 
###

### Highway Hypnosis

### Michael Vain

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 Michael Vain

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

**Table of Contents**

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Author's Note

Connecting With the Author

Other Works

CHAPTER ONE

Howard Langford did not appear to be a person who was prone to fear; he appeared to be a man who caused fear in others. His sheer size alone was enough to intimidate most men into cautious courtesy, if not respect, so it would be surprising for them to know he was afraid of something so simple, so basic, as going to sleep.

Those who knew him, either professionally or by reputation, would think a man of his financial stature would have no problems resting at night, but they would be mistaken. Although his day had been long, and his body yearned for sleep, the idea of putting his head to the pillow filled him with dread. He paced back and forth in his hotel room, struggling to control his anxiety.

_"_ You're being ridiculous," he muttered. "It's only a bed."

This was true; it was just like every other bed in every other hotel he had visited. It wasn't the bed that caused his present distress, however. It was what happened after he fell asleep that worried him.

Worries or not, there was no way to avoid what needed to be done; he had a schedule to keep, one he could not afford to sacrifice for something so trivial as a fear of sleep.

Casting a wary glance toward the bed, Howard undressed and after a moment's trepidation, slid between the sheets.

The passage into sleep was seamless. There was no sensation of falling asleep, no gentle drift into slumber; one moment there was the comforting darkness of his closed lids, and the next, he was standing in the midst of a vast, broken plain of cracked and fissured earth.

Above him, dark thunderclouds swirled with purple menace. Lightning raced through their depths, lighting their interior in crackling strands of white fire. Watching them, Howard felt the first traces of fear begin to crawl its way into his heart.

He was dreaming, of course. He knew he was dreaming, but this did nothing to ease his nerves. He was familiar with this landscape, and knew it was not anywhere near as deserted as it appeared. He stared into the gathering twilight as his apprehension seeped deeper into his veins.

He was not alone. He could feel it; somewhere in the darkness where the clouds met the plain, something stirred. Within the swirling clouds, Howard sensed a presence, just beyond the range of his vision. Waves of concentrated malice washed over him with increasing intensity. Whatever it was, he was sure it was moving toward him.

Something rumbled in the darkness, something that sounded like a voice.

"Waited for you," the voice rumbled. "Been waiting so long."

_Wake up_. _It's just a dream. Wake up. Wake up NOW_.

He opened his eyes. Nothing had changed; he was still dreaming.

The thing in the darkness was moving, getting closer. Howard became afraid then, his mind capable of but a single thought.

Run.

Howard turned and began to flee. He had no destination, no plan, other than escape. As often was the case in dreams, his sense of distance and speed were distorted. No matter how hard he tried, he could only run in slow motion, as if the air had transformed into the consistency of quicksand.

Howard could hear his unseen pursuer behind him; the ground vibrated in time with its steps as it thundered across the plain. Fear exploded in his chest. Howard could feel his heart laboring, wrenching, as if it were about to burst. His lungs were paralyzed; any attempt to breathe brought lightning flashes of pain flaring through his torso. The exertion caused sweat to pour down his face, chest, and back, pasting his shirt to his skin.

Behind him, the unseen horror drew ever closer. Howard could feel it gaining on him. Flashes of hot, fetid air washed over him from behind, the breathing of some unimaginable thing.

Then, to Howard's utmost dismay, it spoke again, not as a roar crashing in the distance, but a whisper from right behind him.

" _You are mine!_ "

Howard awoke to a world of darkness and shadow, his hands clenching the sheets, his heart racing. He bolted upright, sweat pouring from his face, a scream locked in his throat. For a brief moment he did not know where he was, and a surge of panic swelled within his chest. Sinister shapes loomed in the darkness, ready to pounce, and the very air seemed filled with unknown peril. Then, as his eyes adjusted, the objects around him took on more familiar shapes, and the emotional wave receded. There was no reason for him to panic; it was just a dream.

That damned dream. Again.

He had suffered from the same nightmare for the last three nights, and though he could not remember any particular details, it always ended the same way, with him waking trembling and afraid, covered in a cold sweat, his heart beating in a frenzied rhythm.

Stress. It had to be stress, he realized as he swung his feet over the side of the mattress. The bed squeaked as he stood, as if happy to be relieved of its considerable burden. He shuffled his way across the room toward the bathroom without bothering to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. His room was part of a suite, the very best the little Best Western had to offer, and to reach the bath he had to cross through the larger dining and living room areas, a large shadow lumbering among smaller shadows.

Once he reached the bathroom, Howard paused and flicked the wall switch, guarding his eyes against the light. As the bulbs overhead flared to life, they revealed an imposing figure; standing at six foot five, and weighing almost three hundred fifty pounds, he filled the entire doorframe. Across from him, a face stared back from the mirror he almost did not recognize. His eyes, normally a clear and piercing blue, were tired and baggy, shot through with red. In the harsh, unflattering light, the faint lines in his face became dark crags. Gone were his ruddy complexion, his dark, tightly trimmed waves of hair, replaced instead with skin so pale as to be almost white, and random, wispy locks that were nearly gray. Rather than a look that spoke of authority and leadership, one that commanded loyalty and respect from his employees and business rivals alike, the visage that glared at him from the mirror appeared almost ghoulish.

"Mister, you seriously need a vacation," Howard said aloud to his reflection. The face in the mirror glared a silent reply: there was no time for such nonsense, not with so much to be done, not with so much money on the line. Rest was trivial in comparison to such things.

Indeed, this was true. Langford Technologies was considered one of the most innovative developers in the world of consumer electronics, and running such a profitable enterprise left Howard little time for personal recreation. At thirty-six years of age, Howard Langford was the sole director and CEO of a multi-million dollar company, and was considered a genius in both electronics engineering and programming. Though he was not yet on the Fortune 500 list, it was only a matter of time before he joined the ranks of the true business elite. These accomplishments were not for those who spent their time in idle pursuits, but came only to those willing to sacrifice, those willing to put every ounce of concentration, every last iota of their energy into achieving their goals. Howard did much more than simply run the company; the vast majority of products to come from Langford Technologies were the brainchild of Howard's design prowess. He personally oversaw all the various design and production departments; he was the captain of his ship, and all his crew answered to him.

No, there were no vacations in Howard Langford's future, no sir.

Though his position did not allow for much in the way of relaxation, it was not as if he did not enjoy his work, or have the benefits worthy of one so elevated. He lived a life of luxury, albeit a busy one; he owned an exquisite home, drank fine wines, and enjoyed the best food money could buy. For the latter, he employed an exceptionally skilled chef to prepare his meals when at home, and savored the fare at the best restaurants on those occasions when he dined out. His love of food even extended to the workplace; the food prepared in the company cafeteria rivalled that of the better eating establishments in the area, and was head and shoulders above anything offered by his competition.

Howard ran water into the sink, splashed some on his face, and rubbed his hands through his hair several times before drying with a fresh towel. He looked again into the mirror, hoping for some improvement, but saw little change; the man staring back at him looked worn and tired, older than his actual years.

It wasn't the job that was robbing him of sleep; it was those damn nightmares. Howard wondered if he should indeed take some time off. The dreams alone were not what bothered him; they were disturbing, but harmless compared to the corporate threats, financial risks, and logistical problems he encountered every day. The real danger, the thing that lurked in his mind long after the initial effects of his nocturnal interruptions wore off, was the deeper question of what those dreams might represent. He was an engineering genius, and had created some of the most cutting-edge virtual reality simulators and best-selling computer games in the world, but Howard was far from being an expert on the inner workings of the human mind. He worked under a great amount of pressure, and the thought he might be suffering from some psychological dysfunction or stress-related illness was not a comforting one. His mental health was crucial to his continued success.

"I'll say it again, old chap," he said to his reflection, "you need a vacation."

He turned from the sink, and stepped to the toilet to urinate. As he stood over the bowl, he ran through the events of the past week in his mind, turning them over one by one, looking for some connection, some possible cause, for his recent spate of nightmares.

During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Howard had personally debuted several new products, including their newest line of high performance graphics tablets, several new home console games, as well as arcade versions of his world-famous virtual reality simulators, previously available only at theme parks. This technology would enable gaming establishments to run a wide variety of games for both single players and groups. These games could be networked across the country, or the world, allowing participants to compete against both computer-generated enemies and other players. Set within a fully dimensional, wrap-around graphical environment, and designs that incorporated complex feedback-sensitive motors, Howard had taken computer gaming to another level.

Soon, not only virtual reality arcades, but casinos, and even shopping malls across the country, and later the world, would have lines of customers anxiously awaiting their turn to immerse themselves in a range of gaming experiences from the fantastical, to the apocalyptical. Plans were already underway for development of a much scaled-back home version, which when finished, would utilize a unique projection system sure to catapult Langford Technologies to a level unmatched by any computer gaming system currently in existence.

So what exactly had triggered his nightmares? The trip out to Vegas had been a breeze; he arrived fresh and sharp to deliver a clear and commanding presentation to a standing-room-only crowd, and his model simulator had been the hit of the convention. It was only later, when he began his trip home that things began to go wrong.

The trouble started on the first night of his return trip, when he awoke shaking and sweating, his skin cold and clammy, the vision of some pursuing thing, a creature from the darkness, lingering just beyond his memory. The dreams repeated each night, and on each occasion, he had lain awake for hours as he tried to shake the feelings of dread and icy despair the dreams instilled in him.

Those damned dreams.

Even worse than the nightmares were those hours he spent in the dark, listening to his heart hammer in his chest, waiting for dawn, when he would rise, aching and wired, to spend another day behind the wheel, his exhaustion robbing him of the one pleasure he valued above almost all others: the freedom of the open road.

After four nights, he was left with nothing but frayed nerves and a dread of the coming night. It had been years since he had suffered an actual nightmare; as a child, his dreams were vivid and often strange, but these had decreased in frequency with age, until most nights passed without any memories of dreaming at all. Now they had returned, and it seemed their potency had increased to make up for the years they had been absent from his sleeping mind.

Why now? Why had the nightmares chosen to return now, at this particular time?

Just the price of success, I guess.

He returned to the living room area of the suite. He wanted, no, desperately needed, more sleep, but he knew better than to try; he would likely just lie there, over-analyzing the possible causes of his recent nocturnal disturbances, unable to fathom their source, just as he had on the previous nights.

One glance at the clock on the end table told him it would be useless; it was early, but still late enough that any attempt at sleep would throw him off his schedule. Better to get moving now, before the roads became congested with morning commuters.

Howard padded his way back to the bedroom, where he dressed before packing his toiletries and clothes from the day before. By the time he finished, the first glow of daylight was beginning to show through the window. He gathered his bags, taking care to make one final check to ensure he had not forgotten anything vital.

Once in the lobby, he informed the clerk at the counter, a young boy barely in his twenties, he wished to check out before handing him the electronic key to his room, along with his credit card.

Howard stood back and waited as the young man ran the card and entered his information into the computer terminal, hoping the other did not recognize him. He was in no mood to placate another over-zealous fan while they gushed over why his latest game, Zombie Attack Online, kicked ass, or how his Total Immersion software was pushing the boundaries of simulation gaming; four days of suffering through that crap was quite enough, thank you very much.

Although productive, the trip and the nightmares had both taken their toll. The last thing he wanted was to have his day interrupted by any such nonsense, and this kid looked like the type who would do exactly that.

Although not a celebrity in the commonly accepted definition of the term, Howard Langford was as large a figure in the electronics world as he was a physical specimen. He could not attend a computer show, convention, or similar event without being mobbed by those wanting to hear about upcoming products, ask arcane technical questions, bombard him with their ideas, or any of a hundred other excuses for wasting his time. The boy behind the counter seemed oblivious to his identity, however; he was able to collect his card and go on his way without incident.

Leaving the lobby, Howard carried his bags across the parking lot to his car, a deep green 1979 Lincoln Continental. He had owned the vehicle for almost twenty years, and in the time since he first purchased her, two things had never changed: his craving for success, and his love for his car.

He glanced over her lines with the eye of an aficionado. The Lincoln was still a fine machine despite her age, and though she was a grand automobile in Howard's eye, she was not the sort of transportation one would normally associate with a man who earned seven figures a year. Howard's contemporaries would have made the trip by chauffeured limousine, private jet, or both, but the president of Langford Technologies still drove the same automobile he had driven since the earliest days of his career. Howard and the Continental shared a long and meaningful history together. She was special. She was his baby, and no amount of chauffeured luxury could come close to the feeling he experienced while behind her wheel.

A maverick among his peers, and an elusive target for the media, the founder of Langford Technologies possessed a reputation for being as headstrong and unconventional as he was successful. Those few who were privy to his driving habits were prone to dismiss his affinity for the Continental as a minor eccentricity, perhaps a nostalgic reminder of his youth, and while this may have held some essence of truth, the classic automobile meant more to Howard than he was willing to admit.

The vehicle was more than just a reminder of bygone days; it was a symbol of the depth of his ambition, a testament to his driven nature, and a reminder of a world to which he would thankfully never return. Over the years, he had developed a deep, personal attachment to the machine that bordered on obsession.

The general public was not aware of these facts; Howard valued his privacy almost as much as he valued success. There was no reason for the public to know the actual reasons behind his attachment to the Lincoln; he employed a small army of people whose sole job was to keep his personal issues out of the public view. Their skill at spin- control ensured that details of his personal life and habits, such as his fanatical diligence to the care and maintenance of the machine now sitting in the lot, never made it into the public domain.

The spin-doctors were not employed simply to soothe Howard's vanity; there was also the issue of safety, both of Howard's reputation, and his person. Although he enjoyed the adoration of numerous fans, there were also those who would wish him ill; kidnappers and extortionists, even a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind would be certain to take advantage of the lack of protection when he traveled alone, but Howard refused to give up his personal freedom for security, despite the many objections of his financial advisors.

His position, with all its benefits, carried a high price; it consumed almost all his waking hours. The Continental represented one of the last vestiges of privacy in his life, and Howard could not bear to part with her, or the sense of independence she provided.

The restraints on his time made extended trips with her a rare blessing. Even so, he took every opportunity to slip away to the relative comfort of her interior. It was the only place he truly felt free to relax, away from the department supervisors, team leaders, managers, and the never-ending stream of programmers and designers that comprised the demanding mistress that was his profession. Whenever he felt overwhelmed by the burden of maintaining a growing market share, the weight of his many responsibilities, he would steal away unannounced into the countryside. It drove his assistants crazy, not to mention his security personnel, but the solace it afforded kept him sane.

When his schedule did not allow him to travel, he spent his remaining spare time maintaining her, attending to all her repairs and detailing, as he had done since he first purchased her. The result of his diligence was obvious; she was in as good a condition, both mechanically and visually, as the day she rolled off the assembly line.

Howard stowed his luggage, got in the car, inserted the key, and started the engine. He smiled as the car rewarded him with its characteristic throaty purr, and pulled out of the parking lot. He headed towards Columbus, Ohio, happy to be on the road once again, away from the darkness, away from his dreams. With luck, he would be able to drive all the way home without having to spend another night in a hotel. Perhaps a night in his own bed would put an end to his troubling nightmares.

Howard headed east on Route 70. He preferred to take a scenic route over the Turnpike; he had learned years ago that travelling with an out-of-state license plate was like having a huge neon sign on your car that read 'pull me over and give me an unwarranted ticket'.

Although he was an expert driver, and never broke the speed limit, this seldom discouraged ticket-jockeys looking to score an easy fine. His lawyers could make easy work of such a case, and on just about any other occasion, Howard would have enjoyed it immensely, but there was just too much on his plate; he had as much time for such nonsense as he would being delayed by an over-enthusiastic gamer.

He stopped for breakfast at a diner west of Columbus, and again just outside Zanesville, where he fueled the Continental at a Gas and Go. While the tank was filling, Howard picked up two bottles of Pepsi, some bottled water, and several snacks. Though he could afford the very best in culinary delights, he was not above enjoying the occasional fast food or salty snack binge when the mood struck him. He had a particular fondness for Slim Jims, and his snack purchase included several of the processed meat sticks, a guilty pleasure he rarely enjoyed when not on the road.

The first few hours passed without incident, but once he passed Columbus, things started to change. Typically, Howard was a man who could change mental gears easily, but over the course of his trip back from Vegas, his mental transmission had been slipping. This had not presented much of a problem until now, but as the morning progressed, his condition became more severe. His attention became less and less focused, his mind more distracted, until he nearly slammed into the rear of a tractor-trailer slowing to take the exit to Cambridge. He did not notice the truck's brake lights until he was nearly eating its bumper, and was forced to swerve into the next lane, his heart racing.

