphine-induced sleep. For a moment, he remained still, his vision still blurred by the drug, unable to focus on any recognizable shape in the room. Listening, he realized that the sound was coming from below him. Buddy had grown up in a very rundown house— practically a shack, really—and this reminded him of the sounds the mice would make as they rummaged through the kitchen at night in search of crumbs. Perhaps, he thought, this was the sound of a mouse, skittering across the floor. He dreaded to think that a hospital as reputable as Hevven Memorial could have a rodent problem, but it was not entirely out of the question. He listened again, and realized that it (whatever it was) had managed to crawl into the waste basket. Grimacing in pain, he pushed the UP button on the railing of the bed, and held his crooked finger there until the bed elevated him to a suitable enough vantage point that he could see over the edge.

Something moved beneath his bed. No—it was in the waste basket. Yeah, in the waste basket, burrowing into the snot-filled balls of tissue paper he had deposited there throughout the day.

As Buddy's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found that he could actually see movement beneath the layers of tissue, as though something were building a nest inside there. There was a rustling sound amidst the paper, and then—and then—

Something emerged from beneath the pile of tissue. It was a golf ball-sized wad of mucus—an accumulation of all the phlegm Buddy had discharged into the waste basket over the course of the last twelve or so hours—and it was moving.

The phlegm-ball crawled up the side of the waste basket and fell to the floor with a wet little plop. From there, it crawled into the darkest corner of the room, leaving a trail of glistening mucus in its wake. The yellow man watched, fascinated, not quite sure if he was awake or dreaming. Once in the corner, the blob seemed to find strength in the shadows. It made obscene little sucking sounds, as if drinking in the darkness, as it rapidly metastasized. At last it stood, trembling and glistening, a dark growth that was easily the full height of a ten year old child. The glistening mass spoke to him in a voice that sounded like muddy water being slurped through a straw, a voice that seemed to be cancer incarnate.

"Buddyyyy..."

Buddy looked at the morphine button and grimaced in disbelief. "You gotta be shitting me," he whispered, his voice barely more than a raspy exhalation through his ravaged trachea.

"Buddyyyy..." the mucous blob repeated in its watery voice. "I can give you what you neeeeed..."

Out of habit, the yellow man picked up his pencil and notepad and began to scribble a message. Then it occurred to him that this was just a dream, and that he could speak normally if he put his mind to it. "What—?" he croaked. "What do you want?"

"Whatever you neeeeeeeeed..." came the cheerful reply. The black mass pulsed and throbbed, still suckling on the shadows.

"Oh, yeah? How's about a smoke?"

In the dark corner, a small flame popped to life. Buddy's olfactory senses were not what they used to be, but there was no mistaking the pungent smell of sulfur. The tiny flame trembled as it moved, bobbed up and down, and then winked out. There was a greedy sucking sound, and then a small orange dot appeared in the darkness like a tiny comet. The smell of smoke wafted across the room, straight to Buddy's nostrils. The familiar smell of burning tobacco sent a longing through Buddy that seemed to shake his very soul. His mouth began to salivate and, somewhere in his conditioned brain, a series of chemical reactions demanded that he MUST HAVE NICOTINE!

"As you wish," replied the thing in the shadows, as though reading Buddy's mind.

A pack of Marlboro reds floated slowly out of the shadows, hovered for a moment just beyond Buddy's reach, and then dropped softly onto his blanketed lap. In disbelief, he picked up the pack and fingered it. It seemed so real, that familiar cardboard rectangle, right down to the smooth cellophane wrapper. He shook the box. He had smoked long enough to recognize the heft and feel of a full pack of 20 Class A Cigarettes, and this one was full, by God!

Buddy's yellow nails scratched at the clear plastic wrapper, at last tearing it loose and letting it drift to the floor. As soon as the inner foil had been ripped away, the smell of the tobacco hit him like the familiar perfume of a long lost lover. This act of kindness was so sudden and unexpected that he almost wept with joy.

Got any cigs? I'm dying for a cigarette!!!

He'd written this desperate plea to Parker only hours before. And how had that ungrateful son of a bitch answered him, after all those years of friendship and generous employment? Sorry, Parker had said, but even you must see the irony in your choice of words.

For a moment, the lights on Buddy's monitors all faded. As this happened, the black mass slopped forward, holding out a lit flame to the bedridden man.

Jackpot! thought Buddy. He clutched a cigarette between two permanently nicotine-stained fingers and leaned forward to accept the light, no longer caring if this was real, a dream, or a drug-induced hallucination. For the first time in months, he was happy.

At last, he smoked.

With the first drag, a feeling of euphoria washed over him. It sent shivers of pleasure throughout his entire body. And was his mouth dry? You bet. The cigarette tasted like shit, too, but the second drag was better than love itself.

"Look," he croaked through a cloud of smoke, "I know this isn't real, but thanks."

"The world no longer cares for our kind," the visitor stated in a benevolent voice.

"Our kind?" Buddy asked.

"The smokers."

"Oh, tell me about it," Buddy grunted, exhaling a smoky sigh. "Used to be, you could sit in a bar and have two-three drinks, relax with a smoke and shoot the shit. Nowadays, it's like we're diseased or somethin'. They managed to push us out onto the sidewalks, hoping we'd all just dry up and die. These pansy-assed health nuts are like the goddamn Gestapo or something. They tax the shit out of cigarettes, all the while claiming they want to put an end to big, bad tobacco, but really they're just getting fat and rich off us smokers. If they really wanted to 'save' us from ourselves, they'd outlaw tobacco illegal and shutdown all the cigarette companies, but that'll never happen so long as there's a buck to be made."

"Soon, you will die..." the blob stated in a clinical tone. "Soon, there will be no smokers, as the people of this world have forgotten how to indulge in the simple pleasures."

Buddy snorted in disgust. "Well, I won't have to worry about that pretty soon, will I? Not unless there's a smoking ban in the afterlife." Buddy took a long drag from his cigarette, chuckling to himself.

Buddy's visitor leaned in closer to him, gurgling softly in his ear. Its voice was barely more than a whisper. "I have been told, by a rather reliable source, that God is not a smoker."

"Yeah, well, that figures."

"I hear there are no small pleasures to be found in the afterlife. But, of course, there is a chance I am mistaken."

"I sure hope so."

"If I may be so bold," the phlegm blob said in a conspiratorial tone, "I know of a place where small pleasures are appreciated. A place where they actually encourage you to indulge in any form of pleasure you like."

Already down to the filter, Buddy took a final drag from his cigarette. Frowning, he extinguished the butt in an untouched glass of water on the nightstand by his bed. He began to salivate again. Those pesky nerve receptors were already crying out for another fix.

"Go ahead," his dark visitor urged him.

"Huh?"

"I'll pass no judgment on you if you want another."

Buddy smiled, inhaling the sweet scent of tobacco as he drew another cigarette from the pack. "Listen, friend, I don't suppose—?"

"Why, of course." The blob slopped forward, inching its way across the linoleum. It moved with a wet sound, a slimy sound, a Welch's-Grape-Jelly-being-squeezed-out-of-the-bottle sound. The cigarette poked from its rudiment of a head like a mosquito proboscis, the tip glowing cheerfully in the darkness. There was a brief flash of light as it lit Buddy's cigarette. In that brief flash of light, Buddy saw its face for the first time, and he was not surprised to see that it actually looked like a giant glob of grape jelly, only darker, and tangled with veins. His visitor slowly inched back into the shadows, its presence marked by the glowing ash and the lingering smell of sulfur.

"Thanks," Buddy murmured.

"As I was saying," it continued, "I know a place where such pleasures are valued. I can take you there, friend. If you want to go, that is."

Buddy listened intently to the thing in the shadows as it described this other world. Smoking one cigarette after the other, he marveled at the thought of such a place, a place where one could indulge in any pleasure, great or small, without bounds.

"All you have to do is bring your addiction."

Through a haze of smoke, Buddy dreamily watched the blob as it shifted around in the shadows. "That's it, huh?"

The black mass made a squelching sound as it sucked on its cigarette. "Well—" it gargled, exhaling, "—there is one minor stipulation."

"I'm listenin'," Buddy said, raising his eyebrows.

In the darkness, the phlegm blob's face twisted into the grotesque semblance of a smile as it delivered its well-practiced rhetoric.

The yellow man and his visitor talked on through the night, until the first brush of dawn began to lighten the sky. Then, just as the first warm rays began to creep tentatively into his hospital room, the yellow man, fully swayed by the phlegm blob's oratory and with a sense of delirious abandonment, began to unplug the cords and cables that anchored him to the world of the living.

The creature lurking in the shadows grinned around its cigarette as Buddy Soulever's heart monitor fell into a flat line, emitting a steady whine as he collapsed against his pillow. With his last ounce of strength, Buddy ripped the IV line out of his wrist, feeling that old familiar craving tugging at his brain, the one that told him he MUST HAVE NICOTINE!

He smiled at the irony.

He was dying for a cigarette.

#  The Lateman

I once had a little brother, and I loved him.

I suppose I still love him, as much as one can love the dead.

Sure, we used to argue about all kinds of trivial things, the way brothers often do, and yes, I used to pick on him for no good reason at all sometimes, but he was still my brother. He was still my flesh and blood. So, you can see that I never meant for anything to happen to him. I only meant to scare him, and that's the God's-honest truth.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to explain exactly how it happened, but these people want answers, and I figure it's probably easier to write it down than to explain it face to face. I just don't think I can handle that right now. The mere thought of telling my story to Doctor Pollermo while he stares at me from behind his big, dorky glasses, judging me, dissecting me, scratching down notes on his clipboard as he calmly walks me through "the night in question"—the mere thought of it makes me nauseous. Besides, the last thing I need right now is some damn shrink telling me what I already know is true: I'm crazy. Oh, not crazy like walking-around-like-a-zombie, drooling-on-myself crazy, but crazy just the same. That's the bottom line. That **'** s why I'm in this soft little room, jotting down my own set of notes with my trusty blue Crayola, so that maybe, just maybe, I can convince myself otherwise.

So yes, once upon a time, as they say, I had a little brother and I loved him. We lived with our parents on Carver Road in Hevven, in a nice little raised-ranch in a quiet little neighborhood, and we were a normal, happy family. Then Tommy disappeared, and that changed everything. Soon, everything that was normal and happy about our family got flushed down the shitter.

When I was little, some of us kids from the neighborhood used to go skating out on Gilbert's pond. Once in a while, we'd get a hockey game going, but mostly we just skated around, and even the kids who didn't have skates would come out on the ice to slide around in their winter boots, simply because they could. In the middle of December, one of us would usually volunteer to test the ice by walking out a ways and jumping up and down on it until everyone was satisfied that it was safe. By bitter January, you could usually count on the pond being frozen solid, strong as concrete, and we'd grow reckless in our ways, all of us piling onto the ice without even bothering to test it. But come the end of March, and the ice would always betray us, send one or more of us crashing through up to our knees, where the cold water waited like some kind of sleeping monster.
Mom and Dad—they clung to hope as long as they could. They somehow managed to tiptoe around reality for almost a year, convincing themselves, and each other, that their Missing Boy would return one day, no worse for the wear. But like the ice on Gilbert's pond, this hope was never meant to last forever, and it grew thinner and more fragile with each passing day. Eventually, their hope collapsed, sending them crashing through to the other side, where the cold truth awaited: Their baby was gone, and he was never coming home. In the end, it was this sudden chill of reality that tore them, and their marriage, to pieces.

My Mom moved to Futawam, my Dad to Falmouth, and the house on Carver Road went up for sale—and remains unsold, so far as I know. Sometime between the disappearance and the divorce, I took a few too many sleeping pills (I was having trouble sleeping, if you really want to know the truth) and woke up here, at the Mount Hope Loony Bin in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It's not really called the Mount Hope Loony Bin, but that's what it is and that's what I call it. The PC name for my new home away from home is the "Mount Hope Rehabilitation Center", but don't let the name fool you. There are more nuts here than a peanut factory, so let's just call a duck a duck.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I only lied to the police to protect myself. I wasn't trying to mess with their investigation. I'd never had to deal with the cops before, and I'm not the least bit ashamed to admit that I was a little scared at first, but I managed to pull it off anyway. I pretended to know nothing. I told them I was sleeping that night, and of course, they believed me. Like I said, I've never had a run-in with the cops. Up until a few months ago, I never had a criminal record, either. As far as the cops were concerned, I was just a terrified teenager who was lucky to be alive. And my story was enough to fool them; at least, for a little while. Besides, to have told them the truth, or what I believe to be the truth, would have been just plain stupid on my part. Even to me, the truth was, and still is, hard to believe. But I was there. I know it's true. I know what I saw that night, and there's not a doubt in my mind that it will haunt me forever.

I still see him when I dream, you know. Then I awaken in a cold sweat, screaming in the lonesome darkness of my little white room. Even as I wake I see him standing over my bed, smiling as mischievously as he had on the night he disappeared, and on the many days and nights that came before that. He's wearing the camouflage pajamas I gave him that Christmas. Tommy wore those often; he liked to pretend that he was a soldier. He giggles and fades into the surrounding darkness, fades until he is one with the shadows. Maybe that's where he is now, in the shadows. Maybe that's all he is now, just another shadow, hiding from the light. He comes to me in my dreams, and that is where he remains.

Poor little Tommy. Poor, innocent Tommy.

It began on what had seemed like an ordinary evening in October. I remember that clearly because the air was rich with the smell of dead leaves. It is a smell that I have always associated with Halloween mischief, Thanksgivings at my grandmother's house in Falmouth, and cold autumn mornings waiting for the school bus. My parents were going to Hyannis to visit with some old friends, and they were leaving me home to babysit my eight year-old brother, Tommy. They left around seven o'clock, climbed into their maroon caravan, and drove into the dusk.

From the porch, Tommy and I watched them pull away. When their taillights finally faltered out of view, I looked at Tommy and saw that he was smiling to himself. Knowing Tommy, he probably figured he'd have the run of the house as soon as they were gone.

All around us, the October wind had rendered the trees almost naked, and the ground was covered by a patchwork of colored leaves. A cold breeze settled in, rattling the treetops, sending chills down my spine as I stood there, watching as my parents abandoned me. The sudden rulp-rulp-rulp of a neighbor's dog nearly made me jump out of my skin. The sound of its barking reverberated throughout the neighborhood, already dark and quiet at that hour. I watched until the caravan's taillights disappeared completely, and I remember how permanent their absence seemed. Mom and Dad were gone for the night. It seemed as though they might be gone forever. Tommy and I were alone.

I sent Tommy inside and I followed. He immediately retreated upstairs to his bedroom, where he stayed for an hour or so, entertaining himself with his Nintendo games. I knew this because I checked in on him as I walked by. The door was open just a crack, and through the opening I saw Tommy sitting on the floor. He was gnawing on his bottom lip and mumbling to himself, totally absorbed in the glow of the television screen. Seeing that he was preoccupied, I went downstairs to the kitchen. I grabbed a can of Coke from the refrigerator and settled myself in the den, where I watched a rerun of The X-Files. Mulder and Scully were arguing about the existence of aliens. Scully was defending the negative and Mulder was trying to convince her to be more open-minded, that the world was full of mysteries that science could not explain. Same old Scully. Same old Mulder. Same old argument. Go figure.

Not long after, the phone rang.

I snatched it after the first ring and said, "Hello?"

"Hiiiii," Amanda Johnson stretched the word into a provocative musical note. "Guess whose parents went out and left her all alone?"

My heart began to beat so fast that I thought it would tear its way out of me. I haven't seen her for some time, not since I've been in here, but Amanda Johnson has one of those faces you never forget. In order to understand the predicament I was in that night, you'd have to try and picture this girl. She had the cutest face, with nice cheekbones, framed by long, strawberry blond hair. Nice pink lips, and a smile that showed just the right amount of teeth. Drowsy blue eyes. Legs like a dancer. Still, words can't really describe my attraction to her, or how the sound of her voice was driving me half out of my mind. Amanda wasn't my girlfriend. We weren't even dating. To be honest, I think that was part of my attraction to her. There were no strings attached. I was sixteen, and she was seventeen, and there were no illusions between us; no mention of love, or marriage, or the future, or any of that other crap that brings good things to an end. Our emotions for each other were mostly physical, but they were honest and real.

"Oh, really?" I said, trying to sound indifferent.

"Mmm-hmmm," she cooed. "Why don't you come over? Nobody's home but little ol' me."

I felt a spot of color in my cheeks. Why don't I come over? Hell, there was only one reason that I could think of: Tommy.

Finally, after a long and thoughtful pause, I realized I was stranded. "It's just not a good night," I said, knowing she'd be put off by the vagueness of my answer.

"Why not?" she whined. It was probably the first time in her entire life that someone had rejected her. I imagined, judging by the sound of her voice, that those pretty pink lips were pouting. The image of that sexy, bratty pout was enough to send my libido into orbit. In my mind, I was already out the door and halfway to her house, despite the fact that she lived all the way across town.

"I got stuck watching my little brother," I said, crestfallen. When my father first told me, in his gruff Now-Listen-Up voice, that I had to stay home on a Friday night to watch Tommy, it had sounded pretty lame, like I was basically being grounded for no reason. But now, having said it aloud, I felt like a complete tool. This was Amanda Johnson, for God's sake! I'd been lusting after her since the sixth grade, maybe longer. I don't know or care who you are (whoever might be reading this), but babysitting your little brother on any night, let alone a Friday night, isn't exactly the cool thing to do when you're a sixteen year old guy.

"Well, that's too bad," she teased. "I'm soooo lonely, and I could use someone to keep me warm."

I was just about to tell her that I'd be there in a heartbeat. I was just about to say that she had better be ready for some serious bedroom boogie. Instead, I just sat there like an idiot, staring into space, wondering what it would have been like if my parents had decided to take Tommy with them.

"Maybe tomorrow night?" she asked, already sounding bored.

"Yeah," I muttered dumbly, "definitely." The image of her face, her body, refused to leave my mind.

"I'll call you later, okay?" she said hurriedly.

"What time should we—" I was speaking to the dial tone. She had already hung up.

When The X-Files was over, I decided to turn in for the night. I was still thinking about Amanda, and I was still pissed-off at the fact that I was probably the only teenager in Hevven who was staying in on a Friday night. I mean, don't get me wrong, Hevven isn't exactly a happening town. Even on the weekends there's not much to do in the way of excitement. And even if I hadn't been stuck with Tommy, I would have had to walk to Amanda's house, because my parents never let me use my dad's car when they weren't home. But it would have been worth the walk, at least. What could be worse than what I was doing? I wasn't doing anything. Hell, I wasn't even getting paid!

I finally decided that, if I got some sleep, it might take my mind off Amanda. I was hoping she'd be around Saturday night, because my parents would be home then, and I'd be able to take the car. I shut off the television, threw my empty can of soda in the trash, and headed off to my bedroom. I climbed into bed, relaxing in the warmth and comfort of the blankets, and seemed to fall asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes.

Some forty minutes later, I woke up. The noise that had awakened me was coming from downstairs. Yawning, I slithered out of bed and tip-toed quietly down the stairs, realizing now that the noise I had heard was the television. Tommy was in the den. He was sitting Indian-style on the floor, no more than two feet away from the screen, shoveling handfuls of Cheez-Ums into his mouth.

"Aw, Tommy. It's past your bedtime," I said, yawning again. "Go to bed, dude."

He looked up from the screen. He was giving me what our mother had always called his Puppy-Dog Eyes, expecting me to feel sorry for him and change my mind. Not a chance.

"That may work with mom and dad, but not with me." I snatched the remote from the coffee table and clicked off the television. As the screen went suddenly dark, Tommy's face became a mask of sadness. He turned to me with watery eyes.

"Please..." he whined.

"No," I said.

"Please, please, please! It's not fair!"

Not fair? I mused. Mom and dad left me to babysit my kid brother—their son—on a Friday night, so that they could go and get smashed with their friends. How freaking fair was that?

"No way," I told him, shaking my head. "Go to bed."

"I'll give you a dollar."

I laughed in his face.

"Pretty please with sugar on—"

"Damnit, Tommy! No!" I shouted, perhaps louder than I should have. Tommy flinched but quickly regained his childish cockiness.

"You swore," he whispered. "I'm telling mom."

"I don't care." I moved closer to him. "Go to bed! Now!"

"Why should I?"

I thought about that for a moment, turning various reasons around my head. Finally, I decided that the best way to get Tommy to go to bed was to scare him into doing it. I've got to admit, I've never been much of a storyteller, which is ironic because I love to read. Hell, I considered myself lucky when I pulled-off a C average in English class. But that night was different. That night I was right up there with the best of them. I was Poe, King, Barker, and Shelley, all rolled into one.

"Because if you don't," I said in an ominous voice, "the Lateman will get you."

It sounded so bad, it was good. I have to admit, I was pleased with myself, my imagination. It sounded damn scary the way I said it, too. But now, after all that has happened, I wonder about that moment. I wonder about it every day of my life. Where the hell did such an idea come from? Perhaps, it was always there, lurking like a shadow in the back of my mind, waiting to slither forward into the light, to become words on my tongue, to become a reality. Truth is, I'll probably never know the answer.

"Who's he?" Tommy whispered. His eyes were as wide as saucers. His mouth hung open, the lips trembling slightly. I knew I had him, hook, line, and sinker.

"Not 'who'," I muttered, lowering my voice to a sandpapery rasp, "It'. The Lateman takes away the bad kids that don't go to bed on time. He takes them into the night, where nobody ever sees them again."

"Well, what does he—what does it—?"

"What does it look like?" There was no stopping now. I was on a roll. "It's big, real big. It doesn't have a face, just sort of a shape. Kinda like a shadow, or a whole bunch of 'em. It waits in the darkness, and when you're up past your bedtime, it comes a-knockin' on the door. And no one can stop him from taking you away."

I paused, relishing the fear in his eyes. It pleased me. It makes me sick when I think of it now, but it really pleased me to see that he was scared shitless of something I had created. "You better go to bed before it comes. When the Lateman comes a-knockin', nobody can stop 'em!"

"'Kay," Tommy whispered. He nodded his head in compliance and sprang to his feet. "G'night!"

I felt a rush of air as he ran past me, and seconds later I heard the satisfying sound of his bedroom door slamming shut.

Just to stress my point, I followed him upstairs, where I rapped my knuckles on his bedroom door and bellowed: "When the Lateman comes a-knockin', nobody can stop 'em!" I chanted once more.

"Stop!" he hollered, almost sobbing, and I laughed.

I laughed!

I returned to my own room and once again nestled myself between the covers. As much as I hate to admit it, sleep came slowly this time, for I too was frightened by my story. Nearly an hour passed before sleep finally found me again.

That's when the dream began, the one that won't go away.

I watch as Tommy leaves his bedroom, wearing the camouflage pajamas that I bought him last Christmas. He looks pale and vulnerable, and there are shiny streaks across his face, as if he has been crying. He begins down the stairs and I follow him—I don't think he can see me—through the living room and into the kitchen. Then the sound comes: three slow, hollow raps on the front door, followed by a sadistic mimicry of my own voice, chanting, echoing over and over:

WHEN THE LATEMAN COMES A-KNOCKIN', NOBODY CAN STOP 'EM!

I scream to Tommy. I tell him not to open the door. I tell him not to go anywhere near the door. But he does not hear me. He cannot see me. Tommy opens the door a crack and the cold air rushes in at him. Outside, a cold October wind is blowing fallen leaves across the ground. Plain as day, I can hear the leaves rattle and crackle and make stealthy little scritch-scratch noises as they float across the pavement. For the rest of my life, I will never forget the whispering of those autumn leaves. Nor will I ever forget the smell in the air. It was a nauseating smell, like roadkill in the middle of a summer heat wave, only ten times worse. It was the smell of something dead, all right. Maybe even the smell of death itself.

As Tommy peers through the crack, something hammers against the door from the outside, sending a shockwave that seems to make the entire house tremble on its foundation, forcing the door inward even as he leans his entire weight against it. The door flies open, smashing against the inside wall, sending Tommy sprawling across the kitchen floor. Then it comes for him.

A wave of shadows crashes over the threshold and slides across the kitchen tiles, slowing its forward momentum in order to form a thick puddle at Tommy's feet. Others follow the first wave, peeling from the night with erratic, bat-like movements, lunging forward to join their brethren. The shadows rapidly coagulate, rising up from the floor, shaping themselves into something that looks as if it has crawled out of the bottom of a swamp, something that appears vaguely humanoid.

The Lateman moves with such fluid grace that poor Tommy hasn't the time to gather his senses. It releases a thick black tendril that wraps itself around his neck. Tommy's piercing scream is utterly unbearable as he scratches and claws at the living noose. I try to grab him by the arm to pull him away from that—that thing. But my hands pass right through him. I look at my hands, utterly shocked. What am I? I wonder. A ghost? It is at this moment that I realize I am nothing more than an observer. I am helpless to watch while Tommy is being smothered by that thing.

He tries to scream again, but the sound is muffled, because the shadow-things are flowing into his open mouth, and all that comes out is a grotesque gagging sound, like the sound of a person choking on mud. Little by little, they enfold his squirming body, leaving only his feet untouched. For a moment, he looks as though he's part of an enormous black candle, melting in the heat of some unseen flame. Tommy's toes scrape the tiles, twitching mindlessly as the thing constricts, as if trying to absorb him.

For some reason it occurs to me that the shadows are not separate entities, as I had first surmised, but different pieces of a whole. Like fingers on a hand, they are all a part of the Lateman.

At last the shadows begin to withdraw, taking my little brother with them. Tommy disappears into the cold October night, dragged away by the many shadow-things that are really just pieces of one dark being. And I know that he is dead.

When I awoke that night, I was panting, sitting upright in my bed. A cold sweat had broken on my forehead. I was trembling. I could remember every last detail of the dream with hellish clarity. I threw my blankets aside and sprang to my feet. It was crazy to think that something was wrong. After all, it was only a dream. I knew it was crazy, but I had to be sure.

I ran down the hallway and stopped at Tommy's open door. Had Tommy closed the door? I wondered. I'd heard him slam it shut, hadn't I? I scrabbled in the darkness, and my heart triphammered as my fingers located the light switch. Without hesitation, I flipped the switch.

Artificial light murdered the darkness to reveal

(video games scattered across the floor...a battalion of army men and several Matchbox cars mingled on the pockmarked lid of a child-sized desk...a framed poster autographed by Tom Brady, which was Tommy's most cherished possession...a Fisher-Price telescope by the window...)

an empty bed.

I spent hours looking for Tommy after that, but my efforts were in vain. I found only one piece of evidence as to what had become of him. Wedged between the hinges of the front door was a bloody swatch of camouflage pajamas; all that was left of my little brother.

That's it. That's my story, crazy as it sounds. After a brief and relatively unpublicized police investigation, it was determined that Tommy had been abducted. The dogs were brought in to search the area, including the local swamp. The Hevven Gazette ran a small article about Tommy's disappearance, which included the local police hotline, but no tips were ever reported. We, my parents, neighbors, and I, did everything shy of putting Tommy's picture on milk cartons. Everyone held out the hope that Tommy would return, or be returned, healthy and unharmed. I alone knew better.

Now he comes to me in my dreams. Every night I have that same awful dream! It's driving me crazy. That's why I'm in here. Night after night, nothing else but that dream!

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall apart on you. It's just hard, you know? I mean, I loved my little brother. That's what nobody seems to understand. I loved him.

So here I am, the son of two divorced parents and the brother of a missing child, and if I've learned anything from that night it's that sometimes, when you imagine something, you give it the power to live, if even for a second, within the fertile landscapes of your mind. After all, isn't that how movies, books, and works of art are made? Somebody has to think of them first; somebody has to create them, somebody has to turn the vision into a reality.

But maybe if you believe in something enough, it can become real on its own. Maybe, if you imagine something dark and terrible, it can become strong enough to free itself somehow. I created the Lateman in my mind, so I can't help but feel responsible for what happened. Whenever I close my eyes and fall asleep, I dream of Tommy. Poor, innocent Tommy.

I've almost gotten used to the dreams by now. They are now so frequent and predictable that I almost look forward to them. There are some things that really bother me, though. One of them is this: when the Lateman came a-knockin' on our door that night, calling out to Tommy, its voice sounded an awful lot like mine. The other thing that bothers me is the sound of those fallen leaves rattling on the pavement. Even to this very day, whenever I hear those autumn leaves blowing in the wind, I feel as though they know the truth. I feel as though they are whispering to me, beckoning me, trying to tell me some secret truth. Only I can hear them. And I know...

The Lateman is a part of me, and I'm a part of it, for I created it, molded it, nourished it from the darkness of my mind. I gave it a history, a story, a life. I unleashed it on my brother. Oh God, it was in me all along, just waiting to get out.

The shadow in the dream—the faceless evil which claimed my little brother's life—was me.

God forgive me, it was me!

#  Reflections – Part I

"It's almost as though people only see what they want to see," Brad Gauthier whispered secretively. "It's, like, selective reality or somethin'." He leaned across the table, as if trying to emphasize the profoundness of this last statement. "You know what I mean?"

Across from him, Tony Hill nodded in agreement to whatever point his friend was trying to make. Anyone could see that he was not invested in the conversation; that it was, in fact, not even a conversation but a monologue. It had been well over twenty minutes since Tony had spoken, and anyone could see that he was only listening with half an ear; anyone, that was, except for Brad.

They were sitting in a corner booth by one of the two front windows of Donut Hevven, an all-night coffee shop located in the diminutive center of Hevven. Outside, a thin veil of fog nuzzled up against the window, occasionally disturbed by the headlights of a passing car. Inside, the fluorescent lights were obscenely bright, making everything they touched—the front counter with its cash register, the racks of colorfully decorated donuts, the lacquered booths, and finally the boys themselves—seem a bit too real.

It was almost midnight, and the parking lot held but two lonely automobiles: Brad's primer-gray "Not-so" Grand Am, as the boys liked to call it, and a brown pickup truck that Tony assumed belonged to Mack, the night manager of Hevven's only coffee shop, and the only person on staff at the moment.

One of the fluorescent bulbs began to flicker and buzz. It winked on and off for a moment and then crackled back to life, brighter than before. Tony had not noticed the buzzing sound until now, and it was several seconds before he realized that his friend had stopped talking. He looked up and saw that Brad had paused to take a delicate sip from the plastic coffee mug he was holding in his hand, lips groping as they sought for the opening in the lid. Brad winced and the coffee dribbled down his chin and onto his North Face fleece.
"Sonofabitch! That shit is hot!" Brad muttered, clumsily dabbing at the stain with a napkin. When he was done, he took an even more delicate sip from his mug, determined this time not to spill a single drop. When he was finished, he smacked his lips in victory and carefully set the mug on top of the table, where he held it between his two hands, coveting its warmth. "Anyway," he continued slowly, as if Tony were waiting with baited breath, "you know what I'm sayin', right?"

Tony nodded again. He had no idea what Brad was rambling on about, but instinct told him when to nod, when to smile, and when to shake his head. As Brad continued, Tony proceeded to stare at their reflections on the large, dark window. He took a long drag from his cigarette and watched, quite fascinated, as his reflection did the same, staring back at him with eyes far darker than his own. Tony moved his gaze a bit to the right, where Brad's reflection lip-synced words and gestured with its hands and occasionally drank from a plastic coffee mug that looked suspiciously like the one that Brad was holding in his hand. With a face that was a grotesquely twisted representation of his own, Brad's reflection mimicked his every motion swiftly and silently, like the ghost of some demonic mime.

There are two different worlds, thought Tony. The one on the other side of that window, the real world, and the world of reflections that somehow hides itself within ours. It appears to be the same, it appears to be a part of our world, but it's not. It's Their world. It's always been Their world. They simply hide Themselves when we come close to seeing the truth...when we can see inside. They feed us images, make us feel secure. When we look into mirrors or windows, it's not us we see, it's Them. They show us what we want, what we expect, so They can go undetected. They imitate us, study us, so that someday...yes, someday, They can take our places. Even shadows...

Oh, God! thought Tony. Shadows! They follow us everywhere we go. And when they can't follow us anymore, they shrink away and watch us from the dark corners of rooms and from the cool, dark shade of bushes and trees. But this is crazy, right? I mean, I don't even know how I think of these things.

Outside, in the real world, a police cruiser passed slowly down Main Street in search of law-breakers. In search of Punks, as the members of the Hevven Police Department often referred to the town's youth population.

"That reminds me," Brad said as he watched the cruiser drift out of sight. "Did you hear that another girl went missing?"

This last part interested Tony, so he was finally forced to break his silence. "Yeah," he answered politely in his soft-spoken voice. "I just saw that on the news this morning."

"They found her car out on Route Three, just across the town line," Brad said, raising his voice a notch. "Some people are starting to say it's like them Hacker murders all over again."

Tony nodded. "Is that what they're saying?"

After a moment of silence, Brad was at it again, his voice droning like an insect. A few minutes later, he was interrupted by Mack, the middle-aged man who ran the graveyard shift. Until now, he'd been cleaning the kitchen and making donuts in preparation for the morning rush.

"Can I getcha boys anything?" Mack asked in a deep, cigar-ravaged voice. He was standing behind the cash register, near the door that led to the kitchen, his maroon smock smeared with flour and water, his long silver hair tied back in a ponytail. From behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his gray crossed-eyes were the size of two silver dollars.

"I'm all set."

"No, thank you."

Mack scratched his silver-gray beard, already making his way toward the pantry door. "Alrighty. You need anything, just give a holla. I'll be stockin' up the kitchen for t'marra."

Tony looked at his empty mug on the counter, noticing the shadow that fell in and behind it. They hate us, he thought suddenly. They hate us because we have lights that hurt Them. And because, he thought as he peered into the dark bottom of the mug, we devour Them sometimes. We consume Them. Tony didn't know where such crazy thoughts were coming from, but he was beginning to feel nauseous.

"If you ask me," Brad went on, still speaking in that conspiratorial tone, "this entire town is weird as shit. It's like the fuckin' Bermuda Triangle or somethin'. People are always missin', and those who turn up are always dead! Murdered!"

Murdered.

Tony turned that awful word around and around his mind. I'll bet the shadows got them, he thought. Or the reflections. In his mind's eye he saw people being dragged into Their world by reflections in mirrors and glass, and by silent, creeping shadows. Who would know? Who would ever know?

"...Take that place where they found that dead girl last summer, the old Courtland Chemical Research building. Well, I heard that Courtland Chem was really just a front for some kind of secret government think-tank. Just like that place out in the desert—what's it called?—Area 51. Supposedly, back in the seventies, the people out at Courtland did all kinds of crazy experiments with gene splicing, and some top secret military shit, and practically all of the employees died of some unknown virus. That's why it got shutdown, 'cause there was no one left to run it. You know the place I mean, right?"

Tony nodded. Most local kids knew the story; it had become something close to an urban legend.

"...some kind of accident," Brad was saying. "Rained down a bunch of toxic shit that turned the whole neighborhood yellow..."

Outside, a rusted white Bronco with a spider-webbed windshield pulled into the parking lot and filled the empty space beside Brad's Not-so Grand Am. Two boys, both a year older than Tony and Brad, hopped out of the cab and began for the door of Donut Hevven. In the midst of his rambling monologue, Brad barely noticed them.

But Tony did. He also noticed the elongated, almost monstrous shadows that crept along behind them.

As the two boys entered the coffee shop, their shadows fell behind, lost in the bright fluorescent lights, and were quickly replaced by animated reflections on the grass.

Tony watched Them (the reflections) in the window as They stepped up to the simulated counter. A moment later, a reflection in the form of Mack (which, Tony knew, was actually one of Them in disguise) came to wait on Them. Tony continued to watch as They pretended to purchase two sodas from the Mack-reflection, and then proceeded to seat Themselves only three booths away from him and Brad.

Recognizing them, Brad offered them a nod—not because he associated with them, but because that's what you did when you lived in a town the size of a postage stamp. Brad certainly hadn't expected a brass band, but he hadn't expected the fuck-off-and-die look, either, though that's what he got in return.

But Tony wasn't even looking in their direction, and Brad looked away as soon as he saw the possibility of a hostile situation. Besides, Tony wasn't thinking about them. He was, however, thinking about Them. They know, Tony realized, and They're trying to keep an eye on me. He looked at his hands and saw that he was trembling.

I can't leave. If I do, They'll get me. They know that I know about Them. And They'll get me. They'll get me because I know. Brad couldn't understand...would refuse to try and understand. No one could understand. No one would believe me.

Three booths away, the two boys were talking about the party they had apparently abandoned. They reeked of marijuana and keg-beer. "Talk about a fuckin' sausage party," the driver of the Bronco slurred. Neither Brad nor Tony recognized him or his truck.

The long-haired passenger, however, was none other than Max Kendall, a local hood whose temper was as sensitive as a hair-trigger. "No shit," Max cackled angrily. "That's what we get for going to a fuckin' pit party."

Brad eyed them nervously and then turned to his friend. "You know," he said, "It's getting pretty late. I wanna get goin'. I hafta work in the morning."

We can't leave, not now. They know. They know and They'll get me. But you have to leave, he reminded himself, because no one will believe you.

I can't.

You have to!

I can't.

You can't just sit here all night. The cops will probably bust your ass for loitering; put you in a dark cell all by yourself. Then They'll get you for sure.

They're gonna kill me.

You don't have much choice, now do you? Besides, you're probably just being paranoid, anyway.

Tony hesitated for a minute, arguing with himself, and then rose beside Brad. The two hoods watched them out of the corners of their eyes, still hoping to find a reason to get into a fight. Not that they needed much of a reason, really. Just one little look from Tony or Brad would have been more than sufficient. Just one little look; the kind of look that would signify that they weren't afraid, that they weren't aware of who they were dealing with, that they needed to be taught a lesson they would never forget. But Brad was smart enough to know that a "look" was all it took to start a fight these days. So he looked, not at Max Kendall or his friend, but at Tony, who was looking out the window, at the dim parking lot outside, with a troubled expression on his face.

Maybe, just maybe, there is just enough light to get us safely to Brad's car, Tony reasoned. Maybe we'll be safe in the car. If I can shut the door fast enough, They'll be locked out. After all, Brad's dashboard lights were pretty bright, weren't they?

Tony followed Brad out of Donut Hevven, and stepped into the cool November night. He watched the shadows carefully, making sure they weren't being followed. Meanwhile, Brad thanked God for not letting them get their asses kicked by Max Kendall and his scummy friend. We're almost there, he thought with unbridled joy. By now, he was sure They were after Brad as well. Surely, They weren't stupid enough to leave behind a witness.

Now all I have to do, Tony thought again, is get into the car as quickly as possible. Then we'll be safe.

Tony hopped into the car and slammed the door behind him.

"Dude! Easy on the door," Brad scolded.

"Sorry," Tony muttered. But he really wasn't.

I think we're safe now. We locked Them outside. You'll never know how close we came to dying, Brad. You'll never know. And if I ever tell you, you'll probably laugh at me. You wouldn't believe a single word of it. Not in a million years. They're gone...for now, anyway.

Then came another voice, cold and rational: Yeah? Maybe!

I shut Them out. I locked the little bastards outside.

Maybe, said that other voice. Or maybe They're hiding in the backseat.

Although Tony was certain They were gone, he could not bring himself to check back there. Brad started his Not-So Grand Am and pulled onto Main Street.

Later that night, Tony Hill was sitting on his bed with his back against the wall and his knees drawn to his chest. He couldn't climb beneath the covers—God, no, there were shadows under there! He had just finished the Lord's Prayer when something in the far corner of his room began to move. Soon, other shapes began to materialize in the gloom. Although he believed in God and he believed in the light, they offered him little comfort.

***

On the outer edge of the lamplight, a legion of shadows swirled around him, plotting and planning and waiting to kill—because he knew.

#  The Still

Galatians 5:19-21

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

## PROLOGUE: Night Terrors

There's no such things as monsters, my mother whispers tenderly as she sits upon the edge of my bed. She smiles down at me, her face hovering just above mine, as she draws the blankets up to my neck to protect me from the winter chill. I watch as her eyes find the stack of monster comics that lay scattered about my night stand—gruesomely illustrated tales of creatures torn from the dark underbelly of a nightmare—and in that harrowing instant, unaware that I'm watching her every move, her smile seems to falter. It is an almost imperceptible reaction, little more than a twitch of the lips; it is there and gone in the blink of an eye, though just long enough to make my heart turn cold.

There's no such things as monsters, she repeats in a faraway voice. Or demons, she adds, looking back into my frightened face, running her slender fingers through my hair in that slow, loving fashion that always makes me sleepy.

Outside, the wind offers its own opinion, screaming murder through the treetops, tapping its icy fingers against my bedroom windows, shaking the entire house until it shudders and moans like a ship at sea. It is the kind of night that preys on a child's imagination, and as I squirm beneath the sheets, I question whether there is even the slightest bit of truth in my mother's words, or if she is lying just to calm me into sleep. Or perhaps, even worse, what if she is ignorant of the truth? What if there are things about the world that even grown-ups do not understand?

She must sense my uncertainty, for she continues in her calming voice, Those things are just make-believe, Dylan. Just figments of your imagination. Do you understand what I mean?

I nod drowsily, already succumbing to the warmth and weight of the blankets, the somehow hypnotic pace of my mother's fingers moving through my hair. And as I drift off to parts unknown, I see my mother as if through a shifting fog, standing by my bedroom door with one hand hovering above the light switch. The hand at the light switch seems to move up and down; the slightest of gestures; a goodnight wave. A wave that I do not return, because I am already half asleep, and can barely keep my eyes from closing.
As her hand slides forward to turn off the light, I wish that I was not so sleepy. I wish that I could return her wave, to show her that I am brave, to show her that I love her. I try to will myself to Wake up! Wake up!

Just before her fingers find the switch, I notice that she is wearing an odd expression, one that I have never seen before. Her mouth is smiling, but her eyes are humorless. Only now, in the moment before darkness floods my bedroom, do I realize the awful truth.

My mother wasn't waving goodnight.

She was trembling.

In my mind, I kick and scream and fight against it, but sleep pulls me away from the waking world like a drowning man from the surface of a lake, pulling me down, down into the bottomless dark.

First, the darkness fills my eyes, and I am blind.

Then it fills my ears, and all sound disappears, as if sucked out of the world with a giant vacuum.

I try to scream, and the darkness flows into my open mouth. Presently, the darkness comforts me. It flows through my veins, corrupting every cell.

At last, the darkness and I become one.

## Chapter One: The Way to The Truth

I've been sitting here for quite some time now, staring at the unrelenting glare of my computer monitor, trying to figure out just how I'm going to tell you about what I have discovered—how I'm going to tell you about the beginning of the end—and trust me, it isn't easy. Two hours and a six pack later, I still don't know where to begin. But there's one thing I know for sure: I can't trust anyone, not even my old friend Bill. Hell, I can't even trust myself anymore.

Two months ago, the voices returned. It all went downhill from there. I'm being watched, you know. Well, it's not just that I'm being watched; it's more like I'm being monitored. The same way those pointy-nosed, nerdy-looking scientists in sci-fi movies monitor the behavior of lab animals after injecting them with some kind of experimental virus, calmly taking notes as the poor creatures die, thrashing and twitching inside their cages. That's just how I feel right now, as if I'm trapped inside a cage, only my cage is mental rather than metal.

I'm sure that Doctor Morgan, my psychiatrist, would consider that last admission a breakthrough of sorts. She'd probably even find some fancy way of rationalizing my paranoia. And maybe I am just a little bit paranoid, but so what? I don't need a Ph.D. to know that I'm losing my mind. That's why I'm writing this all down, so that I can warn others (and hopefully, there will be others) about what is going to happen; what is already happening to me right now.

The voices are driving me insane.

I was only seventeen when I first gazed upon the dazzling light of truth that amazed my soul and swallowed my thoughts:

There are such things as monsters.

There are such things as demons.

There is a place where monsters and demons and the undead still live, still love, still hunger for life eternal, indulging in untold pleasures beyond all imagination. A world suspended between Heaven and Hell, life and death. It is a place that remains hidden from the eyes of man, a world somehow wrapped within our own, like a pearl wrapped and preserved within an oyster.

A place where time itself stands still.
Eight years ago, on a humid day in July, my friends and I stumbled upon that world, deep within the heart of the Hockomock Swamp. A small, elusive pool of water is all that separates our two worlds; all that separates reality from fantasy, dreams from nightmares.

I am writing this journal because I fear that I will be joining my friends soon, down in the dark depths of that pool. Even now, I can hear Them whispering to me, trying to control me, to lead me back to that place. They wish to scatter my humanity to the four winds, to feast upon my flesh and blood, to feast upon my very soul, and to claim everything that has and ever will be me. Little as it may be, I have some degree of strength left in me now. As time weakens the fibers of my being, They will own me, and I will be lost.

There is even a part of me that embraces my fate. For late at night, when the hour is none, I dream the dreams of the damned. I satisfy my every desire without guilt or shame or consequence. I dwell only in the darkest regions of the human soul, that secret place where nightmares, dreams, and fantasies are born, and I know what it means to be truly free.

Let me assure you, whoever you may be, I'm not the least bit crazy. Not at this moment in time, anyway. Right now, I'm as sane as anyone, probably more so, and I haven't had a hard drink in months. Sometimes I think it would be better if I really were crazy, because then it would be so much easier to accept what is happening to me.

What I am about to tell you is the absolute truth. Had I known then what I know now, I never would have stepped one foot into that godforsaken swamp.

If someone is actually reading this, then maybe They haven't gotten to you yet.

Maybe that means that there's hope. For you, I mean.

I've accepted my fate, and I can't waste any more time worrying about the inevitable.

My name is Dylan McMasters, and this is my final journal entry...

## Chapter Two: The Way It Began

It was an ordinary day in July when my best friend, John Pratty, disappeared. I didn't know it at the time, but John was the sixth link in a bizarre chain of vanishings that took place that year, beginning—to the best of my knowledge—with the disappearance of one of my former classmates, a sophomore by the name of Tony Hill.

The police did little for the matter. Chief Moriarty staged an impromptu press conference on the alabaster steps of City Hall, during which he declared the investigation was "ongoing" and assured the good citizens of Hevven that there was "no indication of foul play." By most accounts, the investigation into the disappearance of Tony Hill ended roughly five minutes after the reporters shut off their recorders and the television crews put their cameras away. As far as the Hevven Police Department was concerned, Tony Hill was just another runaway teenager. And when John Pratty disappeared, not long after Tony Hill, they assumed the same of him. Only this time, they did not even bother to hold a press conference.

Even then, young as I was, I wondered if the police knew something we townspeople didn't. I could not help but wonder if they were withholding some vital information. It was possible, I supposed, that the police themselves were even in on the whole damn mess. Of course, there was no solid evidence to support my theory, but it left me wondering just the same. This, I've felt, has always been the scariest part, because you never knew...you never knew who was one of Them. Not unless They wanted you to know, and by then it was already too late.

It wasn't until three days after John disappeared that the only search worth mentioning, my own search, began.

For as long as I can remember, John had always been the adventurous one in our group. It wasn't at all unusual for him to take off by himself, taking with him little more than the clothes on his back and a bottle of water, to venture into the local swamp, the Hockomock. But this was different. The Hockomock seemed to be brooding something rather extraordinary that year. It's hard to explain to someone who wasn't there at the time, but it was as though the air itself was tainted. It leaked from all sides of the swamp, as palpable as the smell of a rotting corpse, its rankness thinly veiled beneath the sweet, enticing perfume of lilacs, honeysuckle, and scores of exotic flowers yet to be discovered by man. A smell that was at once both repulsive and seductive.
Others in our town seemed to sense it too, though few were brave enough to discuss it out loud. Even as the bodies began to pile up, they did nothing, said nothing, and to this very day their silent indifference still troubles me. This will sound like paranoia, but I've always suspected—and this is more of a guess than anything—that maybe I was simply too young to see the big picture. I knew there was something going on, all right; something that involved parents, neighbors, teachers, even some members of the police department. But what I couldn't grasp, what I'd been too narrow-minded to see, was that maybe, just maybe, the entire town was in on the whole charade. Maybe I was one of only a small handful of people who was not involved in the conspiracy.

Until John Pratty disappeared, I'd thought that evil was confined to the Christian renditions of Hell, the place where sinners were sent to pay their dues to a horned Devil wielding a pitchfork, where people suffered for all eternity, and the air was full of sulfur and brimstone and burning flesh. Until that blistering summer, the summer of my seventeenth birthday, I could not have comprehended the true nature of evil.

Not even in my darkest nightmares.

## Chapter Three: The Search for John Pratty

We moved at a steady pace through the forest, the evergreens and elms closing in around us as if trying to undermine our efforts. The air was so dense that the simple act of walking had become a chore; it was as though we had to push our way through the humidity. It was mid-afternoon, and the blazing summer sun was almost directly overhead, hardly more than an orange smudge behind the dense canopy of trees. I led the way, and my loyal companion, Billy Grant, struggled to keep up.

It had been three days since anyone had seen John, and we only hoped that he hadn't taken on the same fate as the others. When I say others, I mean that John was not the first to disappear. A week earlier, one of the missing was found in the forest, decomposed and bound to the trunk of an evergreen. Through dental records the coroner identified the corpse as Steven Parker, a local construction worker who disappeared a month earlier, on his way home from a friend's funeral. Under strict orders of the Hevven Police, the newspapers omitted the fact that Mr. Parker had been drained of every fluid in his body. Blood, urine, semen, stomach acid, every drop...gone. Rumor was, he was so dried up and shriveled, that when the cops tried to untie his body from the tree, the flesh of Parker's hands had crumbled away like autumn leaves. What the papers did report, however, was that the police believed there was a maniac out there who was trying to copy the modus operandi of the Hevven Hacker, and that news seemed to shake the very foundations of my home town.

In case you've never heard of him, the Hevven Hacker was a serial killer who was thought to have murdered a handful of local teenagers between the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Hevven Police eventually nabbed a suspect, some homeless man whose name I cannot recall. Sometime later, the man was tried, convicted, and given life without the possibility of parole. After the trial, he was shipped off to Walpole, where he promptly hanged himself. The Hevven Police Department, under the guidance of Chief Moriarty, was praised for their valiant efforts, and the good citizens of Hevven could finally breathe a little easier. Or so we thought.

While I was pondering the possibility of a Hacker copycat, Billy had other things on his mind. "Hey," Billy panted, pausing to wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead. "Hold up a sec."

"Alright." We sat down on a mat of pine needles, in the purple shadow of a towering evergreen. Billy sighed and removed his canteen from the clip on his belt, twisted off the cap, and guzzled greedily, letting the excess run down his neck and onto the front of his shirt. After he had taken his fill, he fished a battered pack of Winston's and a lighter from his front pocket. He lit a cigarette with a shaky, sweaty hand, and took a long drag. He handed me a smoke and I accepted it with a nod, lighting it with a book of Cumberland Farms matches I had snatched from my mother's pocketbook earlier that day. I've always preferred Marlboros, but one makes do.

For several minutes we sat and smoked, thinking our own dark thoughts. It wasn't long before Billy broke the mood with his usual icebreaker: "I'm starvin'," he said apologetically, frowning at the hump of flab that rested around his midsection. "I really need to lose a few, huh?"

"I'm sure the smoking really helps a lot," I said brusquely. Taking my response as jocular, Billy looked up at me and smiled. His eyes were wide behind the thick lenses of his glasses, and it occurred to me—not for the first time, either—how much he reminded me of Piggy from Lord of the Flies.

"You're one to talk," he said, grinning.

I nodded distractedly, my mind a million miles away. I would normally have thought of a few sarcastic comebacks, but I had other things on my mind. More important things. I'd been thinking about Steven Parker, the latest victim, and I was praying that we wouldn't find John in the same condition, tied securely to an old tree, gutted like a fish.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Billy asked, grinding the cigarette filter between his teeth in that bizarre fashion that always reminded me of how Bugs Bunny nibbled on his carrots in those old Looney Tunes cartoons; mouth wide open, buck teeth showing, making that exaggerated lip-smacking sound. It never bothered me when Bugs chewed his carrots that way, but Bugs was a cartoon. When Billy did it right there in front of me, it was as irritating to me as fingernails screeching down a chalkboard. But this time, I let it slide.

"I'm just thinking about John," I muttered. I wasn't about to get into details, though. Billy was two years my junior, and I had the feeling that he couldn't handle the details. Then again, there were times when he surprised me, times when his ability to read me was almost scary.

"Do ya think we'll find him?" Billy asked, watching me very closely. "What I mean is, do you think we'll find him like they found that guy in the paper?"

I took a long, thoughtful drag from my Winston. I pictured John again, tied so tightly that the ropes bonded with his flesh, blood oozing from the holes where his eyes used to be. Holes that squirmed with maggots and buzzed with flies. I could have told Billy about the smell I was imagining—right down to the rankness of decomposing flesh—but I didn't. I couldn't. Because I didn't want to think about it or believe it myself.

"I'm sure he's fine," I said. I hoped my words were more convincing to him than they were to me. "He's probably out there somewhere, enjoying the hell out of himself. You know how he always loses track of time."

Billy struggled to his feet, where he took one last nibble-puff on his cigarette before he tossed it on the ground and stomped on it with one massive work boot. He clipped his canteen onto his belt. "Are we gonna keep goin' down the same trail?"

I looked at him and grinned. "Trail? What trail?"

There is a reason that the "Hock", as the old-timers sometimes call it, was both feared and revered by the Native Americans. Based on my research, the swamp's bizarre reputation dates back at least as far as the early 1600s, when the town of Hevven, Massachusetts was first settled by the colonials. The swamp and the surrounding forest got its name from the Native Americans. The word "Hockomock", in the Wampanoag language, means The Devil, and The Place Where Spirits Dwell.

Sightings of strange, ungodly creatures were once commonplace amongst the Wampanoags and the other local tribes. I learned of these sightings through records kept by the local historical society, and by various other sources on the Internet. Amazing little tool, the Internet. You can find out more than you would ever want to know about a subject in only a matter of seconds. Although most accounts differ dramatically, they all agree on one thing: those who dare to enter the unexplored regions of the Hock are often never seen again.

I have my own little theory as to how this happens, which is rather simple enough. I imagine it starts like this:

One day you find yourself driving along one of the many local back roads and, with no real sense of why you are doing it, you suddenly feel the urge to pull over. Perhaps something draws your attention; the dazzle-effect of sunlight glinting off a meandering river; a meadow full of grazing deer; or perhaps, you've simply had a rough week, and wish to get some fresh air and clear your head. Whatever the reason, something has drawn you here, and you decide to get out of the car for a better look.

While standing on the outskirts of the swamp, the place certainly looks harmless enough; trees swaying sensuously; birds twittering; a lovely scene, worthy of a photograph. Soon you become lulled into complacency by the Hock's natural splendor, and you decide to go for a little walk. Just a pleasant little walk, to see what lies beyond those trees. After all, you think to yourself, what's the harm? It's so peaceful out here, it seems almost wrong not to take a look-see.

With civilization at your back, you feel a sense of adventure, of reckless abandon, as you peer into the great unknown. Perhaps you go forward, not in spite of the potential dangers that lie ahead, but because of them. What if I get lost? What if it gets dark, and I can't find my way out of here? What if someone, or something, is in there, waiting for me? These thoughts cross your mind, but you tell yourself to stop being such a fool. Stop being such a silly, worrisome fool! Those things only happen in the movies, after all.

Stepping beyond the tree line, there is a definite sense of exhilaration. But not long after, all signs of dry land begin to disappear, and what is left is a dark and perilous wetland with only a few disjointed paths to follow, until eventually even those paths peter out into a boggy hell. And it is here, upon crossing this vague threshold, that the swamp begins to show its true face; twisted, impenetrable brambles that tear at the flesh like claws; clouds of mosquitoes thirsty for blood; scattered pockets of quicksand-like mud; narrow paths that look like something from a fairy tale gone awry. So you try to get your bearings, but everything looks the same. You try to retrace your steps, but you entered the swamp on a whim, and you've since taken so many twists and turns that you have no idea which path is the one that will lead you to safety.

You realize these things, but it is already too late.

You are now one of the lost.

In less time than you'd probably care to believe, your entire existence will be reduced to little more than a footnote in the greater mystery of the swamp, a cautionary tale to be told around campfires by Cub Scouts, and by drunken teenagers looking to score. Your partially decomposed remains might be found a few days or weeks later by a police dog trained not in search and rescue, but in body recovery. Or, perchance, several years later, a group of hunters may stumble upon a bone or two, long after the scavengers have picked them clean. Looking at your scattered remains, these hypothetical hunters might even be smart enough to know that those are human bones, and report their find to the police. Of course, this is all based on the assumption that any trace of you will be found at all. Having sustained itself this way for more than twenty-five thousand years, the Hock knows a thing or two about keeping secrets. And, believe me, a swamp as old as the Hock has many, many secrets.

Billy and I were all too aware of the impossible task that lay ahead of us, and still we pressed on through the trackless wilderness, slowly at first, gradually building to a steady pace. This was unfamiliar territory, even to us, and we had spent years exploring various sections of the swamp and the surrounding woods. Without a trail to follow, we knew there was a very real possibility that we too might find ourselves among the missing, but with John on our minds, we pressed on.

After a few more hours of wandering, I realized our search was in vain, and that we would not find John in the Hock. At least, not yet. Dejected, we reversed our course and began to retrace our steps. Billy followed me like a lost puppy, too hungry to question my sudden decision.

It was an hour before the swamp finally released us.

"So, I guess I'll see you at The Spot tonight?" Billy asked as we emerged from the forest and stepped onto the crippled pavement of Titicut Street, from which we had entered the forest earlier that day.

"The Spot" was an abandoned house on Carver Road, where the Lind's used to live. The Lind family had moved out last fall, shortly after their youngest son, Tommy, vanished without a trace. Rumor had it that the house was haunted. It was conveniently isolated, and since none of us owned a car, which the police might have spotted from the road, it was the perfect hang-out.

"I guesso," I said. "I think I'll bring Jen."

Jen was John's older sister. She was also my high school sweetheart. As fate would have it, the night of John's disappearance was impossible to forget, for it also marked the precise day of my three-month anniversary with his sister. Three months, man. In those days, it felt like a lifetime. As you can probably imagine, Jen was a nervous wreck. She and John had always been close, and his disappearance had left her despondent. I was hoping to cheer her up a bit.

"Alright," Billy said, shrugging off his backpack to retrieve his headphones. "I'll see ya later. I'm going home to grab some chow. Oh, here—" He reached into his front pocket and handed me a Winston. "For the road," he explained.

"Thanks, man."

"No problemo." With that, he slipped his headphones on and started down the street, walking in cadence to a song I could not hear.

I watched him go, smoking my cigarette as the charred sky deepened to purple.

With nothing more than dark visions for company, I turned in the direction of my house. But before I left, I took the time to get one more look at the Hock. I had this awful feeling that I was being watched, the kind of feeling that makes your flesh tingle. Now that I think about it, it was probably more than my imagination that told me a killer was out there somewhere, smiling from the cover of bushes and trees, a shadow amongst shadows. The Devil unchained.

## Chapter Four: The Girl and the Darkness

Growing up, I guess you could say I was what some people refer to as a Latch-Key Kid. For as long as I can remember, my father, a fireman, had always worked late at his station in Futawam, so I was kind of used to him not being home. My mother, on the other hand, didn't start working full-time as a Practical Nurse until I entered junior high school. I guess, at twelve years old, she'd finally decided I was old enough to babysit myself. I soon learned that her being home everyday to greet me at the door, to make me lunch and dinner and to do my laundry, was a luxury I had long taken for granted.

So when I arrived at the cozy raised-ranch that I had called home for close to seventeen years, I barely noticed that the place was an empty shell, that the windows were like dark, sunken eyes, that the silence was as thick as molasses. Despite the fact that I'd been making myself dinners for the better part of the past five years, I was a miserable cook, mostly due to outright laziness. Eager to hurry out to The Spot, I took my fill of a five-minute dinner consisting of two microwaved chili dogs, a handful of Doritos, and a Coke, all of which I wolfed down in a matter of seconds. Still munching on the tail-end of a chili dog, I called my sweetheart, Jen Pratty.

"Hi, Dylan," she answered in a trembling voice. "How are you?"

Here she was, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and she was asking me how I was doing? She was the most loving person I have ever known.

"I'm fine, Jen. More importantly, how are you?"

"I'm holding up okay," she said, pausing long enough for me to infer otherwise. "I've just been looking through some old pictures..."

"Look, baby, Billy and I just got back from the woods—"

"I don't know what I would do without you guys," she blurted. "Were you able to find anything?"

I could sense her hope burning on the other end of the line, and my heart went heavy inside my chest.

"Not this time. But look, Jen, that doesn't mean we won't find him. You know John. He could live out there for a month with nothing but the clothes on his back."

"I know," she said. "I know. I just have this awful feeling..."

Her words faded into a series of hiccupping sobs.

An image flickered through my mind: Jen Pratty sitting on her bed with the phone pressed against her ear, trying to stifle her sobs so that I would not think her weak. I wanted to hold her, to comfort her. Unfortunately, due to lack of experience, consoling sobbing girlfriends was not my forte. Still, it was my duty as her boyfriend to try. "Baby? Jen? It's going to be okay. Billy and I are going to keep on looking. We won't give up. John...he's like a brother to me. You know that, right?"

"Yuh-yes," she whimpered. "Dylan, you have to promise to be careful. I love you so much. I honestly don't know what I would do if—if—"

For a moment, there was silence, time enough for me to pull out a few handfuls of my own hair. After a few seconds passed, I couldn't take it anymore. "Jen?" I said into the emptiness.

"Promise me."

"What? Anything."

"Promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise."

"I just have this b-bad f-feeling—"

"It's okay," I said. "Listen, Jen, I haven't seen you in what feels like forever. I was wondering if you'd like to go to The Spot tonight. Billy and I want to talk about what's been goin' on, maybe see if we can put our heads together and come up with a plan."

Silence came again. This time, it lasted a little longer.

"Jen? You still there?"

"Yeah," she said. "Sure. When are you comin' to get me?"

Right then, I should have known she was afraid of something...or someone. Jen had never asked me to come and get her; she always came to meet me. I like to walk alone, she had confided in me one evening, smiling playfully as she edged closer to me. We had just gotten back from a school dance, and we were standing on her parents' front porch. You're not afraid of the dark? I moved a step closer to her, closing the distance between us. No, she said, I'm more afraid of people. You'd never hurt me, would you, Dylan? That's when I finally decided to kiss her. It was our very first kiss. In her ear, I whispered, I'll never let anything happen to you. She searched my eyes for a very long time, perhaps looking to see if she could trust my words. She must have found something to believe in there, because she nodded her head in quiet confirmation. Then she put her lips against mine and we kissed again. The way she looked at me with such love in her eyes; the way she touched my face with her hands when we kissed; from that point forward, I knew there was no turning back. She was far too modest to realize it, but with that one kiss, she held my heart in the palm of her pretty little hand.

It's funny how even now, all these years later, I can still remember that night as though it were only yesterday, and other things, things that should be more important, have sort of faded away. Anyway, I didn't mind that she liked to walk alone at night. The Hevven Hacker, as I've explained, was long since dead, his body cremated, his soul returned to Hell. The town had since remained quiet, save for a few "runaway" kids and one dead construction worker. In spite of these things, as Jen asked me to walk down to get her, it seemed kind of foolish that I used to let her walk alone. In the wake of her brother's disappearance, now wasn't the time for a beautiful young girl to be walking the streets alone.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," I told her. I felt like a mighty knight, coming to the rescue of a beautiful damsel in distress.

"Alright," she said, composing herself. "See you then."

"I love you," I blurted, and even as the words left my mouth, I could not help but to marvel at the suddenness of our transition from friends to lovers. One day, she was little more than a passing acquaintance; my best friend's sister, practically my own flesh and blood; someone I said hello to on the bus and in the hallway. And just like that, we were holding hands between classes, chatting on the phone at all hours of the night, sneaking out of our houses for intimate rendezvous, talking about crazy things like our wedding day and our future together.

"I love you," I repeated, thinking that she had not heard me the first time. Then I waited for her usual response.

Instead, I was greeted by a click and a dial tone.

I pressed the hang-up button, trying to figure out exactly what I had found strange about our conversation. Then it hit me, all at once, like a chain of small explosions detonating within my mind. It was sort of insignificant, but it's those little things that seem insignificant that sometimes strike us as being strange. Jen Pratty had never hung up the telephone without saying something, four simple words which I had taken for granted until that night: "I love you more."

With a rising sense that everything was somehow wrong, somehow out of place, I stepped out into the cool, crisp evening. The sun had already ducked behind the trees, and the moon's silver eye shined down upon the earth with cold indifference. The air was gentle, fragrant, as it made the forest rock in soothing motions. Symphonies of crickets whirred and stopped at the sound of my footsteps, and continued once again as I passed by. From deep within the solitude of the forest, an owl screeched, a dreadfully lonely sound that made my skin break out in goose bumps.

To most people, it would have been the perfect evening. Maybe that's why it struck me as being somehow...artificial. Yes, everything seemed just a little too perfect, like a cover-up. I sensed something strange. I didn't know exactly what it was, but it made my blood run cold. Whatever it was, though, it was very, very wrong. I still had the feeling that a killer was watching me, smiling from the darkness of the forest, and my visions of John, mangled and decayed, returned to me in a storm of thoughts.

I was passing the place where Billy and I had entered the forest earlier that day, and then I heard it, a voice.

"Dylannnnnn..."

It was John's own voice, plain and simple; I knew that much for certain. But it was soft, diluted, as if his life had been drained, lacking all of the characteristics with which I associated with John; upbeat, lively, jovial. It had a wheezy quality, like air being squeezed out of a balloon. This was followed by a complete and utter silence. The wind, the crickets, the birds, the owl—all gone.

After stopping abruptly, I stood glaring into the dark forest with a combination of fear and excitement. Even with the moon overhead, I could see no more than several feet past the tree line. I strained my ears. Silence, but for the sound of my own heavy breathing.

"John?" I called out anxiously. Several seconds passed. I cannot begin to describe the grotesque images that flickered through my mind in that short duration. Of course, there was no reply. The sound of my own voice rising up, only to be conquered by that indomitable silence, was far more terrifying than any imaginary horrors. A few seconds later, I felt stupid, and strangely embarrassed for having said anything at all. Had I really expected an answer? Then there came another voice, this time, from the dim road behind me:

"Dylan, what're you doin'?"

I whirled around so quickly that I felt dizzy. What I saw was even more surprising.

Wearing a long, silky gown, Jen Pratty appeared before me like a dream. Her lithe body beckoned me from beneath the sheer fabric, nipples pointing out like two pebbles from the orbs of her breasts, her slim legs perfect right down to the toes. Her straight, dark hair was Medusa-wild in the still night air, as if each strand somehow had a life of its own. She was staring me down with those mystical hazel-blue eyes, with her full, sensuous lips pressed into a lopsided smirk.

I was speechless. It was all so unbelievable, all so surreal. All I could do was stare at her, drinking in her every feature, trying to commit each detail to memory. I felt an uncomfortable twitch between my legs, and I knew that I had to have her. I wanted to take her, taste her, lay her down and make love to her on the ground where she stood. But I didn't. Instead, I just stood there, gawking like a fool. A fool who thought he may have been having the most erotic dream of his life.

It wasn't that I'd never seen her naked before; Jen and I had made love on two occasions in the three months we'd been going steady, and it was always...sweet. I guess that's the proper word. But she had never looked so sensuous, so truly arousing, as she did right then, with her lips and nails painted blood-red, and a ghostly wind playing through her hair as the shadows crept around us.

"Who were you talkin' to, Dylan?" she repeated in a husky voice.

"I...uh..."

I didn't know what to say, or what to do, so I changed the subject. It was a skill I had been honing for a few years now, somewhere around the time when I started going to parties and my parents would wait up late and ask the dreaded but inevitable question: Dylan, have you been drinking? After a little while, my talent for changing the subject came naturally, sometimes unconsciously, and it usually worked. Not this time.

"God, you must be freezing," was all I could muster.

Jen giggled, still staring at me with wide, seductive eyes.

"Then why don't you warm me up?" she asked, caressing my hand with her fingertips.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. "I mean, are you drunk or something?" Jen was never much of a drinker. One night at The Spot, John and I gave her a few swigs of Schnapps and I quickly realized my mistake when I found myself holding her hair for her as she bent over the toilet for the next half hour. I knew she had a low tolerance for alcohol, but it seemed like the only explanation for this sudden, if not entirely unpleasant, change of behavior.

Jen threw her head back and laughed at the sky. She flicked her tongue across her lips. "You know I hate the taste of alcohol. But maybe you should kiss me. You know, just to see if you can smell the liquor on my breath?"

A kiss? I could handle that. A kiss was something familiar, something normal. I leaned toward her, but she put her fingers on my lips to stop me.

"Not here, silly." She grinned at me seductively. "Let's go down the path a little ways. I don't want anyone to see us."

Grasping my hand, she began to lead me into the forest and I stopped her just several feet short of the tree line.

"Let's go to The Spot instead. What do you think?" I asked. I still needed her, still wanted her, but I was starting to come to my senses. I was starting to think that maybe this wasn't just a dream after all. My erection was gone, and with it my passion.

"It's so beautiful here—" Her icy fingers tightened around my hand. "—in the darkness."

Reluctantly, I let her guide me away from the street. As the trees closed around us, a feeling of intense dread washed over me, and I tried with all my strength to resist her. I wanted to stop. I wanted to wake up and know that it was all some crazy dream. Twisted as it was, insane as it seemed, it was real. And it was starting to scare me because all along, in the back of my mind, I knew that the girl I was with was not Jen Pratty, and that I was making a grave error. Perhaps, a fatal one.

I tried to pull away from her, but I couldn't. Her hand was a cold vice locked around my wrist, cutting off the circulation. She wouldn't let me go. As Titicut Street disappeared behind us, something terrifying began to happen.

The shadows embraced her, peeling away from the night, wrapping around her body like bands of black electrical tape. No, they weren't just wrapping. They seemed to be eating away at her like acid, revealing strips of muscle, tendons, and veins. Several seconds after we entered the forest, she was fleshless from her knees to her feet. I looked down and saw two white things moving in the darkness below her as she pulled me deeper into the forest. It reminded me of the time I broke my leg and had to walk on crutches. But the white things weren't crutches. They were her legs, now nothing more than glistening bones. At that point, I believe I screamed. Yes, I screamed; screamed without guilt or shame or self-consciousness, but with the blind terror of someone on the verge of utter lunacy.

And she— it—was shrieking with joy.

Here, my memory is a bit blurry. Sometime later (it's hard to tell, because I was shaken so badly, you see) Jen became one with the night. At the last possible moment, I reached into that awful darkness to save her, catching a hold of one skeletal hand. A hand that dissolved even as I held it.

Her disembodied head began to blacken, collapsing inward upon itself like a rotten fruit. She opened her mouth and smiled at me, revealing row after row of needle-like teeth. That's when my survival instinct finally took over, and I began to run like hell.

Arms flailing, I smashed my way through the underbrush until at last I literally stumbled onto Titicut Street, where I collapsed onto my hands and knees and was immediately up and running again. And I kept on running, refusing to slow down even as my stomach ached and my lungs burned. It seemed as though I could still hear her blood-curdling laughter fading into the darkness, until at last even the sound of her came unraveled, laid to waste by the hungry shadows.

Eventually I stopped in front of a stranger's house. I stood doubled over with my hands pressed against my chest, trying to catch my breath, trying to convince myself that I wasn't going to have a heart attack. After a minute or two, I was finally able to stand erect, though I still had a nasty stitch on the side of my abdomen. The Pratty's house was just a little ways down the street, so I decided to walk it off. I was at the point where I was just beginning to think that I had imagined the whole thing, anyway. Then I noticed a sharp pain on my forearm. In the ruddy glow of a nearby streetlight, I held up my arm and saw a jagged trail of torn flesh from where the Jen-thing had raked its claws across my wrist.

Seeing this proof decided me. There was no denying that what had happened was real. I gave one final glance in the direction of the path, just to make sure that the Jen-thing wasn't following me, and started jogging in the direction of the Pratty's house. I was just beginning to hit my rhythm when a sudden wind arose, pushing at my back, whispering through the treetops.

But it wasn't the wind I heard whispering, it was the Jen-thing, and it was calling my name.

That's when I started to run again.

## Chapter Five: The Neighborhood Changes

It was dark outside when I arrived at the Pratty's white Garrison. The sensor-light that was mounted above their porch clicked on, greeting me, as I trotted up the familiar brick steps that led to the front door. Once there, I paused for a moment to try and catch my breath, once again promising myself that I would have to quit smoking soon.

Still panting, I knocked twice and waited.

A few moments later, Mrs. Pratty answered the door. She was looking at me in a way that I didn't like very much. Not much at all.

"Hi, Dylan," Mrs. Pratty said. "What're you doing here? Is everything alright?"

"I came to get Jen," I said, my voice faltering. "Is she here?"

"No, she left about fifteen minutes ago. I thought she left with you."

"No...I...I just left my house."

"You didn't pass her on the road?"

"No...I didn't see her."

"Hmmmm. That's strange. Hold on. Maybe my husband knows where she is," Mrs. Pratty said. She turned and called over her shoulder, "Mike! Mike, do you know where Jenny is?"

From somewhere inside the house, Mr. Pratty cleared his throat. "William. She left with William."

Mrs. Pratty turned back to me with a warm smile. "Well, there you go," she said in a sing-song. "They must be out looking for you."

"Thanks," I said, already galloping down the stairs. "I'll find them."

I was halfway across the Pratty's front lawn, when an unfamiliar voice, a voice that sounded like a record being played at half-speed, stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Not if we find them first, you meddling little cocksucker."

I stopped so fast that I almost fell over. Very slowly, very carefully, I turned around. I expected to see a leering corpse or, perhaps, the Jen-thing. But I saw neither of those things. What I did see, however, was Mrs. Pratty standing in the open doorway, and though the sensor-light was bright, the smile she was wearing was far brighter, though not nearly as pleasant.

"I...I'm s-sorry?" I asked, squinting into the light. "Did you say something?"

I was shaking quite terribly. And trust me, it had nothing to do with the chilly air. The muscles in my legs were taut with anticipation, eager to take flight.

"I asked if you've heard anything about John." Mrs. Pratty was giving me a cold, flat stare.

"No, not yet. He'll turn up sooner or later," I said, hoping I was correct in my assumption.

"I hope so," she said, "I'm worried sick about that boy." The dark glimmer in Mrs. Pratty's eyes gave me cause to think otherwise. It was the glimmer of a person with a secret.

"Me too," I said, pretending to believe her act, so as not to alarm whatever forces now possessed her.

You see, Billy and I had made plans to meet at The Spot, not at the Pratty's house, so whoever it was that came to get Jen, it wasn't Billy Grant.

At least, not the Billy Grant I knew.

Which meant Jen Pratty had unknowingly stepped into the company of an imposter, while the real Billy Grant waited, alone and virtually defenseless, for our arrival at The Spot.

With these startling thoughts in mind, I ran past the place where I had met the Jen-thing and kept on running. I ran past old man Fletcher's house and the house where my old friend, Tom Duchane, used to live. Still running, I neared the end of the street, Mr. Donovan's huge white house just coming into view above and between the trees.

A faint glow caught my eye, and I spotted Mr. Donovan standing on the back deck, leaning over his grill. The coals lit up his face from below, lending him a grotesque appearance. Stopping by the hedges to catch my breath, I called out to him to ask if he had seen Jen or Billy. I was still drinking up the air, when a sharp smell began to make me gag. I wondered what kind of food could smell so bad. Mr. Donovan looked at me, his eyes reflecting the orange embers, and shook his head slowly from side to side; no, he had not seen Billy, or Jen. I was just about to ask him to keep an eye out for them, when I noticed what it was that smelled so horrible; what Mr. Donovan was cooking on his grill.

His hands.

They were sizzling like burgers.

He was standing with his palms pressed against the grill, and the fire was starting to work its way up his forearms, blackening flesh, singeing hair, turning his shirt to ashes. There was good old Mr. Donovan, grinning from ear to ear, eyes gleaming as he cooked his hands, enjoying himself to the core.

"They're almost ready, Dylan." His grin showed too many teeth. He removed one of his smoldering hands from the grill and sniffed it. "Ahhhhh! Cooked to perfection! You're welcome to have one if you want." He sank his teeth into the back of one hand, ripping the flesh away as though it were the skin of a chicken wing. Still chewing on a mouthful of flesh, he said, "Say hello to your parents for me, will you?" He offered me a friendly, blood-smeared smile and then he opened his mouth and bowed his head for another bite.

My legs took control on their own even as my mind tried to reason that I was experiencing a fever dream. I kept on running, past my own house, to the end of my street and onto Pleasant, to the end of Pleasant and finally, onto Carver Road.

## Chapter Six: At The Spot

With my stomach hitching and my lungs burning, I eventually reached The Spot.

As I ducked into the back yard, I wasn't thinking about the Jen-thing, or how strangely Mrs. Pratty had behaved, or how Mr. Donovan had offered me his hand for dinner. For some reason, all I could think about was that I should probably quit smoking, because my every breath was labored, and my head was swimming.

I let myself in through the back door, and crept slowly across the bare wooden floor. I was in the hallway now, inching carefully in the direction of what had once been the Lind's living room. I was almost there, when I saw a dim light bounce across the wall ahead of me. Realizing that I was not alone brought a mixture of two feelings: fear and relief. Fear, because I was afraid of what might be in the living room. And relief, because maybe, just maybe, Jen and Billy were okay.

I eased forward and poked my head into the dimly lit room. I don't quite remember what I expected to see right then, but I remember I was scared shitless. I was driven by impulse, the kind of impulse that causes people to act without thinking. I had to know the unknown, had to see it with my own two eyes, regardless of the consequences.

The first thing I saw was Jen. She was holding a candle tightly in one hand, kneeling on the floor beside Billy, who had apparently fallen asleep while waiting for us. She was shaking him, trying to wake him up.

Even with the light of the candle, it was still too dark to see clearly. I wasn't sure whether or not it was the real Jen, or the real Billy, so I sat and watched. Waiting is the worst part of any moment. Time becomes so thick that seconds seem like minutes and minutes seem like hours. I was going nuts. I'd guess that no more than a minute or so passed before I decided to make my presence known.

I stepped out from the shadows, my footsteps loud and heavy, and moved into the center of the room.

Jen (thing?) jerked backwards, almost fell, and caught herself with one hand against the floor. Twisting around, she extended her other arm toward me, waving the candle defensively, as if it could somehow protect her. It was obvious to me that she was just as afraid of me as I was of her. That's how I knew it was the real Jen, because the Jen-thing hadn't showed the slightest trace of fear in its eyes, even when the shadows stripped her beautiful flesh away.

"It's okay," I said soothingly. In truth, I had a sneaking suspicion that nothing was okay. Nothing was okay at all.

"It's Buh-Billy. He's duh-dead!"

Dead? I thought. How could he be dead? I moved a little closer to him and saw that he was breathing.

"What's wrong, Jen?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"It's Billy," she sobbed. "He's been sta-stabbed."

She looked at Billy, who was still sleeping like a fat cat on a hot day, and began to cry. "He's dead!"