This near-collision shook him badly enough that he felt the need to pull over on the shoulder for a moment to catch his breath and calm his nerves. The highway was not a place to lose his cool. He needed to be careful. He had never suffered an automobile accident in his life, and he was not about to have one now, especially when his future was looking brighter than it ever had before.

Howard regained his composure, and the next couple hours passed without incident; he made good time, pausing only for a quick bathroom break at a highway rest stop in Wheeling, before he passed through the northern tip of West Virginia and into Pennsylvania. He stopped again to make calls to Les Tanner, the Senior Manager at his main production facility, to discuss the presentation and get the latest updates, and to the data-center responsible for hosting his gaming network.

During this time, he did not think about his lost sleep, did not allow his mind to be distracted by half-remembered dreams; the problems he tackled now were both tangible and familiar, ones he had faced many times before. These issues motivated him, helped him maintain his sense of control.

Later in the day, however, the physical exertions of the drive began to take their toll on him once again. By the time he crossed the state line into Maryland, his head had begun to throb. He pulled into a rest stop in order to take some aspirin and relieve himself, but this did nothing to ease his headache; his head was still throbbing as he returned to the interstate, heading east towards Cumberland.

He was feeling decidedly grumpy; he knew he needed rest, needed to recoup the sleep he had lost over the last few days, but he was committed to his goal, and was too close to his destination to stop now. Time was his most precious commodity, and he had none to waste, especially now, dreams or no dreams.

After leaving Cumberland, the trip again took a turn for the worse. The traffic first slowed, and then stopped roughly twenty miles west of Berkeley Springs. The highway became a parking lot for over forty-five minutes, which in his current condition felt more like several hours.

When the traffic began to move again, Howard was not pleased to discover the cause of the backup had been the result of nothing more than an overheated car by the side of the road.

Hell, for that kind of wait, I expected to see ambulances and police racing to the rescue, and bodies being hauled away.

He stared out the passenger window as he passed the steaming car, a Volvo with Georgia plates, and its occupants, a family of four. A man stood by the open hood, shaking his head at the plume of steam streaming from the radiator. A woman waited nearby, holding an infant, looking hot and worried. He caught a quick glimpse of a child's head bobbing in the back seat, but could not tell if it were a boy or a girl.

Scowling, Howard brought his attention back to the road. He had little if any pity for the stranded family; they had cost him time, and wasted time meant wasted money. He could not wait to get back to Potomac, Maryland, and the comfort of home. After sitting in his car for more than twelve hours, his feet, back, and ass were beginning to go numb; his entire body begged for a hot shower and the comfort of cool sheets. The time he had lost to the family in the Volvo irritated him, and he muttered curses under his breath.

Then, mere minutes later, Howard heard a sound all motorists dread, the sharp report of a tire blowing out, followed by the sound of flapping rubber vibrating through the floorboard. He immediately took his foot from the gas pedal, and allowed the Continental to decelerate, while checking his mirrors for traffic.

"Fuck me upside down and backwards," he cursed aloud as he pulled the Lincoln onto the shoulder. His cellular phone was in his hand, and the number for his secretary speed-dialed with a touch of a button before the car had stopped moving.

There were many numbers stored in his cell, but Howard never needed to look at the screen as he worked his way through the menus; he had memorized the button sequences for all of them, including the positions of all his staff and other needed numbers contained in his address book, from Les Tanner, to his Programming Director, James Sinclair, to his sales and marketing directors, his brokers and attorneys, even his house staff. The address book on his phone was his personal database of all the people important to his continued success.

Howard touched the screen, and the phone dialed the number of Janice Busey, his personal secretary. Ms. Busey, who looked nothing like the actor whose name she shared, was a quiet individual who executed her duties with a calm and dignified dedication, despite Howard's commanding and often ingratiating personality. This was crucial, as she was responsible for managing his schedule, as well as handling his clerical staff.

She answered the phone on the first ring. Howard informed her of his situation, gave her his location, and told her to call Triple-A. She assured her boss she would have a service truck dispatched to him as quickly as possible.

As it turned out, 'as quickly as possible' turned out to be an hour and a half. Howard called his secretary again, but there was little she could do; it seemed Howard had chosen a bad time and place to have a flat. There was nothing he could do but sit and wait for a tow truck. Howard considered himself above such menial tasks as changing a flat tire. His stubbornness far outweighed his common sense; he always paid his dues on time, and he would be damned if he did not mean to take advantage of the service for which he was due. Howard Langford was a man who was used to getting his money's worth.

By the time the tow truck arrived, Howard was not a happy man. He was even less pleased by the attitude of the tow truck driver, a man of undeterminable age, with a scraggly mane of black hair shot with streaks of white that flowed into an equally scraggly beard and crooked yellow teeth. The driver acted as if he were the god-send to the towing community, and seemed to take great pleasure in delaying his customer's return to the road for as long as he could, all the while lecturing Howard on the dangers of the road in a well-rehearsed diatribe.

"Yup," the driver said as he removed the lug nuts with exaggerated caution, "you picked a bad place to break down."

"I didn't pick it," Howard replied with a snort, "it just happened."

"The road can be a dangerous place," the driver continued, oblivious to Howard's obvious agitation, "yes sir, a very dangerous place. Good thing you called us when you did. Any later, and we might have been closed. Not another towing service within thirty miles, at least, and even then yall'd likely be waitin' a good while."

I've already been waiting a good while.

Howard did not give voice to his dissatisfaction; he just did not have the energy. Rather than giving the driver a hard time, he simply paid his bill with his credit card when the man had finished changing the tire, with nothing left over to tip the driver.

The satisfaction this brought him was short-lived; once back on the road, the traffic seemed to mock him, as if it possessed a sentient will of its own. For the next hour following his encounter with the tow truck driver, vehicles would cut him off whenever he began to make any headway to form a moving barrier against him, as if their operators could read his mind. His aggravation was in full force as he attempted to avoid the rolling roadblocks he encountered, only to be denied satisfaction on every attempt.

Spotting yet another wall of traffic in the distance, Howard spun the wheel toward the next available exit, intending to cut along the smaller back roads before returning to the interstate, and perhaps avoid the cluster of automobiles presently blocking his progress. He did this purely out of frustration, with barely a glance at the exit sign, and without the aid of his ever-trusty GPS or his road atlas. It was not something he would have done under normal circumstances, but he was tired of dealing with the traffic, and his aggravation got the better of him.

He drove for almost twenty-five minutes before he decided it was time to consult his global positioning device. He rarely used the thing, as he normally did not deviate from familiar routes, and cursed under his breath for not using it sooner, aggravated that his mental processes had become so dulled by stress and exhaustion. Once he realized how much time had passed, Howard was nearly livid with anger, both at the traffic and at himself; it would be another half hour before he made his way back to the interstate.

As the day wore on, Howard's rage boiled away, to be replaced by exasperation. Things were not going his way, and his patience was waning by the minute. The clock in the dashboard read 7:47 p.m., and he had still to get even as far as Hagerstown. If he didn't start making progress soon, he would be dead on his feet by the time he got home. He had been on the road for more than fourteen hours, and was feeling every mile. It had been a long and trying day, and tomorrow promised to be no better; presenting a new product line was easy, but making good on that presentation was an entirely different matter.

He had hoped to get home in time for dinner, but his staff, including his chef, would be long gone by the time he reached his destination. It was also unlikely he would reach any of his favorite restaurants—The Caucus Room, Butterfield 9, Galileo or Le Rivage—all would be closed within the next hour or so, and Howard knew it would take longer than that to reach any of them. He was tempted to make a call to his chef and try to persuade him to wait, but decided against it. The chef was a good man, but almost as temperamental as himself, and he had no desire to deal with the other's fiery personality. No, he would make do with whatever he could find on his own, even if it meant stopping at a roadside diner, or worse, a fast food joint.

After all, a man needed to eat.

With the help of his cell phone and his GPS, Howard found a decent enough rib joint on the outskirts of Frederick. He pondered finding a more exclusive eatery, but the temptation to overstay might prove too great, and Howard did not think he had the physical reserves necessary to endure a longer meal, regardless of its quality.

As he devoured his rack of ribs, he recalled his dreams, and wondered if they would return to interrupt what little time he would have for sleep when he arrived home. He would need every minute of rest he could get before returning to work; the coming weeks and months would be key to the evolution of Langford Technologies, and it was crucial the gaming network went online with as few hitches as possible, and on schedule. Consumer confidence was a major factor in the gaming marketplace; he had built his company on the reliability and stability of his products, a reputation he was determined to maintain.

Howard had been working toward his current goals since the tenth grade, an enterprise that took a superior amount of technical know-how, business acumen, and patience, but now his patience was nearly extinct; once back in his vehicle, he cursed at every flash of brake lights, growled at every knot in traffic. Exhaustion amplified his emotions, made each mile a challenge of will.

He was no stranger to fatigue; years of late nights, spent tackling complex problems under tight deadlines, had disciplined him to the point where it was a familiar companion, almost to the point where it sharpened his concentration, rather than having the opposite effect. He could not recall how many evenings he had spent pouring over schematics or writing code, keen to finish the next Big Project, with nothing but sugar and caffeine for sustenance. When in his element, he could handle large amounts of stress and still remain focused, but here, trapped within the confines of the automobile, the effects were greatly amplified.

Howard opened one of the bottles of soda from his collection of snacks purchased earlier. He held the steering wheel with his belly as he twisted off the top, his eyes unwavering from the road before him as he performed this procedure. His movements were sure from years of practice, and the large automobile did not waver in its course by so much as an inch. Several snack cakes joined the Pepsi, and this gave him some much-needed energy. He pushed on, his determination renewed.

He beat back the grim shade of fatigue, chased away the spectres of the dreams that haunted his mind, but was still helpless against the tide of traffic as it ebbed and flowed along the highway. The vehicles ahead of him moved in tight knots, forcing him to stay well below the posted speed limit. He knew better than to succumb to road rage, knew the dangers of allowing his exhaustion and frustration to get out of hand, but found the task to be easier in theory than in practice; he was accustomed to getting his way, and not used to feeling so helpless, so inconsequential in the scheme of things.

The traffic continued to test his patience. He knew anger would do nothing to help matters, could do nothing but complicate his current situation, not to mention the detrimental effect it had on his blood pressure, but had to struggle time and again to keep from shouting. He would no sooner gain control of his rising ire before another motorist, bent on self-destruction, would go out of their way to disrupt the traffic flow.

Whatever you do, don't lose your temper. Otherwise, they'll need the Jaws of Life to pry you out of your car. Just stay calm. It's just another drive. Tomorrow is another day, and you'll be the master of your domain again, king of your kingdom, not to mention one rich son of a bitch.

He patted the top of the dashboard. You've never been in an accident, baby, and today is not going to be any different.

In all the years he had spent behind her wheel, his baby had not suffered so much as a dented fender. He was a skilled driver; his reaction time behind the wheel was excellent, and was proud of his ability to judge movement and distance. He would likely have made an exceptional marksman or hunter, but considered such activities deplorable. He was a geek to the core; he could kill untold numbers of computer-generated creatures, unleash explosive havoc within the realms of cyberspace, but the very concept of killing a living creature filled him with revulsion.

He wondered, for what must have been the thousandth time that day, at the insensitivity of the drivers around him, and questioned their right to be behind the wheel of such a potentially dangerous machine as an automobile. He took his responsibility as a driver seriously, and took pains to obey the rules of the road, so why couldn't they do the same? Or, if that was too much for them, why couldn't they at least stay the hell out of his way? It wasn't really too much to expect, when you thought about it; all it required was a little common sense. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently, it was; he was barely given time to recover from one near-collision before he was forced to deal with yet another driver conspicuously lacking in self-preservation skills. The surrounding traffic had become a force unto itself, with the intent of inhibiting his progress as its sole purpose. Should this great collective of demented, speed-hungry vehicular automatons encounter any change in the landscape, such as a piece of construction equipment parked beyond the shoulder, it was taken as an immediate cue to congregate at that exact spot. Then, they would stare in wide-eyed wonder while drifting by at the amazing speed of twenty miles an hour, always in greater numbers than human logic said could be in the same place at one time, to bring all four lanes to a near standstill.

Rage became exasperation, and exasperation slowly melted into grim resignation as he poked along the highway halfway between Frederick, and Gaithersburg, Maryland. He was just one link in a seemingly never-ending chain of blinking brake lights along the darkened road, caught in a creeping morass of glass, steel, and plastic, each second another precious moment of sleep lost.

This can't last forever. He looked with a tentative eye to the numbers glowing on the dashboard. Even though it may feel that way.

The clock display on his CD player announced it was now 9:22 p.m. in bright green luminescent digits. Almost sixteen hours, and he still had almost sixty miles to go.

What a pisser.

Thirty minutes later, Howard was still on I-270, heading slowly southeast as part of a rolling roadblock of cars, trucks, and buses. With no other outlet, he decided to vent some of his frustration on his snack collection, and to that end, finished off the remaining snack cakes and three Yoo-Hoos. He kept a fourth bottle of the chocolate drink ready in a cup holder hanging on the inside of the driver's side door.

A bag of Dorito's rested on his belly, while its companion, a container of ever so tasty cheddar-jalapeno dip, reposed snugly beside him in a shock absorbent layer of wrappers and bags. He took advantage of the frequent pauses in the traffic to dip his chips before eating them, while keeping his eyes open for any sudden changes in the great, flowing mass of machinery as it crept along the highway.

He hoped he would make it home before he needed to relieve himself again, but it was not long before the pressure in his bladder necessitated another stop. Lacking a rest stop, he pulled into a McDonald's to use their restroom, but resisted the urge to order anything to eat. He was nearly home now, and had no desire to stand in line for food. Next to the fast food restaurant was a Pilot gas station, and Howard decided it would be best to top off his tank. Within minutes, he was back on the road.

A short time later, a green exit sign appeared above the line of vehicles, and as he grew closer, the words upon it came into focus, listing the upcoming exits to Quince Orchard, Rockville, and Glenn Hills. Howard felt a surge of relief; he was nearly home.

It's about time, too; my ass could use a break.

He no sooner completed the thought, before brake lights began to glow along the lanes in front of him. "Come on, people!" he shouted, his patience broken, "it's so fucking easy! Just put your foot on the big pedal on the RIGHT! It's so fucking EASY! If we all move forward at the same time, then maybe some of us will be able to make it home before we have to FUCKING RETIRE!"

As if in response, red lights flared all along the lanes as hundreds of vehicles braked to a stop.

You've got to be kidding me.

Howard rested his head against the steering wheel in disbelief, fought the urge to bang his forehead against it.

Here I am, less than twenty miles from home. Why? Why is it that the closer I get, the longer it takes?

He let out a long sigh. He just had to survive this nightmare a little longer, and then it would all be over. He rubbed his hand across the dashboard, as if soothing an anxious pet.

Soon, baby, it'll all be over soon.

Over the course of the last three days, Howard had spent more than forty hours behind the wheel. The trip to Vegas was more than twenty four hundred miles one way, and though he was feeling every one of those miles right now, things had gone well, all things considered. He had been forced to contend with some heavy traffic, and there had been some close calls, but if a flat tire and some aggravation were the worst things he ended up having to deal with, then he would be grateful. Like the tow truck driver had said, the road could be a dangerous place, and any time he could make it home without suffering damage to the Lincoln or himself was a winner in his book.

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. It would not be long now until he could put the trip behind him; the delays, the numerous sudden stops and near-collisions, would soon be just a fading memory.

Howard's eyes began to close, and his head began to droop closer and closer to his chest. He was on the verge of sleep before he jerked back to alertness, startled. He expected to see the Lincoln careening toward another car or an eighteen-wheeler as it drifted from its lane, but his fears were groundless; the Lincoln had not veered from its course, and the nearest vehicle was over a dozen car-lengths ahead. He shuddered at how close he had come to falling asleep, at how stealthily exhaustion had crept over his consciousness.

There was no doubt he was suffering from severe mental fatigue. Close to five thousand miles had been added to the Lincoln's odometer on this trip alone, and the strain was beginning to take its toll. For the first time, he doubted whether he had made the correct decision in pressing forward. He had sacrificed much in order to take his company to the next level, but all that effort and time would be worth absolutely zero if he could not get home in one piece.

Wouldn't that just be a kick in the nuts? All those years of hard work, and just when it's all about to pay off, just when I'm ready to grasp the gold ring, I end up as road pizza. Talk about your cosmic fuck-jobs.

He slowed his speed a bit, and poked about in the front seat for the CD case he normally kept there. The search was fruitless, however; he had left the case in the trunk, or somewhere in the back seat. As tired as he was, he could not remember where he had placed it last. Unwilling to pull over, he gave up on the idea of playing the discs, and instead thumbed the button for the radio.

The mindless chatter of a talk show blared from his speaker just long enough for him to push the 'seek' button on the stereo. The next station up the dial offered the crazed ranting of a radio evangelist, and lasted for even less than the first. Hitting the button again brought forth a tune from a Canadian rock trio into the Lincoln's interior. Howard reached for the button on his stereo again, but changed his mind; he was still young enough to appreciate good rock and roll, and it was the perfect music to keep him awake and alert.

The tune was not one he was familiar with, but he found the lyrics captivating; they were intense, somewhat dark and foreboding, and the singer's voice carried an undertone of desperation as he sang about a man pushed beyond his limits, about life, and the pressures it exerted, the tolls it exacted on a man's soul.

There was a break in the verse, as the lead guitarist broke into a brilliant riff before the singer returned to deliver the chorus, a lamentation from a man who struggled to take control of his world. Howard could not help but feel a kinship to the man in the song, driven by ambition and desire, blind to the scenery of life.

No, that was ridiculous; unlike the man in the song, he as one who was on the verge of all his dreams coming true. He had taken his desires for life, and made them a reality. He was Howard Langford, a man who took Life by the balls and squeezed them for all they were worth. There was no resemblance between him and the subject of song's lyrics, no sir.

The song faded to a close, and as the airwaves were taken over by the voice of the disc jockey, Howard turned down the volume. Something about the lyrics haunted him, and the half-remembered dreams from the past few nights surfaced in his mind once more, bringing with them a distinct feeling of unease, triggered by something from deep within his subconscious. It was not a pleasant emotion; there was something familiar about those feelings, something that wanted to bring back unwanted memories from his childhood, and he did not want to deal with such things, not now, not ever. He wanted only to think of the future he had worked so hard to ensure, not waste his precious time on dark musings and reminiscence. He had buried those memories years ago, and he intended for them to stay buried.

The struggle to remain awake was becoming increasingly difficult; fatigue wore away at the edges of his consciousness. His eyes felt irritated and scratchy, and his body began to feel as if surrounded by a thick layer of cotton. The road began to blur, and Howard rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision.

He rolled down his window, with the hope the cool night air would help refresh him, and turned up the volume on the radio. This helped for a few minutes, but all too soon he was reduced to staring at the road, able to think about nothing but the need to stay awake. His mind had gone numb, and his limbs, his entire body, felt heavier, as if it were trying to lose itself in the plush leather of the seat.

This sensation did not overtake him all at once, but crept in slowly, gradually, to engulf his consciousness; the steady drone of the tires on the pavement and the pulsing glow of the headlights as they flashed on the reflective highway markings combined to lull his mind into submission. Several times, his eyes almost shut completely before he started awake again.

Howard considered pulling over to the side of the road to rest, but decided against it. He was well aware of the dangers of driving while fatigued, a condition his high school driver's education instructor had termed highway hypnosis, but he was too close to home to stop now. In less than twenty minutes, all of this would be behind him, and he would enjoy the comfort of clean, cool sheets.

In his mind's eye, he could still picture his Driver's Ed teacher, a short, round man with thinning hair and glasses, and a smile that never seemed to reach his eyes. He reminded Howard of some exotic species of owl. Starcher had been his name, Jim Starcher. He could still hear his former instructor's voice, warning his class about the dangers of driving under these very conditions, as if it were yesterday. He recalled how the man had lectured them on the statistics of those who had fallen under the spell of driving fatigue, before unreeling another documentary, replete with scenes of actual carnage, in all its Technicolor glory.

"How many people die on the road every year from simple exhaustion?" the teacher asked his class as the memory replayed itself in Howard's mind. "How many people die every year because they drank too much, or stayed up too long?"

In his mind, the teacher wandered the aisles of the classroom as he had back then, never pausing to see if there were any raised hands in response to his questions. "Roads have always been, and are meant to be, a means of connecting people and places, of providing a way to get you where you needed to go quickly and safely. But since the dawn of the combustion engine, the driver's seat has also become one of the most dangerous places on earth, and the sheer number of highway fatalities alone is a testament to the dangers of succumbing to highway hypnosis. On that note, boys and girls, I give you today's film—'Road of Death'."

Lost in the contemplation, Howard's eyes first began to glaze over, and then to close, the image of the road before him imprinted on his retinas. His mind began to wander, aimless, along paths of memory and time, recalling facts and events at random as the window to his consciousness closed, and the door to his subconscious opened.

The radio station fluttered with static, and then became lost in white noise. Howard was oblivious to the loss of the music; he was absorbed in the voices of the past.

The world around him began to ripple, the scenery to change, but Howard's mind did not register these events. He had fallen asleep behind the wheel.

CHAPTER TWO

Howard woke with a start just as something flashed across the beams of the Lincoln's headlights. Momentarily dazed, his brain dulled by fatigue, he turned his head in an attempt to track the object, but was only given a subliminal glimpse of some large animal, possibly a deer, crossing the road. Then, the realization he had fallen asleep hit his conscious mind, and he hit the brakes while attempting to watch both the road in front of him and his rear view mirror at the same time, the vision of a vehicle about to plow into the Lincoln's rear end clear in his mind's eye.

Adrenaline pumped through his bloodstream like an electric charge. For one long second, before his mind had time to process what he was seeing, Howard felt nothing but panic. Then, he saw the road was empty, and his heartbeat began to slow to a more normal rhythm.

What the hell?

A cold prickle raced through his body, causing him to shiver. Feeling shaken, Howard allowed the vehicle to drift onto the shoulder. He needed to collect his wits; he could feel his pulse through all his extremities—in his neck, his toes—even his fingertips pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

_Relax_. _It's okay. Everything is okay._

He drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and took another.

It's over. Everything is all right. No harm done.

But that was bullshit, and he knew it; he had fallen asleep at the wheel, and it was just luck that he hadn't become road-kill. All it took was a split second, and he could have hit someone, run off the road, or wrapped his car around a bridge pylon.

His hands were shaking. He put them on the wheel, but could still feel the individual muscles in his fingers twitching.

You could have died.

A sick, throbbing sensation pulled at the back of his throat, and he had to resist the urge to gag. There was a hissing sound in his ears, the sound of his blood flowing past his eardrums, and his eyes felt hot and swollen in their sockets. He tried to swallow, but failed; his throat threatened to close up, and he almost choked. He pulled the top from one of the Yoo-Hoos, and drank the contents in one continuous motion before tossing the empty bottle to the passenger side floorboards.

"Get it together, man," he said aloud. "You're alive to face another day, and that's all that matters."

He pulled the gearshift into Drive, checked for traffic, and seeing nothing but darkness behind him, pulled out into the right-hand lane.

There was no trace of the exhaustion that had plagued him earlier; he felt more alert now than he had all afternoon, but he was not foolish enough to believe this was anything but a temporary side-effect of his near brush with death. The adrenaline rush he was feeling now would wear off soon enough, and when it did, he could end up feeling even more tired than before, and that would be very dangerous if he was still on the road. The next time, he might not be so lucky; next time he might very well plow into the back of a truck at sixty miles an hour. It was a miracle he was alive, considering how much traffic had been on the road.

Speaking of which, where _was_ all that traffic?

Howard frowned. That was odd; he couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds, but the road was devoid of other vehicles. Where had they gone? He had the distinct feeling something was off kilter, something he had missed, but it was becoming harder to concentrate; his mental transmission was slipping again. Fortunately, he would be home soon, and he would finally be able to put the last few days behind him.

Just beyond the glow of the headlights, shapes half-formed in the darkness and then faded away again. Howard glimpsed the trunks of trees, barely visible along the sides of the highway. Looking up, he saw their branches arched upward to loom over the road, forming an arboreal cave.

Something was definitely wrong here; he had driven that particular stretch of highway many times, and he didn't recognize this area at all. He should have only been a few miles from the exit to Route 190, but nothing here seemed familiar to him.

_You're just exhausted._ _You've been driving so long that you're not thinking right anymore. Things always look different at night. You spooked yourself by falling asleep at the wheel, and now you're becoming paranoid._ _In a few minutes, you'll see the exit sign, and laugh about how wound up you got over nothing._

Howard knew his logic was sound, but he couldn't relax. Things did have a way of looking very different at night, but this was _too_ different. He could not remember anywhere on I-270 that looked like this, and where were the street lamps? This close to Rockville, the area should have been aglow with illumination, but the road was completely devoid of light, and that was just damned peculiar, exhaustion or no exhaustion.

Minutes passed, and still the exit sign did not appear. In fact, he did not see any signs at all. He had traveled miles without seeing any of the information or regulatory messages one would normally expect. There were no route numbers, no green and white panels announcing the distance to the next town or city, no black on yellow warnings for sharp turns, wet roads, or deer crossings, no mile markers, not so much as a speed limit, and that was even more peculiar.

He had driven many roads in his time, had taken some out of the way routes in the course of his travels, and even in the far removed back roads in the heart of nowhere, he had been unable to go very far without seeing a reminder of a human presence. He expected to see a billboard, a power line, but there were no traces of these things—there was just more half-visible trees, darkness, and two lanes of pavement stretching onward into the night.

What the hell? Where is everything? Where am I?

Apprehension and dread filled Howard's being. It sat in his stomach like a lump of ice, a numb tumor of fear melting into his bloodstream. Howard tried to shake it off, but the feeling refused to go away. Instead, it grew, a cancer of emotion that threatened to metastasize into full-blown terror.

This isn't the same road.

It was ridiculous; it had to be the same road. He had been tired, to be sure, but he was certain he had kept true to his route; he had not turned off anywhere, had not taken a wrong turn. It had to be same road.

Except it wasn't.

Howard waited, his anxiety growing, for any sign of reassurance, for something to prove him wrong, a street sign, a rest stop, anything familiar to appear in his field of vision, but there was nothing but darkness, and the fear growing inside him.

_Screw this_.

Howard put on the brakes as he pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, and brought the Lincoln to a stop. As he shifted the vehicle into Park, he glanced at the stereo mounted into the dashboard, curious as to the hour, and noticed for the first time the compact LED screen on its face did not show the time, but instead displayed the word 'ERROR' in bright green letters.

Turning the volume knob produced nothing but a blur of static, and he punched the power button in disgust. He was irritated that the stereo had chosen this particular time to malfunction, but gave it little more than a passing notion; he had more important issues on his mind.

Howard turned on his GPS, and watched the screen intently while he waited for the device to download its information from the network. "Come on," he said aloud. "I don't have all night." The progress bar continued to flash, as if to mock him. Langford Technologies made a number of highly reputable electronic gadgets, but did not make a GPS. Howard decided it might be time they started.

The progress bar stopped moving. The words _GPS signal lost_ appeared on the screen, as the little speaker built into the unit repeated the message in a pleasing female voice. "Son of a bitch!" he growled. He beat his hand against the steering wheel. What was the point of having a GPS if it didn't work when he needed it? He rarely used it, but the one time he really needed to know where the hell he was, it had let him down.

_Maybe it didn't_ , a little voice in the back of his mind suggested. M _aybe it can't connect to the network because there isn't any fucking network. Maybe you're not where you think you are; maybe you're somewhere else._

But that was just bullshit, and Howard told his inner voice to shut up. He was used to such mental diatribes, a behavior developed during the many hours he had spent alone working on developing new projects or while on the road. He would argue multiple viewpoints when dealing with a difficult problem, and though it was a somewhat unusual approach, it was successful more often than not. He had even given a nickname to the opposing viewpoint in these mental exercises. He called it his Devil's Advocate.

Howard did not consider this behavior odd in itself; it was a habit that had proven itself useful in his work, and was in no way a reflection of his solitary lifestyle or psychological stability. Habit or not, he had no patience for it now; it did not provide a helpful perspective, but only helped fuel his growing anxiety.

Pulling out his cell phone, Howard pushed the flush-mounted button on the side, and brushed his fingers across the touch screen. If the dedicated GPS couldn't find a signal, perhaps the location software installed on his phone could.

In this, however, he was given yet another disappointment; the phone's signal strength indicator showed no bars. Howard attempted to call Roadside Assistance anyway, with the hope he might be able to connect, but his only reward was a message on the glowing screen that read SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE. He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat with a snarl.

_Great. Now my phone had crapped out on me_. _Oh well, nothing to be done about it now_. Checking his mirrors, he pulled back onto the highway. He decided the best course of action would be to continue onward, and wait until he either found an exit, or until he could get a signal. Either way, it was better than doing nothing. He was a man who craved results, and his patience was now almost non-existent. Driving would calm his nerves, and with any luck, he would find his way back to the Interstate before it got much later.

Twenty minutes later, Howard was just beginning to feel better when an odd sound filled the interior of the Lincoln. The sudden noise made him start, but then he realized it was only his cell phone. He had left it on vibrate, and now it was buzzing from its resting place in the passenger seat like an angry hornet.

_About time the damned thing got a signal_. He picked up the phone, and placed it against his ear. "Howard Langford here," he said.

He expected to hear the voice of Lester Tanner, calling to report some sort of problem with the network, or perhaps from his secretary, but the voice that spoke to him from the other end of the line was not one he recognized.

"Hello, Howard," the strange voice replied. "Are you enjoying the scenery yet?"

"Who is this?" Howard demanded. "How did you get this number?"

"Oh, I've got your number, all right, Howard," said the unknown caller, his voice sharp and menacing as a switchblade. "I'm the one who brought you here, and very soon now, your number will be up."

Howard did not know who was on the other end of the line, but they had picked a bad time to make a prank call; he was tired, stressed, and in absolutely no mood for any kind of bullshit. "Listen, buddy," he said, "I don't know if you think this is funny, or if you just get off on annoying people, and I really don't care. If you think you can just call people and harass them, you're sadly mistaken. Unless you want the police knocking at your door, I suggest you stop, now."

Howard was cut off by the sound of laughter bubbling from the tiny speaker. "There won't be any police, Howie," the caller said. "No one can help you, no one can stop me, and I plan on doing much more than just harassing you, my boy."

"Oh, really?" Howard said. "We'll see about that." He moved the phone away from his ear, out in front of his face in order to view the phone's touch screen. Unless the mysterious caller had blocked his number, it would appear there, and even if he had, there were still other ways to find them. Howard would not hesitate to press charges against them, either.

He frowned. The message that appeared on the front of his phone was not the caller's number, or even a 'number blocked' message. No, the words on the screen were the same as they had been when he had attempted to use the phone earlier. SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE, it read.

_What the hell?_ He glanced at the road, then back to the phone. The words on the screen had not changed. The power level indicated the phone was fully charged, but the signal strength indicator had not changed; the phone was not connected. This was very odd. He had to be getting some kind of signal, or he would not be able to speak with the unnamed person on the other end. It was possible the mysterious crank caller had hung up. He put the phone back to his ear. The caller was still there; he could hear faint sounds coming from the speaker, a strange, bubbling sound.

"Who the hell are you?" Howard asked. He wondered if he was dealing with some sort of hacker, perhaps someone who had discovered a way to hack into his phone, and block the caller ID. Perhaps he was one of the cyber-terrorists that had begun to appear in the last few years, one who attacked cell phone networks and automatic teller machines, rather than corporate servers or banking networks.

The bubbling noise stopped. "Like I said, I'm the one who's got your number," said the mysterious caller. "I'm your Mystery Date, your Devil's Advocate."

Howard managed to keep his eyes on the road, but he felt his heart skip a beat with his caller's last statement. He had never told anyone about his peculiar habit; it was not the sort of thing he would reveal to mere staff or employees, and there was no one close enough in his life with which he would share something so personal. Yet somehow, his mysterious caller knew. He got the overwhelming impression that he was trapped in a Madeline L'Engle story. He shook the thought from his head, and returned his attention to his phone.

"Quit bullshitting me, and get to the point, if you have one," Howard said. "I don't have time for games." He was getting angry now; it was bad enough he had spent all day fighting his way through traffic only to become lost, but now he had to deal with someone who had nothing better to do than to prove how clever he was by hacking into his phone.

Had the attack occurred on his home territory rather than on the road, or tried to hack into either his home or company networks, Howard would have been able to reply with more than sharp retorts and sarcasm. Given the proper resources, Howard would have risen to the challenge, and made the caller pay for his impudence and bravado with a civil suit, or even criminal charges, after he shut them out of their own system, and copied their hard drive for use as evidence.