I took her face in my hands and gently forced her to look me in the eyes. "He's not dead," I repeated slowly. "He's just sleeping."

She flashed me a perplexed glance. "But I saw it...he's dead. We have to call somebody."

I crawled over to her and put my arm around her. Whatever it was that she had seen she believed that it was real. I couldn't convince her otherwise. She kept sobbing against my shoulder, telling me that Billy was dead and that she saw him die. I was running out of ideas, explanations. It was like trying to talk sense to a lunatic. She simply couldn't comprehend a word I was saying.

I tried to wake up Billy by shaking his massive body with all of my strength, but my efforts were futile. He slept on.

"He's dead!" she kept on saying. "Oh, my God! B-Billy!"

Finally, I took Billy's lighter from the deep pocket of the blue and gray windbreaker he was wearing, and sparked it to life. I held it that way for a few seconds, allowing the metal wind guard to get good and hot, and pressed it against the back of his pudgy hand. For the second time that day, I saw human flesh burn, though Billy's wound was minor compared to Mr. Donovan's. The sickening smell mingled with the dusty air of the abandoned house, making my stomach turn.

William Raymond Grant awoke screaming and clutched his wounded hand within the other. His eyes goggled behind his thick glasses as he jerked into an upright position, first looking at me, then Jen, and then his own blistered hand. He pressed his thumb against the lighter-shaped burn and winced.

Jen stared at him, her eyes wide and watery with tears, and then focused her attention on me. She was looking at me as if she had just seen a ghost and was wondering if I, too, had seen it. And as she looked at me that way, it was quite clear to me that reality had struck her hard. She could not speak.

"Wha—what the hell happened?" Billy asked. His sweaty blond hair had fallen over the upper rim of his glasses. He was still clutching his blistered hand against his ample belly, his face the color of cream cheese.

I don't know who was more shocked at that moment, Billy or Jen.

"Something's not right," I said, realizing that I had probably just made the understatement of a lifetime. "And I think it has something to do with John disappearing." Then I told them everything. Everything, that was, except for the fact that the Jen-thing had been wearing her birthday suit. That was one detail they didn't need to know, especially Jen. Until now, I haven't shared that detail with anyone.

When the candle's short-lived life had reached its end, and the shadows crowded in, we left The Spot together and headed back to Titicut Street, toward our houses. We walked beneath the yellow streetlights, staying close together, wary of every sound, every passing car.

Jen never told me what she had seen at The Spot that night. Later on, when I found the courage to ask, she just closed up like a clam and acted like she didn't know what I was talking about. I guess I'll never really know for sure. A frightened voice in the back of my mind tells me it's probably better off that way.

To be truthful, I agree with that voice one-hundred percent.

## Chapter Seven: The Nightmare

At first, I was flying. Then came the thunderous roar of laughter and I found myself falling, twisting, toppling precariously through the cold night sky, bumping and scraping against the treetops towards a small black pool below. I felt the sharp bark of branches clawing at my flesh, the precious warmth of my body escaping through geysers of blood and as the cold, stinging air entered my wounds, I could feel my life slipping away. Unsure as to whether or not I was awake or dreaming, I was certain of one thing: I was going to die. I was no longer Dylan McMasters, but a lump of frozen meat plummeting towards the shadowy earth.

"Let's go for a sssswim!" said a voice that echoed from nowhere and everywhere.

Just before I slapped into the liquid darkness, I saw my own black reflection staring up at me, and it was smiling like a madman, even though I wasn't.

I was screaming.

My first thought was that I was going to drown. But as I opened my tightly closed eyes, thrashed with my hands and feet to breach the surface, I realized that I was not in danger of drowning, as I had feared. Though I was floating weightlessly, I saw it was not possible for me to drown, for I wasn't underwater—at least not by man's definition of the word.

I was drifting in the atmosphere of another world.

No; world is not an accurate description of what I saw.

I guess it could be more appropriately referred to as a congregation of worlds; for I saw drifting below me, all scattered about like islands in a yawning sea of darkness, countless scraps of land, each varying in dimension and topography, expanding further into the depths than my eyes could penetrate.

Some appeared to be ancient lands, covered with towering pyramids and white sand deserts, some with jungles and rivers, and others still with enormous, industrial statues and modern cities.

I coughed up a mouthful of the black liquid through which I had fallen, and watched in awe as it floated from my lips, hung still before me, and then slowly began to rise. It looked, I thought, like a blob of black Jell-O in outer space (if you've ever seen one of those documentaries on how astronauts eat in zero gravity, then you probably get the idea). I continued to watch as the gelatinous liquid floated purposefully upwards, to the place where the underside of the pool's surface shimmered like a mirror glued to a dark ceiling, and was absorbed into the shallow water.
Stunned, for a moment I simply allowed myself to float, adjusting to the weightlessness of my body, unable to take my eyes from the strange islands below, straining to penetrate the sea of darkness. Am I still alive? I wondered. I kept asking myself that. I was still breathing; in this, I had no doubt. But for how long?

I told myself not to worry. It was just a dream. I was certain I was still in Hevven, lying safe and warm in my bedroom in my parents' house on Titicut Street. Just a crazy dream; it simply had to be, because the alternative was unthinkable.

"Welcome, Dylan," said a voice from the darkness. "I've been exssspecting you."

My eyes watered as I searched for the speaker, but none could be found. Just as I was about to give up my search, thinking perhaps, with enough concentration, I could somehow will myself to wake up, a mysterious shade appeared before me. In the beginning, it was more of an outline than a man, materializing slowly, like Captain Kirk in one of those transporters on Star Trek, and when the shape finally grew solid, there stood before me a man of a strange and disarming countenance.

He was tall and gaunt, with the complexion of an ivory statue which had been laboriously polished to perfection. Though perfect in its symmetry, his face was almost vague in its design, with only the jutting suggestion of a nose, the slight stump of a chin, and the lipless slit that served as his mouth. A mouth that was as straight and deliberate as a surgical incision. The tiny indentations that were his eye sockets held the vacant, rudimentary eyes of a department store mannequin; the kind of eyes that always seem to stare at you accusingly no matter where you are standing, even as they stare at nothing at all; eyes that seem to mock the very humanity that created them. His flowing robe, white trimmed with golden braids, gave him the appearance of a hovering ghost.

He was holding out his arms, welcoming me, this bizarre statue made of flesh and bone. A smile creased his face, revealing row after row of tiny saw-like teeth. As he stepped closer, I could see how his bald head was crisscrossed with reddish veins. Thin strips of flesh were missing from all over his body, creating strange patterns and incantations, quite similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. He looked, I thought, like a human road map. Narrow, hook-toothed mouths smiled hungrily from his bare midsection, three on either side of what should have been his rib cage. All this I took in with unbelieving eyes. Was I going to wake up to the comfort of my bed? That's what I was hoping. I kept closing my eyes and opening them again, but the nightmarish figure remained, and I remained with him.

"Welcome, Dylan," he repeated, still holding out his arms to me as though he were an old friend. "I've been waiting for you."

I started at the sight of him, looking on in fear and wonder.

"I am Damon, leader of the Tribe." He extended one slender hand, and I rejected it with a look of distrust.

"My appearance makes you uneasy," he said, obviously pleased by this, for his smile achieved what I had thought impossible: it grew wider, to my terror, until his head was almost all mouth and teeth. That was the design of it all, was it not, to terrify me into submission?

"Where am I?" I asked, defying his cheerfulness, decimating his design. "How did I get underground?"

"You think you are underground? A cavern, perhaps? Ahhh, there is nothing quite so intricate beneath your Earth's surface, boy. True, you entered the pool to get here, but no, we are not under, nor are we in. The pool is merely a gateway, one of many, which can transport you here...to The Still, as it's been called. The land of dreams, if you like. Anything can happen in a dream. Did you know that, Dylan? You can do anything, be anything, have any—"

"I want to leave! Right now!" I screamed, cutting him off, and his eyes blinked with a terrible rage.

"You can't leave," he said. His mouth became a slit, almost disappearing altogether. "You're looking for sssomething...."

"I'm not looking for anything," I answered, but as soon as I said it I knew I was wrong. I was looking for something, wasn't I? Though, at the time, I could not remember what. And he saw that self-doubt pass over me, the same way that I had seen the anger pass over him, and then he knew my secret, too.

"You're looking for John Pratty, yes?"

"I...yes, how did you know that?"

"He is here...with us. He is being readied."

"Readied? Readied for what?"

"The Passing. If he survives, he will become a part of my Tribe," Damon said, and as he spoke the six rib-mouths opened in unison, murmuring softly in a foreign tongue. Dripping with saliva, those mouths looked insatiably hungry.

"What is this...this Tribe?" I asked, trying to ignore the hypnotic chants of the rib-mouths.

Damon stretched his thin, lipless mouth into a monstrous grin. "They are my disciples. My followers, if you will. To your people, they are nightmares, monsters, abominations...but not here. Here, they are beautiful. Dylan, the flavor of a man's heart is reflected by his dreams, his fantasies, the true self which he hides from society for fear of rejection, isolation, persecution. Society has never been kind to those who are different. Do you know why?"

Here I shook my head, surprised by the realization that I was actually curious about the answer.

With a slight nod, he continued. "Because the masses consist mostly of weak-minded individuals of little consequence and limited imagination. They reject those who are different out of fear or envy. Those of poor minds, poor imaginations, are bitter. Such lives are destined to end in misery. As you grow old, life loses something...." He paused, licking the outside of his mouth with a serpentine tongue. "It loses its flavor."

"You're crazy," I muttered, though I grudgingly admitted to myself that some of what he'd said had actually made sense. Okay, I told myself. You can wake up now. Make sure you write this one down, too, because this is one hell of a story.

"Perhaps, Dylan." He seemed to dwell on the thought. "Perhaps I am. Whether or not you wish to believe it, every member of the Tribe was once a being of your world. They had jobs and relationships, fears and frustrations, but those things betrayed them. Each one was a dreamer, just like me, trapped in a world where dreams, like all things, must die. People who dared to find pleasure and comfort beyond the means of mortal men. They will never starve, Dylan. They will never know fear, or old age, or even Death. They live for the darkness, where their fantasies know no boundaries. For them, life will never lose its flavor. We were all people, Dylan, just like you."

I furthered my retreat, arms waving in the darkness, broadening the gap between us. Was it true? Was he, Damon, really like me once? An ordinary man? And, more importantly, was I like him? The thought turned through my mind like a dull knife. It was true—wasn't it?—that my imagination was sometimes dark and vile, perhaps even wicked. Food for thought, but I decided to save that bitter meal for later.

After much reflection came my reply: "No, I'm not like you. I...I—"

He pinned me with those merciless eyes; the blind white eyes of a deep sea fish.

"Even the blind see darkness," he stated with a grin. "Did you know that, Dylan?" Then the smile vanished, and his eyes seemed to glow with inspiration. "Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like, child, to own the darkness? To never be afraid of those things that go bump in the night? To live forever? I offer to you, the power to flip through your fantasies...faster than mortal men can flip through the pages of their pathetic little books. Join me, Dylan McMasters, join my tribe, and you can have an eternity to discover your dessssiressss."

I could not reply; I could only stare in shock and wonder. I could feel my heart thumping inside my chest. Not only could I feel it, but I could hear it as well; a muffled sound in the darkness of that strange underworld. I was terrified, and the terror came because there was a seed of truth in what Damon said. Such fantastic dreams were my obsession, my passion. They were not real, not yet, but they were realer than the things that most people learn to accept into their lives. Things like death, loss, hunger, and loneliness. I think everybody has, at one time or another, the same seductive dream: To totally shed the rules and regulations of everyday life and escape into a world of endless possibilities. A dream world, where no action is too vile, and no fantasy is too demented.

A world spun from the very fabric of dreams and nightmares.

"Your decision can wait. There is no hurry. But please, allow me to introduce you to some of my...hmmm...friends."

"I want to see John," I said weakly. My throat was coarse and dry. Suddenly, I felt very helpless and weak. My legs felt as though they were made of cement, my arms the same. Suddenly, I couldn't think of anything better than to close my eyes and sleep.

"In due time. First you must come with me, and you must do so willingly. Later, I will bring you to your friend," he said calmly. As he waited for my reply, a fat worm crawled cautiously out of his forehead, remaining partially embedded in the pale flesh, its upper half dangling from a tiny crater, just above Damon's left eye. Damon didn't seem to notice, still waiting for my response as the worm felt around the outside of the crater, touching around his forehead like a tiny finger.

But I noticed, and I felt my gorge begin to rise. Struggling to keep my senses sharp, I noticed everything, especially the way my heart was thrumming inside my chest.

He was giving me a choice—

I could leave—

But I had to find John.

I knew if I left, I would never see John Pratty again.

My mind was made, reluctantly. "Okay," I whispered in defeat. I was weary. It was easier to just agree. For the time being, anyway.

Damon laughed triumphantly. "Good! I knew you'd make the right decision. Now, I must call upon a friend..."

Damon clapped his long, angular hands together and a great silver chariot materialized in the darkness, pulled gracefully through the endless black wasteland by the might of a massive horse whose flesh hung like rags from its skull and flanks. The carrion beast circled us, its glowing red eyes fixed entirely on me. Finally, it stopped and hovered statuesquely before Damon.

"This is Motekai, my faithful companion." Damon lovingly petted his mare, and then glided back to where the chariot rested.

Knowing what was expected of me, I followed after him. Did I really have a choice? Without Damon and the horse, I would've been alone. Except for the Tribe, whatever they were, and I didn't exactly relish that idea. I decided it was best to treat my host with courtesy. For the time being, it suited my purpose to be courteous.

The horse's body seemed to tense. Motekai lowered his monstrous head and snorted like a steam engine. Clouds of dust and gravel sprayed into the air as its massive hooves sought for purchase in the otherworldly soil. Unwinding its bantam body like a spring, the mighty beast shot forward and into the air, towing the chariot behind it with ease. Once in the air, we seemed to move at breakneck speeds, or rather, it appeared as though we remained perfectly still as all else moved past us. Chunks of land, some the size of small states, floated through the Stygian darkness like dust motes whirling in a moonbeam.

Beyond the pool, in our world, time can only be measured by calendar and clock, by sun and moon, by what appears to be old and what appears to be new. In our world, we are bound, one and all, to the laws of time, always at the mercy of the relentless scythe of The Reaper, who keeps the rules in check, watching with greedy eyes as the sands drain from the hourglasses of our lives, beginning from the very moment we are conceived within the womb.

Meanwhile, below the pool, it appeared there were no such laws to abide by, nor were there any victims fallen to such cruelties. What I'd stumbled onto was an ageless realm. It obeyed no laws, it knew no boundaries, nor did it acknowledge the transitory endeavors of mankind, surviving on the mere fact of its own independence from time, fertile with endless possibilities.

Thus, without the decay of time, some islands looked ancient, even prehistoric, while others seemed to have been plucked from the set of a George Lucas film, and others still beyond the limits of human engineering, or imagination; a hodgepodge coexistence of past, present, and future.

It's difficult to say just how long it took us to arrive at our destination—the world below the black pool seemed both ageless and infinite. Our journey on the silver chariot passed like a slow-motion nightmare. And the bizarre things I witnessed along the way—appendages of the Tribe, no doubt—absorbed my mind completely. Damon was comfortable in the role of narrator, occasionally offering a backstory, a colorful history, sometimes referring to individual Tribe members by name.

Some of them weren't so bad; a dozen or more actually appeared normal, even dull at times. But there were others. Some, like the Smoke-Man, who smoked hundreds of cigarettes at once from small punctures in his flesh, were repulsive. And the two spasmodic lovers who, scrap by bloody scrap, were devouring each other in a lustful feeding frenzy. And Gabriel, a shapeshifter, who flew by the chariot on large, bat-like wings, his long tongue flicking in and out of his mouth like a snake. Then there was Janine, who was lying naked on an island covered with an endless field of human hearts. Between her long, shapely legs, she held a young man's severed head, his face frozen in a death mask, his eyes black and glazed, his skin raw with decay. Smiling, writhing on her back, she appeared to be in a state of ecstasy as she used the rotting head to pleasure herself. The hearts around her—

To my horror, I saw that some of them were still beating.

My mouth filled with saliva. Then my stomach lurched, and I felt vomit rising to my throat.

Arms flailing, I grasped the side of the chariot and hacked over the side and, still gasping, watched my dinner as it floated upwards to be swallowed by darkness. I remember wondering if it would float back to the pool, the gateway through which I had entered that world, and whether or not anyone would ever see my mess floating on the surface.

The sound of the still-beating hearts pounded inside my head. After a few painful dry-heaves, I was well enough to speak.

"What the hell was that place?" I asked hoarsely, and turned to look at Damon through watering eyes.

"It is the island of those whose hearts were sour," he answered solemnly. His dead white eyes showed no pity for them. "They failed the Passing, and are condemned to remain here for other purposes."

"Other purposes?" I asked, and spit the bitter aftertaste of vomit from my mouth.

"Some of us have acquired a taste for the bitter hearts," Damon replied with a cold smile. "I, myself, prefer the sweet."

The island of hearts soon faded behind us, though the drum-roll still echoed inside my head with the ominous cadence of a funeral march.

***

As we delved deeper into the vast world known as The Still, I became witness to things which I had never imagined, things which no human could dare imagine, even in the wildest of dreams.

Our chariot passed over a kind of Romanesque amphitheater, where the performances ranged from the masochistic to the sadomasochistic, and the onlookers applauded every drop of blood and every scream of agony and ecstasy. We swept stunningly close to an island oasis, where orgies of beautiful women clawed hungrily at each other with painted lips and nails, their bodies naked and glistening; as we passed overhead, they looked up at me and begged me to give them pleasure, promising that they would return the favor tenfold.

Racing on, we came upon a dusty wasteland, where twitching, emaciated people lounged about the ruins of an ancient temple, their bodies peppered with tracts, injecting themselves and one another with a feverish passion, mouths wide open, eyes rolling over in ecstasy. We passed in and out of the wasteland, first arriving at a frontier town of saloons and whorehouses that were alive with the sound of player pianos and poker games. The chariot then rose again, pushing through the darkness, rising high above neon cities as intricate as circuit boards; pyramids that rose to vertiginous heights, making the craftwork of the ancient Egyptians look childlike by comparison; an amusement park filled with the eerie sound of calliope and a roller coaster the size of a mountain. I heard the distant rumble of thunder pounding in a far off land, and saw in the distance a thin strand of blue lightening zigzag through the blackness; the chiming of bells and the giggles of small children. I inhaled the sweet, intoxicating fragrances of bright alien flowers, many of which were as tall as me, a few of which looked more animal than plant, with mouths, eyes, sometimes even limbs.

I took in these things the way a child might take in his first day of school, with fear and amazement. There were other members of The Tribe, of course, some beautiful, some grotesque. Some of them, I could not begin to describe, for words could not pay homage to their beauty, nor their grotesqueries.

"How many of you are there?" I asked in wonder.

"Thousandsss," Damon hissed softly. "But you will never see all of them."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Some of our brothers and sisters choose to be in solitude, and we grant them that right. They create their own utopias and live there, amongst their dreams. It's sad, really. They miss out on so much. But when you join us, Dylan, I know you'll be game. Won't you?"

I've heard it said that the Devil is nothing more than a peddler, a business man of sorts. At that moment, I felt that Damon was somewhere in that league.

"You mean there're other worlds besides this one?" I asked, altogether ignoring his question, unable to grasp the concept.

"There are worlds within worlds," Damon answered. Upon seeing my puzzled face, he said, "You don't understand, do you?"

"Tell me," I demanded.

"Whatever you can imagine can be yours," Damon said at last. "The Still is a place of dreams and nightmares, fantasies and desires. All you need to do is imagine something...and it will be."

"So, what you're saying is—"

"Ahhh, we are here," my host said, cutting me off.

Only seconds before, the wheels of the chariot had come to rest in the powdery white sand of a desert island.

"Where are we now?" I asked, scanning the dunes.

Motekai snorted and kicked his massive hooves into the sand, sending small clouds of dust into the air.

"Just another island of hope," Damon said, waving his hand in a gesture of grand showmanship. He glided out of the chariot and took a few steps towards the dusty duneland. He glanced at me over his shoulder. "Follow me."

"I'll wait here," gargled Motekai, the horse. His eyes burned a fiery red.

I stumbled from the chariot in the wake of surprise. Had I heard the strange, skeletal beast speak? Was that possible, even in this world?

"Follow me," Damon repeated. This was not a request, and there was no mistaking the implied threat behind those words should I fail to comply.

Reluctantly, I followed him across the sand, leaving behind the lingual beast called Motekai, who was apparently content to wait for us in solitude. As I walked I noticed that the desert island contained enough gravity to keep us grounded, though with much less severity than the pull of Earth's field; my every step felt cushioned, as though I were walking on a trampoline. With the exception of a mustard-colored sky and a few scattered islands floating in the distance, there was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see.

We walked the arid land, my host and I, picking our way across the dunes, until we finally reached our destination. Before us stood a kaleidoscopic oasis littered with dense thickets of trees of a most unusual species. Much like our earthly palm trees, their stems were simple and mostly smooth, while the branches grew mainly from the crown. The leaves, however, were a far cry from the fan-shaped leaves that are typical of palm trees, but were instead made of orange sprouts, as fine as hair, which grew from the top of the tree and dangled in close proximity to the ground. Between the palms ran a narrow red stream which filtered into a shallow basin about the size of a kiddie pool. After seeing so much white, even such an alien place as the oasis was a much welcomed sight, though it created quite an enigma for the mind.

Entirely too pleasant for the desert island, the oasis seemed to defy the dark nature of The Still, as easy for the eye to embrace as would be the discovery of a single red rose flourishing on the dull surface of the earth's moon, with the cold void of space as its backdrop; it seemed paradoxical, utterly impossible, yet there it stood before my eyes.

The gigantic, furry trees cast their shadows away from the dim light of the mustard sky and there, partially submerged in the scarlet water, lay a naked woman of such flawless beauty that I was rendered utterly speechless. Her hair was long, straight, and slicked back from her forehead and behind her ears, spilling over her shoulders, down to the firm mounds of her breasts. She had a provocative mouth, blessed with the kind of full cherry lips that no man could ever grow tired of kissing; the kind of lips that tease small fortunes from the pockets of the wealthy, and lure happily married men into midnight rendezvous at sleazy motels. Her temperate amber eyes communicated her purpose without the clumsiness of speech, conveying her message to the very depths of my soul: Come to me now, her eyes said. Come to me now, and I will show you paradise. And, oh, how I longed to see that mythical place!

She was cooing like a dove, rubbing the dark liquid over her naked flesh, her hands moving slowly in a circular pattern, teasing me. I knew right then that I had to have her. Still massaging herself with one hand, she led her other hand to her mouth and began to suck the crimson liquid from her fingertips, one by one, in a fashion that made my legs feel weak and my head swim.

"That isss Brynn," Damon hissed into my ear. "You met her earlier, in the form of your lover."

"That...was her?" I asked. I couldn't seem to drag my eyes away from her. "But she's—"

"Different?" Damon finished. "Brynn can take on the image of your desire. Don't you recognize her now?"

I shook my head, I think. She had captured my mind. I was entranced.

"That's the mistress of your dreamsss."

"Dylan...." she whispered, using her tongue to polish her luscious lips. "Come to me. Please, come to me." Her delicate fingers moved slowly across her smooth, tanned flesh, smearing blood, evoking pleasure, exploring every delicious inch. Her hips gyrated slowly with the rhythm of her touch as her fingers glided up and down between her thighs. Her pink tongue moved with serpent-like grace as she continued to lick her lips. Her mouth was not moving, yet her lustful moaning filled my head.

(Come to me now, Dylan!)

"Go to her," Damon urged.

(Dylan...please!)

I was going to say something—I can't remember what—but I didn't trust myself to speak. I don't think I could have found the words. I simply stared at her, watching her touch herself, as she called out my name over and over again. I remember thinking: Here is the girl of your dreams. Here she is, in the flesh, begging for you to take her. Take her! Take her! From a far-off place in the back of my mind, my conscience ordered that I must resist the temptation. What about Jen? a rational voice demanded, but it was not enough to give me pause. It was but a single voice amidst a riot; but a pin-prick of light in the dark and bothered depths of my mind.

"Go to her," Damon repeated like a chant, his voice echoing in my head until it was all that I could hear. "Live your fantasies with her. Make your fantasies real. She is yours. If you wish to see your friend, then take her. Take her....now!"

(Oh, Dylan! Take me! Please! Come to me now!)

God forgive me, I did.

## Chapter Eight: The Second Nightmare: The Awakening

I awoke as though drowning, clutching at my throat, choking as I struggled for air. My last memory involved water, passing back through the swirling black water of the pool as I returned from that nightmare world. When my breathing slowed to normal, I sat up in my bed, staring into the shadows that surrounded me. My mind returned to Brynn, and how her mobile lips had moved over my body, and how sweet she had tasted. The image of her (come-to-me-now!) eyes invaded my thoughts, and I began to tremble with desire. And, at the same time, I felt extremely guilty for having betrayed Jen, even if it was just some crazy dream.

Sitting in my bed, wrapped in the cool summer breeze that was coming through my open window, I wondered how much time had passed since I had left The Still. At that moment, I wasn't sparing a thought on John, or Damon, or the members of the Tribe. I was thinking of how much I still wanted Brynn.

You must understand that it was more than flat-out sexual desire. True, I was seventeen and still somewhat inexperienced in such practices, but what I felt was much more than teenage libido.

It was pure hunger. With her, I had found a means to satisfy a need I never knew existed within me. Until that night, I never knew how junkies could be so weak with their addictions.

Lying there in my bed, I realized I too was a junkie.

One taste, and I was already addicted to her.

The question of whether or not she was just a dream, just a figment of my imagination, did not factor into my lust for her. I had to have her again; this much I knew. I had acquired a taste for her; a taste that would not leave my mind, mouth, or groin.

I was still thinking of her when I fell asleep, still unsure as to whether or not I'd dreamt the whole ordeal, wishing that I'd returned with more than a memory for proof of all that I had seen.

It wasn't until the heat of the morning sun awoke me that I realized I was stark naked and sticky with blood.

My body was tainted with it, my proof.

## Chapter Nine: A Discussion with Billy

No matter how hard I tried, which wasn't very hard at all, I could not wash away the fragrant smell that Brynn had saturated me with, and after stuffing my blood-stained sheets into the washing machine, I decided to call Billy Grant. It was still early, around nine o'clock, but I had to talk to someone...anyone.

"Hello?" Billy answered.

"Billy, it's me, Dylan." I spoke quickly, barely able to keep it together. "Listen, we have to talk."

"What're you yellin' for?" Billy snapped.

"Sorry," I grunted, though it must have been obvious that I did not mean it. "Listen, we have to talk. It's about John and those other missing people and about a lot of stuff that's been happening around here lately."

On the other end of the phone, I heard Billy nibbling on a cigarette and it reminded me of how much I wanted one. It also reminded me of the Smoke-Man, and quickly changed my mind.

"I had the weirdest dream last night," Billy said, exhaling. "And this mornin' I woke up, and my friggin' hand was stinging like you wouldn't believe. Pretty strange, huh?"

"We'll talk about that later. Are you ready?"

"Ready? Ready for what?"

"To go into the swamp again."

Billy's nervous laughter was so loud that I had to pull the phone away from my ear. "Aw, Dylan! You're nuts, you know that? You—"

"I'll be there in ten minutes." I said, ignoring his protests.

"But—"

"I'll be there in ten minutes," I repeated. "Be ready."

"Alright," he said reluctantly. "But this better be good. I—"

I hung up.

As soon as I hung up, the phone rang.

"Hello?" I asked.

"I've been trying to reach you," a voice said on the other end. It was Jen.

"I was just talking to Billy. What's up?" I was hoping she had some good news about John.

"My parents told you, didn't they?"

"Told me what?"

"I've been at my grandmother's house in Rainbridge," she said. "I wanted to get out of town for a few days. I've been under a lot of stress lately, with John and all."

I felt a stab of pain in my temples, and my vision began to blur, as though I were about to faint. I somehow found a chair and sat down. "What time did you leave?" I asked, not quite sure that I wanted to know the answer to my question.

"Early yesterday morning," she said.

This little tidbit meant a number of things to me. One, was the realization that it likely wasn't the real Jen that I'd spoken to on the phone the night before, nor was it the real Jen that I had seen at The Spot (which also meant that the Mrs. Pratty I saw probably wasn't the real Mrs. Pratty, but I'd already known that). It also meant that Damon knew exactly how to toy with me, exactly how toy with my mind, and that scared the hell out of me. He was turning my world inside out, but for what purpose? Was it for the mere pleasure of torturing my soul? Or was there another, more sinister plot, one which I could not see?

"Dylan? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here. Listen, stay at your grandmother's house. Me and Billy are going into the swamp again. I'll call you when I get home." If, I thought. If I get home.

"What's wrong? You're acting weird."

"Nothing," I lied. "Just a little worried about John, that's all. I just thought he'd pop up by now."

"Me, too," she said. "Make sure you call me. Do you still have the number?"

"Yup, I got it."

"Okay, I'll talk to you later." Jen said.

"Alright," I said. "Talk to you then."

"Dylan?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful."

"I will."

We both hung up. After that, I ran upstairs to my bedroom and changed into fresh clothes. I then began to rummage through my overstuffed closet, tossing shirts, pants, and long-forgotten board games onto the floor. Finally, I found my survival knife in the farthest corner of my closet. My father had bought it for me two years ago, at a flea market in Potter's Bluff, New Hampshire. Don't you ever take this out of the house, he had warned. And I never thought I'd need to, until that day. Besides, Mommy and Daddy were away for the weekend, and it was time for me to make a stand.

For me, there was no problem walking down the street with the knife. It damn well could've been a crossbow, or even a shotgun, in my hand, and my neighbors wouldn't have tossed me a word, except to say hello. That's the type of nutty town I live in. Nothing is too bizarre for the people of Hevven, so long as they have something to gossip about. There is scarcely a public place in this town where someone doesn't offer someone else a tall tale or two.

I travelled on the side of the road, my knife tucked into the waistband of my jeans, as I walked to Billy's house. The trees rattled above me in the morning breeze, alive with the activities of birds and squirrels, and suddenly I realized that I would have to walk by the path that led into the swamp. The same path where Brynn had first appeared to me as the Jen-thing. After the previous night's adventure in The Still, I wasn't sure if my mind could handle another surprise, especially not alone. Is it possible, I wondered as I warily approached the dark mouth of the path, that I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown?

Thinking this, I crossed over to the other side of the street, clutching the handle of the knife just in case. My heart was pounding once again in that foreboding rhythm. My eyes were beginning to water. And, much to my dismay, I was getting an erection because I was certain that Brynn was close by. I could practically smell her.

But this time, there were no illusions. There were no voices. The sound of maniacal laughter did not impose upon the night. I listened. A brief breeze stirred through the trees, the branches clicking together like dry bones. All at once, the wind stopped, leaving only the sound of birds, insects, and silence.

The worst silence that I have ever heard. A fabricated silence, as though the chirping birds, the ticking insects, and the rustling of the wind weren't even real but recordings, just to give me a false sense of security. To make me believe that everything was as it should be.

My mind was a circus of thoughts. Everything that had happened in the past two days was finally catching up with me. I felt strange, lightheaded, as if I was going to faint. Everything was rushing together, becoming one, becoming blurry.

I've got to get to Billy's house, I told myself.

Gasping for air, my throat seemed to grow smaller and smaller, until I could barely breathe. I watched, mystified, as the stars began to fall, bursting before my very eyes.

Almost there, buddy. Not too far now.

But my sight was growing dimmer with every step. I could hardly see where I was going. Sharp hooks were tearing my mind in a thousand different directions. These hooks were questions, like why the hell did Damon want me to join him so badly? These hooks were feelings; the feelings I had for John Pratty, who had been my closest companion since we were practically still in diapers. These hooks were also images, like the image of Brynn, so beautiful and naked, as she pleasured herself beneath the palm trees and sucked the blood from her fingers. With these things running rampant in my head, I could hardly think.

I was growing weak. I was spinning into unconsciousness.

...darkness...Darkness...DARKNESS...

Soon, even the darkness was gone.

***

Someone was tugging at my T-shirt, and then there was a voice. "Dylan, are you alright?"

I opened my eyes slowly, and saw Billy leaning over me, his face drawn tight with a look of confusion. "Where am—" I started, but my voice crackled off. I licked my lips, swallowed, and tried it again. "Where am I?"

"You're on my front lawn," Billy said, blinking slowly. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder, to where his tall yellow house stood in the early light.

I straightened up quickly, and slowly rose to my feet. My legs nearly collapsed from under me, and Billy had to grab me under the arm to keep me from falling. For a moment, he just held me that way, like a worn-out ragdoll, until I managed to clear the fog from my head. After a bit, I could stand on my own once again. I had to hand it to the big guy; he was as strong as an ox.

"What happened?" Billy asked. Concern had left his voice. In fact, I think he was holding back a great deal of laughter.

"I...don't know. I was walking, and then I just went blank."

"Where were you when you started to black out?" Billy asked, brushing away a few blades of grass that were stuck to my shirt.

"I was—well, I remember—" I could not remember a thing. The searing pain in my temples and behind my eyes—compliments of my fall, no doubt—did little to help my cause. I rubbed my forehead with one palm, trying to massage the pain away, as if doing so would somehow help me to remember. Then it came to me (yes...oh, yes!), and the answer escaped my mouth before I had time enough to detain it.

"The path..." I muttered in wonder. "It started as soon as I reached the Hockomock path."

"Are you sure?" Billy asked, adjusting his glasses. "Maybe you started blacking out before that. I mean, maybe you just remember it wrong. You look like ass. When's the last time you slept for more then—"

"Listen, Billy!" I barked, and he cowered a little, as though he thought that I might strike him. Seeing his reaction, I lowered my voice to a near-whisper. "Please, man. There's a lot of shit going on that you don't understand. I'm not even sure if I understand it myself. But one thing's for certain, John's in serious trouble, and he needs our help."

Billy's mouth became a tight circle, growing smaller and smaller, until it seemed that it might disappear entirely. He stared at me through those thick glasses that made his eyes bug out. There was something different about him. It was the way he was looking at me, with a kind of quiet wisdom; as if, buried beneath the awkward, flabby exterior, there was a genius struggling to break free. Then he smiled, wordlessly pledging himself to my suicidal cause. Whatever my true cause was at the time, I have no idea. To save John, perhaps. Or, maybe, it was that unnatural craving to be with Brynn again.

After I retrieved my knife from the edge of the Grants' front lawn, Billy and I started in the direction of the path. This time, I walked with confidence. This time, I was not alone.

As we walked, I told Billy everything I had learned about The Still, and the mysterious Tribe. He smoked nervously as he listened, nibbling on the filter in the fashion that bothered me so. It was difficult to tell whether or not he believed my story, but he continued to follow me just the same. In time, I knew, he would believe everything. In retrospect, I think that's how Billy Grant survived, because he allowed himself to believe in everything.

"Maybe it's a trap," Billy said nervously. "Maybe he wants us, too."

"That's a chance we have to take," I told him. John Pratty had been my best friend since kindergarten, and that was reason enough for me to stick my neck out for him. Whether I had an army behind me, or if I had to do it alone, I was going back to that place.

"Are you with me?" I asked as we arrived at the gaping green mouth of the Hockomock path. My face was slick with perspiration. I locked my hand around the handle of the knife.

Pushing his hair away from the rim of his glasses, Billy nodded. He wasn't sure what he was getting into, but he was determined not to lose another friend.

All hope abandon ye who enter here, I thought, remembering Dante's journey. Although they were not inscribed on an arch above the path, the words themselves seemed appropriate enough. Billy and I looked at one another and nodded, as if to confirm our dedication to the cause.

We entered the forest together. As we walked, the undergrowth seemed to close in and around us, erasing any trace of the path on which we had treaded only moments before.

## Chapter Ten: The Gathering

Billy and I continued our search, slashing our way through the dense, uncharted wilderness of the Hock. Eventually, the forest proper gave way to a kind of dimly lit bog, where clouds of mosquitoes, attracted by our sweat, attacked us without mercy. As we came upon each pool of water, Billy would look to me with bright, hopeful eyes. And each time, I was forced to shake my head and watch that hope fade a little more, until at last it vanished altogether. Our efforts seemed in vain. There was nothing. Not a sign of the pool, of John, of anything familiar. Nothing out of the ordinary, until—

"Wait," I whispered, stopping. We were on the verge of entering a large, ovular marsh, and I could see the sun's lazy eye staring down at us from a break in the trees.

Billy crashed into me, nearly knocking us both headlong into the muck. "What the hell?" he asked impatiently.

I held up my hand to silence him.

There were voices ahead, moving toward us.

"Someone's coming," I whispered excitedly. "Quick—hide!"We found a dry scrap of land and hunkered down behind a clump of bushes.

Eventually, the voices grew louder and a small band of figures emerged from the opposite side of the marsh.

"Next time—!" a voice said, and this was followed by a murmur of assent.

As soon as I saw the lumbering gait of the man in front of the pack, I recognized him immediately.

"Ohmygod," Billy whispered. "Coach?"

Mr. Mueller was our P.E. teacher, and the coach for the Hevven Rebels, our high school football team. Following close behind him, his snow-white hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, was our parish priest, Monsignor Goodman.

"Gimme anudder shwigga dat," Monsignor Goodman slurred, and the buxom young woman walking beside him handed him a silver flask. The woman, whose heart-shaped face I had kissed in a hundred fantasies, was Mrs. Carterson, my ninth grade Algebra teacher. Her blood-speckled shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, enough to reveal her ample cleavage. Enough to reveal that there were angry-looking scratches running across her chest, scratches that appeared to have been made by long fingernails.
Billy and I watched from the relative safety of our perch as the odd assembly of characters, passing within maybe twenty yards of us, crossed from one side of the marsh to the other.

We counted thirteen in all, amongst them my neighbor, Mr. Donovan, whom I had seen taking a bite out of his own charred hand less than twenty-four hours earlier; a craggy-faced man who may or may not have been Chief Moriarty; Tony Hill, my former classmate, whose disappearance I have already mentioned; Mrs. Eddy, the elderly woman who lived across the street from me; and several others I did not recognize. To my ever-increasing horror, the last in line was none other than Steven Parker, the construction worker whose picture graced the front page of The Hevven Gazette after his desiccated corpse was found tied to a tree no more than a month before. Thirteen chuckling men and women with the same pallid complexions and sunken eyes, passing the silver flask back and forth between them as they sloshed through the open meadow and disappeared into the trees in the direction of Titicut Street.

"Can't wait to bring my wife—" an unrecognizable voice said.

More chatter. More murmurs of assent.

Then, just as they vanished inside the tree line, we heard the inconceivable reply. "Hell, let's bring everyone!"

This must have been a popular suggestion, for it was met by peals of laughter and drunken cheers. Those last two words, and the accompanying laughter, seem to linger like a dark cloud in the humid air.

Bring everyone!

After they had gone, Billy and I just sat and stared at one another for a very long time. It was one thing to think that Damon could seduce a child, a teenager, into joining his Tribe, but grownups? We were old enough to know they weren't infallible, but grownups were supposed to be stronger, wiser—they should have been able to resist his charms.

When we decided it was safe, we skirted around the meadow and continued on our way. After seeing all those familiar adult faces in the swamp, something in us had changed. If Damon could get to them, we knew he could get to anyone. That is why I believe we left more than just a little bit of our innocence behind us on that brushy hillock.

It was nearing the end of the third hour when we finally found the pool, sleeping in the cast shadow of a large, mossy boulder. There, with the shadow adding to its already dark surface, the pool stared up from the earth like a large black eye...the eye of the Devil, perhaps.