"Games?" asked the Voice, "I think you will find that all you have is time, Howie. But you are right; this is a game. My game, and I can play it any way I want. I know you think you took a wrong turn, and that is closer than you know, but you'll find that you can't just drive your way out of this. There is no way home, Howie my boy. Eventually you will tire, or run out of gas, and then the game will be over, and I will win." The glee in his caller's voice was undeniable. "It's only a matter of time, and then you will be stuck with us here, forever."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Howard demanded, his voice rising in anger. "Are you saying you are part of an organization? Well, I've got bad news for you, whoever you are, because when I'm done with you, the authorities will be on your ass like flies on a turd."

"I'm the only authority here," replied the Voice, slick with dark humor, "and very soon, you will come to know what it means to be truly alone, and the real meaning of pain."

"Now you listen—" Howard began.

"You listen," cut in the mysterious caller, "because for a guy who is supposed to be a genius, you take a long time to get the picture. You still don't get it, do you? You're not in any position to make demands. You're in my world now, or haven't you noticed the change in landscape? You are mine now."

At those words, Howard's breath caught in his throat as the memory of his nightmares came rushing into his mind. He gripped the wheel tightly, fought to keep control of the Lincoln. How could his mysterious caller know he was lost? How could anyone?

His mind raced as he tried to think of an answer. Perhaps the unknown person on the phone was part of some terrorist conspiracy against his company. Perhaps he was part of some elaborate kidnapping plot. It was not that far-fetched an idea; he was worth a great deal of money, after all, and his company would be an attractive target for industrial espionage. He had thought his precautions against abduction had been enough, but this was obviously not the case.

"What do you want?" Howard asked.

The caller laughed again, and the hairs on the back of Howard's neck stood on end at the sound. "I've already told you," answered the Voice. "I want you."

The intent in the caller's voice sent a chill running along Howard's spine. He felt extremely exposed at that moment, exposed and vulnerable.

"I want you," the caller repeated. "You are here because I brought you here, and now that you are, I am going to make sure you never leave. But before then, I am going to show you things, things you'll wish you never saw."

Howard knew he should end the conversation then; knew he was falling for whatever sick game his caller was playing, but he could not. He was transfixed, the arm holding the phone to his ear immobilized.

"Is it money?" he asked. "Why don't you tell me what you really want, instead of all the scare-tactics?"

Again, he heard the sound of bubbling laughter. "I don't have any demands," answered the unknown caller. "Your money can't help you now. It's the end of the line for you, Mister Langford, and you will beg for me to come for you before it's over."

Howard felt fear begin to tug as his nerves then, but he was also feeling angry, and the anger had a stronger foothold. "Fuck you," he said, the muscles in his neck tensing as his outrage grew. "You're going to be sorry you ever decided to make this call, buckaroo. I promise you that."

"Talk is cheap, big boy," answered the mystery caller, its tone dripping with venom-coated glee, "but in the meantime, I'd keep my eyes on the road, if I were you."

Howard was about to deliver a retort when he heard a click on the other end of the line. His mysterious caller had hung up. He pulled the phone from his ear, his face livid with rage and disgust. His mind was a blur; the day had started off bad, and gone straight past worse and into the Land of What the Hell.

He stared at the cell like it was some kind of alien artifact, something strange and possibly dangerous, before tossing back onto the passenger seat. It took a great amount of his will not to throw the damn thing. He knew better, however; as soon as he got a signal, he would do everything in his power to find out the identity of his mystery caller, and make them very sorry indeed.

Something on the edge of his vision caught Howard's attention, and as he looked up to focus once again on the road, a group of animals stepped into the far range of his headlights. Startled, Howard stepped his foot hard on the brake, and his phone, as well as several of the other items on the seat, shot forward into the darkness of the floorboard as the Lincoln slowed from sixty miles an hour to twenty in a matter of seconds.

From their size, Howard thought for a moment the animals must have been deer, from their size, and his first reaction was gratitude; he was lucky to have avoided a collision. After experiencing one of the worst days he could remember having in a long time, the last thing he needed was to have an accident because some stupid creature lacked the common sense to get out of the way of a speeding automobile.

The animals seemed unfazed by the approach of the Lincoln, seemed not to notice the vehicle at all as it drew closer. Howard's irritation grew; he was anxious to proceed, and wanted nothing more than for them to finish their business, so he could get on with his own.

Then, within a few moments, the Continental closed enough of the distance for him to see them clearly, and the sight caused him to slam his foot down on the brake pedal hard enough to lock the Lincoln's wheels. The tires squealed as they slid across the pavement, and the animals turned their heads toward the source of the sound, toward Howard, their eyes bright in the headlights.

They were not deer.

The animals looked familiar, but he could not remember where, if ever, he had seen their like before now. There were three of them, and from a distance, they appeared to resemble large dogs. Up close, however, they looked very different. The shape of their bodies were somewhere between that of a dog and a tiger, and possessed a tawny color, with long, black stripes running vertically along their sides from neck to tail. Sinuous muscles flexed and rippled in their legs and shoulders as they walked. Their snouts were long, like those of foxes, but they were not like any foxes Howard had ever seen.

Awareness came washing over him then, as Howard remembered where he had seen creatures similar to the ones crossing the road: a documentary on the Learning Channel. The program's topic had been extinct animals, and featured archive footage of the last known living Thylacine.

Also known as the Tasmanian tiger, it was a large marsupial the size of a small wolf or coyote, native to Tasmania and Australia, who was hunted to extinction by man. The last known specimen died in a zoo in the early part of the twentieth century, and though these creatures were much larger, their appearance was otherwise the same. Howard gaped at them, his eyes wide with surprise and disbelief. It was impossible, yet there they were, a mere thirty feet away.

The last of the animals was carrying something in its mouth, and when it turned its head at the sound of the Lincoln's squealing tires, Howard was afforded a clear view. There, in the grip of its jaws, held firmly by long, wicked-looking teeth, was a human infant. The baby struggled feebly in the creatures grip.

It was still alive.

The creature looked straight at Howard, and as their eyes met, the corners of its mouth turned upward in an unmistakable grin.

Howard felt his skin break into a cold sweat, and his heart seemed to skip several beats. He could not believe what he was seeing, and even though he wanted to look away, he could not do so; his eyes were transfixed on the vision before him.

Even worse than the struggling infant, were the creature's eyes. Flashing yellow-green fire as the headlights reflected from their retinas, their eyes were filled with an almost human intelligence, mixed with a malice so intense it seemed to burn straight through to Howard's soul. Those eyes penetrated into the deepest, most primal part of him, where ancient race-memories of nocturnal raids by saber-toothed cats still lived, deep enough to lay bare all the secrets of his soul; all his hopes and dreams, his innermost desires and hidden fears, were laid open to the creature's gaze.

Howard forced his eyes shut, pressed the palms of his hands against his eyelids to block out the vision of the captive infant, the all- too-human eyes of its captor.

"Hallucinating," he said aloud. "I'm hallucinating. I've been on the road for so long I'm seeing things. I've pushed myself too hard, for too long, and now I'm seeing things because something like that just can't be real. Not real, no, it's not real. Not real. NOT REAL!"

Behind his eyelids, pinpoints of light flashed and raced. He felt his fingernails begin to cut into the skin of his forehead and cheeks. He pulled his hands away, and opened his eyes.

His chest felt tight, his palms hot and sweaty. He looked back to where he had spotted the animals, but they had vanished—if they had ever truly been there at all. He feared he would see one of their strangely canine faces staring at him beyond the windows, a lycanthropic nightmare about to claw its way through the glass, but there was nothing but darkness and shadows upon shadows.

Howard took deep, measured breaths, and tried to calm his nerves. He held his hand out, palm down, saw it was trembling, and concentrated on making it stop. He did not know how long he sat there in this way, but after a time, the trembling lessened. It did not stop, not entirely, but it was close enough.

"See?" he said. "All in your head. It was just your imagination. That's what you get for pushing yourself so hard."

Just why his mind chose that particular image was beyond him; he did not know, and did not want to know. What was important was that it was over now. It had only been an illusion, a waking dream brought on by exhaustion and stress. He was better now, and once he got home, everything would go back to normal.

A sound arose in the Lincoln at that moment, and Howard cried out in shock and alarm. It took him a moment to realize the sound came from his cell phone; it was ringing again, humming from its place among the litter on the floor space. He stared at it for a long moment as if were a living thing, a scorpion perhaps, ready to sting. He did not want to pick it up, but he could not resist the urge; he had to answer.

Howard retrieved the phone from its resting place, and pressed it against his ear.

"You think this is all in your head?" the voice of the Mystery caller asked, its tone one of dark humor. "You think it's all over? You'd better guess again, big boy, because you're not in Kansas anymore, and we're just starting to get acquainted."

Howard tried to speak, but his mouth could not form the words. He was stunned into silence.

"Oh, yes," the voice said. "We're going to have lots of fun, you and me. Let's hope you can keep up, Howard, because you're in for one HELL OF A RIDE!"

CHAPTER THREE

This cannot be happening. I am not losing my mind. I am most definitely not losing my mind.

Howard sat in the dark interior of the Lincoln, his eyes closed, and did his best to will everything around him to simply go away _. There is nothing out there. I didn't really see what I thought I saw. I'm just overworked, that's all. Overworked and over-tired. This is all just the product of an exhausted mind_. _My brain is playing tricks on me_.

He lost track of time. He did not know how long he sat there after he received that second call, how long he stared off into the darkness after his mysterious caller hung up. His mind felt frozen; it had become a block of ice, one he desperately needed to thaw.

He needed to get his shit together. He needed to get it together right now, and he couldn't do that sitting in the middle of the road. He pulled the Lincoln onto the shoulder, and turned on his emergency flashers. His hands were shaking so badly it took him two attempts to press the button. This did nothing to help his current frame of mind, did nothing but reinforce the seriousness of his situation.

That thing had a human baby in its mouth.

_Shut up; it didn't happen. I didn't see what I thought I saw_.

What about his mysterious caller? It was almost as if he knew what was going to happen. That was just ridiculous, of course. There was no way the caller could possibly know what was happening to him. It had to be a coincidence; it wasn't like his car was bugged or anything.

Was it?

Howard looked around the interior of the Lincoln, half-convinced he would spy a hidden webcam or microphone secreted in the vehicle. He was tempted to put the car into Park and search the car, right there on the side of the road.

It was unlikely, he knew, but it was possible, and certainly more probable than any other explanation he could conjure; for all he knew, it could be part of some elaborate plan to discredit him, to destroy his reputation, to extort money. An act of industrial terrorism was not beyond the realms of possibility. He had made quite a few enemies among his competitors. Perhaps by gaining one of his military contracts, he had pissed off the wrong person, and now they sought to humiliate him as a way to exact revenge.

_Stop it; you're being paranoid_.

Howard knew there was very little chance his car had been tampered with; he lived in a gated community, one with excellent security personnel. His own security was even better; both his house and company garage were constantly monitored; if someone had so much as sneezed around his car, he would have known it.

He was brought out of his reverie by the stereo display. The _ERROR_ message was gone, and had been replaced by a set of flickering numbers. Unlike most digital clocks, watches, and DVD players, which displayed the default 12:00 or all zeros after a power failure or other reset, this particular screen blinked a different set of numbers with each repetition. The stereo face flashed 13:99, then 97:22, followed by 37:49, 32:33, and 71:77. It continued to blink, flashing random number combinations: 27:92, 36:63, 49:79, 29:95.

Howard continued to watch the screen, fixated by the display. It was as if the stereo clock was telling him its information was no longer relevant; time had taken a vacation, and did not matter here.

_Stop it_. _Get a grip on yourself_.

Get a grip indeed.

Howard looked out into the dark, half expecting to see the tawny head of an extinct marsupial staring back at him, but there was nothing; the road remained empty. The reality of his position made him nervous. The road may have been deserted, but this served only to make him feel more vulnerable.

He needed to move, take some action, before he fell prey to hysteria. The road was no place to panic; that was the sort of thing that got people killed, and Howard was determined to avoid such a fate at any cost. He needed to get himself under control, and at that moment, he regretted that his stereo no longer worked; music would have been a good way to calm to nerves.

Although he was certain it would do no good, Howard reached out and turned the volume knob on the stereo to the right. White noise emanated from the speakers, just as he anticipated. He pushed the seek button, and the small screen on the front of the unit changed to display the radio frequency as it searched for the next available station, the numbers moving too fast for him to register individually. He watched this for a few moments, until the numbers reached the end of the FM range and started over again. That was enough; he touched the power button, and the display changed back to the series of random numbers it had shown earlier.

Howard considered the CD case lying somewhere in the trunk, and was tempted for a moment to retrieve it, but after what he had experienced, decided it would be a bad idea.

It had a human baby in its mouth.

Stop it.

It was carrying a human baby.

Stop it; stop it right now. Get a hold of yourself. You're a grown man, and it's time you acted like one.

Howard's mental voice changed, took on the tone of his father, a side effect born of his childhood. As a boy, he had been subjected to long, agonizing lectures on the value of organization, determination, and hard work. These talks always culminated with Howard being sentenced to what felt to him like an endless list of chores designed to 'strengthen his character'. His father had been a military man in his younger days, and when it came to matters of discipline, he treated his children like he was running a boot camp.

The elder Langford believed such measures to be necessary for the development of young boys, but to Howard, it just came off as scornful and mean. Rather than having its intended effect, Howard had always come away from these talks feeling ashamed. His father knew this, and never failed to use it against him. More, he enjoyed it.

These memories were unpleasant, and always brought with them feelings of shame, anger, and resentment. Even after all these years, the old bastard still had a way of getting to him, of making him feel as if he had been caught walking around with a large piss stain on the front of his pants.

From childhood to the present, the power of those memories remained undiminished; they still got a rise out of him. Perhaps this was why his mind chose to speak to him in that voice now, as a defense mechanism, a way to avoid succumbing to the fear that lurked on the fringes of his mind, and threatened to engulf him every time he recalled the animals that had stepped out into the road. He was not a shrink, but it was more than a hunch; he knew it to be true, as certain as his need to breathe.

The flashing numbers on the stereo began to irritate him. His stereo had a display button, and pushing it made the screen go dark.

If it was a defense mechanism, it was working; it had replaced his fear with the more deeply seated feelings of rage and animosity he felt toward his father. It was a good thing too, because he had been afraid, more afraid than he had been in some time. He was more afraid than he had ever been at the hands of school bullies like Kenny Ambrose, who had looked him in straight in the eyes and said, "I'm going to fuck you up", right before punching him straight in the face, and proceeding to beat him nearly unconscious. More afraid, even, than when he had attended his Aunt Bessie's funeral, and been forced to walk up to the casket and confront the true face of death for the first time. On this night, he had been more afraid than he had ever been in his adult life.

He had believed, hoped, he had left that particular emotion behind when he left home, but tonight, it had come clawing its way back into his life, back into his present, and if he wasn't careful, it could impact his future. Fear could be a tenacious emotion; once it worked its way in, it could prove very difficult to remove. Fear led to irrational decisions, and his was not a world that allowed for mistakes.

So what the hell happened?

That was a good question, in more ways than one. The last week had seen its share of pressures, but Howard had managed to handle them as he always did, with logic and determination. He had a talent for analytical thinking, an approach that worked well for him, especially when he needed to root out glitches in a system, or bugs in a program, and he needed to approach his current situation in the same way.

He needed to examine it line by line, like a piece of software, until he found the error in the code. Unless he could do that, the fear would continue to gnaw at him, and that was something he just could not afford. He needed answers, and this was the only way he knew to get them.

_Something is just not right here_ ; _that much is obvious. One minute you were on I-270, and the next, you're on a road you've never been on before, one without signs, or streetlights. So what the hell happened?_

The image of the animals crossing the road tried to surface in his mind again, but Howard pushed it away; he wasn't ready to deal with that aspect of things, not yet.

He began by retracing the events of the day. The repeated delays had worn him down; the traffic jams, the overheated Volvo, the flat tire, not to mention the sleep he lost to repeated nightmares, had left him short-tempered and exhausted. By the time he reached Gaithersburg, he was nearly dead on his feet, or in his seat, to be exact. He had been driving in a near-daze; it was no surprise he had fallen asleep at the wheel, no shock he had fallen prey to highway hypnosis.

_That's when things started to go flaky_. _I fell asleep at the wheel, and then things...changed._

Exhaustion; it all came down to exhaustion. The slow build up of fatigue poisons in the bloodstream could be insidious. It could do strange things to one's mind, erode their decision-making capabilities, could even cause hallucinations. Distracted driving, including driving fatigue, was the third leading cause of automobile fatalities, right after drunk driving and speeding. There was no doubt it was responsible for his current plight, and was the best explanation for the animals he saw, or imagined he saw, on the road earlier; a simple hallucination, brought on by fatigue.

Simple fatigue did not explain the lack of road signs, Howard realized, nor did it explain his mystery caller. There had to be something more.