Another thing that grabbed my attention was what I saw protruding from the top of the boulder. It took me a few seconds before my brain accepted what my eyes were seeing. It was a huge skeletal hand, much bigger than any human's could possibly be, and from between its closed fingers oozed something that looked like a wet purple balloon.

But I knew better.

It was a heart.

I was just about to throw up with that very thought, when I heard Billy say: "Hey, Dylan, wouldja lookit this!"

He was gazing into the pool.

I went over and stood beside him, still cupping my hand over my mouth just in case, and looked down to where I thought Billy was looking, and a thousand ghostly faces looked back up at me. The dead faces were laughing and whispering and urging us to join them, and something in the way they talked actually made me consider it. I wanted to be with them, way down in that cold, dark Hell.

Billy began to inch closer to the pool, hypnotized by the ghosts that were urging him on, and I was sure he was ready to jump in. Behind his clumsy-looking glasses, his eyes were wider than ever. In fact, they looked so wide that I thought they were going to explode inside his sockets like two white cherry-bombs.

Realizing what was happening to him, I grabbed him in a headlock and flung him backwards and away from the pool. His large body landed against the spongy ground with a soft, wet smack, and for a second, those overwhelmingly large eyes squeezed shut. For a moment, he did not move.

When he slowly opened his eyes again, that stoned look was gone, and was replaced by one of total confusion. I guess I must've looked just as baffled earlier that day, when I awoke on Billy's front lawn, and if the situation hadn't been so damn serious, I would've busted my guts laughing.

Instead, I helped Billy Grant to his feet.

"Don't look at it," I told him. "It messes you up."

"Wha— what happened?" Billy asked, readjusting the glasses on his nose.

"They damn near gotcha," I told him, and watched as the color left his face.

"Was John there, too?" he murmured.

"No," I told him. "If he was, I didn't see him." As far as I knew, that was the truth. John's face hadn't been among the others— thank God, not yet. But I feared that he would be joining them shortly, down in the cold black Still.

I just couldn't let that happen. Not to John. He was my best friend. Have you ever had a best friend? Someone who was closer to you than anyone else in the world? Someone you'd trust with your most guarded secrets, your innermost feelings, even your life? To me, John was that person. He'd always treated me like family, like a brother. We'd been watching out for one another since kindergarten, and there was no way in hell I was going to tuck tail and run. I would never give up. Not while there was still blood pumping through my veins.

"Look," hissed a voice from behind us, and we both jumped. "Look at the faces of the eternal dreamers."

Startled, I drew a quick breath, and heard Billy do the same, only louder.

It was Damon. He was standing by the boulder from which the skeletal hand protruded. I must say, he looked much different there than in The Still...almost human-looking. Almost, but not quite. His rib-mouths and gruesomely decorated body were hidden beneath a black trench coat, and a black wide-brimmed hat concealed his raw, hairless scalp. The only likenesses which appeared the same were his crooked yellow teeth, and those horrible shark-eyes.

"Oh, shit!" Billy howled, stumbling backwards in fear.

Damon gestured toward the pool. "They want you to join them down there. Go on. Go for a dip."

I drew my survival knife from its sheath and, in a blur of stainless steel, sliced the air in Damon's direction. For just a moment, a look of surprise—not fear—flickered behind his pale, dead eyes. But that short moment quickly killed itself.

With a smug grin, Damon extended his arm, palm up, and the knife disappeared from my hand and reappeared in his. He then held the cold blade against my chest. Even through my T-shirt, I could feel just how cold that sharp steel was, and I imagined how much colder it would feel as it punctured my internals.

"The human body can be a work of art." Damon said, quite seriously, as he continued to run the tip of the blade against me. "But yours, sweet Dylan, is blank. It is a canvas to be worked on. One gentle stroke of this blade, and I can make you beautiful..."

"No!" Billy screamed, stepping forward in my defense.

Damon smiled and nodded. "Mr. Grant is right. We have a ritual to attend." He then opened his hand, as if to let the knife fall, and it vanished in mid-air only inches from the ground. My only weapon, gone. "These games can be played at another time."

With that, the Devil pitched his deal.

## Chapter Eleven: Beneath Still Waters

Billy looked horrified as he stood close beside me, but that was to be expected. He'd never been to The Still before, and nothing I'd told him earlier could have prepared him for what he saw.

We found ourselves standing near the center of what appeared to be a giant marketplace or bazaar congested with members of the Tribe. Gray statues of angels stood upon pedestals, looking down upon us with unblinking eyes; eyes dripping tears of blood which were collected in small cisterns at their feet. Tall white pillars rose from the cobbled earth at random intervals, transforming the inner circles of the bazaar into a kind of maze. At the nucleus of the marketplace there stood a circular platform made of stone, upon which there stood a kind of altar, crudely carved from some ancient boulder. The altar was adorned with a series of pictographs similar to the Walam Olum, a Native American creation story I had learned about in History class, as well as various other scrawlings; the same hieroglyphic-type designs as those that were etched in Damon's flesh. All around us, Tribe members were happily engaged in various stages of revelry. A few seedy characters traded goods from the back of wooden carts, while others copulated on the cobblestone walkways without a trace of guilt or shame. As we continued through the maze, we came upon an enormous open bathhouse, where men and women displayed a variety of lascivious acts, their bodies wet and glistening with perfumed oils and soaps. From somewhere far-off, we could hear the roar of people cheering and the sound of minstrels reciting limericks to the accompaniment of flutes and bagpipes.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Tribe members gathered all around us, and amidst their mad celebration, we were the sideshow. Beneath the surface of the pool, I realized, we're the freaks. Down there, we were the strange ones.

"Stay close to me," I whispered to Billy, and he obeyed me like a frightened puppy, staying close at heel.

People pushed and shoved, jostling for position, as they crowded around their demented god. I watched from the corner of my eyes as Damon was willfully engulfed by his thousands of followers, who surged forward to kneel at his feet, to touch him, to kiss him. I felt like we had front row seats to the most demented event the world had ever seen, except that Billy and I were the only ones who saw it as being demented. Damon's followers seemed to love it, for the slits of their eyes glowed with wicked contentment. Fires burned from the bowels of deep pits, and above such flames, impaled on long wooden spits, hung the bodies of rodents the size of small dogs, writhing and squealing as they roasted, their cooked flesh releasing tendrils of acrid smoke which rose like spirits into the air.
Men dressed as jesters danced gleefully, weaving in and out of the multitudes, as they sang in ancient rhymes and played bird-like notes on elaborately carved flutes. I was surprised to see dozens of young children, boys and girls alike, many of which were horribly disfigured, running about in a playful fashion towards an elderly man dressed in brown rags carrying a small but bulky sack over one shoulder; his other hand wobbled as he supported some of his weight on a wooden cane. I watched as the children danced excitedly around the old man until he lowered the sack with feigned reluctance—smiling a toothless smile as he did so—and began to hand out things that looked like bright orange jalapeno peppers.

When the children had more than they could carry in their eager little hands, they thanked the old man, who looked so happy I thought he was actually going to cry, and began to scatter back into the crowd, nibbling on the orange peppers as they went. As I watched from a distance, a charming little girl with auburn hair and bright green eyes departed from her friends, her curious eyes blinking slowly as she approached me, and her playmates went on without her, seemingly unaware of her absence. The girl, who couldn't have been older than eight, walked right up to me and put out her hand. In the palm, I saw, was one of those strange orange peppers.

"Hello," I said, squatting down so that we were looking eye to eye. "Is that for me?"

"Tarnay dinoo," the little girl mumbled in a foreign tongue. She pushed her offering closer to me, smiling.

I reached down and took the bright orange treat from her awaiting hand, and she smiled bashfully as my fingers brushed her palm. "Tarnay dinoo," she repeated, giggling. She gestured with her hands. "Effoo, effoo."

The meaning of that gesture was clear enough: Eat this.

I brought the pepper towards my mouth and paused, and she nodded encouragingly, clapping her hands as I took a small bite. Despite having the appearance of a super-hot jalapeno, its taste was unexpectedly bland. In spite of this, my tongue went numb almost instantly, as did my lips. It was as though I'd been injected with a strong dose of Novocain. As I swung my head around to tell Billy of my newfound discovery, my vision blurred and I felt lightheaded. I tried mumbling a thank-you, not realizing that the little auburn-haired girl could not have understood me anyway, even if I hadn't slurred the words, but she seemed to get the idea. She giggled softly, sweetly, and danced off into the crowd with her fiery hair flapping behind her.

At last I noticed Billy standing a few feet to my right. As I looked at him, his face became a swirl of glasses, nose, and mouth. Yet, he was looking at me as though I was the one whose face was morphing.

"Try some of this shit," I slurred to Billy. Between my mouth being full and the way my tongue suddenly felt as though it were glued to the floor of my mouth, my words sounded more like: Rye shummuv nishit. I offered the remainder of the orange pepper and Billy shook his head. Tingling with pins and needles, the chewed stump of the orange pepper slipped out of my hand and onto the marbled ground. I tried to bend down to retrieve it, but it was all I could do to keep from falling on my ass. After several useless attempts, I decided I'd had enough of the damn thing anyway.

From a million miles away, I heard Billy's voice say, "Do you really think that was a good idea? We have to do what we came here for. We have to find Jaawwwwwnnn...."

His voice stretched like a yawn, becoming more and more distant, as though we were on opposite sides of a very long tunnel. I did not realize it at the time, but I was already feeling the hallucinatory effects of the pepper.

Through the haze, I saw a young girl emerge from the crowd. She could not have been much older than me, with a wild mop of platinum hair, and piercing blue eyes. She wore a pair of black leather boots that rose up to her knees, a black G-string bikini bottom, and nothing more. She approached me with a confident stride, as if she'd been looking for me all along, her bright eyes gleaming with sexual prowess.

I quickly turned my head to see if Billy had noticed the approaching beauty, but his attention was focused on two female lovers who were spread-eagle on an oriental-looking blanket a few yards away, kissing each other madly with open mouths. By the time I glanced back again, I had enough time to see the blur of a face coming at me, and then her mouth was pressed against me in a rough kiss. Several things happened simultaneously: Her lips forced mine open, and her hot tongue thrust its way into my mouth. A bold but practiced hand grabbed me firmly between my legs, and began to slide up and down, up and down.

Before I had time to react, she dragged her lips away and whispered in my ear.

"I've heard about you, Outsider," she purred. Then her tongue slid out again, moving up and down the side of my neck, tracing a wet line up and over my chin, before pushing it back inside my awaiting mouth. When at last we kissed again, I drew her in against me, pulling her body close to me, one hand caressing the smooth flesh of her buttocks, the other rising instinctively to touch her exposed breasts. Her smell intrigued me. She smelled sweet, like the mist that rises from a waterfall. The orange pepper was taking a hold of me, and all I could do was go along with the motion of her mouth. I didn't love her. I didn't even know her. But I wanted her. I wanted her so badly that I'd forgotten all about John, Jen, Billy, Damon, Brynn, and pretty much everything else that mattered to me. All I knew was my own lust, my own savage hunger, which was telling me to do something unimaginable. Something horrible. Something I could not resist.

Her neck. I couldn't take my eyes from her fragile white neck, how it curved up from her collarbone to meet the smooth underside of her chin, and how the faint blue lines of veins were visible just beneath the surface. I was still staring at that lovely bridge of flesh when she leaned into me, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes.

"Bite me," she whispered. I could only look at her in lust, weighing the enormity of obeying her command. "Bite me," she pleaded, her voice hissing softly through her clenched teeth. Again, I hesitated, weighing my desire against my humanity. Then the plea became a frustrated moan: "Bite meeeee!"

She offered me her neck, and I took it hungrily into my mouth, tasting her perfumed flesh as I sank my teeth into her like an animal. She gasped and shook helplessly as I clutched her in my arms. Something warm and silky squirted into my mouth and began to dribble down my chin. From somewhere deep within my clouded mind, I realized it was her blood I tasted, yet I could not stop my jaws from performing their sinful workings. It was beyond my power to stop, for my thirst could not be sated. I could feel her essence coursing through my veins, a kind of electric charge that seemed to disturb a primal hunger within me. It was a sensation that was somehow familiar, as if I had awakened some long-dormant desire to feed.

When I'd taken my fill, I lifted my head from the gash in her neck and waited for her to make the next move, my body vibrating with pleasure beyond all description.

She licked her lips and smiled, opening her eyes. "I've been waiting for you, Dylan."

Dark rivulets of blood were pumping from her ravaged neck. She dipped her hand into the torrent and smeared the blood all over her trembling breasts in a slow, circular pattern, finally bringing her hand back to her scarlet lips to taste herself, lovingly sucking each finger until it was clean.

The static buzz which was coming from the crowd seemed to die down a bit, as if in anticipation. "It's time," said the platinum-haired girl with a lopsided grin. "I don't want to miss the show. We'll see each other again, though, won't we?"

"When will I see you again?" I asked, licking my lips. A second later, I realized that she'd said my name, which was strange because I didn't remember telling her.

"Don't you worry about that, lover. I'll find you. And when I do—" she said, backing away, "—I want to show you a whole new meaning of the word 'pleasure'. The name's Veronica. You'll remember that, won't you?"

I watched the slow-motion bounce of her thick platinum hair, the arch of her naked back, and the swaying of her scarcely covered buttocks as she strutted with pussycat grace into an ocean of people. A few minutes later, as the effects of the pepper slowly began to release its hold on me, I felt as though I was making the transition from dream to nightmare. To my inexplicable shame, Billy was no longer behind me as he'd been only moments before, and I feared for my younger friend; he was nowhere in sight. The children that I'd seen had seemingly disappeared—as had the jesters, clowns, and peddlers—and as I weaved my way in search of Billy, I found myself surrounded by hordes of shape-shifting inhumans caught in the heat of masochistic battles.

All around me, I saw naked women lolling about, lying in wait for anyone who felt the urge to take them. A young redhead crawled towards us on her hands and knees, devouring me with her bedroom eyes. Sweat glistened along the arch of her back, highlighting her smooth curves, as she raised her buttocks suggestively. Elsewhere, a small group of men and women had transformed themselves into a pulsing blob of multi-colored flesh that consisted of three arms, one leg, four breasts of various sizes, two penises similar in length, and at least three faces, all of which protruded from the blubbery walls at random. As I neared the orgy-blob, I saw that it was quivering steadily, and I heard sucking sounds and muffled moans coming from somewhere deep within the thick folds of flesh. I saw men and women attacking one another's necks in much the same manner as I'd done only a few minutes before, moaning and gasping as they gorged themselves, baring blood-stained smiles as they looked up at me.

I remembered how strange it was that Veronica had known my name without my even telling her, and it then occurred to me that she wasn't the only person here who seemed to know me. It occurred to me that everyone at the gathering seemed to be watching me. The little girl who gave me the orange pepper, for instance. All eyes seemed to follow me as I passed by. But then there was the possibility that the narcotic pepper had just left me with a heightened sense of paranoia. But what if, I wondered, it was all a part of Damon's plan? What if the festival, the little girl, the young lady with the platinum hair, everything...what if it was all a part of Damon's scheme to seduce me into joining the Tribe. Was this all a ruse, orchestrated for my benefit?

I decided it was possible. I was beginning to learn that anything was possible in The Still.

Continuing through the masses in search of Billy and Brynn, I weaved in and out of the statues, the pillars, and the fire pits, carefully avoiding the bodies of copulating couples that were scattered everywhere. At some point, a shirtless young man with spiked green hair and dark sunglasses walked past me, carrying a large white snake across his shoulders. As he drew closer, I saw that the head of the serpent, though normal in shape and size, bore the infantile face of a human. The young man smiled as he saw my reaction to his baby-faced reptile, and as he did so, I saw a forked tongue flicker between his lips. I immediately recognized him as Gabriel, a shape-shifter I'd seen in the form of a winged man during my first visit to The Still. I walked on.

Strangely, the more I was exposed to these mind-bending, grotesque, and provocative sights, the less fearful I became. I not only began to feel more comfortable with these unusual sights, but I was beginning to become unexpectedly aroused by them. The sound of nude wet bodies slapping together, the snapping and crackling of kindling as flames licked the edges of the fire pits, the breathless moaning, whining, screaming, begging of desires yet to be fulfilled; these mingled sounds seemed to corrupt my thoughts, to fill me with desires never felt before. I was beginning to forget who I was, and why I was there. That I could not differentiate between the screams of pleasure and the screams of agony was a sign that The Still was beginning to endear itself to me. Perhaps, I pondered, pleasure and pain were one and the same. Perhaps the difference was illusory, some false contrivance of the human mind.

I was still pondering these things when I saw Brynn. Thinking back, it seems I sensed her before I saw her; there was a sort of vibration in the air, like the plucking of a guitar string—a string that seemed to connect our very souls.

She emerged from the crowd wearing nothing more than the flawless olive skin that graced her. Our eyes met, and before I knew it, she was standing before me, her lips so close to mine that I could almost taste them, though her hot breath alone was enough to make me hunger for her. I don't know how long we stood that way, but our mouths finally touched at the same instant, as if on cue. Closing my eyes to the chaos around us, I pulled her body against me. I could sense someone watching me in shock and horror, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Billy standing a short distance away, eyes wide behind his glasses, mouth hanging open in a failed attempt to speak.

I remember thinking of Jen, though somehow, betraying her in that world seemed less severe than betraying her in ours. In the world that exists outside the dark pool there is much less temptation.

I was still kissing Brynn when an eerie hush fell and the crowd parted for John Pratty, who strutted through the opening like Moses after the parting of the Red Sea.

"It's time for the Passing," Brynn whispered softly in my ear, and it was then that my true intentions returned.

I was there to save John Pratty's soul.

John walked towards us with the stern-faced bravado of a champion boxer before the title bout. Memories of my childhood came rushing through my mind. I remembered the time I fell off my bicycle and sprained my ankle, and how John and Billy carried me home on their shoulders. I remembered the time John stuck up for me when a bully named Max Kendall challenged me to a fight after school. I remembered how John had taught Billy and me what it meant to have true friends. I remembered how he used to say that we were the three musketeers, all for one and one for all, and all that other bullshit that suddenly seemed lifetimes away. All of those things moved through me, and I realized, looking out at the motley faces around us, that there wasn't a damn thing I could do but watch him undergo the Passing, and hope that I would not have to watch him die. A selfish hope, I realize, but all that I could muster, given my circumstances.

"We've got to do something," I muttered. "We've got to help him."

Billy renounced our cause with a single hopeless word: "How?"

Damon extended his long arms welcomingly and John fell into them. Perhaps, on the streets of our world, it would have been a pleasant sight. One might even think they were father and son.

Reluctantly, John separated from the leader of The Tribe, and cast his sunken eyes in our direction. For a moment, his face showed but the slightest trace of remorse, and then it was gone.

"Billy...Dylan...." John said, nodding to each of us in turn. "They speak of you here." Then his blackened eyes dug into mine. "You should stay awhile."

"Come with us, John." Tears were streaming down the side of Billy's face. "Don't let him take you."

Affectionately, John rested his hands on Billy's giant shoulders. "I love you very much, Billy, but my work is done up there. I can have anything I want here...a new beginning...a new life."

"It doesn't have to be this way, man. You don't know what He is," I said, choking back my own tears. Sensing my sorrow, Brynn pressed herself closer to me, her eyes wide with sympathy, and nuzzled her face against my cheek.

"If you don't join us, He might kill you," John said, rather bluntly.

I nodded. "And you would let that happen?"

"I think you want it to happen, Dylan."

From the corner of my eyes, I could see tears rolling down the side of Brynn's face, and at that very moment, I realized that we were much, much more than hot for each other.

We were... in love. I didn't know if it was true love, or if she had worked some kind of spell over me, but I didn't care either way. What I felt, the passion, the lust, the deep-seeded aching in my heart, was more real than anything I'd ever felt before or since.

"Maybe I do," I answered, thoughtfully. "But not without a fight."

John grinned. After all, he was the one who taught me how to fight, to never give up, and to never back down.

"The time is upon us," Damon said with unbridled amusement.

John nodded. He turned his back on us. As he did so, the hope inside my heart quickly died, leaving little else behind to fill the void. The onlookers were going crazy as John made his way to Damon, cheerful to witness the Passing of pleasure or pain; or, perhaps, both.

"Do you remember, Jon Pratty," Damon said, "the laws of The Still?"

"Yes, my leader, I remember."

"Number one?"

"My heart is a symbol of my past life; therefore, it is no longer needed."

"Number two?"

"The Tribe is my family. They are my brothers and sisters. If my flesh They desire, then my flesh I will offer."

"Three?"

"Mine are the eyes of night. Never again will they rest upon true sunlight until the joining of the worlds."

"Four?"

My body went numb as John flashed me a fierce glance. Although we did not speak at that moment, his eyes said it all: This is it, Dylan. The world above didn't leave me any other choice. This is what it has come to. Please, forgive me.

"Number four!"

John snapped to attention. "I will indulge in my hungers."

"And what are your hungers?"

"To feed...to quench my every desire."

A smile spread like wildfire across Damon's face as he tore the shirt from John's body. "Number five?"

Even from the distance at which I stood, I could see the goose bumps rise on John's bare chest, and I could see that he was trembling. Indeed, he had every right to tremble.

"In return for the gift of eternal life, my heart and soul belong to you, Damon, leader of The Tribe."

"Good," Damon said, gloating. "Then it is done."

From beside me, Billy emitted a desperate whimper, but it was lost in the cheers and jeers of the crowd around us, whose long-awaited ceremony was reaching its climax.

Without a doubt, I felt like I was in a nightmare, the kind where you can watch but can't interact. I was praying I'd wake up and all would be well, though a rational voice within me told me my prayers would not be answered.

Damon waited patiently before he continued, purposely dragging the time to relish in the agony that adorned our two faces. Amidst the madness, his dead-white eyes found me, and as they did so, a smile distorted his taffy face.

With murder in my eyes and vengeance in my heart, I smiled back at the bastard, and watched as his pretentious smile faltered. In a second or two, the false expression vanished altogether. During that short moment, I felt a strange, spiritual power coursing through my veins. I was aware that my mind was not clear. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't think straight, but for some reason that inability did not bother me. I felt as though I was glowing like a Roman candle on the Fourth of July and that, at any moment, I would explode into one great ball of fire—a fire that would sweep away the Pleasure Tribe like a giant broom sweeping away dust-bunnies from the corner of a dark closet. Then, it was gone.

Damon could sense it, I think; I could see it in his eyes.

I don't know what it was, or where that feeling came from, but it was gone before I knew it; a distant echo.

Damon was removing his trench coat to reveal his six, grinning rib-mouths, and John was standing with his feet together and his head tilted back. John stretched his arms, palms up, toward the sky, his body forming the shape of a T. It was a posture that was all too familiar.

He was preparing himself to be crucified.

With one powerful thrust, Damon's fist entered John's chest, propelling flesh, bone, and serpent-like roots of the heart out through his back.

John moaned.

Damon smiled.

Billy gasped.

Brynn and I held each other closer. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She buried her face against me.

Once again taking pleasure in the moment, Damon slowly removed John's still-beating heart, and held it above his head like a trophy.

He then sank his bent yellow teeth into the living muscle, and thick, dark, blood jetted in every direction. As he did so, the sound of John's heart ended mid-beat.

Members of The Tribe scrambled forward on their knees, pushing and shoving one another, as they licked John's blood from the ground in a mad feeding frenzy.

John Pratty, who lived at 414 Titicut Street with his parents and his only sibling, Jen. John Pratty, who had taught me more about life than any teacher or textbook. John Pratty, the brother I'd never had. That John Pratty was gone now. He wasn't sleeping. He wasn't breathing. He was never again going to sit next to me in school, or coax me into sneaking out of my house to drink a few beers at The Spot. I had just witnessed seventeen years of friendship flushed down the toilet like so much garbage.

John Pratty was dead, lying in a pitiful heap at Damon's feet.

Eyes glowing, Damon lifted his head from the ravaged heart he was cupping in his hands, and blood ran from his mouth to his chin, dripping down upon the place where John's body lay twitching.

Damon's rib-mouths screamed in unison, and their veiny tongues lashed out, securing themselves to John Pratty's spasmodic corpse, and with little effort, jerked him to his feet.

To reassure myself that what I was seeing was real, I flashed a quick glance at Billy.

But Billy wasn't watching anymore. He was looking down at his feet, to where his teardrops were falling like a summer's rain. I wished that I knew some way to comfort him, wished that I could tell him that everything would be okay, but it didn't seem like the time or place for words of comfort.

The corpse was dancing like a marionette, and Damon's rib-mouths were using their tongues to manipulate the movement.

"Come, now!" Damon grunted between clenched, bloodstained teeth. He extended his arms like a preacher. "Come forth! Come forth and feed!"

There was a deafening buzzing sound. Imagine the sound that a honeybee makes when it dive-bombs past your head. Now imagine that sound amplified one thousand times; it was so loud that my bones seemed to vibrate. Then a dark mist materialized in front of Damon. It began as a sort of smudge that hovered in the air. Then Damon's rib-mouths began to chant, and the smudge steadily metastasized into something larger, something man-sized. It was difficult to focus on the cloud. It kept shifting, changing. By some distortion of the eye, one moment it appeared to be a dark apparition, a kind of faceless, living shadow, while the next it looked to be nothing more than a concentrated cloud of insects. Whatever it was, it attacked John's corpse with a fury, tearing the clothes from his flesh, and then tearing the flesh from his bones. Within seconds, entire sections of his chest, his left arm, his neck, and most of his face were gone, the skin ripped away as though he were made of paper. And the rib-mouths kept sucking and squealing, and the demon wind kept shredding and tearing. Damon had already devoured John's soul, and now he devoured all that he wanted of my friend's flesh, and John Pratty's body was reborn.

The massive crowd was silent for the sight, and remained as still as statues until the Passing was complete. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the cold wind faded into a gentle breeze, then dissipated altogether. The hook-toothed rib-mouths retracted their wormy tongues, and my best friend's repulsively decorated body was left standing on its own, limbs dangling limply, like a puppet without strings.

"Open your eyes, my son," Damon's voice boomed. "You have passed the test."

One of John's eyelids began to twitch. Suddenly, both lids flung open to reveal his blood-red eyes.

I looked at Damon. He looked at me. Then his face began to stretch and bubble and reshape itself, until it was no longer Damon I saw. It was Mueller and Moriarty and Monsignor Goodman, and dozens of others, and Damon's cold laughter was coming from their mouths.

Then I knew: Like John, their souls belonged to The Still. It had infected and consumed them all. The bastard had tricked me into entering The Still to save a soul that was already lost: the damned soul of my friend, John Pratty. With complete abandonment, I lunged at him, my arms outstretched, ready to fasten my hands around the bastard's throat.

I was moments away from realizing my vengeance when, once again, a wave of darkness overcame me.

My friend.

My world.

My soul.

All was lost.

## Chapter Twelve: Pleasure and Pain

"Mmmmm...do you like that?'

I opened my eyes to see the tips of noble pines reaching up to meet a tranquil blue sky. Birds were singing, flapping lazily as they exchanged places in the trees. The air smelled vaguely of exotic spices, evergreens, and the freshness of a recently fallen rain.

"I want you to watch me while I do it," a silky-sweet voice cooed.

Where the hell am I? I thought. Was it all a dream? What had become of John? Billy? Brynn?

I looked down, towards my feet.

I was lying on a blanket, in a clearing somewhere in the Hockomock Swamp. I could tell it was the Hockomock by the smell. That strange, sweet smell; it is simply unforgettable.

Brynn was lying on her stomach, kissing my bare chest. As if sensing my eyes upon her, she lifted her head and smiled wickedly, her lower lip and chin gleaming with drool. Her eyes were wide, hypnotic, and most of all, hungry. Her eyes stared me down as she continued to kiss my chest, my stomach, and then—

She stopped.

"Will you make love to me?" she asked as she straddled me. "Do you want me to take off my dress?"

Until she'd offered, I hadn't noticed she was wearing a dress; I'd been too busy watching her mouth and eyes. Yet, I found myself nodding just the same.

She sat upright on her knees, fingertips caressing her smooth, shapely legs, her creamy thighs. Then she lifted the silky black dress up to her waist, so the neatly trimmed mound of her pubic hair was visible. "Take me," Brynn whispered. "Take me now!"

She positioned herself carefully, spreading her slim legs around me. In one swift motion, she unzipped my pants and guided my erection up and inside of her. She was so hot inside that I gasped out loud. I had never felt so much pleasure, not even in my wildest dreams.

Closing my eyes, I imagined that it was not just Brynn I was making love to, but every girl I had ever fantasized about. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Mrs. Carterson, working her hips against me, her melon-sized breasts slapping up and down against her midsection. She smiled down at me just the way I had always pictured in my mind: her bright red lips pulled back from two rows of perfect teeth, her large, firm breasts glistening with sweat, her short blonde hair dangling towards me. She told me that she had always wanted me, and that she was going to make me work to get an A in her class. Then I blinked and she was gone, replaced by Amanda Johnson, the petite dirty-blonde whose sensuous mouth I had once kissed at a party, and she leaned forward, digging her nails into my shoulders, flashing me a crooked, bitchy smile as she forced me to sit upright, pulling my face against her sweaty breasts. I felt a strange transformation taking place; muscles twitching, weight shifting, hands clutching at me, then relaxing, tone of voice growing louder, more raspy. I looked up to see Wendy Harrington—a fiery redhead with green eyes and a small, pouty mouth—a girl whom I had dated off and on before I realized that I was in love with my best friend's sister. Wendy locked her legs around me and pulled my mouth against hers, kissing and moaning softly as she shook her hips against me. Another transformation, and this time I found myself kissing the neck of the sexy blonde who managed the concession stand at the Futawam Theater. Myriad women appeared and then disappeared before my wide, staring eyes, some of them coming so briefly that I could hardly register their faces in my mind, all of them naked and insatiable. Finally, Veronica, the lithe, leather-clad blonde whose blood I had exhausted earlier that day, appeared before me. She gave me a sideways smile and pulled my mouth against her neck. In an instant, I felt that ancient impulse beating on my brain. Oh, the hunger! I could smell her blood, could hear it pumping in her heart and coursing through her veins. I bit down without a thought, closing my eyes as her warm, salty juice squirted into my eager mouth.

As I drank, I felt her flesh stretch as it reshaped itself, and I knew without looking that Brynn had morphed back into her own form. Some distant part of me acknowledged that, at some point during the transformation, I had climaxed deep inside of her, and that this was something she had wanted me to do.

Finally spent, she collapsed against me. "Mmmm. Did you enjoy the changes?"

"I'm sorry," I gasped. "I didn't mean to..."

Brynn giggled softly and kissed me. "Don't be sorry. I enjoyed the changes as much as you did."

She propped herself up on her elbows and smiled.

That is when everything, not only Brynn, began to change.

She was melting against me, like a candle in the heat of an intense flame. But she was not the only thing melting, I noticed to my horror.

I looked up and saw the trees and birds and the sky run together like hot wax. Then I looked over at my arm, and to my inexplicable horror, saw that I was melting, too.

There was an eternal moment of pain.

I could feel the flesh sliding from my skeleton, becoming one with everything around me, including Brynn, who was screaming shrilly. I could feel my blood oozing and bubbling onto the blanket that was also melting to me. After a moment, I couldn't see, I could only feel the transformation from solid to liquid, because my eyes were now gone, running down the side of what had once been my face like two egg-whites on a hot griddle.

I could feel Brynn's head mashing into my chest like a puddle of warm cheese, her skeletal hands clutching at me blindly, and I could still hear her gargled cries. I tried to scream, but I couldn't, because my mouth was also gone, sliding somewhere around the place where my neck used to be.

Even my bones began to melt.

I had become a part of everything, and everything, a part of me.

There was the distant sound of laughter, of voices whispering and chanting my name, and then my ears melted away.

***

There was a bright explosion, like a blast of sparks from a welding torch, and I jumped in surprise, slamming my elbow into something hard. My funny bone vibrated with pain.

Beside me, Jen Pratty was laughing.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a hushed voice. "You've been actin' sorta weird all night."

I nodded, uncertain. "Yeah, it's just...I'm okay."

She took my hand in hers.

I looked forward, as did she, and watched as a larger-than-life policeman sobbed into his hands beside a burning car. Then he rose, removing his pistol from his shoulder holster, and a loud, foreshadowing song blared around me as he began down a dark, wet street.

I was at the movies. The little Futawam Theater, by the looks of it.

"Did I doze off or something?" I asked, apparently a bit too loud.

Jen's eyes remained on the screen as she raised a finger to her lips. "Shhhhh...." Then, in a low whisper: "What did you say?'

"I asked if I dozed off," I said, lowering my voice to match her volume.

"No, you just looked like you were spacin' out," she said, giggling softly behind one hand. Her eyes moved from the screen to me, and then back to the screen.

"Oh," I muttered, a bit embarrassed.

Another explosion filled the screen, rumbling through the Dolby Stereo. Man, how I loved the movies. The intensity of the surround sound; the brilliant special effects; the smell of popcorn drenched with salt and butter; the excitement of stepping into a dark theater and seeing a film you've never seen before; these were things I still held sacred. In a sense, going to the movies is like stepping through a portal into your childhood, for it is one experience that has remained fundamentally the same over the past fifty-odd years.

So it only makes sense that being in a familiar place disarmed me somewhat, and I began to think that maybe everything that had happened before was all just a part of some crazy dream. Besides, Jen was sitting right there next to me, and her presence alone always had a calming effect on me.

Despite my rationalizations, my imagination's voice interjected: You really think so, eh ol' buddy? I think you're just too damn scared to admit the truth. You're in hell, ol' buddy. Did you hear me? Hell!

Have you ever noticed that the lies we tell ourselves are the ones that can do the most harm? This was one of those times, one of those lies.

From what I could piece together, the film's protagonist, a square-jawed cop bent on vengeance, was sneaking up on a heavily guarded warehouse in search of the mysterious drug lord responsible for murdering his family. As Mr. Turner, my tenth grade English teacher had once explained, it was always easy to spot the protagonist in a story, for the protagonist was always the complete opposite of the bad guy.

The scene then transitioned to the inside of the warehouse, where the drug-lord sat in a huge leather chair, monitoring his opponent on a cluster of small television screens. Just before the scene shifted back to the hero cop, the man in the large black chair broke into a fit of loud, hysterical laughter that caused me to stiffen in my seat. There was something remotely familiar about that laughter, something that sent cold tremors dancing through my body.

As I struggled to remember where I had heard such laughter before, I felt as though I'd been doused with hot water, like some kind of sixth sense, warning me that something terrible was about to happen.

The hero and the villain were about to meet face to face, apparently for the first time. The only thing that stood between them was the back of that humongous leather chair. Melodramatic music wafted slowly through the theater as the chair began to rotate in slow motion.

"Who do you think it is?" Jen whispered. As her fingers interlaced with mine, she began to dig her nails into the back of my hand. As the tension built within her body, her nails burrowed deeper and deeper into my skin. "I think it's the guy from the bank," she whispered excitedly.

The music began to reach an eerie crescendo as the chair neared the end of its sluggish rotation.

"...or maybe it's the captain. It's gotta be someone he knows...." Five fingernails pierced my skin. I think I actually felt the wetness of blood, but it was far too dark to know for sure, and I was too engrossed in the movie to care.

The chair completed its agonizingly slow turn and John Pratty's handsome, grinning face loomed above us, larger than life. The speakers reverberated with his awful laughter until it was far beyond deafening, until I could feel it rattling my teeth. John's yellow-toothed grin was wide enough to swallow me whole. Not quite the width of the screen, but damn close to it. With that murderous grimace, he looked less like John and more like Damon.

It would be an understatement to say that it wasn't a pleasant sight. It was downright terrifying.

I shot to my feet, ready to fight, and felt Jen's nails shoveling across the back of my hand. She'd been holding on so tightly, that I barely managed to pull away.

That sonofabitch is gonna eat the whole damn theater, I thought. People, chairs, and all.

But he didn't.

That would've been too easy.

Through the screen there came a massive 3-D arm; it moved gracefully to the back of the theater, to the row where I was standing, and came to rest only inches from my head.

The giant fist, so close I thought it was going to knock the life out of me, hovered before my unbelieving eyes. The arm rotated until it was fully supinated, and then the giant fist was facing palm-up. One by one the bony fingers opened and there, tiny in the center of the huge open palm, was a red ticket with the words Adult Admission: Admit One printed across it. Damon's voice boomed over the stereo, "Take this admission ticket. No muss, no fuss, it's absolutely free!"

Regressing back to the age of eight, or maybe younger, a loud noise escaped my mouth. I guess you could call it a whimper.

Some people in the surrounding rows, Jen included, were looking at me in a most peculiar way. Three teenage boys a few rows ahead of me were pointing. A fat woman and a skinny bald man were glaring at me, whispering softly with collective disapproval. Two young girls in the row adjacent to mine were laughing so hard, it looked as though they were crying.

By now, I was aware that no one else could see the giant limb but me, and that was not a comfortable feeling. The patrons of the Futawam Grand Cinemas were obviously viewing something entirely different.

Theirs was an action movie.

Mine was a real-life horror.

I looked down at Jen and admired the beauty of her face as she looked back at me questioningly. But there was a definite strangeness about her. I tried to convince myself that it was the effect of the dim theater lights that bothered me, but I knew that wasn't the case. It was her eyes. Something was missing from them. Her very soul, perhaps.

A sense of foreboding slivered through my mind like an icicle and I returned my attention to the long limb that no one but I could see. Without much thought, I did as I was told, and plucked the small red ticket from the middle of the giant hand.

Again, I noticed people twisting in their seats, trying hard to figure out what the hell I was doing. The others in the audience took little or no notice, apparently more interested in the movie than in their immediate surroundings.

I looked down at the small red ticket in the palm of my hand. It felt good to hold it, I thought. It felt warm. It felt magical.

It felt right.

I watched with fascination as it turned a variety of colors: brilliant reds, blues, greens, and purples. Little by little, I could feel my mind sliding off into a pool of liquid rainbows, but I could not look away. Nor did I want to. But suddenly I knew, though knowing could not reverse the effect, that I should not have taken the ticket.

As if to confirm my troubled realization, something landed in my hair. With great discomfort, I clapped my hand over the top of my head and, with even greater discomfort, ran my fingers through my hair to find the mysterious invader.

I soon made contact.

It was small and thin, whatever it was. Not much larger than a nickel. It was light in weight and smooth in texture, save for the rough, perforated edges.

Squinting into the gloomy theater lights, I could almost see the odd little object. Almost, but not quite. Digging my hand into the back pocket of my jeans, I removed a tattered book of matches. Just as I was about to strike a light, something severed my habitual motion only a hair away from contact with the flint paper. Another object landed on me. This time, on my lap.

Cautiously, I looked up and saw a murky green light ripping through the ceiling of the theater. No, it wasn't just brilliant in comparison to the yellow theater lights; it was literally ripping through the ceiling. The objects in question, the ones that had fallen on me, were actually pieces of the paneling that made up the ceiling of the theater.

Suddenly, I found myself floating out of my seat, rising towards the unearthly light above. I tried my hardest to call for help, I remember that much clearly, but no one seemed to hear me. Either that, or they simply didn't give a damn about my demise.

I looked down and saw Jen still sitting there, entangled in the movie, and someone, or something, that looked a hell of a lot like me was sitting there beside her, one arm around her shoulders, peering up at me with bright red eyes, chanting my name like a curse.

Dyl-an, Dyl-an, Dyl-an, Dyl-an, Dyl-an...

It saw the terror on my face and smiled deliberately, a crooked, piranha-toothed smile, as it leaned in to sink its teeth into Jen Pratty's throat. It took only a second or two before I realized that it was, in fact, me I was seeing below. It was me who was chanting my own name. Me, with Damon's smile. Me, who was moving in to prey upon Jen Pratty, my girlfriend, my love. A different me. The same me which had betrayed Jen by taking Brynn as my lover. The same me that had gorged on Veronica's blood like an animal, tearing at her flesh in utter abandonment of my fundamental humanity.

I was looking down at the thing Damon wanted me to become, what I had already started to become, without even realizing it.

A monster.

I had become one of Them.

I was an insect, an ignorant fly, tangled in Damon's many webs. From the very first moment I had entered The Still, he'd been devouring me slowly, periodically stealing such little bits of my life that I did not notice it until now. I did not know it then, though I know it now, but I was already dead from the first time I set my eyes upon him. Damon did not have to kill me, for I had already killed myself. It was my own curiosity, my own desires, my own appetites which had led to my demise.

Kicking and thrashing about as I levitated closer to the ceiling, I screamed for Jen to listen, to run, to escape. But she could not hear my warnings. I closed my eyes to spare myself the sight of her mutilation, but I could not shut out the sounds of ripping and tearing, of growling and slurping, as the other me indulged in its carnal instincts.

As I continued my vertiginous ascent, I felt the searing heat of that repulsive green light, as the awful chill of truth washed over me.

## Chapter Thirteen: A Brief Taste of Paradise

I had expected pain. I had expected to see Damon gloating over me, surrounded by hordes of his companions, all smiling in delight as they prepared to feast upon me. I had expected to be tortured beyond my darkest dreams. When the pain did not come, I opened my eyes and saw Brynn sprinting toward me.

"Dylan!" she exclaimed, showing all her perfect white teeth. Wearing a long, summery dress that clung to her curvaceous figure in all the right places, she flung herself into my unprepared arms.

I held her that way for a long time, running my fingers through her silky hair, getting high from the sweet fragrance that she carried, thanking my lucky stars that I had found her once again. Good Lord, what a beautiful creature! Then I thought of Jen Pratty—sweet, innocent Jen Pratty, who was somewhere outside of The Still, unaware of my lust, my hunger, my many acts of betrayal—and I began to feel nauseous in my guilt.

Brynn, as if sensing this sudden change of heart, shuddered in my arms. Pulling away from me, she took a backward step so that we were now looking straight into one another's eyes. "Where are we?" I asked, scanning our new surroundings. We were standing in the middle of an enormous field of red grass that seemed to go on as far as the eye could see and, above it, there was a baby-blue sky with stars as brilliant as fireworks on the Fourth of July.

"Paradise," Brynn said, gazing directly into my eyes. "Come, I'll show you."

"But what about the theater, and—and—"

Brynn hushed me with a sensuous kiss.

"She's fine," Brynn assured me. "Trust me, she's safe. It wasn't real."

She took me by the hand and led me a few feet away from where we'd been standing and suddenly, our surroundings blurred, rippling outward in rings, much in the same fashion as a body of water when its surface has been broken by a pebble in flight. The world around us shimmered, and slowly the ripples smoothed away from the center, converging at the horizon, as the world slowly flattened itself out, returning to the steady reality we humans have grown accustomed to. When the atmosphere cleared, and the ripples had gone, I found to my amazement, that the field of red grass, as well as the brilliant starry blue sky which had lingered above only moments ago, had altogether vanished.

Having passed through an invisible door, we were now somewhere entirely different; a small jungle clearing with waterfalls and strange trees with fluorescent fruits which blossomed beneath a pleasant orange sun set in a sky of bruised purple. There were animals that resembled unicorns drinking peacefully from small pools of water, exotic birds flying lazily through the emerald-green treetops, and there we were amidst it all, standing in a fairy-tale land.

"Oh...my...God..." I stammered in disbelief.

Brynn smiled and led me to the water's edge. "This is why I joined Him," she said with distance in her eyes. No, it was more than distance. It was sadness, perhaps for the price she had paid; the cost of her mortal soul. "I was an unattractive little girl with dreams of Never-Never Land, and then I met Damon. He offered me things I had only dreamed of; beauty, acceptance, the power to live out my fantasies. So I joined Him. I gave him my soul and he gave me everything. That's what he does. He gives you whatever it is that you're missing."

"But you're not like Them," I assured her, caressing her face. "They're evil, wicked, They live for violence and pain and—"

"Pleasure?" Brynn asked. "We all live for pleasure."

I shook my head; I was not ready to face the truth. "No," I told her, "we live for love. Without love, there's nothing."

"Do you love me, Dylan?" she asked after what seemed like a very long time. Her eyes were deep with passion. "I can't remember what it's like to be loved...by an Outsider, I mean."

I caressed the side of her face with my hand and kissed her gently on the lips. "Yes, Brynn. Yes, I love you."

She squeezed my hand and smiled. "Will you stay with me?"

"Stay? Here?"

"Yessss!"

"You know I can't do that, Brynn. I can't stay here. Besides, this is all just an illusion, just like the forest and the movie theater."

"I wanted to talk to you about that."

The look of trepidation on my face inspired her to continue.

"Dylan, those weren't illusions. It was real. All of it."

"Real?" I asked, and the crack in my voice surprised even me. "That's impossible. There's no way that—" I stopped. There was no point in lying to myself. The things I had seen, the sensations I had felt were—

"Real! All of it was real! I was really there with you, in the forest, only it wasn't the Hock...at least not the one you know. And the movie theater...you were really there, but not the Futawam Theater outside the pool, not with the girl you know."

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

"Whatever can be imagined can be yours," Brynn told me, and I felt a slight sensation of déjà-vu. Was it possible that we'd already had this same discussion? She continued, "All of those things were real. Damon made them real by drawing energy from the Still, weaving our dreams and fantasies together to form a new reality, and he put me there with you. He told me if I didn't, he'd punish me."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I took her by the shoulders. "It was horrible. I thought we were melting."

"I couldn't," she whimpered. "He said I had to go along with it, or he'd punish me. And punish you. I don't want you to turn into one of us, Dylan. I don't want to see him turn you into some kind of animal. I brought you here to warn you, because that's his plan. That's always been his plan. It was never John or Jen or Billy that Damon was after. It was you! It was always you!"

"It's okay," I comforted her. "I'm okay. You did the right thing." I wondered why I was lying to her, and the thought crossed my mind that maybe, just maybe, I was really only lying to myself. "Why me, Brynn? What does he want me for?"

"I don't know," she said, looking down at her feet. "I just know he gathers souls...and that some are stronger than others. He's been looking for something...something very old and very powerful. Maybe yours is one of the strong ones, maybe strong enough to help him spread his evil influence far beyond this place."

"To spread—?"

"Right now, his power is limited," she explained. "He can leave...travel short distances away from the pools that he's made, but it drains him. Our souls give him power. The more power he has, the further he can reach out into the Upland. Then he'll spread, like a pestilence. He wants to taint the world. He wants to be God."

We stood in silence on the bank of the river for some time. Her thoughts, to this day, remain a mystery to me. But I clearly remember what I was thinking about that day: how to stop Damon.

My concentration was soon broken as I noticed Brynn had begun to undress herself.

"C'mon," she whispered after a quiet moment, "let's go for a dip. It will calm you. The water's perfect."

Her dress fell to the ground, and though I knew there were more pressing matters at hand, I could not look away. When she came to me, naked and tugging on my belt, I did not even bother to feign resistance. I too undressed.

"Ready, lover?" she whispered, kissing the side of my mouth.

We dived in together.

She was right. The sparkling water, the child-like splashing, the passionate lovemaking; it was all so perfect.

Somehow, I knew it would be.

## Chapter Fourteen: The Final Offer

"Dylan," a vaguely familiar voice whispered. "Dylan!"

The last thing I remembered was lying on the riverbank with Brynn, her wet body pressed against me, listening to the sounds of the waterfalls, feeling more content than ever in my life. And then...

A male voice hissed: "Dylan!"

Snapping awake, I saw a pair of slanted red eyes hovering before me in the darkness.

"Dylan!" the hushed voice said once again.

It was John, I realized, or whatever it was that he had become. I can't recall whether or not his presence frightened me, though I remember that I was disoriented, soaking wet and shaking like a leaf. In a sense, it felt like I was being reborn. Or dying. I haven't decided which.

"What do you want?" I answered, my voice cracking. "Where the hell am I?"

"You're back in your bedroom," John said patiently. The red eyes blinked slowly.

"Another dream?" I mumbled, mostly to myself.

"No, man. This time, it ain't no dream."

"What happened?" I asked, sitting upright in my bed.

For a moment, there was only silence. It felt less like seconds than hours.

Then John said quietly, "I Passed, Dylan."

Suddenly, a thought struck me like a blow. "Where's Billy? And Brynn?"

"They're safe," John said reassuringly in a voice that was not quite his own. "Billy's at home, probably sleeping like you were."

"Asleep?" I murmured. I tried to think back to the events of that evening, but everything seemed hazy and surreal. "What about Brynn?"

The red eyes blinked thoughtfully. "You love her, don't you?"

"Where the fuck is she?" I snapped, throwing aside my covers.

"She's still there," John answered. "At the falls. Probably dreaming of her sweet little Dylan." Then he laughed a little, and it sounded like he was laughing through a mouthful of broken glass. "Don't worry, I won't tell Jen. Brynn will be our little secret, okay?"
At the falls, I thought. That meant she was somewhere in The Still. I didn't like that idea. Not one little bit. I wanted her with me. Not just then, but always.

"I want to talk," John said softly. His fiery eyes gleamed like jewels, bobbing away from the corner of the room, moving closer to me, and I felt the edge of my bed dip down and heard the mattress utter a weak complaint as John sat beside me. His voice was thick and somewhat gargled, with just a hint of the familiar John I once knew and loved. That boy was gone. He was like the others now. He was part of the Tribe.

I turned to the eyes. "Talk? About what?"

He sighed through his nostrils. Then he said, "About you, Dylan."

"Did Damon send you?"

"No!" he exclaimed. "I came here on my own free will."

In many ways, John was different from the person he had once been, but he was still a shitty liar. Some things, I guess, you just can't take away from a person. Not even when you steal their soul.

"You want me to join you," I said.

"Yesss!" he cried, and his eyes flared brighter with this sudden exultation. "You couldn't imagine the power, the pure pleasure of quenching your darkest hungers. There's no jealousy in The Still. There's no hatred, no death. You can have any woman you want. Hell, you can have them all if you want, Dylan. Forever, like an endless dream."

His ragged breathing filled the void as he paused to let this sink in. When he continued, his voice was lower, softer. "I can feel everything now, Dylan. Everything is suddenly so clear to me. I can understand the trees when they whisper in the wind. I can speak to animals, and they can speak to me. I can see stars and planets that haven't even been discovered yet. The shadows know my name. They love me. They tell me things; secrets; things I've always wondered about, but could never find the answers to. And the members of the Tribe, my brothers and sisters, have shown me things I couldn't have dreamed of before. You, too, can have these things, Dylan. I know, because they already speak of you down there; the great Outsider whose hungers are that of our own. You can be anything you want in The Still. There are no limits! I can feel the pulse of the universe flowing through my veins. Come join us, Dylan. Come and be a part of the night."

It was done. The offer had been made, and John's slitted red eyes burned holes in the darkness as he awaited my answer. He was offering me freedom, a word whose true meaning I would never know; not in my lifetime, not in our world. I thought of how it felt to sink my teeth into the fragile neck of that platinum-haired beauty, remembering the rush, the explosions of pleasure that shook me to the very core of my being. I remembered my time with Brynn, in all her various shapes, with all her irresistible charms. I longed for these things, longed them so very badly, but something within me refused the temptation, though there was a part of me that yearned to give in, to let that world seduce and intoxicate me as it had already done on several occasions. I shook my head, surprising even myself.

"He's using you, John." My words seemed to make the darkness ripple, like stones being dropped into a pond. "He's using you to pave the way for his reign of darkness, and you joined him willingly. He has your soul and now he wants mine. He's evil, John. He's the Devil."

John's laughter was so loud and so sudden that it startled me more than his being there. "Devil?" he said mockingly. He snickered. "There is no Devil. Just like there is no God. Good and evil are just matters of perception." The red eyes became tiny pinpricks of light. "Don't be a fool, Dylan. They'll never stop, never let you live a normal life. They'll haunt you, and keep on haunting you until you go insane."

I remember thinking: he called me a fool?

As much as I refused to admit it, the Tribe was now a part of me. I don't know how, or why, but my mind seemed to belong there. It was all I could think about. I've since come to the conclusion that just being in The Still is like a drug, and that I, like all of Damon's minions, am a junkie. I was addicted from the very first time I set foot there.

He got up from the bed and began to pace around the room. "Remember how me and you used to stick up for Billy?'

I nodded, remembering.

"Remember the time you fell through the ice at Gilbert's Pond, and me and Billy had to drag you out? We thought you were dead and then you puked all over Billy's skates. Do you remember?"

"Yeah," I muttered. There was a throbbing pressure forming around my eyes. It took all my strength to choke it back.

"We were like brothers, man. The Three Musketeers, remember? All for one and one for all? We kept each other alive."

My throat was dry. My eyes, stinging. "Yeah, we did."

The red eyes blinked slowly, considering.

John's voice softened a little. "We can be a family again, Dylan. Me and you and Billy and Jen. But they won't join unless you do."

"You'd let that happen to your own sister?" He must have heard the edge in my voice, because his eyes seemed to shrink a bit. "Fuck you, John, or whatever the hell you are. Fuck you! You're not taking me, or Billy, or Jen, or anyone else I care about. I won't let you. You got that, asshole?"

Beneath the glowing eyes, two rows of needle-like fangs suddenly appeared out of nowhere. John took a step forward, stopped. His fangs flashed menacingly, white as bone in the moonlight. "Fuck me, huh? Oh, that's good. That's very good! We'll see about that, Dylan. We'll see. When you get to the point where you want to stick a pistol in your mouth and decorate the walls with your brains, then we'll see. We'll never stop! You hear me? Never!"

"You try and take them, and I'll kill you," I said calmly, coldly.

The red eyes grew wider. In the sudden burst of bloody light, I saw the outline of a strange symbol that was carved into his forehead. "We'll ssseee," he spat, and the walls of my tiny bedroom picked up the sound of his rage and amplified it tenfold. The eyes winked out as he turned away, and I heard the sound of his footfalls as he skulked toward the darkest corner of the room. Smiling, John turned to look at me one last time. Then all at once, the red eyes and white smile vanished into the shadows, leaving only the echo of his fury to drive home the final warning.

We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. See, we'll see, see, see....

I started to weep softly, but to this very day I can't explain why, though I've desperately searched for an answer. Perhaps, it was for John, for the mistake he had made, and for the times we had shared from childhood to young adulthood. Times that had suddenly become so distant, I could barely recall them. Or perhaps it was for Brynn because, at the time, I thought I would never see her again, though I was quite wrong. And finally, I might have been weeping for myself, because I no longer knew the difference between fantasy and reality.

Sitting here, at my desk, listening to the voices and savage urges inside my head, I have to wonder if there's really any difference at all.

## 

## Chapter Fifteen: Fall from Grace

I never told Jen the truth about her brother's death, or the thing he had become afterwards. His disappearance alone was too much for the Pratty family to bear, and no one—even Jen—would have believed me, anyway. In truth, I could hardly believe it myself.

In spite of the fact that he was not the first to vanish, John's disappearance rocked our little town to its core. Unlike Tony Hill and Steven Parker, John had been Hevven's prodigal son. He was the star pitcher of the varsity baseball team, and an Advanced Placement student. A promising young man, as a reporter from The Hevven Gazette had noted.

Our final year of high school passed as though we were watching a movie about other people's lives. The school stretched its budget and hired two additional counselors for students who were grieving their missing friends. The Hevven Police Department even instilled a ten o'clock curfew for anyone under the age of eighteen. We students would normally have found a thrill in breaking such rules had we not been so fearful of our own names being added to the ever-expanding list of the missing.

June finally arrived, and with it, graduation day. Even as we threw our caps in the air, there was a somber note to the celebration. The mystery surrounding the dead, and those presumed dead, hung over the town like a pall.

After graduating, Jen and I finally managed to escape from Hevven. We each had our separate reasons for wanting to leave. Jen, whose parents never stopped mourning their missing son, needed to slam the door on a house that had become a perpetual funeral parlor. As for me, the nightmares only grew worse with time. It wasn't difficult to see that, in order to have some semblance of a normal life, I would need to get as far away from Hevven as my means would allow. So I enrolled at Plymouth State, in New Hampshire, and Jen enrolled at Saint Anselm College, just thirty minutes away. Though this might sound like the ideal move to sustain our relationship, it was not. Halfway through our freshman year, we decided it was time to branch out and date other people, and it seemed to me that our relationship had spun its course. Though she never said it, I have reason to believe that Jen needed to leave every piece of Hevven behind, every little thing that reminded her of her missing brother, and that included me. This did not bother me in the least; on the contrary, I embraced the idea. I was living a normal life, and in time it was easy to see how my wild imagination had turned a traumatic event into some kind of Lovecraftean soap opera.

Though we kept in touch with the occasional phone call or random e-mail, three years passed before Jen and I saw each other again. We were both home for Christmas break when we bumped into one another in the parking lot of the Futawam Mall. I remember just looking at her, that china doll face, those soulful eyes. Standing there with her rosy cheeks and a sprinkling of snowflakes in her hair, I don't think she has ever looked more beautiful. I had no idea how much I had missed her in my life, not until she threw her arms around my neck and I felt the familiar shape of her body pressed against mine.

We had a June wedding about a year after we graduated. It was really just a formality. In truth, we had always been married, wedded in a sorrow too deep for words. Strangely, the same tragedy that had ripped us apart all those years ago had somehow managed to pull us back together again.

Not long after, two more tragedies brought us even closer together. After watching the season premiere of CSI, Mr. Pratty climbed into bed one evening, gave his wife a goodnight kiss, and never woke up. The following March, Mrs. Pratty took a nasty spill on her way to the mailbox. Though a neighbor called for an ambulance, it was already too late. Mrs. Pratty died of a stroke right there at the end of her driveway, in front of the house she loved; the very house where my best friend and his sister (now my darling wife) were conceived. And so it was that, one icy morning, almost six months to the day that Mr. Pratty had died, Mrs. Pratty followed her beloved husband into the afterlife.

It came as no surprise then, when Jen inherited her parents' house on Titicut Street. Jen and I had been living together in a condo two towns over, in Rainbridge. Jen was thrilled by the idea of moving into her childhood home, and wanted to make the move as soon as possible. The Pratty homestead, however, did not come without a few caveats. For one, the encroaching swamp had all but ravaged the yard, and threatened to flood the basement with every passing storm. The bones of the house were solid, but the entire roof needed to be replaced, along with the heating system and plumbing. The problem was, we were barely making payments on the condo, and we were flat broke. Not to mention, the thought of moving back to Titicut Street conjured up a newfound fear in me, and there were times when I definitely considered creative ways to kill myself. Of course, I mentioned none of this to Jen. I did, however, mention this to my psychiatrist, who suggested that the move might be exactly what I needed, that it might actually be therapeutic to confront my fears, to prove to myself once and for all that the demons of my past were all merely figments of my overactive imagination.

Then my parents, whom had long since migrated to Florida, returned for a visit. Jen told them about our pecuniary problems, and they immediately offered to finance the much needed renovations. Even so, I could have argued against it. I could have suggested that we stay in the condo and instead sell her parents' house. I could have told Jen the real reason why I had avoided Hevven for all those years. Perhaps I should have done these things. But I didn't. Doing so seemed to fly in the face of Fate. So it came to be that, on a rainy day in June, we returned to the place where we had first met, seemingly in another life, the place where this whole damned nightmare began.

If I hadn't known the way by heart, I would have thought we had taken a wrong turn. Most of the houses looked to have been long-abandoned, overtaken by the encroaching forest. The few houses that remained were in various states of disrepair, pale shells of their former glory. As we stood on the same porch where Jen and I had once shared our first kiss, an elderly gentleman appeared, seemingly from nowhere.

"Hello there," he said, shuffling slowly up the driveway.

"Hello."

"Are you planning on buying the Pratty house?"

"Actually, this is my old house," Jen said. "My parents left it to me when they...when they..."

"Jenny? Jenny Pratty? My goodness, it is you, isn't it?"

"Do I know you?"

He looked at Jen and his eyes twinkled. "I'm Mr. Donovan. From down the street. Your brother used to mow my lawn."

Mr. Donovan told us all about the rising swamp and how it had wreaked havoc on the neighborhood, first washing out the old bridge that used to connect Hevven to West Hevven, then causing a massive sinkhole that nearly swallowed an entire house, finally contaminating the drinking water to the point that it was no longer potable. It wasn't long after that, he explained, that the For Sale signs appeared, and families began to flee en masse.

"Couldn't anyone figure out a way to stop it?" Jen asked. "Like a retaining wall or something?"

Mr. Donovan shook his head. "We had us some big wig politician from the state come down after the old bridge washed out, and he declared the entire neighborhood a disaster area. Said it was caused by global warming or some foolish thing. A few people got checks from FEMA, and those of us still here were soon forgotten."

I clicked my tongue. "Global warming," I repeated, shaking my head solemnly. Only I knew better. It was The Still. It had been leaking out into the Hockomock for years, and now it was spreading like a plague, slowly taking hold of the entire town.

As we said our goodbyes, Mr. Donovan told us how glad he was to see us. He said he thought it was important for people to reconnect with their roots. As he said this, he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. That's when I noticed his hand. On the back there was a terrible scar, a grotesque rippling of the skin with the faint imprint of teeth pressed into it. It was so obvious, it was a wonder I had not noticed it before.

## 

## Chapter Sixteen: The Monster Incognito

"Is Jenny home?"

"Naw, she's out shoppin'."

"Do you mind?" Billy asked, drawing a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket.

"No," I said. "Here." I grabbed a plastic ashtray from its hiding place inside the hutch cabinet, and slid it across the table to him. When I looked up, he was already puffing away.

"Thanks," he muttered, smoke dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He plopped himself down in a chair at the head of the table. "I remember how much Jenny always hated it when you smoked."

I nodded. "She still does. I've been trying to cut back. For her. I'm down to maybe a pack every other week."

"I hear ya. I quit about every six months, but go right back to it again."

We grinned at each other.

"You look great, man," I told him, lighting a cigarette for myself. This was the truth. He'd lost maybe thirty pounds since the last time I had seen him, and his hair was thick and lustrous, without a single strand of gray.

"Thanks," he said, crinkling his eyes at me. Eyes no longer hidden behind thick glass lenses; such is the wonder of Lasik eye surgery.

We made small talk for the next half hour or so, discussing everything from the price of gasoline to the advent of Facebook, and what our former classmates were doing with their lives. With every pause and peel of laughter, it was obvious that we were both skirting around the real topic, the only one that really mattered.

It was Billy who finally blurted, "You know that none of it was real, don't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know," he began at a near-shout, interrupting himself to take a quick hit from his cigarette. This seemed to calm him down. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, softer. "You know what I'm talking about, Dylan. All that nonsense with John—none of it was real."

I grinned at him, stunned. Was he really so dense? "No? Then what happened to John?"

"John died," he said, and as he spoke he stabbed the air with his cigarette, as if trying to burn his words into my brain. "John died somewhere out there in that God-forsaken swamp. Maybe he got lost. Maybe he drowned. Maybe that guy, the Hacker, or whatever his name is, got him. I don't know how he died, but I know John is dead."

"Then where is he? Where's his body?"

"How should I know?" he sniffled. "All's I know is that he's gone. You're not the only one who mourned him, Dylan. I looked up to him like a brother."

He pushed his cigarette into the ashtray, twisting it from side to side.

"—imagined the whole thing—"

As Billy continued his proclamation of denial, I could not help but notice that he had not properly extinguished his cigarette. A few small embers still burned, releasing a thin tendril of smoke that twisted up toward the ceiling.

"—can we at least agree on that? Dylan? Dylan!"

The sudden rise of his voice jerked me back to reality. "I'm sorry," I said, looking back at him. "Agree on what?"

"About that place? What did you call it? The Still..."

"You were there," I told him. "You saw it."

"You know," he continued, "I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Have you ever heard of mass hysteria? That's what caused all those people to go crazy in Salem—"

As Billy went on, my eyes were drawn back to the ashtray. It was just in time to witness the last speck of ember fade from orange to gray to black.

"I'm sure being here, back in this house again, isn't helping you any—"

Something about the ashtray bothered me, and just as I thought the answer was about to reveal itself in my mind's eye, it fled, retreating back into obscurity. I was trying to find the answer, when I noticed something strange. On the back of Billy's right hand was an unusual scar, one that I had never noticed before. He must have seen me staring at it, because he turned his hand in such a way that I could not see it anymore.

"Are you okay?" Billy was asking.

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my temples. "I've been getting these migraines lately."

"Yeah, I hear ya," Billy chuckled. "I had to get a prescription for that. Doctor said it was work-related stress. Such is the life of the number one real estate agent in the Tri-County area." He feigned a self-pitying look and shrugged.

Again, my eyes were drawn back to the smoldering cigarette butt. All at once, I had a clear vision of Bugs Bunny gnawing on a carrot, gnawing and nibbling, nibbling and gnawing, grinning to beat the band. Then it hit me: the butt in the ashtray was smooth and dry, completely void of the tell-tale teeth marks and saliva stains of a habitual cigarette nibbler. And that unusual scar on the back of his hand; it suddenly dawned on me that I had seen a mark like that once, a very long time ago. If I was right, then it was the same shape as the one that was carved into John Pratty's forehead the night he visited me in my room.

I raised my eyes and saw Billy looking at me intently from the opposite side of the table. There was something in his eyes that seemed to suggest that he was mocking me.

I stared back at him across the table, and in that terrible instant, I knew. We both knew.

"You're not really Billy, are you?"

The clever thing sitting across from me flashed a smug, toothy smile. "Took you long enough," he—it—tittered. "You want to know the funny thing?"

"Yeah," I muttered. "What's the funny thing?"

"The funny thing is, you're right. I'm not really Billy. But you want to know the really funny thing?"

Something throbbed behind my eyes, and I felt my face tighten like a mask. Suddenly breathing became a chore.

"Oh, you're gonna love this! The really funny thing is...you're not really Dylan, either."

"Is that what He told you to say?"

Billy laughed. "When's the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror? I mean, really looked?" He paused, making a great show of turning his head from side to side. "Now that we're on the subject, I noticed that you don't keep many mirrors around the house, do you, pal? Not even—"

As he talked, I was inching my chair back to the hutch. Now, I reached back and grabbed a silver letter opener from the open drawer from which I had taken the ashtray. Extending the blade toward him, I leapt to my feet, knocking over my chair in the process.

"Get out!" I shouted.

Billy raised his hands in supplication. "Hey, pal, no need to be rude about it." He slipped on his coat and snatched his pack of cigarettes from the table. "Just take a look at yourself in the mirror, and you'll see," he—it— said, making its way toward the front door.

"Get out!" I screamed. "And stay away from here, or I swear to God I'll kill you."

"You already killed me, Dylan," the imposter smiled sadly. "I died the moment you brought me to that place. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!"

As I heard his car engine rev, I collapsed to my knees, weeping like a child, still clutching the letter opener in my hands. When at last I found the strength to stand, I staggered upstairs, to where the only mirror in our house hung above the master bathroom sink.

I turned on the sink and splashed water on my face, grateful for the sobering reality of the cold water. Then, as I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror, I saw something that looked like a black shadow flicker behind my eyes, and I knew that the thing with Billy's face had spoken the truth.

But instead of thinking of myself, or Brynn, or my dear, sweet Jen, I thought about my mother. I thought of my mother, sitting on the edge of my bed so she could tuck me in.

I remembered how it felt when she ran her fingers through my hair, and how it always made me feel sleepy. I remembered how she stood at my bedroom door, her hand trembling as it hovered above the light switch. Suddenly, it's as if I am right there in my old bedroom, a child once more.

Her hand moves and the light disappears.

First, it fills my eyes and I am blind.

Then it fills my ears and all sound disappears, as if sucked out of the world with a giant vacuum.

I try to scream, and the darkness flows into my open mouth. It flows through my veins, corrupting every cell.

Presently, the darkness comforts me.

We embrace like age-old lovers.

We cannot bear to be apart.

## 

## Chapter Seventeen: This is the Way the World Ends

Things are getting weirder, let me tell you. Since I started recording my experiences in this journal, my neighbors have been watching me. Sometimes at night, I think I see old Mrs. Crabtree spying on me through the blinds from her house next door. And I'll be damned if sometimes her eyes don't seem to have a reddish sheen, though the distance makes it difficult to tell for sure. And the cashier at Hevven Liquors (I've been doing a bit of drinking, you see) seems to mumble things to me, things only I can seem to hear; words that sound like curses from some foreign land. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it seems like Damon has cultivated a lot more followers. Everywhere I go, eyes seem to follow me. It's like the whole damn town has gone crazy. Either that, or I'm the crazy one, which could very well be the case here. Speaking of crazy, a few months ago, my wife convinced me to see a shrink over in Futawam. It's not like most people imagine it to be. I don't sit on a couch and cry like a baby, or any of that other shit that you see dramatized in the movies. It's more like being—

Wait a second. Do you hear that? Listen!

It sounded like a voice. No; not one, but many voices. Voices whispering. Wait! There it is again! Is that John? No, wait! That's Damon!

Oh, God, it's Him! I just can't take it anymore. Hey, Doc, fuck you! It was real! All of it...real. My God!

Well, I suppose my time has finally come. I can hear some old friends calling me from beyond death's door. It's going to be one hell of a bender, I can tell you that much. I never thought I'd say this, but

(I can't think straight.)

(I can't seem to clear my mind.)

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em—that's how the old saying goes. I can't resist. I feel so tucking fired.

(TRY TO FOCUS! YOU'RE LOSING YOURSELF!)

Jesus, I can't think straight!

Hurts like hell. My head is pounding. Feels like the whole damn house is spinning.

Pretty soon, I think I'll mosey downstairs, flash Jen my best Colgate smile, and tell her there's something in the old Hock that I see her to want. She'll look at me as if I've gone completely bonkers, probably even think about calling Doctor Morgan, but she'll go with me. I know she will. She's good that like.

I wonder.

I can't help but wonder.

(think, think, think...)

What will she say? What say will she when she sees John?

(Please forgive me, baby. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.)

Dear mind, I'm losing my God.

(ignore them ignore them ignore them!)

Gotta go back, go back, go back to that place.

(Focus...FOCUS!)

Wait...I've gotta tell you something!

First, a cigarette. Old die hard habits y'know?

One last Barlmoro.

And a word of caution: Don't trust anyone.

As it turns out, even my own sweet lother was a miar.

There are such things as monsters and demons.

I'm one to know.

#  Gwendolyn Reese and the Closet Dancers

Kathleen Reese stood in the doorway of her daughter's bed-room, ready to turn out the light.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

Pulling the covers up to her chin, Gwen Reese made a wide-eyed gesture toward the open closet. Above her luminous blue eyes, her eyebrows settled into a deep frown and her small lips twisted up and to one side, as if in great deliberation. For a ten year old girl, there was a great deal of censure in that look. It was a look that said I can't believe you forgot! If I can't trust you to remember that one little thing, then how can I trust you at all?

"I'm sorry," said the little girl's mother, smiling apologetically. "I almost forgot."

Kathleen crossed the room and slowly closed the sliding door until it tapped the wall. "There," she said. "All safe."

The child nodded her approval. That reproachful look was gone now, replaced by one of gratitude. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a tangle of tresses that reflected the dim light like liquid gold.

My little angel, thought Kathleen. My beautiful little angel.

"Good night, Gwenny."

Gwen rolled her eyes at the nickname, but she could not help but to smile. "Hm! G'night, mum."

Once again, Kathleen stood in the doorway of her daughter's bedroom, and suddenly Gwen felt as though she were seeing her mother for the very first time; not as a parent, but as a human being. Gwen had never thought of her mother as being old, but that's exactly how she looked at that moment. Yes, old. Old and defeated. Lying in her bed, Gwen noticed how the shadows settled into the wrinkles below her mother's eyes (her mother called these lines "crow's toes", which never failed to make Gwen giggle), but it wasn't until now that Gwen thought of those wrinkles as a sign of age. Even worse, there were deeper lines forming at the corners of her mouth. These new wrinkles, reflected Gwen, seemed to have appeared spontaneously while she wasn't paying attention. And they seemed to be spreading; the same way cracks seemed to spread on weather-beaten wood. But the deep cracks on her mother's flesh were different...they were spreading fast. And her thick, lustrous brown hair was not so thick or lustrous or even brown anymore; it was thin, untamed, and a few shades closer to the gray of middle age, though she was a woman of only thirty-seven. Gwen saw these things, and she knew that it all had something to do with the Monster; the Monster who was, at this very moment, sitting in his lair at the bottom of the stairs.
As if reading Gwen's mind, Kathleen lingered in the doorway a bit longer than usual, smiling in spite of the sadness in her eyes. After a few more seconds, she flicked off the bedroom light and darkness swept in.

***

A few moments later, a slurred voice wafted into Gwen's room through a vent in the floor. "When the hell is that girla yerz gonna grow up?" asked the Monster.

Gwen shivered as she listened. She had never been a mischievous child; certainly not the kind of child who took pleasure in eavesdropping. But his voice was so loud she just couldn't help but to listen.

They're gonna get in another argument, she thought. And then he's gonna break stuff, like he always does. Then mom's gonna cry. But she'll forgive him. I don't know why, but she always does.

Gwen waited for the sounds she knew would come: Glass breaking, doors slamming, her mother and Bill cursing each other in French (Gwen knew it really wasn't French, but that's what Bill always called it). But these familiar sounds did not come. There was only the low hum of voices coming from the television.

The Monster, whose real name was Bill Doran, was Kathleen's latest boyfriend. She'd met him six months ago, at the CVS in Futawam. Gwen was never given the details. Not that she cared to know the details, really. She simply couldn't understand what her mother saw in a guy like Bill.

He was in his early forties, but his thinning, silver hair and dark, sunken eyes made him look much older. He had once been an amateur boxer and it showed. There was a lump of reddish scar tissue on the bridge of his toucan-like nose; the tell-tale sign of a street brawler. Muscles bulged from the short sleeves of his T-shirts (which were, by his lowly standards, his dress shirts), but his stomach muscles were loose and decaying, attributed to his twelve-pack-a-day diet. He was always tired, always irritable, and always drunk as a skunk, as her mother often said. Full of alcohol and meanness. A real jerk.

At one time, in the days of strip joints and naive country girls and endless highways, Bill had been a happy man. Quite possibly, a decent man. But those days had come to pass. The endless highways had somehow reached an end. He was no longer Wild Bill, truck driver, amateur boxer, hell-raiser. He was now plain old Bill, an unemployed couch-potato; a shitty role model for a ten year-old girl, and an even shittier boyfriend for a single parent who had enough trouble making ends meet as it was.

"She's only ten," Kathleen reminded him after a carefully calculated silence.

"Damnit, Kathy, she's gutta grow up sometime."

Gwen was still listening, but their voices dropped down and were lost in the hum of Bill's late-night program which was, more than likely, a pay-per-view boxing match.

Gwen hated him. Most people would think it not possible for a ten year-old to harbor such a strong emotion as true hatred, but she did. She had told her mother that she hated Bill six months ago, when he first came to the house for dinner, dressed in one of those shabby T-shirts he wore so often. But her mother had refused to listen. Gwen had told her mother the very same thing on yet another occasion, two months ago, when she first received the news that Bill was being evicted from his apartment and would be staying with them temporarily.

It'll just be for a night or two, her mother had insisted.

A night or two turned into a week, a week into a month, a month into two.

He's not leaving, Gwen realized as she stared at nothing in particular. He's here for good.

Downstairs, Bill was shouting at the television: "Gettup you sonbitch! Gettup!"

"Honey, Gwen's tryin' to sleep," Kathleen said in her most benevolent voice.

Bill ignored her. "Gettup! Gettup! Kill the sonbitch!"

I wonder what he'd say if he saw the Closet Dancers, Gwen thought. Then he'd believe me. He'd have to. Then he'd leave me alone. I'd love to see the expression on his dumb, stubbly face.

"Bill," Kathleen said pleadingly. "Please."

This last plea was followed by a long moment of silence that was interrupted only by the faint murmur of the television.

"Kathy, Baby," Bill said, biting off the words in chunks. "Why? Don't you. Stop yer bitchin'. And get me. A goddamn. Beer!"

This, followed by the clink of bottles as Kathleen rummaged through the refrigerator for two Budweisers.

"Put it in gear!" Bill bellowed. "The commercial's almost over." Then, turning his attention back to the television, he muttered to himself: "Think she'd know her way around her own goddamn kitchen!"

Amidst the clamor, sleep somehow found the child.

***

"Lookit this mess!" someone was saying. "It looks like a cyclone came through here!"

Gwen opened her eyes slowly, wading through her dream with about as much ease as a swimmer wading through a pool of tar. Her mother was kneeling, scooping armfuls of clothing from the floor.

Yawning, Gwen climbed out of bed to help her.

"So, what is it this time, Gwendolyn?" Kathleen said wearily. "The Closet Monster?"

Right then, Gwen knew her mother was upset; her mother had called her Gwendolyn. If her mother had called her Gwendolyn Ann Reese, which was her full name, Gwen would have known better than to leave her bed that morning. Gwen said nothing. Instead, she got down on her knees and began to help her mother.

"Why do you do these things, Gwendolyn? Why?"

"I don't. I didn't—" She had to be careful. Surely, her mother wouldn't believe her about the Closet Dancers. Grownups never believed in such things. Maybe, thought Gwen, people lose a part of themselves when they get older. Maybe that's why they find it so difficult to believe in anything. If they did believe, even for one second, boy would they be in for one heck of a surprise.

"I was only playing dress-up," she whispered at last.

Her mother shook her head, scooping a blue and white Poplin button-up shirt into her arms. "This! This was your brother's." She held the crumpled shirt against her face and breathed deep. She could almost see her son's handsome face. When she lifted her face, there were tears in her eyes.

Gwen now realized that many of the clothes that were strewn across the room were not her own. "Why was it in my closet, mommy?"

Her mother looked up from behind the shirt, into her daughter's magical green eyes. "I put it there," she said, "with some of your father's things. This was your brother's favorite shirt. Do you remember?"

A single teardrop trickled down the smooth surface of Gwen's cheek and though she raged against it, she began to blubber like a baby. "I remember. I remember a lot."

It was nearly two years ago when her father and brother were killed in a boating accident off the coast of Nantucket, but to Gwen it felt like only yesterday. Michael Reese had been a tall, well-built man. Not quite as muscular as Bill, but not nearly as flabby, either. He had straight blonde hair with gentle streaks of silver, neatly parted at the side. His eyes were the same color as his daughter's; a beautiful shade of green. He was the nicest man that Gwen had ever known; even nicer than the fictional fathers in movies and books. He was gentle, caring, and loving. Michael Reese had been a family man, of that there was no doubt.

Dan had looked more like his mother. He was small and wiry, with light-brown hair and hazel eyes. He was a quiet boy. When he spoke, people would listen because it was usually important. He was a straight-A student, and extremely fond of literature. He didn't have many friends, but his books compensated for that; they were his friends. As a brother, Dan had been gentle and kind. He didn't mind going to the movies with his little sister, even though the other kids made fun of him. The childish jokes of classmates did not bother him. Gwen was his sister, and he loved her. But Dan was more than just a brother to Gwen. He was her friend. He was only thirteen when the ocean stole his life.

Both still crying, they picked the clothes up from the carpeted bedroom floor, folded them neatly, and returned them to the back of Gwen's closet.