_Maybe I'm still asleep_. _Maybe I'm dreaming all this—the animals, the strange phone calls, everything_.

This possibility both relieved and troubled him. It explained how he could see animals common sense said couldn't exist, ones that munched on human babies like he snacked on Slim Jims, and could even explain how he could get calls from someone who knew things no one else could know.

The troubling part was the fact he had fallen asleep on a highway filled with traffic, and if he was still sleeping, he could most likely wind up severely injured, or as another highway fatality. The Continental was a large, heavy vehicle; it was certain to make a mess.

If it was indeed a fatigue-induced dream, it was the most lucid one he had ever experienced in his life, not to mention the most dangerous. Howard's lips curved in a wry smile. His father would have taken great joy at the irony; the elder Langford had never put any faith in dreams, had considered them destructive, the antithesis to hard work and discipline.

Carl Langford had told his children more times than Howard could remember that keeping their heads in the clouds was the fastest route to the poorhouse, had beat this philosophy into them through lecture, sarcasm, humiliation, whatever it took to keep them, Howard in particular, from falling prey to flights of fancy.

It was beginning to look like his father was right; if this was a dream, then it could prove to be more harmful than he ever imagined.

So, if I'm dreaming, how do I wake myself up?

Howard slapped himself in the face, hard. He did it a second time, hard enough to make his face tingle, but other than the pain, there was no other effect; the world around him remained unchanged.

If it were a dream, waking from it might not be easy. This did not sit well with Howard; it worried him, and left the door open for fear. He needed to keep his wits about him, and fear would keep him from thinking clearly, something he could not afford, dream or no dream.

His chief concern was the simple fact that for him to be dreaming, he had to be asleep. Considering his last memory prior to that event was driving on a highway chock full of traffic, this was a definite cause for worry. If he was dreaming, how long had he been asleep? Howard had heard time passed differently in dreams; what seemed like hours could in reality be only seconds in the waking world. He hoped this was true; anything longer could spell some very bad news for the CEO of Langford Technologies.

Another cause of concern was the question of whether he would be able to control the Lincoln if he returned from Never-Never Land while moving at sixty miles an hour. Not a pleasant consideration, to say the least, but still better than the idea of long-extinct marsupials roaming through the Maryland countryside.

What if it is really happening? What if you're not dreaming? What if there really are creatures out there, creatures that eat human babies?

Howard pushed these questions away; they were not only unsettling, but they came from a place in his mind he had shut off a long time ago, a place that housed a part of him from another time, a time when he believed the world to be a bigger place than the one he lived in now, a place full of magic and mystery, where Boogeymen lived in closets and things still went bump in the night. It was a part of him that carried with it too many unpleasant memories, and he had no desire to set them free, not after locking them away for so long.

He refused to accept what was happening was real, but it occurred to him he might not be asleep, either. Perhaps he was somewhere in between, conscious enough to drive, but subject to hallucination. Maybe he was floating in the edge of awareness, and his mind was filling in the gaps by imposing images from his subconscious onto the real world. He was thinking pretty clearly for a man in a dream.

The stereo may have been on the fritz, but the Continental had a large clock as part of its instrumentation, and it was still functioning. Howard watched the second hand tick its slow progress around its face, and felt a tinge of shame; he had not bothered to set the timepiece for several months, and was unsure of its accuracy.

This dream, if that was what it was, had an amazing level of detail; most of his dreams, the ones he remembered at all, were fuzzy affairs, incomplete and disjointed, with nowhere near the clarity of his present state. He reached up with his right hand and pinched his earlobe. The resulting pain made his eyes water. Yes, this was by far the clearest and most detailed dream he could ever remember, and one of the most bizarre as well.

The exception, of course, was his recent nightmares, but he did not remember them well enough for them to count. Still, it was enough to make him wonder why something as terrifying as the creatures crossing the road had not caused him to wake up. The nightmares had shocked him awake on every occasion, left him shaking and covered with sweat, even though he could not recall any of their details.

Were the nightmares worse than what he was experiencing now? Were they so bad his brain blocked them out upon waking? More questions for which he had no answers, and Howard was fairly sure he would not want them if he did.

Enough of this; dream or not, he needed to be on the move. As Howard reached to shift the car into Drive, he glanced into the rear view mirror. What he saw there surprised him.

Captured within the frame of the mirror were two glowing lamps.

They were headlights, of course. Someone had seen him stopped on the shoulder, and pulled up behind him, most likely a traffic cop or a roadside assistance truck. Howard expected to see red and blue lights begin to flash any moment now. He had been so lost in contemplation that he had not seen the other vehicle approach. He was actually relieved; it would be good to see another human being, even if it meant getting a ticket.

No red and blue police flashers lit the night, however, and no officer came to his window demanding his license and registration. The lights just continued to emit their dim glow, just out of range of his hazard lights. It occurred to Howard then that there was something strange about those lamps, something out of place. They were too dim for their size, for one thing. The angle of the lights suggested they belonged to a large vehicle, an SUV or large truck, perhaps even a tractor-trailer, but instead of being round, or even square, these lights were almost almond-shaped, and something about this bothered him.

Howard's sense of unease grew. His instincts told him it might be better if he did not see the owner of the strangely shaped lights. They told him it might be better if he simply left, and put as much distance as possible between him and those odd, dim lights.

He reached out and put his hand on the gearshift lever. He was not conscious of his own movements, so focused was his attention on the mirror in the center of his windshield.

As he watched, the lights slowly dimmed, then flared brighter again. The lights dimmed a second time, and Howard's unease intensified. There was something very wrong with the way those lamps had dimmed, not on and off, but slowly, from the top to the bottom, almost as if they had blinked.

The lights _had_ blinked.

They weren't headlights.

They were eyes.

Horror washed over Howard like icy rain, making his body go cold. The lights in his mirror were eyes, six feet apart and as large as basketballs. In the mirror, Howard could see his own tail lights reflected there, could see the pulses of his hazard flashers in them. Something was sitting behind his car, something _large_.

Howard pulled the gearshift into Drive as he stomped down on the gas pedal. He kept his eyes on the nightmare reflection as the vehicle shot forward, the tires squealing as the transmission caught hold. The lamps in the rear view mirror grew larger for a brief moment, as if widening in surprise, before they too began to move.

The owner of the huge eyes was chasing him.

He tore his eyes away from the mirror to focus on the road as the car accelerated, the transmission shifting gears as his speed increased. The large, well-maintained 460 cubic inch engine seemed to welcome the opportunity to demonstrate its horsepower; the landscape became a blur within moments.

_Faster_. _I need to go faster_.

He kept his foot pressed to the floor, did not dare to look behind him.

Please don't let it catch me. Please don't let it catch me, please. Please, please, please.

The Continental continued to pick up speed, but Howard's pulse seemed to outrace the vehicle, and refused to pump anything but ice water through his veins.

_Please, please, please_.

It was his mantra now, a monosyllabic incantation of protection, a chant of desperation to ward off the horror he knew was still behind him.

Howard glanced at the rear view mirror, his eyes pulled there by curiosity. What he saw there tore a gasp from his lips, made his heart skip several beats, and the ice water pumping through his veins turn solid. The impossibly huge eyes were not twenty feet behind him. They bobbed up and down with the smooth, rhythmic motion of a running tiger. An evil, yellow-green light blazed from them, the look of a predator about to bring down its prey.

There was a loud thud as something collided with the Lincoln. The rear end swerved to the left with a shriek of rubber with the impact, but the sound of the squealing tires was lost in the sound of Howard's scream. He fought the wheel, spun it to counter the skid as the heavy vehicle bounced back and forth on its shocks.

The Lincoln was struck a second time, this time on the right. Howard heard the sound of screeching metal, and the tinkle of breaking glass as one of the taillights shattered. He did not scream this time, only pressed down even harder on the gas pedal.

The pedal was already pressed to the floor, yet the Lincoln still managed to find a way to respond to its owner; it dropped into passing gear, and then shifted again as it gained speed. The Continental reached, then passed, eighty miles an hour within a few more seconds.

A stolen glance into the mirror showed the lights, or eyes, falling behind him. Within a few moments, they were gone, lost in darkness that closed behind the Lincoln like a fist. Howard kept his foot to the floor. He wasn't taking any chances; he needed to put as much distance between himself and the owner of those eyes as quickly as possible.

"This can't be happening," Howard muttered. "This really can't be happening. Not now, not to me. This can't be happening."

Ahead of him, there was nothing but two lanes of blacktop, separated only by a broken white line, stretching out into the darkness, surrounded on both sides by dense brush. There were no guard rails to be seen; no telephone or power poles ran along the shoulder. Nothing moved in the greenery. This last was a good thing, because if anything stepped in front of the car, be it a squirrel, deer, or even Tasmanian tiger, Howard would not have time to avoid it.

With his adrenal glands working overtime in the wake of the tidal wave of fear washing over him, it was doubtful he would even try. The Lincoln was a big car, and it would put a lot of metal between him and any living thing unfortunate enough to be in his way.

His blood pounded in his ears; his thoughts overwhelmed by his heartbeat. The highway ran ruler straight, mile after mile, and the trees on either side affording only a narrow view of night black sky overhead. There were no signs, no rest stops, no exit ramps or intersections. Fortunately for Howard, there were also no sharp turns or other road hazards; without signs to warn him, negotiating the highway could quickly become dangerous, if not fatal. At his speed, even a moderate turn could be enough to send him off the road.

Howard forced back the wave of fear, the tide of questions in his mind, and focused instead on the road ahead. Looking into the mirror, he saw no trace of the huge eyes, and allowed the Lincoln to slow by ten miles an hour. His questions, his need to be away from whatever owned the huge eyes, were not as important as his ability to stay on the road; failure to do so would make both issues moot.

This was some serious shit. It wasn't just his business that was at risk, or his reputation; his mind was at stake here, his very life. Whether he was dreaming or not, one thing was certain: he needed to keep his wits if he wanted to survive.

It was starting to look less and less like he was dreaming, however. Howard tried to push the thought from his mind; the possibility something had happened to him, something not only profound and mysterious, but also dangerous—something he could not explain, was not something he could face, not now, perhaps not ever.

_That's it, just keep running_ , his father's voice spoke in his mind. _That's okay; it's not like you were ever the action hero type._

So what if he wasn't? He wondered how Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis would have reacted to what he had just experienced. Somehow, he doubted they would have stayed as composed as they did in their movies. In fact, he believed they would be lucky to get through his most recent encounter with dry underwear. He was willing to bet whatever had come up behind him on the road would have made Bruce Lee wet his jockeys.

Curious, Howard looked down into his lap; he half expected to see a stain spreading on the crotch of his pants. He was relieved to see his pants were still dry; he had not pissed in his pants.

Thank God for small favors.

Try as it might, the ghost of his father's voice could not make him feel guilty about his reactions, was powerless to stir up the old, familiar feelings of shame and humiliation. It was lost against the white noise of fear that lit his nerves, a small and insignificant whisper, adrift in a sea of adrenaline, and for that, Howard was grateful. He did not need voices of the past intruding into his consciousness; he needed to be free to concentrate, needed to find a way to deal with the fear, and more than anything, he needed to get his ass back home alive.

When it came to dealing with fear, Howard felt he had little resources and very few options. He felt his best course of action, perhaps his only course, was to focus on the task at hand, to put all his attention into driving.

Hands at ten and two o'clock positions, he scanned the road from left to right, just as he had been taught in driving class. His eyes went from the road, to the rear view mirror, to the passenger side mirror, back to the road, then to the driver's side mirror, and finally out the driver's side window before returning to the road to repeat the process.

It was a familiar pattern, one developed through years of repetition. He needed to gain some measure of confidence, some measure of control, of discipline, but it did little to reassure him. He hoped to feel some measure of safety from the routine, but he felt far from safe; instead, he felt like a mouse caught in the middle of a room full of cats.

Howard licked his lips, chewed on the lower one. The thing that chased his car, whatever it had been, seemed to blow away any chance he had simply taken an unplanned detour, driven down a side road while in a semi-stupor. It also seemed to dispel the notion the creatures he had seen in his headlights had been a trick played upon him by a tired mind.

All traces of his former exhaustion had been extinguished in the glow of those pursuing orbs; he felt more alert than he had for some time, perhaps more alert than he ever had in his life. This was the result of adrenaline, of course; he was coasting now on his body's defense system. He knew it would carry a price later, when it wore off, but right now, he did not care, not one bit.

_Well, here I am again_. _Back to square one. Either I fell asleep, and am dreaming all of this, or I'm not. If I'm dreaming, I need to find a way to wake myself up. For all I know, I could be lying in a hospital bed somewhere in a coma_.

It wasn't an implausible course of events; he had fallen asleep at the wheel, suffered an accident, and was now taking a long nap. Meanwhile, his mind was fixating on the last thing he was doing before he fell asleep. It sucked, but it seemed more likely than the alternative.

_So my mind decides to fuck with me until I snap out of it. Wonderful_. _It sure picked a shitty choice of dream material to entertain me with while I sleep_. _Of all the things my mind could come up with, it chooses to scare the living shit out of me_.

This was not much of a surprise, considering he followed a stressful profession, and he had been under a great amount of pressure for the last several months. Other than his occasional road trips, he had little in the way to relieve the pressure. Under those circumstances, it was not too much of a stretch to think his grip upon reality may have slipped.

"I said it before, and I'll say it again, old man, you need a vacation," Howard said aloud. "As soon as this shit is over, that is exactly what you're going to do."

Whatever had happened to him, whatever the cause of his present dilemma, he was still rational. His dreaming mind might be on the verge of cracking, but he was far from delusional; he just needed to get some rest, take some time off, and he would be fine. First, he needed to get out of his current situation, and then he would take a long trip, maybe even a cruise. All he needed to do was not lose his cool. Whatever had happened to him, there was a logical explanation, and he would find it.

Unless, of course, what had happened to him defied logic.

He tried to ignore this seeming impossibility, but it kept coming back to taunt him.

What if all of it's real? What if I'm not dreaming?

His blood threatened to go cold again, but Howard could not turn away from the mental path he now followed, just as he could not exit the highway he now drove upon. There were obviously no packs of Tasmanian Tigers running around the East Coast, and certainly nothing with eyes larger than headlights taking midnight strolls down the highways of America, so if he really wasn't dreaming, or in a coma, it meant . . .

I'm somewhere else, somewhere where those things really do exist.

It was impossible; it had to be, but his mind would not let it go. Almost against his will, memories from his childhood kept coming back to him. One of the first television programs Howard fell in love with as a child, back in the days before movies like _Star Wars_ and _Jurassic Park,_ had been Rod Serling's _The Twilight Zone_. He would watch that program, and its competitor, _The Outer Limits_ , both in syndication for many years by the time he first saw them, with a mixture of horror and wide-eyed fascination, his face lit by the glow of the cathode ray tube.

His mother would often warn him not to sit so close, would tell him it would make him go blind, but he would ignore her, so captivated was he by those episodes. The storylines were fantastic, but yet seemed so possible, so real, to his young mind. Even lacking the budgets of modern television, and with makeup and special effects technology considered primitive by today's standards, these programs had possessed a certain kind of magic to him.

Howard was beginning to think something along the lines of one of those programs had happened to him, happened for real. For all he knew, maybe Rod Serling had taken a similar trip. Maybe he too had fallen asleep at the wheel, perhaps while out on a particularly long drive. Maybe, just maybe, he had taken a Magical Mystery Tour, where logic took the night off, and nightmares came true.

As hard as it was to accept, as much as his logical mind wanted to reject the notion, the part of him that was so fascinated by those old television programs, the part of him that still believed in magic and monsters, refused to go silent; it told him that like it or not, he was in deep shit, and the explanation might be a bit more extreme than logic would suggest, more extreme than he would normally be willing to accept.

So, how did it happen? Did he fall through some sort of wormhole? Did aliens beam him here? Did it even matter? Regardless of the cause of his current plight, one thing was certain: he was in trouble. It really did not matter if he was dreaming or awake; he was in a serious predicament, and if he was not one hundred percent careful, it could quite easily kill him, because...there were things here, dangerous things. Of that he was certain; the thing with the eyes had already proven that to him.

The big question was, what was he going to do about it?

Again, his options were limited. He could keep driving, or he could stop. If he stopped, he stood the chance of having another encounter with the baby-eating marsupials, the thing with the giant eyes— or worse.

He would keep driving, then. He would follow the highway, and see what there was to see, until he found a way out of this mess. There really did not seem to be any other choice. If there was a way in, then there had to be a way out.