"Why did you keep their stuff, mum?" Gwen asked when they had finished.

Kathleen let a long sigh escape her as she closed the closet door, hoping that, in doing so, she would not close out the memories. "To remember your father and brother," she said, rubbing her eyes until they were red. "Touching these clothes...it's like touching them."

Gwen went to her mother and wrapped her tiny arms around her waist.

They embraced.

"Understand, baby?"

"Uh-huh," Gwen sobbed. "I think so. Mommy, I..."

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"I miss them so much."

Kathleen pressed her face into Gwen's hair and sobbed for a moment, slowly easing herself into sniffles. "I know you do, baby."

"Why'd they have to die for?" Gwen asked, looking up at her mother with wide, tear-filled eyes.

"I don't know, baby. I don't know." Kathleen kissed her daughter on the forehead and held her that way for a long time.

"Maybe," Kathleen said after a long time. Her voice was still trembling. "Maybe I should just give those old things to Goodwill or something."

The thought of getting rid of her newfound friends terrified Gwen in a way she could not quite articulate. She knew there had to be a reason why they had made themselves known to her now, at this particular moment in time. Though she could not think of one, she believed the reason would come to her in time.

"No, mum. Keep them. They make me feel...safe."

Gwen spent the remainder of that day in her bedroom, playing with her Barbies and Bratz while she replayed the memory of that morning's fiasco in her mind's eye. She had no memory of removing the garments from her closet, or scattering them about the bedroom floor. It's not like they could have grown legs and walked out of the closet on their own, she thought. This made her smile to herself; it sounded exactly like something her mother would say.

As she slipped into the imaginary world of her toys, she soon lost this and most other thoughts. Outside her window screen, people mowed their lawns, children rattled by on bicycles, a chorus of dogs wailed off and on again. The flowers and trees seemed ready to burst, saturating the air with their fragrances. The day drifted by like a dream. To Gwen, it seemed just as endless and ordinary as any other summer day.

It was only later on, during the evening, that things took an unusual turn. Kathleen and Bill were downstairs watching television (Bill was working his ninth bottle of Budweiser) while Gwen was in her darkened room, staring at the ceiling, thinking about her father and Dan.

Why did they have to die? she wondered.

The shadows didn't answer her. They never did.

"Go gettum you sonbitch!" Bill was shouting downstairs, in the den.

Gwen flinched. She knew he was only shouting at the television, but sometimes he shouted at her mother that way, and it frightened her to think of what he could do to the two of them. Thankfully, he hadn't laid a hand on either of them, so far. Not yet.

Trying to think of better things, Gwen turned her mind to the Closet Dancers. What are they? she wondered. Where do they come from?

As if she had spoken out loud, a dry scuffing sound answered her from the closet. She could hear it clearly; a faint brushing against the closet door. Not just near my closet, Gwen realized with anticipated terror, it's coming from inside! Gwen wanted to scream but instead, hid beneath the covers of her bed. She knew if she disturbed Bill, she would be in for far more trouble than the Closet Dancers could bring upon her.

Terrified but unable to look away, Gwen stared at the closet through the small holes in her blanket. She waited.

The sound inside the closet stopped and Gwen had almost convinced herself that it was all a product of her imagination when suddenly, it happened.

Something that looked like a snake was forcing itself between the door and its frame. It was wide and flat and very, very long. Its head was large and irregular; no, it wasn't just a head. Not entirely. It was mostly mouth; a large, dark, toothless mouth that was easily as wide as a grown man's bicep or, for the sake of a child's imagination, a young girl's thigh.

Gwen could hardly believe what she was seeing, nor could she understand it. But it was there, in her bedroom, and it was coming for her. It was real.

The slow, unearthly serpent nuzzled the closet door and, inch by heart-pounding inch, widened the dark gap from which it came.

It's going to let out the Others, Gwen realized, now paralyzed with fear. Before, she could've screamed. Her mother and Bill would have come to her aid (well, Gwen was sure her mother would have). She would have been safe. But that chance had long passed. She was beyond screaming. Now all she could do was watch and wait for whatever kind of tortures the Closet Snake (or Snakes) had in store for her.

From inside the partially open closet, the Other Snakes began hissing. Yes, Gwen thought, there are Others.

Suddenly, they came.

A blue and white button-up shirt, along with a pair of wrinkled jeans, leapt into the air and scurried around the room in a mad, circular pattern, soon followed by a red and gray sweat suit. A moment later, all of the clothes that had once been in Gwen's closet—her father's, Dan's, and her own—were leaping and dancing about the room, somehow animated.

They're real, she thought. The Closet Dancers are real. It wasn't a snake I saw; it was the sleeve of Dan's striped shirt! And those hissing sounds—the sound of different fabrics rubbing together. But how? How can a bunch of old clothes come to life?

One of her outfits, a pretty white dress she only wore on special holidays such as Easter, was the last to come forth from the closet. It moved with a slow, gentle grace as it floated to the corner of the room, where it seemed to be watching the others detachedly.

"That one's a girl," Gwen murmured as she slid the covers from her head. She was no longer scared, but awe-stricken.

She continued to watch as Striped Shirt (which, as Gwen's mother had said, was once Dan's favorite shirt) broke away from the celebration and glided over to the shy dress in the corner. Striped Shirt bowed elegantly and extended his empty sleeve. Shy Dress hesitated for a moment, and then took his cuff with her own. As their linen limbs connected, Shy Dress' chest rose and fell, as if sighing in pure delight.

Striped Shirt and Shy Dress moved above and across the carpeted bedroom floor, floating swiftly into the entourage of ghost-like dancers. As they began to waltz around the room, Gwen clapped her small hands together, smiling so brightly that it hurt. For the first time since the night of the accident that claimed the life of her father and brother, she was truly happy.

The night went on.

Dawn washed over the town called Hevven in a matter of minutes, bringing light and warmth through Gwen Reese's window, waking her with a silent hello. The night packed up its shadows (or most of them, anyway) and fled to the other side of the planet, where business was still running in a timely fashion.

Gwen sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Once again, clothes were scattered carelessly about her room. She noticed this as she climbed out of bed, as her bare feet landed on Sweatsuit's soft, crumpled leg instead of the carpet. Without a second thought, Gwen decided to clean up before her mother could see the mess.

As she returned the clothes to their hangers, she tried to remember when she had fallen asleep. But she could not. The night was a blur of laughter, joy, and wonder; and the strange, yet beautiful, dances of the Closet Dancers.

It wasn't until she plucked up Striped Shirt from the floor that it all came rushing back to her.

Ohmygosh! I danced with them! The memory of the night's events came back to her in a flood. I danced with them all night, until I couldn't dance another step!

Gwen could vaguely remember Striped Shirt and Sweatsuit carrying her to bed, and saying good night to them as they rejoined Shy Dress and the others. The memory of this, though blurry in her mind, filled Gwen's heart with a new-found hope.

But what happened to them? she wondered. Last night they were alive, but this morning they're as lifeless as—

Regular clothes? Were they really so regular, so ordinary? Hers certainly were, but what about the others—her father's and Dan's—were they ordinary?

The child did not know.

Gwen could not remember the last time she had been so hungry. The small, sunny kitchen was alive with the sweet aroma of bacon, eggs, and her mother's fresh-ground coffee.

Kathleen was standing over the stove, trying to dodge the hot spatters of grease. One at a time, she strategically lowered the last three strips of bacon onto the frying pan, each one snapping and sizzling in turn. "Ready for some more, hon?"

"Mm-hmm," she answered quickly, her mouth full of food. She swallowed a bit of cinnamon toast and chased it down with a large gulp of orange juice.

Outside the screen door, birds were embracing the warmth of the sun with their cheerful, melodramatic songs. The air was rich with the scent of honeysuckle and of the thick, damp smell of a freshly cut lawn. The sky was a canvas of baby blue, laced with fine, sugary fibers of stratus clouds. Sunlight poured through the open windows, painting everything a bright, cheerful yellow.

Then Bill woke up.

He appeared in the kitchen just as Kathleen placed the last of the bacon on her daughter's plate, dressed in a pair of blue boxer shorts and a shabby white T-shirt. He wore a dazed, drunken expression on his face; as if he had no idea where the night had taken him, but didn't really care. His eyes were glazed and bloodshot; his mouth, open and drooling.

He looks, Gwen thought, like a zombie from one of those Living Dead movies. She had seen one of those movies last Halloween, on the Syfy Channel. At first, she'd thought it would be scary (people returning from the grave to eat the living) because the idea of it was scary. The movie was another story. The director must have had one twisted sense of humor because, aside from all the grisly special-effects, it was actually pretty funny. Every time one of those stumbling bumbling zombies moaned Braaaaaains!, it made Gwen laugh so hard she practically peed herself.

But she wasn't laughing now.

Because there was nothing even remotely funny about this monster.

"Gimme a piece-a bacon," Bill slurred. "I'm starvin'." In his thick Boston accent, he mangled the word into something that sounded like "staaaahhhvin."

Gwen opened her mouth to protest, but before she could even think of something to say, there was one less strip of bacon on her plate. "Heeey!" she whined. She was going to add something to the end of that Heeey!, something like jerk or maybe even worse, but she decided, rather wisely, to keep her thoughts to herself.

Kathleen flashed her daughter a sympathetic glance and shrugged. Her eyes seemed to say What do you want me to do?

Bill looked down at Gwen with a greasy smile. "That wasn't half bad, kid. Mind if I have another?"

"Bill," Kathleen said in a warning tone. She was at the sink now, feverishly scrubbing the frying pan.

"What?" he snapped with an indignant shrug. "The girl hassto learn howta share." With that, he reached across Gwen's plate and snatched the last strip of bacon with his pudgy fingers.

Gwen could only watch in anger as Bill made a deliberate show of stuffing the entire strip into his mouth, taunting her with his loud, obscene chewing. When he was finished, he grinned at her, sucking each greasy finger and smacking his lips in a way that made her stomach swim.

Gwen was furious, but she was smart enough to keep quiet. She began to stare out the window by the table, which instantly brought her to a better frame of mind. Outside, she saw a girl from the neighborhood walking a tiny dog. One of those Shitzu-somethings, thought Gwen. The girl was a year older than Gwen. They went to the same school and even rode on the same bus, though they had never spoken. Gwen did not know the reason why, but ever since her dad and brother died, she'd had a difficult time connecting with kids her own age. When she finally forced herself to look away from the outside world, she was overjoyed to see that Bill had retreated to the den to watch the morning news.

That's when her mother dropped the bomb.

Hours passed. No one talked, except for Bill. Gwen was in her bedroom, drawing pictures of the Closet Dancers. Her mother and Bill were downstairs watching television; either a soap-opera or a boxing match, Gwen predicted.

How could she do it? Gwen asked herself. How could she even think of doing it? She's my mother!

In frustration, she jabbed the pencil against the pad of paper, so hard that the tip shot off. She threw the pencil across her room, where it bounced off the wall and landed without a sound on the carpeted floor.

Burying her face within her hands, she began to cry.

I have to go to a meeting tonight, her mother had announced after breakfast. Bill's gonna stay here with you.

Bill? Gwen had moaned. I have to stay here with him? Alone?

Honey, I'm sorry. I know you and Bill have your differences, but I really need your cooperation on this. If I get this new job, I'll be making almost twice the money I'm making at—

Have our differences? He hates me, Mom. And I hate him!

Lower your voice, Gwendolyn.

Mommmm—

Oh, Gwendolyn. I thought you'd understand. I don't know what to tell you...why don't you just stay in your room, then.

I will.

Those were the last words they had exchanged...until now.

"Gwen, honey, come give me a hug before I go," Kathleen was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

No answer.

"Gwen, I'm leaving now. Come give me a hug," Kathleen said, a little louder this time.

No answer. No hug.

Gwen was in her room, sitting Indian-style on the floor. Her silky blond hair was glued to her face with tears. Shredded drawings decorated the room like the confetti of some crazed artist. Her mind was overflowing with thoughts for her mother; a deadly mixture of love and hate.

"Goodnight, Gwen," Kathleen said dejectedly from the bottom of the stairs.

As if driven by an outside force, Gwen flung herself to her feet, yanked open the bedroom door, and galloped downstairs into her mother's waiting arms.

"It'll only be for a few hours," Kathleen said, holding her daughter. She hoped, for her own sake and for the sake of her little girl, that it was not another lie.

Gwen sniffled and sobbed into her mother's blouse. The scent of expensive perfume, sharp and sweet, nipped her small, sensitive nose. Kathleen bent down and kissed her on the forehead, smiling a nervous I'm-already-late-as-it-is smile.

Gwen gave her best effort to return the smile, seeing how uptight her mother was about the Job Opportunity meeting. She moved away slowly, feeling rather weak and alone. And terrified. After all, she would soon be alone with the Monster. Real monsters don't come from the closet when the lights go out and the shadows crawl in. Real monsters sit out where you can see them (if you're keen enough to notice them for what they are, that is). In the daylight. At the table. On the couch. Real monsters don't feed on flesh and blood. They live on drugs and alcohol and stinky home-made cigarettes. Most importantly, they live on other people's misery; people like Gwen and her mother.

She followed her mother to the door and watched her scramble down the porch steps, scurry across the driveway, and climb into the blue Ford Escort that seemed, to Gwen, to be as old as the pyramids.

I have to go to a meeting tonight, her mother had announced after breakfast. Bill's gonna stay with you.

Bill? Gwen had asked. I have to stay here with him?

I don't know what to tell you...why don't you just stay in your room, then. Stay in your room. Stay in your room.

I will. I will. I—

"I will," Gwen whispered to herself as she watched the Ford ease out of the driveway. A moment later, her mother was gone.

Gwen wiped her mother's lipstick smudge from her forehead and began upstairs, to her room. As she passed the Monster's lair, he looked up at her from the couch, his face pale with the glow of the television, and an elastic smile stretched across his otherwise sullen face.

Seeing this made Gwen twice as anxious for the presence of her mother; she had never seen Bill smile, not like that, not ever. But Bill, the couch potato, could smile all he wanted, so far as Gwen was concerned. She just wanted to be with her friends, the Closet Dancers. They were waiting for her in the darkness of the closet. She could sense it. It made her feel...well...needed. Yes, needed. Needed and loved. She considered the Closet Dancers as more than simple playmates. They were all that was left of Dad and Dan, save for the foggy memories. They were like family.

And they were waiting for her.

Striped Shirt surfed across the room with a minute fanning sound, brushing past Sweatsuit, Shy Dress, and the rest of the Closet Dancers. As he neared Gwen, who was standing beside her bed at the opposite side of the room, he stopped, hovered, hesitated. After a moment, he extended his arm, gently taking the child's hand within his soft cuff. Once more, he hesitated.

"You want to dance, is that it?" Gwen asked, her eyes glowing with delight.

He gave her hand a tender squeeze.

Yes!

With an ear-to-ear smile, Gwen accepted the offer, and the two began to dance the Closet Dancers' waltz, quickly blending with the others. They looked like characters from a Disney movie, like Cinderella or Beauty and The Beast; carefree, elegant, and childishly romantic. There was magic in the crowded bedroom, the kind of magic only a child could appreciate. It wasn't the kind of magic Gwen had seen on television, or at the theater in Futawam. And it most certainly wasn't the kind of so-called magic that stage magicians used to pull bouquets of flowers from thin air; even Gwen knew they weren't real flowers.

This was real; this was magic.

"Striped Shirt," Gwen managed between giggles, "I want to ask you something."

Striped Shirt didn't respond; he continued to dance, empty sleeves swaying as he guided her around the room. But she had expected an answer, hadn't she?

"Are you...I mean, are you my brother? Are you Dan?"

His shoulders rose slightly above his collar and then fell again—a universal expression that Gwen recognized immediately. There was no doubt about it; Striped Shirt had just shrugged. Then, gliding slowly, as if he were moving through water rather than air, he hugged her. And as he released himself from the tender embrace, he—

Kissed me! Gwen thought, excitedly. He really did! But how in the world was that possible? He doesn't have a mouth, or even a face.

(Kissed me he kissed me!)

Somehow, Gwen was sure of it, Striped Shirt had kissed her.

She raised one tentative hand beyond the shirt collar, letting her fingers spread out in search of the face she knew was there. A face she could not see; the face of a ghost. Striped Shirt stopped dancing and relaxed a bit, giving in to the child's curiosity. One by one the other dancers stopped to watch, silent and anxious, like children waiting for the first array of fireworks to blossom in the sky on the Fourth of July.

She reached up, her fingers slightly parted, not quite sure what to expect but somehow hoping she would be able to feel the boy's invisible face. Not just any boy, but her very own brother. Her hand reached well beyond the point where his face should have been—through air. Warm air. He was a ghost, after all, and even a ten year-old knew that ghosts were not made of flesh and blood. Nevertheless, it was warm there, pleasantly warm, and somehow strangely comforting. In fact, the image that passed through her mind just now was of her sitting in front of the Christmas tree, drinking a mug of hot cocoa after a long day of sledding on the big hill at the new construction site down the street; one of her favorite winter pastimes.

Gwen smiled at both the memory and the moment, her hand still caressing Striped Shirt's warm face. Then, leaning forward, she pressed her lips against the warm air in a delicate kiss. Though she could not see it, she somehow sensed that he was smiling. She just knew it. And the others were smiling, too, because they now knew that they could trust the little girl with the secret of their existence. They didn't know who they were, where they came from, or how they had come to inhabit the little girl's closet; they just wanted to dance, and that was all. It made them happy. And the little girl—she made them happy, too.

Curiosity was still gnawing at her, but before she could quench it she heard a heavy, clumsy sound coming from downstairs, ascending the stairs towards her bedroom.

It was the Monster, and he was getting closer with every drunken step. "Gwen, hun-nee, watcha doin'?"

Gwen did not answer. The Closet Dancers froze in mid-air, as if listening. As if waiting.

"Kiddo, I'm talkin' to ya!" He was pounding his meaty fist on the wall now, demanding her attention.

"I'm playing!" Gwen answered curtly, unable keep her voice from trembling.

There was a ponderous silence. Gwen thought that he had finally buzzed off when she heard the sound of his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. In a single sentence plea, she attempted to extinguish the four alarm fire that was burning in her mind: Please, God, just make him go away please God oh please!

Then the bedroom door folded in as though it were made of cardboard and, in that same instant, the Closet Dancers dropped to the floor like so many lifeless rags. They looked like nothing more than ordinary clothes once again. Her bedroom door met the inside wall with a bang, making an imprint in the shape of the doorknob in the plaster. Bill was standing there—wobbling was more like it—his eyes bloodshot, his mouth crooked with a malicious grin. He stumbled across the room, towards Gwen's bed, stopping halfway to catch his balance against the side of the bureau. Finally, he plopped himself down upon the mattress and it groaned in agony beneath his weight. He then looked up at Gwen, who was gawking at him from the middle of the room, surrounded by piles of clothes, and he motioned for her to sit beside him.

Gwen thought he smelled gross, and she had no intentions of going anywhere near him, but there was something lurking behind his smiling eyes, some suggestion of a punishment if she did not mind him.

Drunk as a skunk, she thought. He's drunk as a skunk.

Reluctantly, she obeyed.

"What were ya playin'? Dress up?" Bill slurred as she sat down on the bed. His breath stank of beer and homemade cigarettes.

"Yeah. I mean...I guesso."

"You play witcha self a lot, dontcha?" He was grinning, as if he had just delivered the punch line of a really good joke.

"Ye-yes," Gwen stammered, unsure of the correct response.

Bill began to caw. When he had gathered himself a bit (there wasn't much left to gather, really) he edged himself closer to her. "You don't have many friends, huh?" he asked.

"No," she said, bowing her head. But she really did have friends, didn't she? The Closet Dancers were her friends. But she wouldn't tell Bill that. No way, José!

"I'll be your friend," he whispered into her ear. "Wouldja like that?"

Gwen squirmed. His breath was hot on her neck. Hot and stinky. It reminded Gwen of how their two metal trash cans smelled during the summer with a week's worth of garbage baking inside of them. It was that bad.

"Wouldja like that, Gwenny? Huh?" he croaked, and his lips brushed her ear as he spoke. "We can be friends, yeah? Special friends."

Gwen tried to pull away from him, but a large arm snaked around her narrow shoulders, pulling her closer to him. "Whatsamatter?" he breathed into her ear. "Ain't I goodnuff ferya?"

Gwen stared at the piles of clothes on the floor in utter panic, wishing them to save her, willing them to live. But they remained there, wrinkled, empty, lifeless. I need you, she thought. I need you now!

"You're such a purdy little thang, y'know that?" Bill asked, stroking her hair with his thick sausage fingers. His eyes were dark and dangerous. He licked his lips and smiled again; that crooked, malicious smile.

Gwen felt something cold and tingly on her arm. When she looked down to see the cause, she saw thousands of tiny goosebumps rising on the surface of her skin. Her mind was a blur, a hurricane of thoughts. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried again to will the Closet Dancers to her aid, but nothing happened. They did not stir.

"I ken teachya lotsa thangs," Bill was saying as he gave her The Look.

The Look was how Bill looked at Gwen's mother just before they retreated to their bedroom at night and made funny noises. Gwen knew about The Look because she had seen it before, in movies. Whenever a man gave a woman The Look, it meant he wanted to get naked with her and do things. Gross things.

But right now, Bill was giving Gwen The Look instead of her mother. And she didn't like it; not one little bit.

Bill's hand got bored of touching her hair, so it fumbled down the slope of her shoulder, across her bare arm, and slithered down to the place where her nightgown ended and her thigh began. His expression was cold and blank as he groped her there, as though he had never seen or felt flesh before. And somewhere, buried behind that glazed expression, he was still giving her The Look.

Oh, God! Gwen thought. He's going to touch my privates. He's going to—

His hand slid up her thigh, between her legs, and vanished beneath her nightgown. One of his thick, sweaty fingers slid beneath the waistband of her underwear, invading her private area. He was breathing heavily, his eyes painted with The Look, his mouth hanging open like the tailgate of a truck.

Gwen squirmed and started to whimper. She felt sick. Most of all, though, she felt helpless.

He hates me, Mom. Hates me! And I hate him! I hate him!

"Sta-sta-stop," Gwen blubbered weakly, trying to push his hand away.

"Sta-sta-stawwwwp," Bill said, mocking her with a cruel falsetto. He leered at her and grinned.

No! He's going to...I know he's going to! He's gonna—

Driven by pure terror, Gwen broke her paralysis and bolted for the door. She was only halfway across her room, when she felt his thick fingers become tangled in her hair, and then she was suddenly being yanked backwards like a rag doll. It hadn't taken him more than a second to realize that she had fled, and he knew he had to act quickly. He was on her like wet on rain, pinning her down with all of his weight, all two-hundred and ten pounds of muscle gone to fat.

She struggled, squirmed, desperately trying with all of her might, but she could not thwart the Monster's attack. She tried to scream, but it was choked from her lips as his hands fastened around her throat.

Gwen suddenly felt as though she were sinking into a black hole. She was losing consciousness, teetering on the edge of awareness, falling, falling down. Strangely, she didn't mind. She wanted to fall into that deep, dark nowhere. She didn't want to see or feel what the Monster was doing to her. She'd rather die, was going to die, probably, and all because her mother had rushed into a relationship with a man she barely knew.

They came without warning.

Striped Shirt sprang to life, wrapping his arms around Bill's thick neck like a noose, pulling him away from the little girl. The others quickly followed. Gasping for air, Gwen scurried away from the Monster, whose attention was now focused on saving his own life rather than taking hers. The Closet Dancers weren't wasting any time. They were smothering him from head to toe, twisting and folding around his arms and legs; he was now wearing the world's most colorful straitjacket. Bill's mouth snapped open, ready to cry out, and was quickly gagged by Sweatsuit's arms, which swiftly slipped into his mouth until all but the upper shoulders were invisible.

He doesn't look so mean now, Gwen thought. Or drunk, either. He looks like he believes me! He looks like he's never gonna touch me or Mom ever again!

Bill's face changed from red to white to purple as the Closet Dancers constricted around his body. Peering between the limbs of his captors, Bill's eyes bulged in terror, sober and aware. A muffled gagging sound came from his mouth as Sweatsuit forced his arms further down Bill's throat. Snot oozed from his nose as he struggled for air. Right now, with his bulging eyes and reddish face, Bill truly looked the part of a monster.

Finally he was pulled up toward the ceiling. His feet dangled far above the bedroom floor, tracing mad, twitching patterns in the air. The snot coming from his nose was soon followed by a steady torrent of blood as the Closet Dancers squeezed. And squeezed. And squeezed some more. At last, there was a sickening crunch, and Bill's eyes looked as if they were about to pop right out of his head.

Bill's head collapsed against one of his shoulders. His neck was twisted and bunched, turned almost all the way around toward his back. He continued to twitch in his final death throes, hovering above the floor, the world's most colorful mummy. Sweatsuit removed his blood-soaked arms from Bill's mouth, and glided away to help the frightened girl to her feet. The other Closet Dancers relaxed their grip, and the broken corpse—looking far thinner than before—dropped to the floor with a definitive thud.

Bill's incredulous eyes stared on and on. There was no movement save for the dark rivulets of blood that trickled from his nostrils, and the milky red saliva that dribbled from his open mouth. After a few seconds, his thick tongue popped out, rather completing the dumbfounded expression on his face. Upon seeing this, Gwen could not help herself. As the Closet Dancers comforted her, she was racked by a flurry of uncontrollable giggles. Soon, the giggles gave way to unbridled laughter. And, though she could not hear them, she was somehow certain that the Closet Dancers were equally amused.

Some two hours later, long after Gwen's frantic struggle and the bloody demise of the Couch-Potato Monster, Kathleen Reese came home. She was surprised to see the vacant couch and the blank television screen, ready to share her good fortune. She had just been hired as the new manager of The Fashionable Lady, a reputable clothes store in the Futawam Plaza. She was giddy with excitement, and was visibly disappointed by the lack of a reception.

Puzzled, she called out for her daughter. "Gwen, honey, mommy got the job!"

Laughter. Coming from upstairs.

Bill and Gwen must be playing, Kathleen thought. She hadn't expected that. But then again, she hadn't expected to get a new job, either. She sat her pocketbook on the kitchen table and trotted upstairs.

"Gwen, honey? Where are you?"

Her face glowed, child-like as she prepared to share her good fortune. It was as though she were fifteen again, running down the narrow path that led to the lake near her parent's summer cottage in New Hampshire. Those were her glory days. Fifteen again...long before she had met her husband-to-be, before the marriage that would leave her a widow, before she would give birth to her first child only to bury him thirteen years later, before Gwen was even—

Laughing. Kathleen could hear her daughter laughing.

"I thought we could go out and celebrate with some pizza" she said, pushing open the bedroom door. "Or we can always get Chine—" At first, she simply stared. Then she gasped. Then her hands clapped over her mouth, surely holding back a scream.

The first thing that caught her eye was Gwen, laughing hysterically. Then she saw a body, twisted and sprawled on the floor in a coagulating pool of blood.

Stranger still, there were

(things floating about the room in a merry frenzy)

clothes everywhere.

God, what a mess!

Kathleen screamed.

The things stopped. They hovered in mid-air.

Gwen went to her mother's side, whispering words of comfort and reassurance. But Kathleen didn't hear her daughter because she was busy staring at the things that looked like clothes, but couldn't possibly be clothes because they were alive. She looked at Bill, at his twisted, misshapen neck. Then she looked at her daughter, at her mussed-up hair and tear-streaked face, and in that instant Kathleen knew.

"Oh, God, Gwen..."

"He tried to touch me, mom."

Kathleen wrapped Gwen in her arms and they both burst into tears. "It's okay, mom," Gwen said, crying into her mother's shoulder. "My friends helped me."

Kathleen looked past her daughter's shoulder. The Closet Dancers hovered almost motionlessly, watching them with a kind of sympathetic patience. Striped Shirt put his hollow sleeve around Shy Dress' invisible shoulders.

Dancing. Those things, whatever they were, Gwen had been dancing with them. Laughing and dancing. Dancing and laughing. Clothes. Things. Dancing. Gwen had called them her friends.

And Bill's body—crushed and twisted and sprawled on the floor. Dead. He was bloody and dead, and what was she going to tell the police? She supposed it was best not to think about that now.

"I...I..." Kathleen stuttered absently.

"What is it, mom?"

"I...got the job," she finished at last.

Gwen smiled at her, and Kathleen was overjoyed to see that there was still so much innocence left in that smile. "That's great, mom. Come celebrate."

Kathleen remembered what she had witnessed upon entering the room: animated articles of clothing, drifting around the room in a mad circle, her daughter amongst them, giggling with delight. She had no idea what they were, but there was no mistaking what she had seen. They had been dancing, plain and simple.

"Hold on." Kathleen snatched up the phone and began to dial.

"Mom?" Gwen asked. "Mom? What are you doing?"

When her mother did not answer right away, Gwen began to tug on her arm. "Mom, what are you doing? Who are you calling?"

Kathleen gave her a mysterious smile. "It's okay, honey. Just give me a minute." Kathleen perked up as she spoke into the phone. "Yes, I'd like to place an order for delivery. Yes, a Pu Pu platter for two. Yes, may I also have an extra order of crab rangoons and an order of egg foo young?" She gave the address and hung-up.

The Closet Dancers hovered motionlessly, facing her. Gwen was giving her mother an odd look.

Kathleen gently set the phone on the receiver and smiled tentatively. "What? Well, we have to celebrate don't we?"

Presently, the dancing resumed, forming a loose circle around the body.

After learning the basic steps, Kathleen finally cut in.

# 

#  Reflections - Part II

Can you feel it, baby? Spring is in the air. And is there anything more beautiful than springtime in New England? Well, let's not forget that, around these parts, Mother Nature has been known to be a bit of a curmudgeon. She's just as likely to blast the furnace up to 85 degrees on Easter Sunday as she is to drop a foot of that cold white shit on April Fools' Day.

But not today. Today, spring is in the air. Spring, as the transcendentalists would say, had they not already conformed to the laws of nature and perished, is a season for catharsis. A time when winter's icy grip begins to finally relent, and colors return to the world once more. A time when flowers bloom, birdsong fills the air, and the wind whispers that summer is on her way. A time when the world is remade and reborn, and when winter-weary New Englanders, not unlike their rodent friend in Punxsutawney, emerge from their homes to find that their shadows have grown mysteriously longer in the interim.

Though people everywhere are stalked by shadows, it would be impossible to report on the masses all at once. So, instead, let us turn our attention to a single subject.

What about that young specimen there? The young man with the spring in his step (if you'll pardon the pun), and the briefcase in his hand. And since it's such a bright, sunny morning, and since there is little else with which to occupy our time at the moment, let's quietly follow at the heels of this pleasant young man with the sandy brown hair as he walks across the parking lot toward a three-storey building with the sign out front that reads Digiscape.

Now, we're still not quite sure what this place does, but we do know that the young man's name is Brad Gauthier because we've followed him here before, just as we've followed him quite frequently for five years, three months, and two days now, carefully noting his every move, his every mannerism, his weaknesses and strengths. We know that he is not married, for instance. We know that he hates horror movies, and that he talks to his cat, Walter, as if it were a real person. We know what his diet consists of and we know that he has trouble forging meaningful relationships, which probably explains why Walter is his closest confidant. We know all his virtues, just as we know all of his idiosyncrasies. We know that every Christmas, he donates money to a local animal shelter. We know he sleeps with the lights on.

We know that this is the first time in his five years, three months, and two days of employment that he has ever brought a briefcase to work.

Brad pushes through the heavy glass doors. Had he glanced at the shiny glass, he might have caught a brief glimpse of us watching him, but he does not. He is too focused on checking into the security desk. As is his habit, Brad stops to make small talk with Carl, the overweight security guard. They talk about the upcoming football draft, about this lovely weather, and then Brad says "Have a good one" and then Carl buzzes Brad in through the security door, just as they've done pretty much every Monday through Friday (as well as the occasional Saturday) since Brad started working here, just after high school.

Instead of heading straight to the sales department, which is stationed on the second floor, Brad checks his watch for the fifteenth time this morning, and sees that he is early. He is a dedicated employee, some would go as far as to call him a Company Guy, and he's been bucking for a promotion, so he's been clocking more hours than usual lately. But that doesn't mean that he's always on time.

During the winter months, for example, when it's particularly dark in the morning, he has a tendency to arrive a few minutes late. Usually, on these days, he crosses the parking lot with his cell phone in hand, as though he's in the middle of making a really important call. But we've been watching him for a while, and he doesn't fool us. Not one little bit.

The real reason Brad always carries his cell phone these days is because the light comforts him. I know! It sounds crazy! But it's true. On all those dark, bitter mornings, when the sun seems too lazy to show its ugly face, Brad Gauthier uses his cell phone as a nightlight. I honestly don't know if he could make it across that dark parking lot without it.

Now Brad is standing in the tiny little cafeteria, drinking iced coffee from a clear Nalgene bottle. Funny thing, for several years now, Brad has absolutely refused to drink out of anything but a clear container. I'm not sure, but I think he is even afraid of the shadows that lie inside solid containers. But that's only speculation on my part.

Brad stands by the counter and sips his coffee, occasionally nodding a hello to some familiar faces. When he's done, he scrubs out the Nalgene bottle and checks his watch again. It's time to log in, and not a moment to spare. The last thing he wants is to be out of compliance. He puts his Nalgene bottle, the one with the name BRAD G. written in permanent marker on the side (as if someone might mistake it for their own) and heads upstairs to the Sales Department.

The first person he greets is the company secretary, Dolly Peterson, who is currently perched behind her desk on her considerable fanny. She is just about to shovel a mouthful of low-fat blueberry yogurt into her lipstick smeared gullet, when she pauses to smile at "that odd young guy from sales" as she has been wont to call him behind his back. Brad smiles and waves, as is his habit, and continues on through the rows of cubicles.

On his way, Brad's eyes find the controller's office. The office has tinted windows and vertical blinds on the inside. Right now, the blinds are open, and Brad spots his boss, Mr. Chase, a rather skeletal man whose thick black beard never quite matches his thinning silver hair. Mr. Chase is sitting behind his mahogany desk at the moment, engaged in a conversation with that large-breasted bitch, Mrs. Carmichael, from accounting. Carmichael is sitting on the other side of the desk, her shapely legs crossed at the knee, a relaxed posture that conveys the notion that she is the one who is really in charge here. This notion is not far from the truth, as we have it under good authority that Mr. Black Beard and Mrs. Big Boobs have been known to meet every other Saturday afternoon at the Days Inn in Raynham, where they pay for the night but play by the hour. Mr. Chase glances up from Mrs. Carmichael's breasts long enough to register his former protégé and then, with nary a nod, his eyes return back to the comfort of cleavage. As Brad passes the tinted office windows, he smiles at his own dark reflection on the glass. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that he sees us right now which, of course, means that he knows he's being followed. There's something in his eyes, a kind of dim recognition.

As we ponder this most unusual turn of events, Brad finally arrives at his sad little cubicle. Carefully moving several important documents out of the way, he places his briefcase on his desk and takes a seat. As he is about to open his briefcase, Paul Montgomery's spiked blond head pops up over the cubicle divider like a Jack-in-the-box. Montgomery is the typical alpha male. He has only been here for two years and change, and already he has overtaken Brad as the Sales Department's hotshot. Montgomery's skin is an unnatural golden brown. He frosts his tips. He wears tight clothing to accentuate his physique. In short, he is a metrosexual lunkhead.

"Hey, pal," Montgomery says, flashing that chalk-white smile. "How's it going?"

"Not bad," Brad says brightly as he casually closes the briefcase. Normally one to make small talk, this time he cuts to the chase. "What's up?"

"Not much, my friend. Not much. Hey, did you get the numbers on that Patterson deal?"

"Not yet, I—"

"Hey, nice briefcase, pal. You working on your free time, or what?"

Brad raises his hands and shrugs. His face is blooming red, but we know his range of emotions well enough by now to know that he's not blushing. "You know how it is. Just trying to get ahead, you know?"

"Hey, I hearya, pal." That smile again. "What do you think about Olive Garden for lunch? Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

"Okay, pal." As the coiffed head begins to sink down from view, Montgomery gives Brad a strange look, a quizzical look, before he finally disappears from sight.

Brad logs into his computer and checks his messages. There are three memos from Mr. Chase regarding the use of the company phone for personal calls. Nina German has sent him a reminder for a sales presentation on Wednesday. Jon Wolfe has forwarded him the minutes from last week's Sales meeting. And, last but not least, Montgomery has already sent him an e-mail confirming their lunch date at the O.G. Brad signs out of his e-mail and shuts down his computer. For a moment, he sits with his hands pressed together in front of his face, staring at the blank screen in front of him. Then he gets up from his seat.

And now this is where Brad finally veers away from his normal routine. He snaps open his briefcase and removes two black Beretta Px4 handguns. He whispers something to himself, a quiet prayer, perhaps, and then steps out of his cubicle and fires his first round into Paul Montgomery's golden face. Montgomery's mouth pops open in surprise, and his head snaps back, and then he sinks to the floor, pulling his keyboard and several folders of paper down on top of him. Then Brad turns, takes a deep breath, and steps out of his cubicle.

As Brad steps out of his cubicle, we sneak a look at the open briefcase that still rests on his desk. The briefcase is empty, save for a bright LED light and a small notebook. We know we have to move quickly to see what Brad is going to do next, so we move cautiously closer and see that the notebook contains various times and dates and observations about us. Clever bastard! How long has he known? There's no time to ponder that question, because we have to keep moving, to see what he's up to.

Thankful for the bright overhead lights, we stealthily follow Brad out of his cubicle and into the main aisle. Once there, Brad sees Jon Wolfe coming around the corner to investigate and he pumps two rounds into the old man's chest, and then Jon Wolfe, Digiscape's Sales Department's oldest employee and designated Weekly Minutes transcriber, is no more.

Brad doubles back toward the entrance. On the way, he takes out three more employees before he arrives at Mr. Chase's private little Shangri La. Then Brad does a funny thing. Well, I guess it's not so funny now that I think about it. The only explanation is that he saw us watching him from our hiding place, because the next thing he does is shoot out all the tinted office windows. He shoots and shoots, staring down his reflections as though it's himself he's trying to kill. By the time all the windows have been destroyed, and the office floor is covered in shards, Mr. Chase has already taken refuge under his desk, leaving Mrs. Carmichael to grovel on the floor in the glass shrapnel.

"Please..." she whimpers, lying prostrate on the glass-covered floor. She looks up at him, and he sees that she is trembling. But he also sees something dark and organic shift behind her eyes, and he knows that the darkness has infected her, too. One for the big-boobed bitch and then Brad makes his way behind Mr. Chase's desk.

Mr. Chase is cowering under the desk, his face hidden in a little pool of darkness, and he cries out like a child as he sees Brad's size 11 wingtips approaching. This is as close as Brad is willing to get to his main target. Maybe because he knows there's more of us hiding under the desk. Maybe he senses us. Whatever the reason, it's two for the coward, and Brad moves around the desk and out of the office.

Now that his task is complete, the rest, as they say, is gravy. By now, most of the employees have followed their fearless leader's example and are now hiding under their own desks, so Brad begins to shoot at random, occasionally hitting a protruding arm or leg. Mostly, though, he shoots out windows, computer screens, and any other shiny surface that stands in his way.

As he heads for the door, he sees that heifer, Dolly Peterson, poking her head out from under her desk. Her mouth forms a gigantic O as she sees him, and she tries to duck her head back under her desk, but it's already too late. Brad sees all the shadows that are hiding inside that cavernous mouth, and so he shoots until both clips are dry. Which is unfortunate, because just now the police arrive outside, ordering him to DROP THE WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! And Brad does drop his weapons, and he does put his hands in the air, and he does get slammed to the floor like a rag doll by a cop who looks like a professional wrestler, and he does suffer two cracked ribs from the fall.