_But you don't know that for certain_. _Life isn't like a math equation, one that will always produce the same result if done correctly. Sometimes, things happen that can't be explained by science, or even logic. Perhaps this is one of them; perhaps what has happened to you defies rational explanation._

But that was bullshit. Everything in the Universe was an equation, and the Universe obeyed the laws of physics and logic; it followed the rules of cause and effect. For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. If there was a way into this situation, there had to be a way out. The answers to all his questions were out there; all he had to do is keep looking for them.

_Maybe you're not in your universe anymore_ , the voice of his younger self spoke in his mind. _Maybe such things no longer apply._

_They have to_ , he countered. _They have to, because otherwise, there might not be an end to this_.

Several questions formed in Howard's mind, questions he did not want to address, but which could not be ignored. They churned in his brain, like a pot left to boil, bubbling their way to the surface, before falling back into the chaotic turmoil of his thoughts. If he was having some sort of crazy dream, then finding a way out was just a matter of waking up, barring a coma, or an accident while he was asleep, but if he wasn't dreaming, then it became an entirely different issue. What if he ran out of gas before he found a way home?

_Stop it_. _All that crap you were thinking is just that—crap. Where do you think you are, some other dimension? That's just silly_.

Still, it would not hurt to keep an eye on his fuel, just in case. Howard glanced at the fuel gauge, and was relieved to see it was nearly full. It was fortunate he had refueled less than an hour before whatever event had precipitated his entry into this strange landscape; it would be some time before the vehicle ran out of gas, and with any luck, he would find a way back home long before then.

_You hope. You hope_.

Another worry was the issue of staying awake. If, by some leap of the imagination, he really was on some parallel world or alternate dimension, then the creatures he had seen were also real, and he did not much savor the idea of the owner of the large eyes coming upon him while he was napping on the side of the road. He would be at the mercy of whatever was out there. He remembered the glowing orbs that had chased behind his car, and shivered. No, he would have to do whatever was necessary to stay awake until he found a way home, or at least until he found a safe place to rest.

He began to think of food, or rather, the lack of it. He was a large man, and there was no telling how long it would take to solve his present dilemma. If he spent any great time here, he would eventually need to eat, assuming what was happening to him was real, and not a product of his dreaming mind, a possibility that seemed less and less plausible.

Either way, it was best to be prepared.

Keeping his eyes on the road, Howard assembled what edible items remained from his visits to the gas station and the rest stop into a neat collection on the passenger seat. There was a bottle of Pepsi, now warm, a bottle of Evian water which he bought at the rest stop, and was thus still a bit cooler, and two Yoo-Hoos, also warm, which he lined up against the back of the seat. Half a dozen Slim-Jims, a small bag of strawberry-flavored Twizzlers, two king-sized Snickers bars, half a bag of Doritos, and the remainder of the Jalapeno-cheddar dip formed a small island on the seat in front of the bottles. This little assortment comprised his only source of nourishment until he could find a way back to something resembling civilization.

For a person of average size and weight, this would be enough to last for a couple of days in the case of an emergency, perhaps even longer. Howard, however, was far from being average, and he absolutely hated being hungry. This could be a serious problem; it was unlikely he would stumble across a Stuckey's, given the look of his present whereabouts. He had neither the skills nor resources to live off the land, nor would he attempt to do so, not with baby-eating marsupials and truck-sized monstrosities roaming around. Unless he was one hundred percent sure of his safety, he would stay within the confines of the car.

The idea of being imprisoned inside the Lincoln was not a pleasant one. There was the obvious dilemma of what to do when it came time to answer the call of nature, and though he could pee in a bottle if the necessity arose, he would certainly need to leave the security of the Continental if he needed to do anything more.

_I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it_.

He hoped to find a way home before he would need to address such concerns, however. Howard was very fastidious by nature, and was particular about his bathroom habits; he did not like the idea of having to relieve himself in his car, but liked the possibility of being attacked during such a vulnerable time even less. There was nothing to be done about it now, however; he would just have to wait, and hope for the best.

Although he believed firmly in logic, Howard was beginning to come to the conclusion he was not dreaming, that everything around him, including the strange creatures in the road, was real. The possibility he had driven through some type of wormhole, some kind of doorway into a bizarre Never-Land, was growing ever larger in his mind's eye.

Ahead of him, the highway turned sharply to the left, the first variation in its course Howard had seen since the encounter with whatever had owned the large, glowing eyes. He allowed the Lincoln to slow to forty miles an hour, his foot on the brake pedal should he need to lower his speed further to negotiate the turn. As he approached the curve, Howard spotted something unexpected: two black marks on the pavement. He recognized them immediately; even in the dark, Howard could tell they were skid marks, made by a vehicle that had come upon the turn while driving too fast.

Someone else has been here.

Howard wondered if the marks were recent. He had no way of knowing if they were made a month, a week, or even an hour earlier. The sight of the marks should have brought him some measure of comfort, some reassurance, but he found they only increased his anxiety. To be forced to wander this dream landscape alone, due to exhaustion or even an accident, was bad, but the idea that someone else may have encountered the Tasmanian Tigers was even worse.

_That baby had to come from somewhere_ , his mind whispered. Howard did not like that realization, and pushed it away with a shudder.

As he began to straighten out of the turn, an object on the side of the road caught Howard's attention. He was moving too fast to see it clearly, but it appeared to be some sort of blown refuse, perhaps a paper wrapper of the sort used by fast food restaurants. He considered stopping to get a closer look, but the vision of the thing with the glowing eyes, chasing him, was still too fresh in his mind for him to risk it; the owner of those huge orbs might still be out there somewhere, waiting for him to make just that type of mistake. It would be much more prudent to simply keep moving, and watch the road for anything else that might show he was not alone.

Howard scanned the road as he drove, searching for more skid marks or litter, but hours passed, and he saw no other signs of human visitation. Beyond the shoulders of the road, the landscape remained hidden, a mystery of green and black shadows. No further packs of strange marsupials appeared out of the foliage. No monsters with huge, glowing eyes came out of the darkness. There was only a large man in a large car, bright and loud and vulnerable as it sped through the night.

Driving alone in the dark, Howard's doubts returned to wear at his nerves. He began to wonder if he had somehow missed some sign, some vital clue that would serve to explain what had happened to him. Although he had paid close attention, there was the chance it may not have been enough; his powers of observation may not have been up to the task. Then, he noticed he could see a bit farther into the brush growing to either side of the highway. The trees and bushes lining the road had begun to take on more detail. Above him, the sky had begun to lighten; colors were beginning to creep back into the world.

Dawn was approaching.

Howard's instincts told him he might not like what he saw when the sun came up.

A short time later, his instincts were proven right. He didn't like it at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

Howard watched the sky lighten from a dirty smudge to a tarnished gold, then to a washed out yellow. He never saw the sun; although he searched for it often in the irregular patches of sky above him, it remained hidden from view.

With his attention divided between the sky and the road, he almost missed the panorama unfolding around him. It was not until the highway took another sharp turn, and he was forced to slow the Continental in order to keep her within the lanes, that he experienced the full impact of the landscape.

Without knowing he was doing so, Howard drifted to a near stop. He stared at the surrounding flora, lost in surprise and wonder. He believed he was prepared for almost anything, but the terrain around the Lincoln was the last thing he expected.

The forest stretching to either side of the highway was overrun with brush; giant ferns with fronds stretching for five feet or more in every direction grew among thick runners of twisted and gnarled vines, from which sprouted a profusion of thorns, six inches long and as sharp as hypodermic needles. Intimidated, Howard edged closer to the center of the highway, concerned the thorns might pierce one of his tires.

The ferns and brambles were unnerving, but they were nothing compared to the trees. Appearing to be a hybrid between an oak and a willow, they thrust upward from the brush in an explosion of limbs to form a canopy that nearly covered the highway. There was something about the way the trunks contorted and bent, the way the branches twisted, that appeared unnatural, almost painful to Howard, but this was not what tore his gaze from the road, made him drift to a stop with his mouth hanging open and his mental transmission in Neutral.

No, it was the leaves that blew him away.

The leaves of the trees were large and broad, with serrated edges. Wherever Howard looked, they appeared to be in motion, as if stirred by a strong wind, but the ferns and brambles below did not move, did not show evidence of so much as a breeze. This struck him as unusual, but even stranger was they way they changed color, as if they were made of iridescent foil. Bands of color washed over them, turning each leaf into a shifting rainbow.

At times the colors seemed completely random, making it appear as if he was driving through an impressionist painting brought to life; at others, waves of a single hue would wash over large areas, as if a phantom wind were painting the leaves as it passed.

Howard forced his attention away from the trees, and focused again on the highway. He put his foot back on the accelerator, and brought the Lincoln up to thirty-five miles an hour.

Although he had seen no trace of any animal life, large or small, for some time, his previous encounters with the strange, dog-like creatures and whatever had possessed the giant eyes were still fresh in his memory; he knew he could not allow himself to be distracted by the scenery. He had managed to pull himself back from the brink of panic, but he had not forgotten the way the eyes had pursued him, the sound of the tail light breaking as it struck the rear of the Lincoln, the way she swerved from the impact, the way Howard had to fight to keep her on the road.

Distractions were not something he could afford, even if there were no more truck-sized predators or packs of Tiger-dogs cruising the forest. The highway was unpredictable; it would be all too easy for him to end up wrapped around one of the psychedelic trees, or suffer a roll-over and be trapped, crushed and bleeding, inside his vehicle.

Howard looked around, wary, suspicious he would see another of the strange creatures coming toward him, but saw only ferns and brambles in an ocean of shifting color. Howard was not confident he would be able to outrace the owner of the glowing eyes if it chose to attack him again; the highway no longer followed a straight course, but twisted and turned among the trees. The Lincoln may have been faster, but it was not a sports car, and did not handle quick turns well; a clean getaway might prove difficult.

Waves of color washed over the treetops, gold and azure blue and indigo violet, bright scarlet, impossible orange, and a color that made Howard think of peach ice cream. The hues ran and splashed across the leaves as if Mother Nature had been given a hit of acid and set free with a big tray of watercolors.

I have driven into another dimension. I fell asleep at the wheel of my car, hit a telephone pole, and my subconscious is creating a dreamland as I lay in Intensive Care, fighting for my life. I had a brain hemorrhage from the stress of dealing with too many idiot drivers, and now I'm in Hell, cursed to drive for all eternity. Pick any of the above.

There was another option, Howard realized, one he had not seriously considered before, and that was industrial espionage. It wasn't a far-fetched idea; he had many competitors, and had made his share of enemies in his climb to success. In light of everything he had experienced, the notion of someone slipping him some type of hallucinogenic drug seemed completely within the realm of possibility.

Howard embraced this explanation, clung to it like a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood. The possibility he had been poisoned was not pleasant to think about, but it put all the strangeness into a logical perspective. If this was truly the reason behind his experiences, then he could take solace in the fact it would only be temporary; if he could just keep his wits about him, the drug would eventually wear off, and his world would return to normal.

Although frightening, this idea was certainly better than giving in to fear, to the uncertainty that gripped his being. It was also better than not having any frame of reference with which to deal with the world around him. Without a foundation, some solid ground from which he could think, his uncertainty would grow into an ocean, and he would be dragged under the waves by the undertow, lost in the fear forever.

Better to have an improbable theory that made some sort of sense, than to have one that shattered the laws of physics, or worse, no theory at all. It made the world around him, however impossible, easier on his nerves, if not his eyes.

Howard's confidence in this theory was just beginning to calm him when the silence was shattered by the sound from his cell phone.

The electronic buzz cut into his thoughts, severed them clean. Recovering from his initial surprise, Howard realized the Continental had drifted into the center of the highway. He corrected its course without thinking, found the phone, and brought it to his face. He stared at the rectangle of plastic and glass as if it had been transformed from a means of communication, to a viper, coiled and ready to strike.

The phone continued to hum, oblivious to its owner's expression. There was no number displayed on the phone's touch screen.

It was the mystery caller again.

Howard swiped his finger across the screen, and held the phone to his ear.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Careful, big boy," purred the voice of his unknown caller, "you don't want to get too distracted, or I won't get to have any fun. We don't want you to fall into the Big Nothing, my extra large friend, not now, not before we're ready."

"Oh, it's you again." He did his best to sound bored, but his heart was racing. In the wake of his pursuit by the Thing with the Very Large Eyes, he had almost forgotten about his mystery dialer. "I figured you had enough of wasting your time, and decided to take a hike."
"I'm not going anywhere," the Voice shot back, "and neither are you, even though you might think otherwise. One look around should make that obvious."

"What am I supposed to see?" Howard asked, trying his best to sound casual. He failed at this; he knew the answer, and could not keep the tremors from showing in his voice.

"Don't you like the trees?" purred the Voice. "Aren't they something? Aren't they just the bee's knees?" Dark glee poured from every syllable, dripped from the phone speaker like snake venom. "Keep watching, because I've got a whole show planned for you."

The phone felt frozen to his ear. His vocal cords were paralyzed. Things were moving too fast; he felt disconnected, vulnerable. He needed to say something, needed to gain control of the situation, of himself. He couldn't allow his caller to think they were running the show, not now, not ever.

"You know what I think?" Howard asked, breaking his paralysis, "At first, I thought you were just a punk. I think you wanted me to think you're some kind of Uber-Hacker, but were just some punk looking to impress his loser friends, a way to make up for the fact you still live in your parent's basement. But now, I don't think you're even on the other end of this phone. Since what I'm seeing out my windows can't possibly exist, that means you don't exist either. You're just the product of an overworked imagination, which makes you nothing but a brain fart."

"Is that what you think?" the Voice asked. "You think all of this is just your mind playing with you?"

Howard did not give a reply, and his caller did not wait for one. "I don't think you're being truthful there, Jumbo. I don't think you're being truthful at all. I think you want to believe this is all a dream, or some sort of hallucination. You might even convince yourself that you are a victim of some sort of...what do you call it? Industrial espionage?"

The trees screamed colors at him from all directions. Howard had to struggle to keep his hand steady on the wheel. The world was too bright, and the highway felt like it was trying to slip out from under him.

"Do I have your attention now?" the voice asked, its tone condescending, mocking Howard's fear. "Good, because I don't want you to hang up without hearing three very important words. Are you ready, Howie? I don't want you to miss them, because they are the most important things you need to know. Here they are, Howie. Are you ready?"

The Voice paused for a moment, and Howard knew it was waiting for the strength of its words to hit home. Howard had a sinking feeling he knew what his caller was about to say, and when it did speak again, his suspicions were proven to be correct.

"It's all real."

These last three words did not come from the small speaker built into the cell phone, but instead seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, from the trees, with their rioting colors, from the ferns lining the highway, from the car interior, even from inside his head.

Howard's reaction was sudden and instinctive; he braced his body against the seat, and hit the brake pedal as hard as he could. The tires locked, and long, wavering black marks streaked out behind them to form parallel trails on the pavement. The Lincoln threatened to go into a spin, and Howard struggled to keep the vehicle on the highway.

The Lincoln squealed to a stop. Howard stared out the windshield, his hands frozen on the steering wheel. His nerves felt like hot wires under his skin. He had dropped the cell phone; it lay on the seat beside him, the screen glowing from where it had come to rest among his nest of snacks. Howard knew he should just hang up, just turn the thing off and put it back in his pocket, or even lock it in his glove compartment. Instead, he picked up the phone, and placed it back against his ear.

"Are you getting the picture yet?" the Voice asked.

Howard was helpless to reply. His mind tried to find a response, but was stuck on an open channel, caught in an endless loop of static.

"It's all real," the Voice continued. "You're not drugged, and you're not dreaming, but you'll wish you were by the time I'm done with you, Splits. I promise you that."

At the mention of the word 'Splits', Howard's eyes grew wide with surprise. It was a little thing, only a single syllable, one which would likely go unnoticed by anyone else, but it was a word that had particular associations for Howard, dark and unpleasant ones from long ago, from a time before he had made a name for himself, back when he was still a target for bullies, both young and old.

The trees laughed pink at him, safe behind their thorny barricade. Howard looked around him, trying to see in all directions at once, as if he might discover his mystery caller watching him from just beyond the forest's edge. It was ridiculous to think his caller could see him; he had allowed his caller to spook him, and it was crucial that he remain in control. He forced his mind, his eyes, to focus only on the speedometer, to take measured breaths.

Who does this fucker think he is, anyway?

"I AM EVERYTHING!" the Voice answered, bellowing in a volume that almost made Howard drop the phone again.

Howard's breath hitched in his throat. Ripples of hot and cold chased each other down the length of his body. The muscles in his arms started to tremble, and the flesh of his biceps felt sticky and unpleasant. His shirt felt too small, his lungs constricted. Somehow, his caller had known what he was thinking, just as the idea formed in his mind. More, they somehow knew his childhood nickname, just as they knew the Tasmanian Tigers had been about to step into the road.

My thoughts, he can see my thoughts. He can see what I'm thinking.

The words ran through his brain over and over, broke the slim measure of control he had fought so hard to regain. The sensation of slipping underwater started to wash over him again, much stronger this time.

If his caller was telling the truth, if they could really see into Howard's mind, then that might not be something the owner of Langford Technologies could handle, might even be enough to drive him mad. How could he defend himself against someone who could read his mind?

Something struggled to take shape in his mind then, fought to make itself known, a whisper from somewhere deep inside him, but Howard could hear nothing but the wave of fear crashing between his ears to rush through his entire body. Then the Voice was speaking again, and though he had the phone held away from his ear, he could hear each word with perfect clarity.

"You just go on thinking you can drive your way out of here, Big Boy," the caller said. "After all, we don't want you to give up too soon. That wouldn't be any fun at all. Who knows? Maybe you'll even make it back to the land of silk sheets and caviar. Maybe you'll pass Go and collect two hundred dollars. Or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll completely screw the pooch, and then you'll get to stay here with us forever. Personally, I'm betting you won't last the day. Either way, there are a few more things you need to see first. You need to learn the true depth of your situation, Howie Boy, and that is exactly what I plan to do, understand? Don't think for a second you can fuck with me, Splits, not even for a second."

Howard struggled to stay calm, but could not hold back the quiver of anger in his voice as he replied, "Fuck with you? I haven't even begun to fuck with you yet. You're the one who doesn't want to fuck with me, asshole. Try it, and you will be sorry, because I WILL fuck back. I guarantee that, buckaroo. Whatever it takes, I will make your ass sorry."

There was no response from his caller for a brief moment, and then, in a bubbling laugh that sounded like pure, liquid malice, the Voice replied, "What can you do, fatboy? Show me what you got. Know what I've got? Take a good look around. THIS is what I've got! This and that and t'other thing! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my, and goodness, a dingo just ate my baby! Holy dog fuck, Batman! Come one, come all! See the amazing prismatic forest! See the radioactive wasteland! See the big man get eaten by wild dogs! Hur-ray, hur-ray, hur-ray! Show me what you got, Pillsbury! SHOW ME DA MONEY!"

The sound nearly deafened him, seemed to reach out from the speaker and claw into his brain. Howard could feel his sanity standing on the brink of an abyss of mindless fear, and it would only take the slightest nudge to send him over the edge. He wanted to respond to his caller's taunts, wanted to find words that would make it shut up once and for all, but he could not; his voice felt frozen, locked into silence by panic.

Then, at the very moment where it seemed he would plunge into hysteria, the part of himself that had struggled so hard earlier to be heard made itself known; it arose within his consciousness, as if from a deep sleep, to tear its way through the walls of memory, through the barriers Howard had spent so many years building to contain it, and the emotions that threatened to immerse him were burned away in a blaze of rage.

Those feelings had frightened Howard when he was younger, for they seemed to exist separately from him, an entity born of injustice, nurtured by years of cruelty at the hands of both children and adults with no tolerance for anyone who was in any way different from them.

He spent many years trying to suppress those feelings, from the time he was a child, forced to attend school with dim-witted bullies who pelted him with their fists as well as their insults, to his early adulthood, where he continued to be tortured by snide remarks and barely concealed innuendos from his teachers and co-workers.

These experiences hardened him inside, where all his fears and pain still lived, and when he could take it no longer, the cold feeling would take him over, and all the pain and outrage would explode out of him. The results had rarely been what Howard wanted; and often ended with him being sent to the principle's office, punishment at the hands of his father, even the loss of his job.

Through time, he had learned to lock away that part of his psyche, trained himself to ignore the looks and the comments, to keep in control. Now, however, there was no holding back, no controlling his rage; the dark, grim memories of his childhood sprang into his mind, playing themselves out in his brain as if they were just now happening, courtesy of Howard-Cam.

In his memory, Howard was nine years old, back in the small house in Sander's Cove, Maryland, where he had spent so many lonely days. At that time, his parents had owned a cat. It was an ugly thing, with stiff, bristly fur and a squashed in face that made it look perpetually stupid. The cat was named Mister Dibbs, and though the rest of his family called the feline 'kitty', or 'Dibbsy', to Howard it was always just 'the cat', or 'asshole', depending on his mood, and whether his parents could hear him. The cat hated Howard, and Howard hated the cat. It was a match made in Hell, a relationship both parties pursued with a passion.

Howard never mistreated the animal, did nothing to deserve the treatment he received from the feline, but it seemed to single him out, as if it took great enjoyment in taunting him. If he needed to leave the table while eating, and there was no one else present in the room, Howard would return to find the cat with its face in his plate. If he was working on a science fair project or building a model at his desk, the cat would find a way to infiltrate his room, climb onto the furniture, and scatter whatever objects he found there. Once, he had been out building a snowman with his older brother David, only to find a pile of cat-spew covering his homework.

"I don't know why he would do that," his mother had said in her best 'I-reject-anything-bad-happening-around-me' voice, when Howard had complained. "He probably just doesn't feel well, the poor kitty. It's not like you or me, Howie; the cat can't tell us when it's feeling under the weather."

"Poor kitty, my ass," Howard had growled in response.

"Howie, don't swear!" his mother responded in a chastising tone. "The poor cat doesn't do anything like that on purpose; it just got sick, and it's terrible for you to say such things about a poor, sick, animal. You should be ashamed of yourself."

_That's not the only poor, sick animal_ , Howard almost said, as he watched his mother stroke and pet the destroyer of his homework, _and I don't know which needs help the most._ Lying in his mother's arms, Mister Dibbs simply stared back at Howard with eyes full of nothing but hate, and purpose.

For the next two months, the feline's attacks continued, with Howard as its sole victim. "Cat has it in for you, Howard," his brother David would chide. "Better not fall asleep where it can get to you." It became a running joke among the other members of his family, who took opportunities to skewer him with verbal jibes on an almost daily basis.

He would find his favorite shirt full of cat hair (maybe you smell good to him, Howie, like a momma kitty), or his favorite airplane model, a B-27 with moving propellers and gun turrets, knocked from its place on top of his bookcase, and the broken pieces batted around the room until half of them could not even be found (cat must have picked the lock, Howie, it's a cat conspiracy). He would discover his blanket full of claw marks and hair from the animal lying in his bed while he was away at school (next thing you know, Howie, the cat will have your room, and you'll be sleeping in the garage); the list went on.

It did not matter the airplane model was his favorite, or if he wanted to wear the shirt that day, or that he really liked that particular bedspread, and did not want it replaced; it seemed as if his family accepted Mister Dibb's behavior much more easily than they did his own, and that really, really pissed him off.

Howard never said anything about how he really felt during this period, other than to point out when the nasty critter had struck again. He never got any further than to say the cat should be kept somewhere else before he would be cut off, so he learned to keep his mouth shut. He kept his eyes open, however, and came to truly hate that cat.

The clincher came one lazy summer afternoon, after nearly a week of no activity on the part of Mister Dibbs. Howard managed to catch the pesky feline before it could pull its stunts for several days running, and believed he might have taught the little furball a lesson. He was having a good day; his parents were out shopping, and his brother David was out in the back yard, mowing the grass. The house and the morning were his to enjoy, and he was free to indulge himself on cartoons and chocolate-laden snacks.

He also planned to draw the fantasy map that had been stuck in his mind all morning with the colored pencils he received for his last birthday, three months earlier. The pencils were an obligatory gift, the type received from relatives (in this case, his Aunt Bessie, whose funeral he would attend eight months later) of the sort one only saw during the holidays, and who would then disappear again for the rest of the year.

Howard had stowed the pencils in his desk drawer almost immediately after unwrapping them, where they had stayed until this morning, when he was moved by an urge to pull them out, along with its matching drawing tablet, and draw a map. He was completely at peace, and drew busily while enjoying the sunlit quiet of the house. He chose a brightly lit square on the carpet formed by the early daylight streaming through the window, and set himself to his task.

The result had been well worth the effort, a map of a country that did not exist except in Howard's imagination. He used different colors to represent varying types of terrain, and added a key at the bottom of the page to explain them. Another key, this one larger and to the side of the map, explained the various symbols he devised to show where all the interesting things were located, like lost cities and mountain ranges and forgotten mines.

Howard agonized over every detail, the symbols and the lettering, striving to make everything perfect, and the finished result was likely the best thing he had ever drawn. He could not wait until his parents returned home so he could show it to them. He knew it would be some time before he could expect to hear his parent's minivan pulling into the driveway, so he took the drawing and pencils into his room, and left them on his bed so he could surprise them later.

Howard left the room, being careful to close the door behind him, and went into the kitchen to fix a glass of chocolate milk and a plate of cookies to celebrate. He sat at the table to enjoy his snack, and the feeling of a job well done, before heading back to his room, a smile on his face.

Upon his return, the remainder of his chocolate milk in his hand, he found the door to his room standing slightly ajar. This puzzled him at first; he was certain he had closed it behind him when he left for the kitchen. Pushing the door open, he stepped into the room to find Mister Dibbs had somehow managed to get into the room during his absence. His newly finished map was now lying on the floor, and the animal was sitting squarely in the middle of it.

The cat was not sitting, exactly—it was squatting.

Howard had just enough time to register this, his eyes wide in surprise, before Mister Dibbs began to urinate on his map. The thick, yellow fluid, the consistency of corn syrup, ran to the edges of the paper and dripped on the carpet. The cat's eyes never left Howard's own as it emptied the full contents of its bladder.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He slammed the glass of chocolate milk down on the desk next to the door, and the liquid splashed over the rim to splatter the papers and schoolbooks there. Howard did not even notice; he had eyes only for the cat, as it finished its act of destruction.

The animal flinched at Howard's shout, but did not flee; it stood glaring at him as its thick, pungent urine dribbled across the paper and into the carpet.

Without thinking, Howard grabbed the nearest object at hand, a leather softball mitt, and flung it at the cat. The feline vandal dodged the projectile easily, and ran from the room, outmaneuvering the heavy-set boy as he tried to kick him.

Howard turned back to his map with tears in his eyes. This last indignity was more than he could take; he had been forced to endure too much from the animal, and despite its continued assaults, he had never lifted a finger in reprisal. This was just too much, however. He had spent all morning making that map, and it had been the best thing he had ever drawn. He had not been bothering anyone, had only wanted to see his parents faces light up the way they did when David showed them one of his accomplishments, but now there was no hope of that happening, and it was more than he could stand.

This was the final straw. Now, it was personal.

A cold sensation overtook him then, not a feeling of being chilled, but of detachment, a strange, hard sense of calm that invaded his consciousness, one that washed away the anger and replaced it with something he was much too young to understand.

He walked into the kitchen, took a plastic trash bag from the box in the cabinet under the sink, and a handful of paper towels from the roll on the counter. He then walked back to his room, an expression on his face that would have scared his mother had she been there to see it.

She would have thought he looked like he was planning to kill someone.

Taking care not to get any of the disgusting fluid on his hands or clothes, Howard first used the paper towels to soak up as much of the cat piss as he could, and tossed the used towels in the trash bag. He then picked up the ruined map by the edge, and dropped it into the bag as well. With the remaining paper towels, he cleaned up the spots on the rug where the urine had overrun the paper, as well as the spilled milk on his desk, before tossing them in the bag. The strange look remained on his face as he completed this unpleasant task.

Lastly, and with no hesitation, Howard took the drawing pad and box of colored pencils, and tossed them into the bag as well; he would not be doing any drawing in the foreseeable future. He carried the bag outside to the large plastic trashcans his father kept by the side of the garage, and dropped the trash bag into one of them. His brother gave him a look as if he wanted to say something, some piece of brotherly banter, but the look on the younger boy's face stopped him. David said nothing, but merely turned back to put gas in the lawnmower. Howard put the lid back on the trashcan, and went back into the house.

Once inside, he went to the living room, and stood in its center, watching and listening. After a few moments, Mister Dibbs walked into view from the kitchen. Howard moved toward the animal, his movements smooth and quiet, despite his large mass, his face a mask.

The animal did not sense the boy's approach at first. When the cat finally did see him coming, it started, and gave a long, low feline growl. The cat's eyes locked with Howard's own, and something about the look on the boy's face sent it running. Howard followed it, changing directions when the animal attempted to go around him. He forced the animal to run more or less in one direction, and closed the doors behind him as he went, closing off any possible escape routes, any hope of retreat. He did not know what he would do with the animal once he caught him, but he did know there was no way it was going to get away with what it had done.

No way in Hell.

Howard continued to follow the cat, chasing him from room to room, closing each door behind him. Occasionally, the animal would get around him, but finding it had nowhere to go, it was forced to backtrack. Eventually, the feline found itself back in the kitchen. Howard followed it, closing the door behind him.

The chase ended when Mister Dibbs, perhaps sensing he may have gone too far in pushing the large, slow human, ran up the stairs that led from the kitchen to the attic. Howard continued to follow the cat, pausing only long enough to close the door at the base of the steps behind him, then once more to close the one at the top. He let his eyes adjust for a moment before he stepped into the open, topmost space of the Langford home, and allowed his gaze to roam throughout the room as he searched for the cause of his wrath.

The elder Langford was currently renovating the attic into a sewing room for his wife; tools, plywood, and panels of gypsum board littered the room. Howard had been up here the evening before, helping to hold the sheets of gypsum as his father screwed them into place, and to help clean up afterward. Most of the work on the walls had been finished; other than a few unfinished spots, it would only be a matter of painting and putting up shelving for the room to be completed.

Howard searched the room, looking for the cat. There was very little room to hide up here, but several minutes of searching failed to show any sign of the animal's whereabouts.

He was about to give up, perplexed at how the cat managed to escape him, when he spied a small panel of gypsum board his father had yet to attach to the studs. The missing section left an opening at the bottom of a wall on the side of one of the two dormers.

Howard remembered his father saying it was the last piece, just before his mother stuck her head into the attic stairway and called for them to come down and clean up for dinner. Both the Langford males knew better than to delay when there was food on the table; they left the last board where it lay, and filed down the stairs to eat.

Howard kneeled down, taking care not to hurt his knees, and peered into the hole. From the darkness within, he could see twin gleams of green glaring back at him. A nasty spitting sound came from the hole as the feline hissed at him.

"Fuck you," Howard whispered into the hole, his voice flat. It was the first time he had ever used the forbidden F-word aloud. "You pissed on my drawing, you little piece of shit. You've had it in for me ever since you came to this house, and I never did anything to you. Well, now I am going to do something. I'm going to teach you a lesson. You're going to find out what happens when you mess with the wrong person, shithead."

He looked around, wondering what to do. His eyes roamed over the piece of gypsum board, leaning to one side of the space in the wall. He saw the small pile of drywall screws piled in front of it, the small pieces of cut gypsum, scraps from the larger pieces, cut by his father when walling in the dormer space the day before. It came to him then; he knew how to give the cat its due, once and for all.

With his eyes fixed on the opening, Howard went over to where his father had left his battery powered screw gun, and picked it up. He walked back across the room, his eyes never leaving the rectangular square of darkness at the bottom of the wall, his face expressionless.

He knelt down in front of the hole, and looked in, just to make sure the cat had not managed to pull a vanishing act at the last minute. He could still see the creature's eyes, glowing in the darkness.

He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching the wall above the cat's hiding place, and whispered, "Have a nice day, you furry little asshole."

Then, moving with careful precision, he placed the piece of gypsum board over the opening, just as he had seen his father do while putting in the rest of the drywall. This did not prove difficult, and with this done, he fitted a screw to the tip of the screw gun.

Without hesitation, Howard ran the screw into the upper left corner of the paper-coated board. The remaining three corners were screwed tight within a minute. Howard ran the screws into the panel as his father had done, before he replaced the screw gun where he had found it, and went back down the steps into the kitchen.

Howard then set the house back to its original condition; he opened the doors he had closed during his pursuit, straightened any chairs he might have bumped into, and returned to the living room to watch television while he waited for his parents to return home. While he waited, he wondered what would happen to him if his act were discovered. He decided he would just play it cool. He was just a kid, after all, and accidents did happen. If he were caught, he would just plead ignorance, and take whatever punishment his parents doled out. It would be worth it.

In the end, luck was on Howard's side. His parents returned about an hour later, and he and David were recruited to help bring in the groceries. There was a few tense moments later that afternoon, when he heard his father mention the work being done in the attic, but as his brother had mowed the lawn, it was decided Howard should clean the upper floor.