As the officer snaps a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, Brad looks back at the devastation and smiles. The police officers haul him to his feet and chickenwing him down the stairs, out the door, and across the parking lot, toward a police cruiser with the words Hevven Police Department printed on the side. As he's placed inside the back of the cruiser, Brad looks out the back passenger window and squints into the morning sun, his face a mask of serenity.

The arresting officer climbs in and starts the engine just as we slide under his patrol car, clinging close to the warm undercarriage. During all the commotion, no one even notices us.

Now we're riding along beneath the patrol car on our way to the tiny Hevven Police Department building, while in the cabin above us, the young officer shudders as Brad Gauthier's shrill laughter pierces the otherwise tranquil morning. As Brad throws his head back to the sky, he laughs and laughs and laughs.

Spring is in the air, baby. Can you feel it?

#  Eternity Drive

Jake Tolly drove his black BMW southbound on Route 24 with his eyes on the road and murder on his mind.

The cruise control was set at an inconspicuous 70 mph and the slow speed was getting on his nerves, made each mile feel like ten. With one meaty paw wrapped firmly around the steering wheel, he waited impatiently for his headlights to reveal the green and white exit sign for which he was searching.

As he drove at this dull speed, his mind wandered back to the fact that, on any other Friday night, he would have been driving alone with the pedal to the floor, the open windows pumping cool summer air around him, mussing up his wavy black hair. On any other Friday night, he'd be listening to Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band sing about how "Rock And Roll Never Forgets" on his CD player. Fuck the speed limit. Fuck the cops. Fuck all those out-of-state yuppies heading to Cape Cod for the weekend, with their Ivy League pedigrees and their holier-than-thou attitudes. Shit, on a normal Friday night he'd be—

Hell, thought Jake, this is anything but a normal Friday night.

Tonight, he had a job to do. That, in itself, was not unusual. What was unusual about this night was that, for the first time in fifteen years, he was not alone on the job.

Beside him, in the passenger seat, the damn Kid was fussing with the stereo again, trying to find a heavy metal station. After a few moments, he settled on WHJY, turned up the volume a bit, and settled back into his seat, where he drummed his hands on the dashboard and smiled his weasel smile.

Jake gave him a sideways glance. "How can you listen to this shit, Kid?"

The Kid, whose real name was Gino Pepsak, stopped drumming in mid-beat. He looked at the big, handsome Italian and shrugged. "What, you don't like Megadeth?"
"Mega-who? Just sounds like noise to me," Jake snorted. He tapped the Power button on his stereo and the noise disappeared. "You're supposed to be looking for our exit."

The Kid ran his fingers through his oily brown hair and let a sigh wheeze through his crooked teeth. He rubbed his nose absently, first with the heel of his palm, then with his fingers. "Chill, man. I'm still lookin'. Exit ten, right?"

"You got it, Kid. Exit ten." Jake sighed through his nostrils and wondered what he had done to get paired up with such a slimeball. This is a goddamned embarrassment. I'm a professional, for Christ's sake!

Everyone in the business knew Jake Tolly was a consummate professional, and they had good reason to know. When The Boss needed a "special" job done, there was only one person he trusted enough to handle it, and that person was Jake Tolly. Jake had been with the business for fifteen years now, and he had long solidified his reputation as being one lethal sonofabitch. On top of that, he was tight with The Boss, who wasn't tight with many people, family included. For a hitman, Jake had impeccable tastes. His condominium in the Back Bay contained a closet full of tailored suits that were probably worth more than most cars. And he looked like a professional. He was tall, handsome, and kept himself in peak physical condition. His coal-black hair was short and neatly parted. His nails were manicured. His face, clean-shaven. Had he chosen another line of work, he may well have been a model or an actor. But he stayed with the business instead, not only because it made him a shitload of money, but because everyone—The Boss included—knew Jake was good at his job, and that earned him a great deal of respect. And respect, to Jake, was worth far more than any amount of cash.

The Kid, on the other hand, knew none of these things. The Kid was something scraped from the bottom of a barrel. As far as Jake knew, The Kid had only been with the business for a couple of years, mostly making pick-ups and drop-offs for the middle guys; guys who were, themselves, nothing more than high school drop-outs trying to turn a quick buck. As if his lack of experience wasn't enough to earn Jake's contempt, The Kid was a goddamned knuckle-dragger. He was scrawny and pale, with long greasy hair, and a nose that seemed to drip like a broken faucet. On top of that, he had those beady little rat's eyes; the kind of shifty eyes a person couldn't trust no matter what. His outfit wasn't doing much to help his cause, either: faded jeans, a scuffed-up leather jacket, an Aerosmith T-shirt that looked to be at least a decade old. Yet, for some unknown reason, Jake's boss liked The Kid. When The Boss ordered Jake to take The Kid with him on this job, Jake knew better than to question the decision. As much as Jake didn't like it, The Boss was still the boss, and orders were still orders.

So here they were, crawling along the highway at nine o'clock at night with the air conditioner on full-blast to keep The Kid from bitching about the humidity, when all he had to do was take off that filthy leather jacket. Here they were: The professional and his understudy. The gentleman and the grease-ball. Jake Tolly and The Kid.

"Right there!" The Kid said excitedly, waving a bony, grimy-nailed finger at the window. "Exit ten...Hevven...one mile! Can I puh-leeeze have a smoke now?"

"Good work, Kid." Jake slowed the Beemer down to a cool sixty-five. "And the answer's still 'no'."

The apparent praise made The Kid forget his craving for a cigarette. He straightened his back, cracked his bony knuckles, and smiled proudly. "See? I told you I was watchin' for it!"

"Yeah, you did," Jake said, pretending to be delighted. "You're one helluva navigator. A regular Magellan. Never woulda seen it myself."

"You shittin' me, man?"

"Wouldn't shit you, Kid." Ever hear of sarcasm, asshole? Any idiot can sit in the passenger seat and keep his eye out for an exit sign, Jake thought. It was becoming increasingly more evident to him that The Kid was not your typical run-of-the-mill moron. God, I'd like to snap that skinny little neck of yours, Jake thought but did not say. Instead, Jake turned to his passenger and said, with that same deadpan delivery: "The Boss-Man said you were a smart fella."

The Kid's beady black eyes twinkled in the darkness. "He said that? Yeah? He really said that?"

"Sure, that's why he wanted me to take you along."

Jake Tolly flicked on his directional and steered his car carefully up the exit ramp while The Kid sat stiffly beside him, his rat's eyes shining with pride.

"What kinda dumbass name is Hevven, anyway?" The Kid asked, eventually coming down from his cloud. "I don't even think they spelt it right, you know?"

"It's likely a nod to an old English spelling," Jake mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Old English," Jake repeated.

The Kid screwed up his eyes and gave him a quizzical look. "You mean, like, Old Spice?"

"Never mind," Jake said, waving his hand dismissively. "We're here on business, remember? We ain't here to dick around."

The Kid nodded and gave his nose a hearty rubbing, the brief lesson in local etymology already long forgotten.

Within minutes of leaving the highway, they arrived at the whistle-stop center of West Hevven, which consisted of a Hess gas station, a Honey Dew Donuts, Rocco's Sports Cards, a library, and a town hall. From there, they continued along a progression of sparsely settled backroads until they arrived at a narrow tract where there were no houses at all, only a dense forest interrupted by the occasional uncut cornfield. This, thought Jake, is what hell must look like. He could practically hear the dueling banjos and though it occurred to him that this idea should have been funny, he simply couldn't see the humor in it.

A few minutes later, just as they crossed the town line into Hevven, the pavement turned to a shattered, sandblown mess, and the Beemer began to buck and hitch as it adjusted to this alien terrain. Something began to thump and scrape in the rear of the car. Though both men heard the sound, neither of them commented on it. In fact, they pretended not to hear it at all.

"So where're we gonna do this?" The Kid asked as Jake guided the BMW down the long and winding backroads of Hevven. Where the halogen headlights breached the night, a new world was unfolding before their eyes; a world of trees and cornfields and critters that scurried to get out of their way.

Jake smiled, and this time it was genuine. "From what I've been told, our friend Eddie invested some of his money in a new condo development. Word is, it was his dream project. Probably his version of a golden parachute." Jake paused expectantly, waiting for The Kid to ask what a golden parachute was, but The Kid only gestured for him to continue. "Anyway," Jake continued, "I guess our pal Eddie thought he could turn over some profit or somethin'. He only got as far as paving the street before he was caught...mmmm, how shall I put it? Playin' doctor with the Boss' wife." Jake swerved a bit to the left to avoid a possum that was waddling along the side of the road. Its eyes gleamed in the headlights, two golden orbs that seemed to float in the darkness. "Make a long story short," he continued, "The Boss said the land's on a deserted side of town, where there aren't any houses around. That's where it'll go down."

The Kid flashed his rubbery smile and cackled, his voice shrill with delight. "We're gonna do it right there? On the place where he was gonna build his little condo park?" Then, mostly to himself: "In his own little neighborhood. In his own little home sweet home. Hmmmph! Ain't that a fuckin' shame!"

"Yeah, well, you know what they say: poetic justice and all that," Jake mumbled.

"Yeah, well I don't know shit about poetry, but I know better than to get caught with The Boss' wife strokin' my shlong!" The Kid tilted his head back and cackled like a hyena, slapping himself on the knee as if to congratulate himself for his witty remark.

Jake gave him such a sharp look that The Kid's laughter died almost instantly. Jake opened his mouth to say something, but that knocking sound in the back of the car grew suddenly louder, drawing his attention elsewhere. The sound became rhythmic, like a heartbeat. Even after he closed his mouth, Jake's jaw muscles continued to flex in agitation.

Ahead, the dark road stretched on into oblivion.

"Are we lost, man?" The Kid asked, and dipped his head down to snort a line of coke from a small mirror he was cupping in one hand. "I mean, no offense, but it seems like we've been drivin' for days."

Ignoring the question, Jake slowed down and parked his Beemer on the shoulder of the road. Directly ahead of them, in the headlight cones, was a large wooden billboard planted at the end of a recently paved stretch of blacktop. On the billboard, painted in black on white, was the following announcement:

COMING SOON: ETERNITY DRIVE

New Homes at Affordable Prices

You've Never Seen Anything Like It!

See Your Local Realtor For Details

"You ask me, I think you've been snortin' way too much of that shit, Kid," Jake said at last. He paused to listen, but the knocking sound was gone. "Besides, we're there."

Looking out the passenger window, The Kid pinched his nostrils together and inhaled. Beyond the billboard, the blacktop of Eternity Drive cut a straight path into the night. Nothing but trees in every direction, a field of dirt off to the right, half a dozen empty beer cans lying scattered in a thicket of grass along the shoulder of the road, and darkness, darkness everywhere. Apparently, even the moon had a more pleasant place to be, for it was no longer visible overhead, though its pallid glow bleached the sky a ghostly gray from somewhere unseen.

"This is the place, huh?" The Kid asked, still surveying the gloomy landscape with his beady, glossy eyes. "Kinda spooky."

"Yeah," Jake admitted, "I suppose it is."

But orders were orders.

He shifted his car back into DRIVE and pulled forward and onto the newly paved blacktop of Eternity Drive. They drove for another five minutes, a safe distance from the entrance, until Jake spotted a large ditch surrounded by piles of dirt. He put the shifter into PARK and the engine purred sedately.

"This is the spot, Kid. Time to do what we came here for."

The Kid was sniffing another sprinkling of powder from the back of one hand, and now he looked at Jake with bleary eyes. Eyes full of excitement and fear and a kind of dim understanding of the task at hand.

Jake sighed calmly through his nostrils as he opened his overcoat, drawing his Heckler & Koch 9mm pistol (which he had appropriately named The Widowmaker) from its shoulder-holster, squeezing the grip and racking the slide in one fluid motion. He looked at The Kid, thinking of how easy it would be to pop him right then and there, right between those shifty little eyes. But he didn't. He couldn't. Because for some unknown reason, The Boss liked the little rodent.

"Time to get on with it," Jake said quietly. He killed the engine, left the headlights on low, and was out of the car in an instant, keys jingling in one hand, the pistol planted firmly in the other.

The Kid sat there for a moment, long enough to wonder if he had, in fact, snorted too much coke to deal with this particular job and, after much deliberation, decided that he was up to the task. This was gonna be as easy as pie, just like The Boss had told him. He didn't even have to do anything, just go for the ride and watch how it was done. And it wouldn't go over well if the Boss-Man found out that he had pussied-out on the grounds of being too stoned. Fuck that. He was no pussy. He was, as he liked to brag to his tweeker friends, a Heavy Metal Bad-Ass Motherfucka.

The Kid cracked open the passenger door and stammered out onto the sand, legs feeling rubbery and weak, and eyes straining to see. Taking a deep breath, he scanned the surrounding landscape; the seemingly endless piles of overturned earth; the faraway swamp that seemed to encircle them, the treeline barely visible against the night sky; the shiny black ribbon known as Eternity Drive, which went a little ways in both directions before being swallowed by the void. In spite of the humid summer air, The Kid felt a shiver race up and down his spine like a thousand tiny spiders. He lit a cigarette and sucked greedily. As far as he could tell, he had just stepped onto an alien beach. Grab your board, dude, thought The Kid; it's time to hang ten on the big black waves.

While The Kid fantasized about surfing, Jake was at the back of the car, the car keys in one hand and his Widowmaker in the other. Aiming the pistol, he opened the trunk, and in the red taillights he saw Eddie Small curled-up in the fetal position with his face in his hands, trembling as though he were ready to piss himself.

"Alright, Eddie," Jake said, grimacing at the pathetic little man. Eddie raised his head, the toupee flopping to one side like a coonskin cap, revealing the pale, hairless scalp beneath it. Jake made a sweeping motion with The Widowmaker. "Come on out of there."

Eddie shook his head slowly. "Puh-puh-please, Jake. Duh-duh-don't muh-make me...Oh, God, oh God! I duh-don't wuh-wanna die!"

"Well, of course," Jake said in a calm, clear voice. He had heard this same plea dozens of times, so often that it no longer fazed him. He sighed. "No one wants to die, Eddie. But no one wants to find another man, especially his own trusted employee, getting it on with his wife, either."

"Puh-please! Oh, God! She came on to me! I swear! I HAVE Muh-MONEY!" Eddie blubbered. "I'll give ya anything ya want! ANY-THANG!"

"Don't make me come in there after you, Eddie," Jake said impatiently. He pointed The Widowmaker into the trunk. "If you make me come in there and get you, I'll be in a real bad mood."

Stumbling, The Kid made his way to the back of the car and stood beside Jake. After a moment, Jake said softly, "Drag his ass outta there, Kid."

The Kid looked into the trunk, at the chubby little man with the crooked toupee and the Hitler-style moustache, and started to chuckle. Before he knew it, he was caught in the grip of a full-blown laughing fit.

The Kid looked at Jake and Jake looked back at him steadily, perhaps uncertain he could accomplish the task. I ain't no damned pussy! thought The Kid, gripping his cigarette between his teeth and reaching his long arms down into the trunk. He grabbed two fistfuls of Eddie Small's shirt and hauled the pudgy bastard out of there like a sack of potatoes while Jake watched with silent approval.

Maybe this Kid ain't completely fucking useless after all, thought Jake.

Eddie didn't put up a struggle. Not that he could have done much—his hands and feet were securely bound—but Jake had at least expected him to squirm a little. But Eddie didn't squirm, either. He only looked at them with a kind of sad resignation in his eyes. Jake guessed it could've been The Kid's cruel laughter that finally snapped Eddie out of his Let's Make A Deal phase, and he was beginning to think that maybe The Kid, despite his unsightly appearance, wasn't so bad after all.

On Jake's command, he and The Kid chickenwinged Eddie away from the car and dragged him roughly fifty yards into the dunes.

There's no sense in burying a piece of shit like Small, The Boss had told him over the phone earlier that evening. He's not man enough to deserve a proper burial. Besides, even when they find his body, ain't no one gonna give a rat's ass anyway except the police, and they only care because the taxpayers pay them to care. So don't waste your fuckin' time, Jake. Just take the money, do the job, and make sure I never have to see that cocksucka again. Then take a vacation somewhere—someplace warm. What about St. Thomas? A little sun. Some peen-o coladas. Half-naked broads in bikinis. How does that sound, eh? Good, eh?

Jake had replied that yes, he would love to go to the Virgin Islands as soon as he wrapped up this job with Eddie Small. It had been two years since his last real vacation, and he could definitely use some time away from the city. The Boss told him that he would make the reservations for him—first class, of course—and that Jake's plane ticket, along with his usual cash payment, would be waiting for him when the job was done.

That time was drawing near, and Jake could practically feel the pressing heat of the tropical sun upon his face, could practically smell the coconut sunblock mingling with the salty air, could practically taste the ice-cold pina coladas.

"Now what?" The Kid grumbled.

Jake ignored him. "Get on the ground, Eddie," Jake said softly, and was surprised when Eddie complied without further provocation. Kneeling down on the dusty earth, Eddie looked up at the two men with wide, blinking eyes. With his tethered hands held out before him, he looked as though he were praying.

The Kid ran his fingers through his greasy hair, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He rubbed his hands together, put them in the front pockets of his jeans and then took them out again and folded his arms across his chest. He didn't know what to do with his hands. It occurred to him that he too should have a gun, if not for use then at least for show. Why not? Jake has a gun! He unfolded his arms and stuffed his hands into his pockets again.

Jake watched The Kid carefully out of the corners of his eyes. What he saw wasn't good. The Kid was wired, and he was bouncing around like a squirrel. Right now, Jake had his doubts as to whether or not The Kid could handle seeing someone murdered.

"Hey, Kid?"

"Yeah, yeah?" The Kid answered quickly, shifting back and forth on his feet. "What's up, man?"

"You ever seen a dead body before?" Jake was looking at him steadily now. Eddie stared up at him with a dazed expression, his too-dark-to-be-real toupee still hanging off the side of his head like a loose flap of fur. Raising an eyebrow, Jake looked back at The Kid.

"Uh, that's a negative, captain." The Kid chuckled a little, removing one hand from his pocket to wipe his nose again.

"You sure you wanna see this?"

"Hmmm, let me think about that!" The Kid wrinkled his forehead and scratched his chin, as if in deep thought. Then the weasel-grin returned, and he spoke with an affected drawl, "I think you know the answer to that question, pardner."

"Fuckin' wise-ass," Jake mumbled under his breath. He looked down at the sorry face that was looking up at him. It was time to get on with it. "I just want to tell you, Eddie, that this ain't my choice. I tell that to all my hits, and I'm telling you that right now. I'm just a guy they hire to get the job done, and that's all. If it wasn't me, it would be some other Joe. Probably someone crazy like that dude over there." He gestured with The Widowmaker.

Taking this as his cue, The Kid smiled and wiggled his fingers at the little man.

"Now," Jake continued, "I don't like my job. I don't enjoy killing people for a living. But it's all I know. Uncle Sam trained me to do it when they sent me to Iraq, and that's about all I was ever trained to do, sorry to say."

The Kid groaned, flapping his hands around in frustration. "C'mon, Jake! Just off the motherfucka! He fiddled the Boss' wife, remember? He's a piece-a-shit! Just get it over with so we can get the fuck outta here."

Jake flashed The Kid a cold glance. "Quiet, Kid. This here's between Eddie and me."

The Kid smiled, raised his hands apologetically, and made a zipping motion across his mouth to show Jake he would keep quiet.

Jake turned back to Eddie. "Now I ask this of all my hits, just for their own piece of mind: is there anything you want to get off your chest, anything at all you want to say? If not, you're gonna take it with you to, well, wherever it is you're heading."

Eddie Small was looking up at Jake with an utterly blank expression. Jake leaned over and snapped his fingers in front of the kneeling man's face, and at that same instant Eddie's body began to jerk and twitch, as though he were being electrocuted.

Eddie's bound hands flopped together like two fat fish and his head snapped back and forth so violently that the loose toupee looked like an animal caught in a trap. As Jake moved in for a closer look, he saw that Eddie's eyes had rolled over to reveal their whites.

In the darkness Eddie's face seemed to stretch like taffy, and the skin began to pull away from the bones, distorting his features, as though something alive was trapped beneath the flesh and was struggling to break free. Eddie's smile stretched wider and wider until the corners of his mouth ripped open, transforming him into a leering, freakish figure. When the tremors finally slowed to mere twitches, he grinned. No, he didn't just grin. It was as though the upper half of his skull had unhinged itself from the jawbone—that's how wide his smile was—like a funhouse clown with a mouth wide enough to bite a man in two. From somewhere deep within Eddie's gullet came a wet gurgling sound. He—it—was trying to speak.

At that moment, something happened to Jake Tolly that had never happened before, even during his two tours in Iraq. Fear made him hesitate. He took a step back, now aiming the Widowmaker between the kneeling man's eyes with a trembling hand. His heart was racing with adrenaline. His finger froze, unable to pull the trigger. He wanted to shoot but something prevented him from doing it. He wanted to hear what the man, or whatever he was, had to say.

The Kid took a tentative step forward, flanking the two men, but the sight of Eddie's contorted face stopped him dead in his tracks. It's gotta be the drugs, he assured himself. I'm just seeing things, that's all. There's no way, no fuckin' way, that thing is real. He blinked, slowly, believing that when he opened his eyes the side-show freak kneeling before him would be gone and Eddie Small—chubby cheeks, sorry eyes, Hitler moustache and all—would be there once again. But that didn't happen.

Not quite believing what he was seeing, The Kid told himself that it had to be the drugs. Had to be. In the real world, people didn't just turn into monsters. In the real world, there were no such things as monsters. No, that was only in the movies. It could never happen in the real world, right?

Don't lose it, man, The Kid told himself. Just ride it out. Everything's just fine. You're just a little wired right now, okay? Just ride it out. It will pass. You're a Heavy Metal Bad-Ass Motherfucka, remember? Damn, straight! But why are the hairs standing at attention on the back of my neck?

Eddie turned back to Jake, his dull white eyes staring down the barrel of The Widowmaker. Then Eddie smiled and spoke in a voice that was not his own, a voice that sounded as though its owner were trying to gargle shards of glass: "You can shoot me if you want, Jake. But I swear on this unhallowed earth that if my blood is spilled tonight, neither of you will ever make it out of here!"

The Kid rubbed his eyes in denial, as if somehow that would help to erase the grotesque figure that kneeled before him.

"Jake," The Kid whispered excitedly. "I think you better kill the motherfucka. I have a baaaad feeling about this."

Jake was surprised to discover that he actually agreed with The Kid. He tightened his grip on The Widowmaker and inched a bit closer to the thing that had, only moments ago, been a portly middle-aged man with a lousy taste in hair pieces, but was now something straight out of a nightmare.

As Jake drew closer, Eddie Small's neck extended itself as though it were on a spring, stretching away from the kneeling body like some kind of hellish version of a Jack-in-the-box, and Jake could hear the sound of bones cracking and ligaments tearing as the clown-head at the end of the neck snaked towards him, mouth pulling open to reveal row after row of jagged black teeth.

That's when Jake finally harvested his courage and fired his first shot. The bullet struck the clown-thing in the forehead, dispatching chunks of flesh and bone, while the absurd toupee, finally free of its bald perch, fluttered to the ground like a wounded bird. Dark blood jetted from the hole in the clown-thing's forehead like water from a fire hose—Too much blood, thought Jake. Still, the half destroyed head continued to lumber toward him from the end of an impossibly long neck.

"Oh, you shouldn't have done that, Jake!" Head weaving side to side like a cobra, the clown-thing snapped its massive jaws.

The Kid remained several feet to Jake's left, still somewhat convinced that what he was seeing was a mind-fart produced by the blow he had snorted in the car. Cocaine, like most drugs, was rarely distributed in its purest form. It was too strong, too precious. The dealers always cut their share with baby powder and baking soda, and God only knows what other shit, in order to stretch their supplies. It was a well-known adage in the underworld: the more you have, the more you have to sell; the more you have to sell, the more money you make. As he stared druggedly at the twisted, malformed shape of Eddie Small, The Kid wondered if he had snorted more than he bargained for this time. For all he knew, the shit had been laced with rat poison or detergent (he'd done the same thing when he was selling his shit to other people, so who was to say that someone hadn't done the same to him?). That might explain what he was seeing; might being the operative word here.

Jake forced himself to raise The Widowmaker, which now felt impossibly heavy in his hand, and fired a second shot. But this time, he didn't wait around to watch the impact. He grabbed The Kid by the shoulder, fingers digging deep into the flesh (leaving a nasty bruise that The Kid would not notice until later) and screamed for him to get his ass moving. The Kid didn't wait for a second invitation.

With Jake in the lead, they bolted for the car.

The Kid had barely managed to open the passenger door before Jake was shifting into DRIVE and jamming the pedal to the floor, and The Kid had to run as fast as he could to keep up with the already-moving vehicle.

Keeping his left hand on the wheel for stability, Jake leaned over and held out his right hand and yanked The Kid inside to safety.

"Jeezus! What the fuck just happened back there?" The Kid wheezed, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jake shook his head but said nothing. With The Widowmaker beside him on the console, he kept on driving.

After a mile (on the long dark road, it was hard to tell how far they had actually driven) Jake finally began to slow down. As he brought the car to a complete stop, Jake's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. There was nothing behind them save for the bloody splash of the Beemer's taillights.

"Huh? What the f-fuck're you d-doin'?" The Kid stuttered, looking around nervously. "D-don't stop!"

"We have to stop," Jake said calmly.

"No we don't," said The Kid. "NO WE DON'T!"

"Yes," Jake said, "we do."

"Whaffor?"

Jake squinted into the darkness. "Because," he said in a clipped voice, "we're going. The wrong. Way."

"Oh, Jeezus! Oh, shit! Oh, Jeezus!" The Kid hollered deliriously. His thin lips quivered wildly as he spoke. "You mean we...we have to drive back there...back towards that...that...thing?"

"Keep an eye out," Jake ordered, keeping one foot on the brake and the other on the gas, just in case they had to leave in a hurry. The Kid nodded uncertainly, head darting to and fro as his paranoid eyes scanned the darkness. Jake picked up The Widowmaker and checked the magazine. Hollow-tipped bullets, he thought. They could blow the back of a man's head clean off, and that was at a distance. But he had shot Eddie Small at point-blank range, and all the Eddie did was blink and bleed. And laugh—he had laughed, hadn't he? And Eddie, or whatever it was he had become, was still out there somewhere. Still alive, lurking in the dark duneland.

Jake reached down under his seat and pulled out the extra box of ammo that he kept there for emergencies. He replaced the two bullets he had used and slipped the fully loaded magazine back into place. The hollow-tipped bullets had done little to slow down the creature once known as Eddie Small, but reloading made Jake feel a notch safer just the same.

If he comes at us again, thought Jake, I'll mow the fucker down with the car. That should do the trick. Nevertheless, in the back of his mind was a sliver of doubt that left him trembling.

"What're we gonna do, Ja-Jake?" asked The Kid, not taking his eyes from the windows. "What the fuck we gonna do?"

"Calm down, Kid," Jake said. His feelings for the long-haired boy hadn't changed since their ordeal with the creature, but now he needed The Kid as much as The Kid needed him to get out of there alive. Even with Jake's immaculate reputation, without The Kid (who wasn't a very reliable source, Jake was certain, but at least he was a witness) no one would ever believe what had happened out there. And if he returned without the little piss-ant, there would be a lot of explaining to do to The Boss-Man. And the last thing Jake needed right now was an angry mob-boss on his ass. "This is a long road, right?"

The Kid nodded, still looking away from him.

"Okay, then," Jake said, also looking around to make sure they were safe. "Then it must lead somewhere. To some other street, probably. They wouldn't build a road this long unless it went somewhere. People don't like dead ends. So here's the plan: we're gonna keep on driving this way until we come to that other road, allowing that there is another road. If not, we turn around and boogie back the way we came. If that thing gets in our way, we'll mow the bastard down, and let the cops pick up the pieces. You following me, Kid? HEY! LOOK AT ME!"

The Kid jerked his head towards him, his face pallid and beaded with perspiration. In the amber glow of the dashboard lights, he looked like a lunatic bedecked in blood. The blank stupidity had left his eyes, and was replaced by something new. It looked, to Jake, like insanity. Despite this—or maybe, thought Jake, it was because of this—The Kid still clung to his devious weasel-smile, leaving Jake to wonder if The Kid, in his coked-up state of mind, was actually getting a rush from all of this.

"Sounds good to me, pardner." The Kid's voice was eerily cheerful in this faux Southern drawl, like he was intentionally trying to do the world's worst impression of Gomer Pyle. He looked at Jake and grinned. "You da driver, I the navigator, alligator!"

Next, thought Jake, he'll be saying Well, Gawwwwwl-y! He bit his lip, deep in thought. He wondered if, perhaps, it was more than just the drugs that was causing The Kid to behave this way. Jake had seen it before, in Iraq, when soldiers spent too much time in the combat zone, dodging bullets, mortars, and Scuds in the desert heat. But the heat was only partly to blame. It was the waiting that drove men batty, made them go to pieces. The endless waiting to see who was going to die next, and how they would die, and secretly praying that the next fatality would be someone, anyone, other than you. Maybe something similar had happened to The Kid. Or maybe something in that slushed-out brain of his had finally snapped once and for all; a little pin-prick hemorrhage, a few too many dead cells jamming the gears, whisking him off to Never Never Land. Hell, maybe it was just your standard, run-of-the-mill nervous breakdown. Who could tell? Jake sure as hell didn't have the answer. He doubted The Kid knew, either.

"That's right, Kid," Jake said with a humorless smile. "You're the navigator, so you have to keep an eye out."

"Does that mean I can have a smoke now?" The Kid asked in his own voice, lifting an eyebrow. He was rubbing his nose so hard that Jake thought it might fall off.

"Will it calm you down?"

The Kid nodded three times quickly, reminding Jake of the way Eddie Small had nodded before transforming into the clown-thing. He answered in his Gomer Pyle voice: "Well, yessir!"

"If I see one damn burn hole, your ass is gonna be walking. Get it?" Jake said, taking his foot off the brake and onto the gas pedal. His hand found the power window switch for the passenger side and he lowered it an inch.

The Kid grunted and popped a cigarette into his tiny mouth. Light flickered as he lit a match, which he shook out and tossed out the window. Smoking did, for the moment, seem to calm him down. He settled back into the seat and continued to watch for the clown-thing.

Jake drove for another fifteen minutes (he checked this by his dashboard computer—yes, this car had all the bells and whistles!) and nothing changed. Outside were piles of overturned earth on either side of the smooth, straight blacktop, and the dark forest in the distance, seemingly no closer than before. At fifty miles an hour, they should have made it somewhere in that time; a connecting street (if one such street existed), a dead end, a gas station, something. They drove on. But for all the progress they had made so far, they might as well have been standing still.

The Kid sat silently beside him, now smoking a second cigarette as he stared out the tinted passenger window.

As Jake continued to drive, certain he would soon come to the end of the road, or the beginning of another, his mind began to wander. He thought about his vacation to St. Thomas, and walked the speedometer needle up to sixty-five.

Sometime later (he had since decided not to bother with the clock on his dashboard, for it only left him with a greater sense of anxiety when he knew how much time had passed) Jake glanced down at his digital fuel gauge and saw that only four amber bars remained, which meant that he had just under a half tank of gas left. When he looked up from the gas gauge, resisting the urge to glance at the clock out of curiosity (didn't that kill a cat somewhere along the line? he thought), his eyes widened and he slammed on the brakes. The Beemer lurched to a screeching halt.

He was vaguely aware of The Kid lunging forward, smacking his head into the windshield, leaving a spider-web crack the size of a frying pan. Vaguely aware of a far-off voice screaming: "What the—argh, my fuckin' head! I'm gushing all over the place, man! What the fuck're you doin'?"

There was blood on the windshield. The Kid was examining his head and holding his bloody hands up in the cluster lights. In a dazed state, Jake was unconsciously aware of all of these things, but he ignored them. He continued to stare out the windshield, his jaw open, eyes wide with skepticism.

When The Kid looked up from his bloody hands, his watering eyes discovered what Jake Tolly had seen, what had frightened him so. What Jake was still staring at now, unable to look away.

Directly ahead of them was the large white billboard they had passed earlier, its rectangular face illuminated in the headlights. At first, The Kid couldn't understand the fuss, but then he noticed something was different about the sign. Someone had altered the wording. Altered it in such a way that the lettering looked flawless. It now read:

WELCOME TO ETERNITY DRIVE

New Homes At Affordable Prices

You'll Love The Hock!

We All Love The Hock!

Contact Eddie Small For Details

"It's a different sign," Jake murmured to himself. "It's gotta be a different sign."

The Kid, who was busy staring outside the window, shook his head in disbelief. "It ain't," he said in a quiet voice. He turned to Jake. "I remember on the way in, when I looked out the window, I saw beer cans all over the side of the road...the same beer cans I'm lookin' at right now, pardner. It's the same sign, alright. Only someone changed it."

"Are you forgettin' that we took off the wrong way?" Jake demanded, his voice now rising in anger. "Did you forget that, or are you too fucked-up on that shit you've been snortin' to remember?"

"You're wrong, Jake," The Kid said softly, almost apologetically. After all, Jake was the one with the gun.

Jake stared through the windshield, thinking. "I'm turnin' this puppy around and we're going back the way we came in." He shot a look of censure at The Kid. "You'll see that you're wrong. I'm gonna have us back on the main road in no time."

"But it's the same fuckin' sign!" The Kid hollered, but Jake didn't hear him.

Jake didn't hear him because he had already slammed his foot down on the gas pedal and was turning the car around.

After a very long time, The Kid said, "What's the Hock?"

Jake shook his head. "I dunno."

"And what did it mean by 'we love it here'? Who's 'we'?"

They continued to drive for what seemed like hours, silent except for the humming of the Beemer's tires across the fresh pavement. On and on they drove, and still the forest remained forever out of reach, an elusive mirage that lingered on the edge of a lost horizon.

It reminded Jake of when he was a child. Every summer, mom and dad would load-up the old jalopy and they'd head down south to Jake's grandparents' house in Yarmouth, where Little Jake would spend the week swimming, fishing, and collecting seashells. Sometimes, after it rained, Jake and his summer friends would walk along Seagull Beach in search of a rainbow; or, to be more precise, in search of the pot of gold that was rumored to be waiting at the end of the rainbow. But no matter how close they thought they were to finding the treasure, no matter how far they walked along in the salty air, the rainbow always seemed just as far away as when they had started. Once, when they had actually reached the spot where the rainbow seemed to end, they raced forward with their plastic shovels and pails, already counting the gold coins in their heads, and then—just like that—the rainbow up and vanished. No matter how fast they ran, or how close they seemed to get, the rainbow and its fabled treasure always eluded them. Like a phantom. A phantom whose sole purpose it was to give them hope and then snatch it away.

Much like the rainbows of his youth, the forest remained in plain sight, eluding them. That much was true. But it hadn't disappeared. It was still there. Somehow—somehow, they just couldn't reach it.

It was as though they weren't even moving at all.

Jake glanced at the fuel gauge again and saw that he had used up another bar of fuel; only three bars remained. Probably only a quarter of a tank left, Jake realized, and pulled his eyes away before the urge to look at the clock became too much to bear.

How long have we been driving? he wondered.

"Look out, man!" The Kid hollered abruptly, snapping Jake out of his trip down memory lane. "We're gonna hit 'er!"

Jake had time enough to see a woman dressed in red standing close to the middle of the road. Her arm was outstretched, and her thumb was sticking up from her closed hand. Then the Beemer was careening sideways as Jake stomped on the brake pedal as hard as he could. The car had barely come to a chirping halt before The Kid was out the door and running toward the panic-frozen woman, while Jake sat behind the wheel, watching.

She was a petite brunette with skin like porcelain. Her lithe figure was accentuated by a short red dress that ended well above the knees, the neckline plunging downward in a deep V that exposed the ample cleavage of her firm, braless breasts. She had the trim body of a dancer, with long bare legs that ended in a pair of shiny red pumps. Her eyes glowed cat-like in the headlights; dark and mysterious, seductive and sexy, and perhaps more than just a little bit terrified.

As The Kid reached her, she lowered her arm, almost dropping the small red pocketbook that was slung over the shoulder, and a tired Thank-God-For-Small-Favors kind of smile played across her luscious scarlet lips. After a short conversation that Jake could not hear from where he was sitting behind the wheel, The Kid jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, towards the parked car, and she nodded and smiled—a heart-melting smile that didn't quite belong here, in the middle of nowhere, in the darkness—revealing two rows of perfect white teeth.

The Kid approached the driver's side door with the girl in tow, and Jake rolled down the window to greet them.

"This is Vera," The Kid said, flashing a Cheshire Cat grin. "Vera, this is Jake."

The tiny beauty leaned over The Kid's shoulder and offered a cute little wave. Jakes first thought was: Nice body. Pretty face. A bit too much makeup for my taste, but pretty nonetheless. Jake noticed how her fingernails were all neatly manicured and polished the same color as her lipstick; a dark, blood-red. She offered a tightlipped smile, her exotic eyes blinking slowly in the darkness.

"Hi," Vera said in a sweet, melodious voice, and Jake's heart nearly stopped—actually seemed, to Jake, as if it did stop; for a few seconds, anyway.

"Nice to meet you, Vera," Jake said automatically, hoping his voice did not give away his fluttering pulse, the stirring in his loins. Before he had time to say another word, The Kid was rambling on again.

"Some dick left her out here in the middle of friggin' nowhere. She was wonderin' if maybe we could give her a ride."

A ride to where? Jake thought glumly. We're probably more lost than she is. Besides, what if this is some kinda trick? What if that clown-faced thing transformed itself into this lovely brunette bombshell, knowing that we would stop for her...it...and let it in the car—?

"I don't mean to be any trouble." The look in her eyes was part frustration, part desperation. "It's just that...it feels like I've been walking forever...and my feet are killing me...and I'd really appreciate a ride. I have money. I can pay you."

As if the desperation in her voice was not enough, it was her sexy smile that decided him.

"Climb in the back, Kid," Jake ordered, and he smiled at the way Vera's face brightened. "Make room for our guest."

The Kid did as Jake asked, and Vera slid herself into the shotgun seat, smoothing her short dress down with both hands to prevent it from riding up to her waist. She placed her small pocketbook on the floor between her feet, shut the door behind her, and looked at Jake with an appreciative smile, admiring his handsome face. "Nice car," she said, running her fingers through her raven-black hair, which was the same shade as Jake's.

"Thanks," Jake said, returning the smile, and began down the long stretch of blacktop once again.

"So, Vera," The Kid said, leaning forward between the two front seats, using them to support himself with his elbows. "What brings you to this strange little hick-town, anyway?"

"Ughhh!" she moaned, and Jake glanced over in time to see her roll her eyes. "I've been dating this guy from Boston for the past two months. Not a very handsome guy—" here, she paused and smiled at Jake. "But he seemed so sweet and, well, he sent flowers to my work every day—I work at West Hevven Savings—and took me to dinner every night. Not like my usual dates; they only wanted one thing. But this guy was so nice. He took me to all the fancy restaurants, and he was always so gentle and soft-spoken. Anyway, last night he picks me up at my apartment and he says he wants to take me somewhere special. So he brings me here, and I start to think that maybe he's looking to...you know...rape me or something. I don't know. I read about that kinda stuff happening all the time. The guy seems perfectly normal, but he's really some kinda crazy creep or something, y'know? So he parks the car on this road we're on now, and I ask him what he's doing. He just smiles and asks me to step out of the car for a second. So I do, thinking maybe he just wants to look at the stars or something. I know it sounds stupid, but I trusted him a lot. He wasn't the kind of guy I thought I'd end up marrying or anything that serious, but Eddie was always so—"

"What?" Jake interrupted, cutting her off. He cocked his head to look at The Kid, and saw that The Kid's rubbery jaw was hanging open like the tailgate of a truck, eyes wide with shock.

"Who, what?" Vera said, and looked from The Kid to Jake, frightened by their shared expressions.

"Did you say 'Eddie'?" asked Jake. His knuckles turned white as his fingers tightened around the steering wheel. The same terror that he had felt after witnessing the transformation of Eddie Small overcame him once again.

"Yeah. Eddie." She rested her hand on Jake's muscular arm. "Why are you looking at me that way? Did I say something wrong?"

"That wouldn't happen to be Eddie Small, would it lil' lady?" The Kid asked, reverting back to his cowboy voice.

"Ye-yes," she said uncertainly. "How did you know?"

"Let me ask you something," Jake said, trying hard to remain calm. "I know this is gonna sound strange, but what day was it when Eddie picked you up and brought you out here?"

Vera looked at Jake suspiciously. She withdrew her hand from his arm and already he missed her touch, wished she had not done that. Wished she had left her hand right where it was, because it was the only thing on this godforsaken night that had felt real to him.

"What day?" she repeated, voice rising with indignation.

"Please," Jake said. "Just humor us for a second."

Vera pouted, twirling a finger in her long hair as she considered the question. "Oh, it must've been Wednesday. Yes, it was definitely Wednesday. I remember because I was low on cash and I was looking forward to the next day, Thursday, because that's when I get my check. Why do you ask? And how do you guys know Eddie?"

"Here's another stupid question. Do you know what day it is? Today, I mean," The Kid asked her cautiously.

"Yeah," she said, clearly irritated. She stared through the windshield at some point way off in the distance. "Like I told you, today's Wednesday."

Jake looked at The Kid, and The Kid looked back at him.

"No," Jake said flatly. "Today is Friday."

Vera giggled a little, a sound that walked that fine line between fear and madness. "What is this, some kinda joke? Did Eddie send you guys to mess with me or somethin'?"

Suddenly, there was a muffled bird-like sound, and Jake and The Kid looked at each other questioningly.

Vera giggled again, only this time there was a hint of genuine humor in it. "It's my phone," she explained with a smile. She reached down to retrieve her pocketbook from the floor. "I knew this had to be some kinda trick!" She pulled a small cellular phone from her pocketbook held it to her ear, smiling. After a few seconds, the smile began to twitch, and then faded away completely. She shot Jake a worried look, holding the phone away from her head as though it were something that could harm her. "It—" she cleared her throat, "it's for you. It's Eddie. I think."

She fumbled the phone into Jake's lap. Jake picked up the phone, held it to his ear. Trained his eyes on the road and said, "Hello?"

"!!!HIYA, JAKE!!!"

Jake started at the sound of the clown-thing's voice. The phone fell out of his hand and tumbled to the floor. The voice boomed out of the phone, so loud that they could all hear it. "I told you, Jake, not to spill my blood, didn't I? I told you you'd never make it outta here!"

"Eddie, you bastard!" Vera screamed. "How dare you leave me out here in the middle of nowhere! How dare you—"

From the phone there came the gargle of maniacal laughter. "Shut your mouth, you fuckin' whore!" the clown-thing growled. "Eddie never wanted you! You were just some toy he played around with when he was bored. Eddie knew how you felt about him. He knew you were just using him for his money, like all sluts do."

"That's not true!" Vera screamed, her eyes brimming with tears. "I really liked you, Eddie! I trusted you!"

The voice on the phone howled with laughter. "You'll never get out of here alive! You'll just keep on driving and driving and driving. Welcome to Eternity Drive, Jake! Welcome to—"

"Shut him up, Jake!" The Kid hollered. "Throw the fuckin' thing out the window. Just shut him up!"

Jake reached down, feeling around on the floor until his fingers located the phone. With the clown-thing still cursing and laughing, Jake rolled down the window and tossed the phone outside, where the voice faltered and faded off into the night. In the shotgun seat, Vera had her legs drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. She whimpered softly as the tears streamed down her face. "Are you okay?" Jake asked softly.

She did not look at him, but nodded absently.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded again. "Is it really Friday?"

"Yes," Jake answered solemnly, staring out the window, at the dark tree line that never moved, at the long stretch of road in the headlights that went on forever. "It's really Friday."

"Then that means I've been walking for days."

Jake nodded, unable to look at her.

"But it's only been a few hours. And the sun never came up. How can that be?"

Jake shook his head, glanced down and saw that they were almost out of gas. "I don't know, Vera. I just don't know."

Outside the windshield, the darkness was palpable.

There was no sign of morning, not a trace of daylight in the sky.

"I think we'll be driving for a long time, pardner," The Kid mumbled from the backseat, settling back into the shadows, becoming nothing more than a dark silhouette in Jake's rear-view mirror. He took the vile and the mirror from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, and began to powder his nose once again.

Jake continued to drive, mind drifting back to the rainbows he had chased as a boy, the ones he could never catch. His eyes strained as he looked ahead, towards the vague outline of the forest on the horizon. It was now so dark that it was almost impossible to differentiate between earth and sky. Beside him, Vera had kicked off her shoes to the floor and was quietly massaging her blistered feet. After a while, she leaned over and put her head against Jake's shoulder, and he instinctively put an arm around her.

Except for the continuous drone of the Beemer's engine and the humming of the tires across the new pavement, they carried on in silence. An indeterminable amount of time passed as they drove on and on into the night.

***

"Now it really feels like we're standin' still," The Kid said after some time. He was now draped across the backseat, lying on his back with his knees propped up, gazing out the rear passenger window.

"That's because we are standing still," Jake snarled. "We ran out of gas."

"How long ago was that?" The Kid asked, sniffing a little, and rubbed his nose as though it were itching like crazy. "Did you see anything...anything besides, you know—?"

"I don't know, Kid," Jake said, yawning. "Ten minutes. An hour. Yesterday. I don't know. The clock stopped. The whole time, we didn't see anything except for a few more of those signs, each one a little different than the others."

The Kid sat upright and leaned between the two front seats. "Where'd the girl go?"

Jake closed his eyes. Smiled to himself, as if at a fond memory. "Oh, she's gone," he said in a singsong voice. "Long gone..."

"What do you mean by 'gone'?"

Jake turned to look at him. "She said—" He clapped a hand over his mouth, as if to suppress a cough. What came out instead was a kind of giddy, childlike giggle. "She said she was going to look for a ride—" He made a snorting sound somewhere in the back of his throat, tried but failed to muffle the sound with his hand again. "She was going to try to hitchhike!" he blurted at last.

The Kid looked at him in disbelief. "And you just let her go? By herself?"

"I tried to stop her!" Jake screamed. "I tried to talk her out of it! What was I going to do, Kid? Huh? Drag her back here, kicking and screaming?"

"I don't know," admitted The Kid. "I just thought that, well, maybe we should go after her."

"It's safer in here." Jake's eyes flicked to The Widowmaker, which was resting on the dashboard, fully loaded and ready to rock and roll.

"I guess we'll find her when the sun comes up."

Jake threw back his head and laughed. "You really think the sun is gonna come up and the roosters are gonna do their cocka-doodledoos? Don't hold your breath...pardner."

Jake reclined his seat and closed his eyes. The situation was well out of his hands, and he could see that now. All he could do was wait. And hope. Maybe, just maybe, The Kid was right. Maybe when the sun came up (it had to come up eventually, right?) he would go find Vera and they could all leave this place and never look back. Hell, maybe he would even ask her to join him in St. Thomas, where everything would be behind them and they could laugh about it all. Just the two of them, the beach, and the sunshine. God, how he longed to see the sun. The warm, forgiving sun.

"You want me to keep watch?" The Kid asked, waking Jake from a light sleep. Jake opened his eyes and looked at him drowsily.

"Yeah, Kid. Yeah, you do that," Jake murmured. Chuckling softly, he added: "I don't know what good it'll do."

"Can you put on the radio? It'll help me stay awake."

Jake sighed through his nostrils as he leaned forward. He pushed the Power button on the stereo and began to work the dial back and forth. After several seconds, he gave up. There was nothing but static on every station. "No dice, Kid."

"Well, here. Put this on. I found it on the floor back here." He handed Jake a CD.

Shrugging, Jake took the disc and eased it into a slot in the Beemer's console. Bob Seger's gritty voice wafted out of the speakers as he began to sing about "Night Moves".

"Good choice, Kid," Jake mumbled. He settled back against the seat and closed his eyes again. Within seconds, he was asleep. Even when a series of high-pitched screams pierced the darkness from somewhere nearby, he did not stir.

Singing along with the lyrics, The Kid was also oblivious to the female screams and cries for help. As he bowed his head to sniff the last pile of cocaine, he realized that he no longer cared where he was or what would become of him. A few more lines and it would all be fine, fine, fine.

After the CD had replayed itself several times over, the car battery died, but not before Bob Seger muttered one final, prescient question:

(ain't it strange how the night moves?)

The battery now drained, the BMW's occupants slept in total silence. No birds singing, no crickets chirping, no frogs belching, no roosters cocka-doodledooing; the world around them was utterly and hopelessly still.

But the nightmare did not end with sleep.

It was as though Jake Tolly and The Kid had never gone to sleep at all, for they both shared the very same nightmare, one from which they would never awaken.

A nightmare that would send them, over and over again, down a dark and winding road with no beginning and no end.

Where the night was forever.

#  Reflections - Part III

"Did Sergeant Cannon read you your rights?"

"Yes."

"Then you understand that you're being recorded, and that anything you say in here can be used against you?"

The young man sitting on the opposite side of the table squirmed a bit. Glanced nervously around the room as though he were looking for something. A video camera, perhaps. "Yes."

"And you're waiving your right to speak to an attorney?"

"Yessir."

Detective Bailey leaned back in his chair, sighing. "Okay." He nodded thoughtfully. Jotted down a note on the pad of paper that rested in front of him. "Okay. In that case, I have some papers here for you to sign, and then—"

"I want to tell you my story."

"We'll get to that, Mr. Gauthier, but first—

"Brad."

"Excuse me?"

"Call me Brad."

"Okay, Brad. Do you understand the charges being brought against you?"

Brad nodded, his eyes still bouncing around the room.

"And there's no reason why you shouldn't be of sound mind to answer those questions, is that correct?"

"You don't remember me, do you?" Brad was looking at him steadily now.

"Excuse me?"

"We met before," Brad said. "Long time ago? You interviewed me about the disappearance of my friend, Tony Hill?"

Something registered in the detective's eyes. "I remember the Hill case. But I don't remember—"

"I was the last person to speak to him the night he vanished," Brad murmured casually.

"Mr. Gauthier. Brad. I'm not sure what that has to do with the events that took place this morning."

Brad smiled without humor. "It's all connected, see?"

Detective Bailey leaned forward. He rested his pencil on the table and folded his hands in front of him. "I guess it's best if I get right to the point," he said. "Why did you kill those people?"

Brad chuckled incredulously, as at a really dumb joke.

Bailey decided to play along. He smiled unconvincingly at the hollow-eyed young man. "Did I say something funny?"

"Yes. Yes, you did."

"Care to enlighten me?" Bailey was already growing weary of this line of questioning. All he wanted was to go home and grab a few hours of sleep before his next shift. He rubbed his temples, feeling a familiar throbbing behind his eyes.

"It's what you said..." Brad closed his eyes, smiling.

"What I said?" asked Bailey, louder than he had intended. He told himself to calm down, not to let this punk get under his skin. "I asked why you killed those people."

Brad opened his eyes slowly. He looked across the table at Bailey and his smile disappeared as though it had never been there at all. "People," he said, spitting out the word as though it tasted awful to him. "Those weren't people."

"No? Maybe you'd care to explain that statement to me."

Brad smiled again. "You wouldn't understand."

Detective Bailey thought it likely that the maniac sitting across from him was correct. There was little reason to believe that he could ever understand how someone could pick up a gun, walk into a civilian workplace, and unload round after round of ammunition into human flesh without showing even the slightest hint of remorse. After a moment, he said, "Try me."

An hour later, Detective Bailey emerged from the Hevven Police Department's interrogation room with an eye-watering migraine and a harried expression on his face.

"Did you hear?" he asked the man standing behind the two-way glass.

Sergeant Cannon looked at him with an expression of disbelief. "I heard enough. Let's go grab some coffee. You look like shit."

"After being in the room with that psycho, I feel like shit."

The two men made their way down the corridor to the break room. "Lemme guess," Cannon said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "The devil made him do it."

Bailey sighed between his teeth. "I wish it were that straightforward."

"Well, what did he say?"

Bailey poured his own cup of joe and took a sip. "I dunno. He rambled on for more than an hour. Thinks that the people he killed weren't really people. Claims they were some kind of shadow people in human form. Says they came here to study us, in order to prepare for some kind of invasion."

Cannon chuckled softly and whistled between his teeth. "Do you think he's really nuts, or is he trying to play the insanity card?"

Bailey shook his head. "I dunno. I still have to interview the survivors, but the guy's got no priors, and by all accounts, he was a nice, normal guy up until today."

"I'll bet you ten bucks his girlfriend dumped him. Either that, or he just got passed over for a promotion." He sighed through his teeth. "It's always the same old shit, ain't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Wow," Cannon said, raising his bushy eyebrows. "This guy really rattled your cage, didn't he?"

"No," Bailey whispered. "It's not that. I just have this splitting headache."

"Another migraine?"

Bailey closed his eyes, nodding.

"Well, why don't you go home and get some rest. Your shift ended, what? Half an hour ago?"

"Yeah," Bailey said. "I might just do that. Lemme know if anything comes up, okay? I want to make sure all our ducks are in a row before they transfer him to county."

On his way home, Bailey stopped at Buzzy's Pharmacy in the center of West Hevven. Stepping out of his unmarked cruiser, the later afternoon sunlight sent needles of pain through his eyes. Once inside the store, the intensity of the migraine seemed to decrease by several degrees. The fluorescent lights weren't as bad as the sunlight, but they weren't doing him any favors, either. He found the medicine aisle and grabbed a bottle of Excedrin Migraine Headache tablets. He was on his way to the checkout counter when he caught a glimpse of himself in the sectional mirrors in the back of the store, the kind where you can look at your reflection from a variety of angles, depending on how you stand. Beside the mirrors was a rack of exotic looking sunglasses on a rotating stand. On top of the rack was a sign boasting SUNGLASSES TWO FOR TEN DOLLARS – SPRING INTO SUMMER – LIMITED TIME ONLY!

Bailey frowned at his reflection and his reflection frowned back at him. Leaning in for a closer look, he saw that his cheeks had lost their youthful color, and his eyes were sunken, bloodshot, and rimmed with dark circles that looked like bruises. Cannon was right, thought Bailey. I do look like shit.

Squinting against the glare of the overhead fluorescents, he noticed all the variations of his face—the familiar features now made unfamiliar—as the mirrors traded his reflection back and forth into oblivion. He was about to turn away toward the checkout counter when something caught his eye: the last tiny reflection, seemingly miles away and at the end of a rectangular hallway lined with myriad other versions of himself.

The other reflections were standing just as he was standing; arms by their sides, holding little bottles of Excedrin Migraine tablets in their hands, brows furrowed in pain at the onslaught of a killer headache. Only that last tiny reflection was different.

That one was waving to him.

#  It Never Sleeps

I haven't slept in days.

Now, I can tell what you're thinking by the look on your face, and I can't say I blame you. I've heard people say the same thing a million times before, usually when they've been clocking a lot of overtime, or maybe when they've been really busy running around with their kids or whatever. But I got laid off from my job about three weeks ago—downsizing, they said, though I have reason to believe they were farting through their teeth—and I ain't never had no kids. So believe me, when I tell you that I haven't slept in days...it's no exaggeration. I haven't slept at all. Not a goddamn wink.

So I guess that brings us to the reason why I'm here. And I s'pose I'll start with what happened last July, when I was driving a load of farm supplies down Route 302, just outside of Millinocket, Maine.

It began just like any other summer day. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and the air was bursting with that beautiful summery smell—you know the one I mean, don't you? It's more than just the flowers and the trees. It's that smell that you think of in the gray of winter, when it seems like all the colors have been sucked out of the world forever. Then someone mentions summer, and that's what you think of above all else—that smell. That sweet green smell. Yeah, I can tell by your smile that you know what I mean.

Anyway, getting back to the story, by the time I reached 302, I had already fallen into my usual routine and I...Well, it's sort of stupid, but after all that's happened, I don't see the harm in telling you. I feel silly saying it out loud, but I've always thought I've had a pretty decent singing voice, which is why I always took them back roads instead of the highway, so I could really belt out a few tunes. Sometimes, I even pretended I was up on a stage, singing in front of a thousand screaming fans. I would imagine a bunch of beautiful cowgirls in the front row, all of them wearing tight blue jeans and belly shirts, and how they'd swoon when I smiled and winked at them.
Hey, I told you it was stupid, but it sure did help to pass the time, and when you're a trucker, anything that helps to pass the time helps to make you feel—well, less lonesome I guess. I never really thought about it before, but it does get mighty lonely on the road sometimes, especially up there where there ain't nothing but mountains and sky, and—

Now, where was I? Right!

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it was a day like any other. I had the road mostly to myself, and I was singing along to the country radio station, and that's probably why I didn't notice her. I guess I just wasn't paying attention. One minute, I was just cruising along with the wind in my hair (or what's left of it, anyway), and the next thing I knew she was there. By the time I saw her, my rig was practically on top of her. The first thing that crossed my mind was: Good God, where did she come from? Then: You almost killed her dead, you damn fool.

She was standing still, so very still, with her arms by her sides that I swear I didn't even notice her until she was right there in front of me. When I did notice her, something clenched inside of me and I couldn't breathe worth a damn. Truth be told, I thought I was having a heart attack, except I ain't ever heard of no one getting no instant hard-on during a heart attack, so I thought I'd be alright.

I don't remember downshifting, and I don't remember applying the brakes either, but I must've done both right away. What I do remember is glancing in my side view mirror and seeing a flap of long hair blowing across her face like a—like a black curtain, and the long grass whipping at her legs, as the tailwind from my truck rushed past her.

I probably should have said this upfront, but I was driving my regular route for Soulever Construction, and I was on my way to making my last drop at Buxton Feed and Farm in a little area in the tippity-top of Maine called T-13, just a hop, skip, and jump away from the Canadian border. I used to joke around with the clerk there sometimes. He was one of those longhaired hippy types who was always wearing T-shirts with comic book characters on them, which seemed strange for a grown man. So sometimes I would joke around and say, when is this town of yours gonna get a name? And he'd just shake his head like that was one of life's great mysteries and say that T-13 wasn't even a real town, but an unincorporated township or some such thing. One time he said they ought to just call it R2-D2 or C-3PO, y'know? Like from one of those Star Wars movies? Thought it might draw more tourists to the place. I don't know much about that, but as far as I know, there ain't no tourist industry in T-13, so it sure as hell couldn't hurt none.

Anyway, getting back to the story, probably every truck driver in the world dreams about picking up a beautiful damsel in distress and falling in love, or lust, or both. Probably every guy dreams about being a hero of some sort, and being rewarded for it in a way that don't cost nothing. It doesn't ever happen, though. At least, it never did for me, until that day.

I guided my rig to the shoulder of the road, the jake brake spitting out a sound that always reminded me of machine gun fire, as it slowly sputtered to a stop. I watched her in the side view mirror and waited for her to come bouncing up to the passenger door, figuring I would catch an earful on account of me almost running her down. It also occurred to me that I would likely catch an eyeful at the same time and suddenly I could breathe again. The tires did their last little two-step stutter before arriving at a full stop, and it was at that point that it occurred to me that I had applied the brakes without really thinking about it, maybe without even meaning to. Anyway, I did stop, so I sat there for maybe half a minute or so, still watching her in the side view, and she never moved from the spot where she was standing. She only turned and looked at my truck, and even from fifty or so yards away, it seemed as though she was looking right at me in the mirror, looking right through me, as though even that tiny little reflection could see straight into my soul. That's when I realized that I was still excited. Sexually, I mean.

After a time, I decided that something must be wrong with her, so I climbed down out of my truck to see if she was okay. The thought occurred to me that maybe this was some kind of trap, and that someone, or maybe even several someones, might be waiting in the woods to mug me and hijack my rig. It seemed pretty farfetched, it being daytime and all, but it was enough to make my erection go away. Besides, it's not like I was carrying the king's riches, if you get me, unless the would-be hijackers were a couple of renegade halfwit farmers who needed several hundred pounds of fertilizer. And I didn't think she looked like that sort. One thing was certain; she sure didn't look like she belonged in the woods of Maine, or anywhere else, for that matter.

She was easily the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She had a heart-shaped face with dark, almost almond-shaped eyes. Not quite Asian, but definitely exotic. Her hair wasn't just dark but black, as I already said, and long enough to reach her waist. And, my God, that body! She was wearing a kind of summer dress that ended just above her knees. It was obviously a bit loose on her, but you still had no problem seeing the shape of her body underneath the thin fabric; her flat stomach, her perfect little breasts. And those legs; long and smooth, with just the right amount of muscle tone. Legs any dancer would be envious of. Another thing, and I'm not one of those foot fanatics, but she had the prettiest little feet and the prettiest little toes in the world, in spite of the fact that she wasn't wearing nothing in the way of shoes. Needless to say, I have seen a great many hitchhikers during my time, but I had never in my life seen anyone who could compare to her.

"Hi, there," I said, simultaneously sucking in my gut and puffing out my chest. I was already feeling like it was all just a part of some sexy dream. "Do you need help?"

She barely moved but to breathe. She simply stared at me with those pretty eyes.

"Are you okay?" I asked, already sensing that I would not receive a response.

She just looked at me calmly. Didn't react to what I was saying. Didn't move. Didn't even blink.

"I have my truck here," I offered, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder, as though she couldn't already see the sixteen wheel semi parked behind me. "Would you like a ride?"

She looked past my shoulder, toward my rig, and somehow seemed to nod without moving. Something inside me told me that she understood, and before I knew it, I was leading her to the truck, opening the passenger side door, and ushering her safely inside. Everything was slow and somehow hazy, like a dream.

I felt like a virgin who had somehow gathered up the courage to ask the town belle to the senior prom, only to find that he doesn't quite know what to do with her when she actually says yes. As I was closing the passenger side door, I saw her looking down at me, so I smiled at her, thinking, once again, My God, she is the loveliest little thing I have ever seen. This thought had just crossed my mind when I heard her say, Thank you. At least, I thought I'd heard her, but the moment before the door snapped shut, I realized that her lips had never moved. Or maybe, I tried to reason, I just hadn't seen them move. Either way, she was in my truck, waiting for me, and I wasn't going to blow it. Besides, it seemed like a small matter at the time.

"Name's Tim," I told her, settling into the driver's seat. "Tim Black. But my friends just call me Blackie." We were back on the road now, and she was sitting stock-still with that perfect posture and her hands folded like two napkins in her lap. "What's your name?" I asked her, realizing that I was speaking to her as though she were a child. At this, she turned her head slowly toward me and simply stared at me. Her face was perfect, like a doll's. There was not a trace of a wrinkle or blemish or anything. She could have been eighteen, or she could have been twenty-five; it was impossible to tell. I thought, maybe over the sound of the engine, she couldn't hear me, so I repeated my introduction, but her face never changed.

Then I asked her if she understood English, and even tried to get her to write something down, you know, in case she was deaf or something, but she just kept right on staring away. Finally, I asked where she was going, and told her that she was welcome to come with me as far as my drop off, in T-13, Maine. Somehow, in a way I can't quite explain, she seemed to agree that this was what she wished to do. It was as though she shimmered in some way, or maybe it was something in her eyes. Either way, it was agreed, but I just went right on returning her gaze for a few seconds. I remember thinking, how does she do that? Then the thought occurred to me that I was losing a staring contest with a girl who couldn't have been more than half my age. I turned back to the road, and from the corner of my eye I could see that she continued to stare at me for a few seconds. It seemed like she was deciding something; whether or not she could trust me, maybe. When I think about it now, it was more like she was inspecting me. Then she turned her head slowly so that she was facing forward again. Neither of us said a word for a long time.

Two, three hours later, I made my drop and decided to stop at Ruthie's East Branch for a bite. Ruthie's is this little greasy spoon in Millinocket, not too far from my drop. I've been going there off and on for, oh, maybe five or so years. Before that, it was the Sunrise Café, but Ruthie's serves up better food, and the portions are so big that I usually end up taking half my meal home. But not that day. That day, I was ravenous. Thinking back, I guess we both were.

My mysterious passenger had not uttered a peep, but still she somehow seemed to acknowledge certain questions or comments without a sound or describable movement. When we parked in the big dusty side lot outside Ruthie's, I turned and asked her if she would like to grab something to eat, my treat. Nothing. A few seconds passed. She turned to look at me with those deep, dark eyes, and not a flicker of an expression passed over her face.

"Good food," I said, making an awkward gesture of bringing an invisible spoon to my mouth. "Greasy, but good. Mmmmm."

She must have understood some of what I said because her long-fingered hand suddenly appeared on my forearm. This struck me as being strange because I never even saw her move. I just felt that soft, feminine touch, and when I looked down, her hand was there. "It's okay." I smiled at her with what I hoped passed for a winning smile, showing lots of teeth. Then I placed my big clumsy hand, my ugly old working man's hand, on top of hers. Her hand was small and soft, as I said, but it was more than that; it almost felt too soft, too smooth, like it wasn't really a hand at all. Like it was really just some sort of glove; something that was meant to resemble a hand. Anyway, those thoughts went in and out of my head just as fast as they come, because as soon as I touched her, I felt something swell up inside of me, something that made me want to weep with joy. I know it sounds crazy, and I don't blame you none for thinking so, but touching her was like—well, it was like touching something divine. Maybe that ain't the right word, but it's the one that comes to mind.

Anyway, I finally coaxed her into the diner, where I ordered myself a big old burger with bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles, with a pile of greasy onion rings on the side. I ordered the exact same thing for my lovely companion because, when the waitress tried to take her order, the shy little thing just sat there, not saying a thing. Heck, she wouldn't even look at the waitress. Those big beautiful eyes were fixed on me the whole time and, hey, I won't lie to you; it was a turn on.

Well, if she didn't understand how to order, she certainly understood how to eat. When the food came, she watched me for a moment, as if learning how to eat for the first time. She watched me pick up my burger and take a bite, and then she did the same. She watched me dip an onion ring into a little blob of ketchup, and then she did the same. She waited until I took a bite of the onion ring, and then she did the same. I washed it down with a sip of Coca Cola and—well, you get the point, right? This went on for a bit, until she finally seemed to get the hang of it, and then she was off to the races, as they say. She polished off her burger, then her onion rings, and then guzzled down her drink, before I was even halfway done with my dinner.

When she was done, she just stared at me, watching me eat. Her mouth was all shiny from the onion rings, and when I reached over with a napkin to wipe the grease off, those pretty little lips popped open with a little wet smack. As I was wiping her mouth she leaned in closer and deliberately brushed her lips against my fingers—sort of like a kiss, I guess—all the while staring me down like a cat.

I am not ashamed to say that I would have gladly traded every sexual experience in my life for that one sensual kiss. I remember looking over and seeing our waitress, along with a couple of roughnecks and two old-timers who were sitting at the bar, looking over at us in quiet wonder. I suppose they were trying to figure out how a mostly bald, forty-three year old truck driver had ended up with a girl who looked like she had wandered off the pages of a Victoria's Secret catalogue. I had to smile at that, because I was sort of wondering the same thing myself. I know I ain't much to look at, but I'm usually not the worst looking guy in the room, either. And I have my G.E.D. and even a few college courses under my belt, so I've never really thought of myself as your average dummy. I would've finished, too. College, that is. Only my dear wife, Liza, died in a car accident, and suddenly higher education lost its shine, if you know what I mean. Liza was the one who pushed me to go to college, anyhow. Said it was a step toward a better future for us. I guess that's why I really took to being a truck driver. Being on the road always seemed to take my mind off things. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've always been a little restless, even before Liza passed on. Sitting in that diner, it felt good to be in the company of a woman, even one who didn't speak.

I paid the tab, and we headed for the door. After that little kiss on the hand, I felt a surge of confidence. It seemed to me that there was at least some suggestion of mutual attraction, so I put my hand on the small of her back as I opened the diner door for her. When she actually seemed to nuzzle back against my hand, I felt a little more bold, so I draped my arm across her shoulders in that sort of careless way that guys do when they're trying to show everyone that a girl is theirs. Then she leaned into me a little, and I began to feel sort of lightheaded, like it was all some crazy dream. One I didn't want to end.

By the time we had walked across the dusty lot to the truck, I was really feeling light on my feet. As I opened the door and ushered her up into the passenger seat, I was so dizzy that I bumped my head on the corner of the door.

"Shit!" I said, embarrassed. I touched the spot, which was just above my hairline, and I could already feel the beginning of a big old goose egg rising there. Even worse, I felt my face heat up as it turned about a dozen shades of red. Meanwhile, the girl just sat there in the passenger seat, looking down at me with that same blank expression. "I wonked myself pretty damn good there!" I smiled at her, trying to make a joke of it, trying not to let on how much it really hurt. I shut the door slowly and made my way back around to the driver's side. I was so dizzy that I barely made my way up into the driver's seat. Once there, she leaned over, as if meaning to touch my forehead, but I caught her hands and smiled at her. "It's fine." I held her hands and rubbed them with my thumbs. "Just a scratch."

I'm not sure how long we were on the road, but I remember that we'd made it at least as far as Bangor. That part I remember clearly. Shortly after that, I began to feel dizzy again, so I suggested that we pull over at a little motel I used to stay at sometimes when I was too tired to make the drive home. I wanted to check out my head and make sure I was steady enough to make the run home. Or maybe she suggested it. Now that I think about it, I'm not so sure she didn't, though I can't recall her ever actually speaking out loud.

To be honest, I felt sort of sleazy walking back to the truck with the motel key jingling in my hand, because in the back of my mind I knew that this was what I had wanted all along. The two of us shacking up for the night, I mean. When I got back to the truck, I half-expected that I would find it empty, thought that maybe she suspected I was playing up the whole dizziness thing in order to get her into the sack. But there she was, still sitting there, looking through the windshield with that thousand yard stare. Looking at me. Looking through me. The way she was sitting, it seemed to me like she'd wait there until Kingdom Come, never moving a muscle, never even blinking. As if I was the most fascinating thing in the world to her. Me, of all people!

Next thing I knew, we were inside the hotel room, and I was looking at my head in the big mirror that hung behind the dresser. It wasn't that bad of a cut, but there was a little line of dried blood that ran from my hairline down to my chin. Then I set off to thinking how crazy I must have looked, checking into the hotel with blood running down my face. Well, that explained why the old couple who ran the place, the ones who had checked me in not five minutes earlier, had been looking at me so strangely. I was thinking that very thought when I felt her fingertips caress the bloody side of my face.

I turned to her, then. In my mind, I had already lived the next few moments a thousand times, but now it was happening for real. Her eyes never left mine, just stared away with that unblinking, untranslatable expression. That's when I noticed that her eyes were not as dark as I'd first thought. There were little pinpricks of light in there, like swirling constellations. Not just constellations, but entire universes. They seemed to go on forever, and I could feel them pulling me in like a whirlpool. Then she leaned in close, and from the corner of my eye I saw a long pink tongue flick out, and then I felt a tingle in my groin as she slowly licked the dried-up blood off my face. When she finally brought that beautiful mouth around to kiss me, that tingle became a full-on erection. She kissed me and kissed me. Her mouth was cool and sweet, and her lips were just as soft and gentle as I had imagined they would be. She pushed herself against me, sliding her palm up and down against my crotch.

Some time passed. When I think of it now, I wonder if I might have lost consciousness. I am not sure about that, but it seems as there was some missing time there. When I came around, I realized that she was now kneeling in front me. My pants were unbuttoned, the fly down, and she had her fingers wrapped around me like she was holding onto a microphone or something. God, I don't feel right giving away my bedroom secrets. I have never been one of those Swinging Charlies who likes to kiss and tell, but I want you to understand. Do you see? It was probably the single greatest thing that has ever happened to me, and I don't want to...to cheapen it, somehow. But I want you to understand, you see. I just want you to know that's the only reason I'm telling you any of this.

After she knelt down, she was looking up at me with those blank eyes. Her mouth opened and out came her lovely pink tongue, wrapping itself around and around my—my—well, Jesus, I don't have to spell it out for you, do I? Her eyes gleamed, and her tongue began to constrict around me; a warm, wet muscle, squeezing and relaxing, squeezing and relaxing. I cannot describe how good it felt. Finally, that tongue drew me into her awaiting mouth, and she kept it there, until she had her fill.

This went on for I don't know how long. The next thing I remember is undressing myself. I waited for her to undress too, but she only pulled at the clothing, as if she couldn't figure out what to make of it. I ended up watching her struggle for a minute or two before I finally decided to give her a hand. After I undressed her, she guided me back to the bed and climbed on top of me. There was not a bump, a mole, a freckle, or even a hair on her body; it was perfect, flawless, just as smooth as fine china, and cool to the touch.

She took me in her hand and slowly eased me inside of her. Immediately she started rocking her hips against me in a slow circular motion. Then I felt something I had not expected: she squeezed me. She was squeezing me with the muscles inside of her, flexing and pulling me wetly, and I began to feel something like a static tingle down there. Soon, the tingle became something like a mild electric shock that made my balls tremble. S-sorry, I meant to say "testicles." But I gotta admit, doc, I've always thought that those two words sounded equally as crude.

Anyway, this went on for several gloriously agonizing minutes before I felt a rising pleasure that began to unfold in waves that made me shudder to the core, and I began to come inside of her again and again in rapid succession. The more I spent myself, the more she wiggled with pleasure, the more passionately she kissed me. These multiple orgasms continued for perhaps three or four minutes before she finally collapsed against me. After that, I know I felt dizzy enough to faint, but I didn't.

Instead, we both just laid there, facing one another. I know I was grinning like a fool. Hell, I felt like I was positively glowing. But her expression was still blank. She simply stared at me, and I at her, until I finally lost myself in those bottomless eyes and tumbled down into sleep.

***

When I awoke the next morning, it was as though she had drained me of every last drop of fluid in my body. I felt like one of those Egyptian mummies, like if someone was to touch me, I'd just fall apart and crumble into dust. As I rolled over, I saw that she was still lying beside me, eyes wide open. She had not moved or slept a wink. The way she was looking at me, it was as though there was something else inside of her, something looking out at me from behind her eyes. Looking out and studying me. Though that was strange enough, it was nothing compared to my surprise when I stumbled into the bathroom for a drink of water.

I turned on the tap, stuck my head under the stream, and started guzzling away. I closed my eyes in ecstasy, it tasted so good. Nice and cold, the water shocked me wide awake. I had been drinking that way for I don't know how long when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. That nasty gash on the side of my noggin, the one I got when I bumped my head on my cabin door, was gone. There wasn't a scab, or even a scar. It was as if it had never even been there at all.

The three or four hours it took to get from Maine to Massachusetts passed by with that same fluid sense of it being all a dream. I played the country station and serenaded her. I told her about my life and asked her about hers (not expecting a response, and not receiving one). As if no time had passed, I found myself pulling my rig into the gated lot at Soulever Construction in Hevven.

I couldn't begin to describe the looks I got when I pulled in with my beautiful passenger, and I cooked up some half-baked story about her being my brother's kid who was visiting from out of town. Well, that seemed to lower the eyebrows a bit, in spite of the fact that I had never mentioned my brother, and for good reason: I was born an only child. Either way, it was more believable than the idea that someone as beautiful as she was could be my girlfriend or whatever.

If there's one part of my job I have always hated, it's the paperwork. After the manifests were all filled out, we got into my pickup, and headed back to my apartment in Hevven. It was a Friday, and my time was up. I was a free man until early Monday morning.

Now, my apartment is little more than a hole in the wall, and I hadn't had a woman there in damn near a year, so all that nervousness and awkwardness came back to me tenfold. I don't quite remember how the day went, though I have a vague memory of ordering pizza and showing her how to pick up a slice and eat it. I do remember sitting beside her on the couch in front of the tube, the two of us spending more time watching each other than whatever program was on. The clearest part is when night finally came and we made love again in my stuffy little bedroom.

I don't really think I have to go into all the details, but I can say with confidence that what happened next was pretty much a repeat of the night before. Not that there was anything wrong with that, you see, because it was somehow even better than it was that first night. I don't even know how that is possible, but it's the truth. It was almost like...like she had adapted to me. In a physical way, you know? But also in another way that's harder to explain. I've never been a believer in all that psychic mumbo jumbo, bit it sort of felt as though we had somehow tapped into each other's souls.

Getting back to that night at my place, from an outside perspective, I guess it was no different than the first night. Except that it was different, but in a way I can't quite put into words. Afterwards, I pulled her into my arms, and she held me, looking somehow satisfied, though I can't say her appearance was really any different than usual. She wasn't even breathing heavy. Hell, her hair was hardly even mussed.

I fell asleep looking into her eyes, losing myself in her eyes.

In the middle of the night, I awoke to find her in that same awkward position, just sort of holding me loosely in her arms, watching me as I slept. Even in the darkness, I knew she had been watching me because those little chips of starlight in her eyes were swirling in front of me. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I smiled at her and caressed the side of her face. She leaned her cheek against my hand almost affectionately. Then she took my hand and guided it to her belly. Again, I noticed was how perfectly smooth and perfectly hairless her skin was, not like skin at all but something that was made to look like skin. Then I felt something inside of her

(shift?)

(squirm?)

move.

I don't know how to explain it, really. It was like something was trapped in there and it was trying to get out. Then, and I swear to God this is true, something came up and poked my hand. Something hard, like a bone or a tooth. It almost felt like—I know this is going to sound crazy, but it almost felt like something had tried to bite me. Through her skin, understand? I snatched my hand away and looked at her, terrified. I didn't know what to say. I mean, what the hell do you say in a situation like that? And she just kept looking at me in the usual way, watching me, reading me. To see my reaction, you know? To see what I thought of our little bab—of our little creation. I can't even think of it as a baby. Nothing human can grow that fast, see? And the girl—now that I think about it, it's like she was on that road on purpose, just looking for the right person to come along and—

I think she was just waiting for the right person, a lonely person, so that she could seduce him into helping her make that, that thing.

After that, I found that I could not fall asleep. I wanted to, but I was too terrified. So instead of sleeping, the two of us just laid there all night long, staring at one another until dawn.

That was only a month ago, give or take, and every night is exactly the same. She presses my hand against the ever-growing swell of her belly, all the while watching me with those unblinking eyes. She wants me to feel whatever it is that's growing inside of her—God help me, whatever it is that the two of us have made.

I—I've thought about doing something. Something awful. I've thought about hiring someone, maybe. Someone to pay her a little visit when I'm not home. But I can't. I won't. See, I love her, doc. Even though she scares the ever-loving Jesus out of me, I love her. But I can't stop thinking about that—that thing we've made. And I know that she's back there at my place, sitting in the dark, right at home in the dark, fawning over that thing that lives inside her.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

When I wonder what it'll look like—what it might be—

For the love of God, whatever it is, I already know that it's just like its mother.

Don't you see? It never sleeps.

And now, neither do I.

#  About the Author

A native of New England, James Michael Rice began writing short fiction at the age of twelve. He is also the author of two novels, Rebel Angels and A Tough Act to Follow. He is currently working on his fourth book.

For more information about the author and his books, please visit the James Michael Rice fan page on Facebook at Facebook.com/JamesMichaelRice.