He put up just enough resistance to be convincing, before he headed up the steps with trash bag and broom in hand. His father had a radio in the attic, which Howard thought this was fortunate; it would give him some music to listen to while cleaning, and would help cover any sounds the imprisoned animal might make. Howard paced himself, taking most of the afternoon to complete the task, and then headed down to dinner.

Howard's mother did not notice the cat was missing for another two days. When she did, he feigned ignorance, and even volunteered to help look for him.

Again, he was in luck, for after 'searching' the attic, his mother instructed him to keep the door to the attic closed. Howard did as he was told, and continued to pretend to look for Mister Dibbs. He even helped David post handmade fliers around the neighborhood a couple of days later. During that week and the next, the elder Langford only went into the attic once, and gave no sign of having heard the cat.

After two weeks, Howard began to rest easy. As far as he knew, the cat was never seen again.

It was this memory that played unbidden on the movie screen of Howard Langford's mind as he sat on a two-lane highway that ran through a forest of prismatic trees. These memories carried all the old feelings of rage and injustice he had felt so often during that time of his life, feelings he had been forced to carry for so many years, emotions he had fought to bury, to keep secret. He felt a cold rage building inside him, as he had in his youth, when those feelings had become too great to hold back any longer.

Now, he did not fight to hold them back, did not struggle to contain them or bury them, made no effort to resist them at all. Now, he nourished them, gathered them into a fierce, cold ball of emotion within his mind. He imagined launching that ball of rage and pain and fear at his mysterious caller, imagined it exploding with the force of a landmine.

_This is what I've got_.

His mental voice was now the same cool, flat voice that had first manifested itself on that summer day.

This is what I've got, you arrogant asshole.

It was silly, of course, there was no real way for him to strike back, but he needed something, anything, to make him feel as if he held at least some control over what was happening to him.

To Howard's surprise, a strangled noise erupted from the speaker of his cell phone, cut into his brain like a blunt axe. He listened, both startled and horrified, as the sound coagulated into words, and became the voice of his unknown caller, the voice who called itself his Devil's Advocate.

"I'll do more than kill you!" snarled the voice on the phone. "You'll beg to die before it's over, you fuck! I'll make you wish you never dropped out of your mother's cunt! You think you can fight me? You have no idea what you're messing with, boy! I know all the tricks, hold all the cards, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

That ball of emotion inside him was growing bigger now. It demanded action, and he was powerless to resist it.

"Really?" Howard asked. "Because I can still do this..."

Before he could think about what he was doing, he pressed the button for driver's side window, and as the glass slid down, he threw the slender rectangle of plastic and glass through the opening. It bounced several times on the highway like a stone skipped on a pond, and into the brush that bordered the pavement.

_Great_. _That probably wasn't the smoothest move I could've made._

He considered getting out of the car to retrieve the phone, but then thought better of it. While he knew he had just thrown away his only means of calling for help, the memory of the headlight-sized eyes was still too fresh in his mind. It would not be smart to leave the safety of the Continental, not when there was the possibility some creature might spring out of the brush, such as one of the baby-toting marsupials, or worse. Besides, he hadn't been able to get any reception on the thing anyway, not since he fell asleep back on I-270, and part of him knew that wasn't about to change. All it did was provide a way for his mystery caller, the Devil's Advocate, to taunt him, and he'd had enough of that bullshit, thank you very much.

Howard was about to drive away, when he noticed something lying in the brush, near where the cell phone had come to rest. There, almost lost amid the brambles and ferns, was the unmistakable form of a Styrofoam cup, the kind commonly used to serve coffee in just about every fast food restaurant. He could not see the logo printed on it from his position, but he was fairly certain it came from a 7-11.

It was a small thing, something he most certainly would have missed if he had not stopped at that exact spot on the road, and had not thrown his phone out of the window, an object that was so common in his everyday life, it had become almost invisible, but it was another sign that human beings had been where he was now.

He wondered who had been drinking from it. Was it his mystery caller? Something, his instinct perhaps, told him this was unlikely. It was almost certainly another driver. He wondered also how long it had been lying there. He was most curious to know the answer to those questions. He had been driving through this bizarre forest for quite awhile before the sun had risen to give him a view of his new surroundings. Perhaps whoever had discarded the cup had not yet known the true nature of their plight.

Howard wondered if they were still alive.

Leaving the cup to lie among the ferns, Howard pulled away, and brought the Lincoln back to a cruising speed of thirty-five. He drove cautiously, and kept his eyes on his surroundings.

He tried to free his mind of unpleasant memories, tried not to think about anything at all. He did his best to concentrate instead on the road despite the distraction posed by the way the trees kept changing color. He studied the highway, looking for any other clues of human passage, while trying to forget the fact he had thrown away a six hundred dollar phone.

Around him, all the leaves on the surrounding trees turned purple at once. From the trunks and radiating outward, ripples of orange and iridescent green followed. Alternating sprays of color came next, pink and yellow and blue, and then overlapping layers of hues flowed upward toward the treetops in a manner that resembled a spray of fireworks.

Under other circumstances, he would have found these displays fascinating, dazzling, perhaps even awe-inspiring, but as it was, they were merely a distraction, and it did not take the mystery caller to tell Howard distractions could be fatal in his present situation; one look at the Tasmanian Tigers had been enough for him to understand how such things could be hazardous to his health.

With his attention divided between the trees, the road, and the undergrowth bordering both sides of the pavement, Howard almost did not notice the change in scenery as he approached the end of the forest. One moment, Howard had been negotiating a long, winding turn, and the next, the forest simply ended.

For the first time, he got to see what lay beyond the trees.

It did not make him feel any better.

The forest terminated in a razor-straight line; one moment he was driving among trees that rippled with color like liquid prisms, the next he was thrust into a flat plain. The tree line fell behind him forming a barricade of shifting hues that stretched away to either side, and extended to the horizon.

Howard turned to watch the tree line as he crossed the border between forest and plain, amazed at its sheer size. He had yet to have time to digest the strangeness of land in which he traveled, so intense was the impact upon his senses. His passage among the changeling trees, and the events that had transpired there, was the most unusual experience of his life, dreaming or otherwise, and he was not sorry to see it end.

When he turned back to face the road, his heart sank even as his eyes grew wide in surprise. He had been concentrating on the forest as it passed, and had not fully taken in the landscape before him. He was not prepared for what he saw, was shocked by what lay ahead

Stretching away as far as the eye could see was a flat, yellow plain composed of cracked and crumbled rock. Far in the distance, massive mesas rose sharp and jagged to thrust at a pale yellow sky that faded to the color of an angry bruise on the horizon.

Howard had driven through Monument Valley on more than one occasion, had driven through most of the country during his career, and this made the vistas of the American West seem petty by comparison. Yellow boulders littered the landscape, growing smaller with distance until they looked like pebbles. Most of these were larger than his automobile. One such boulder rested very near the highway, and as Howard passed it, he could see it was larger than his house.

The entire scene was devoid of vegetation beyond the tree line, and the landscape appeared inimical to animal and plant life of any kind. The forest of shifting color behind him made a stark contrast against the blasted terrain that now stretched out before him. It did not just appear odd; it looked completely alien. The force of this visual impact hit him like a hammer.

I am driving on the surface of another planet.

Under other circumstances, the notion would have been absurd, but the reality of his situation stretched out around him as far as the eye could see. This realization filled him with horror and dread, so powerful and sudden it threatened to overwhelm him. It left him feeling oddly disconnected, apart from everything. Reality itself was beginning to unravel; his mental processes were becoming disjointed, surreal.

Howard shook his head, tried to shake away the feelings of disorientation. Nausea threatened the thin hold his stomach retained on his last meal, and he took long, deep breaths in an effort to regain control lest he vomit.

I am driving on another world...on another world.

Howard was fully convinced of this now. He did not know why, did not have the slightest idea how, but he was now convinced he was not on his own world.

One minute he had been driving along a highway in Maryland, and the next he had been transported to some other place—another planet, or some other dimension.

In the end, he supposed it really did not matter; one was as far removed as another. Did he drive through some sort of gateway, perhaps? Was it some sort of doorway, one that was somehow opened by a person's mind as they entered a dream-state? Or was it something else? Howard was clueless as to the answer, he only knew he needed to get back to his own place and time, before he fell prey to something like the thing with the giant eyes—or worse.

He scanned the area nervously, wondering if anything could live out among the crags and jagged rocks. As time passed, Howard saw no signs of water or vegetation, only more rocks and sand, and he became convinced it would be nearly impossible for anything to survive in the harsh landscape, at least anything from his own world.

The effects of his adrenaline rush had worn off long ago, and Howard was beginning to feel the effects of exhaustion once again. Hunger and thirst both nagged at him, but he resisted consuming any of his meager supply of food or liquids. He needed to ration them as best he could; there was no way of knowing how long he would have to depend on them.

If he really was on another world, or some alternate dimension, there was no way to be certain he would be able to sustain himself. Even if he did find a source of food or water somewhere on his drive, there was no guarantee he would be able to use them; any natural source of sustenance here might be poisonous to him.

Thoughts such as these made Howard's head hurt; it was hard enough to accept he might have somehow been transported into some other reality, but the logistics of such an event was enough to leave his mind spinning. The very concept of the world through which he now traveled seem to violate the laws of Nature he had been taught to accept. The entirety of it was just too much for his mind to grasp all at once.

One thing was perfectly clear to him, however; he would need to adapt to survive, or he would die.

Howard looked out at the bleak landscape, and wondered how long a human could survive in such an environment. It did not take a genius to know that even without encountering any hostile wildlife that might be prowling just beyond the range of his vision, the prospects for survival were grim in this bizarre panorama.

Howard checked his gas gauge, and saw the needle had barely moved, despite the hours that had passed since he checked it last. His odometer told him he had put several hundred miles on the Lincoln during the night, yet the needle on the gauge gave no testament to the distance he had covered. Either the instrument was faulty, or he was getting the best mileage in the history of automobile technology, and though common sense told him the former was more likely, he hoped the latter would prove to be true. Maybe there was an upside to the bending of the laws of physics. He prayed that was the case; he had the feeling that regardless of mileage, his baby would need every drop of fuel she could get.

As Howard pondered the possible meanings of his auto's extended mileage, and the failure of his stereo clock, more miles passed beneath the Lincoln's tires without him spotting a single living thing. No birds flew in the strange, yellow sky. Not a single scorpion, coyote, or lizard hunted for prey among the rocks. No flying insects buzzed through the air to splatter on the Continental's windshield.

_That doesn't mean they're not out there_. _This place makes Death Valley look like a sandbox. Anything could be out there. Giant bugs, snakes, maybe even big, shaggy things that like to eat human babies. Who knows what all? There could be giant mutants oozing slime, for all I know. This place might look dead; but it could be full of critters. Maybe they just don't come out during the day, or maybe they just have enough sense not to walk out into the road. The fact you can't see anything means you need to be twice as careful._

Plumes of loose dust swirled behind the Lincoln as it traveled along the wind-swept highway. Dust devils danced among the rocks in the distance, their true size lost in the scale of their surroundings. Far in the distance, green lightning flickered from immense roiling purple and black clouds against the backdrop of an alien sky. Seeing them made Howard anxious; he could not tell if they were moving closer to him, or farther away.

What kind of weather could one expect to find in an alien world? It was something Howard had not considered until now. Obviously, he could breathe the air, otherwise he would have died from lack of oxygen long before now, but he had no idea what to expect in terms of precipitation, or any other type of atmospheric conditions. He found he was worried more about the elements than he was about the wildlife.

Thinking of weather made Howard realize the air quality inside the Lincoln was beginning to feel stale. He wondered if it would be safe to open the window; a nice breeze would be welcome, and would help ease his nerves.

Lowering the glass proved to be a mistake; whatever freshness remained in the vehicle was swept away by a blast of hot, flat air that flooded the interior. It felt to Howard as if he had been hit with a huge sponge filled with warm, stagnant water. The air was breathable, but it was like hyperventilating in a sauna.

He rolled the window up as fast as he could to seal away the horrid atmosphere, but it still felt as if he had seared the linings of his lungs. He turned up the air conditioning as high as it would go, and drew in the cool air in long, deep breaths.

His lungs felt better, but his skin now felt clammy and cold. His tailored shirt stuck to his skin, and chilled sweat ran like liquid ice down his face and chest. He shivered, and adjusted the air conditioner back to its lowest setting. Howard hoped the unit stayed in good working order; the desert in front of him extended to the horizon, and for all he knew, could go on forever. He would not last long without it.

There was a rumble in Howard's belly, and he realized he had not eaten since he entered this bizarre realm. He was beginning to feel queasy and faint, both symptoms of low blood sugar. To combat this, he ate a Snickers bar, and washed it down with one of the last two Yoo-Hoos.

The energy boost was a welcome relief, but he worried the sudden influx of chocolate would give him a case of the runs. The warm candy bar made his tongue cringe; it turned into tasteless goo that stuck to the inside of his mouth, and the warm Yoo-Hoo made his mouth feel like an oil slick. Howard had to force every bite. He breathed through his mouth to help deaden the taste, but it was still a struggle to finish this meager meal.

He debated, not for the first time, whether he should have simply turned around as soon as he realized he was lost. Would it have mattered? Was it possible he could have driven right back through whatever gateway opened to bring him to this strange world?

The simplicity of the concept had its lure, but it was that very simplicity that made Howard doubt the possibility.

_What would you expect to see,_ _a_ _big hole in space? A giant stone portal like in the old 'Star Trek' series, or maybe an 'Other Dimensional Gateway - 5 miles' sign? What?_

Perhaps he had driven through some sort of wormhole, but he doubted such a phenomenon would have still been there, even if he had attempted to find it. The reasoning behind this was simple; if there had been a gateway, and had it stayed open for any length of time, he would not have been alone on the highway. The interstate had been full of traffic when he fell asleep, and if some strange twisting of the laws of physics brought him here, then it would follow that others would have entered the same gateway, or rift, or whatever mechanism was responsible for the transition from his home world. This meant whatever happened had been very brief, or...he had been targeted specifically.

He recalled his mystery caller, the Devil's Advocate, and the thing with the huge, glowing eyes. Going back could be a very bad idea, perhaps the worst of ideas. The notion that he had been somehow chosen for his present predicament was just not something he could accept. The world around him boggled his mind, took his sanity to the brink; to think he had been brought here deliberately, well, that might just be enough to send it screaming over the edge.

He debated these sobering concepts while munching on the Twizzler's candies from the bag on the passenger seat. Half the bag disappeared before he realized he was eating them. He resisted the urge to continue, but this was difficult; his stomach churned and gurgled, felt as though it was transforming into a gaping void inside him.

A sensation, not quite nausea, not quite a cramp, passed through this void in waves. Despite this, Howard resisted the temptation to eat any more of his stores; he needed to pace himself, else he could easily end up dying of hunger in the middle of a waterless wasteland.

The rocks on the side of the highway looked like rotting, yellowed teeth. The highway wound among these like a serpent, twisting one way, then another as it slowly rose to meet the looming, jagged contours of one of the many mesas that dotted the desert. As Howard drew closer to the edifice, he could feel pressure beginning to build in his bladder. The need was not overwhelming, not yet, but it would not be long before he would need to find a way to relieve himself.

The shelter afforded by the large boulders bordering the highway would be considered a boon to those in Howard's condition; those visited by the call of nature would be grateful for the generous amount of cover afforded by the massive stones. They had the opposite effect on Howard, however; they seemed much too large, and blocked his ability to see what might lie beyond them.

This strengthened his resolve not to leave the car unless absolutely necessary; if he had to pee, he would use a bottle, and stay within the Lincoln where he was safe, unless he could find a place where he could see anything approaching from a good distance.

The highway continued to wind its way upward as it climbed the mesa. The boulders to either side made it difficult to determine his elevation, but the pressure in his ears told him it was no small distance. He was afforded brief glimpses, little more than flashes of the landscape beyond, and was still given the impression of a sense of vastness, of sheer distance.

Far beyond, mesas and mountains much larger than the one he traversed now, stretched away on a scale that boggled his mind. During one of the flashes of scenery provided by gaps between the crowded boulders, Howard spied a huge ravine, winding like a ragged gash through the plain.

It looks like the floor of an ocean. It looks like the ocean dried up, and someone built a highway right across the ocean bed.

The sun proved to be even more elusive than a clear view of the desert. Howard had searched the sky several times, but had yet to see the source of this world's light. Judging by the sky, it remained hidden behind one of the dark, boiling clouds dotting the sky. He did not like the look of those clouds, and liked the bolts of green lightning that flashed from them in glowing webs of light even less. They made him nervous. Fortunately, they still seemed a good distance away; he hoped they remained that way.

The highway continued to climb. The boulders and spires of rock alongside the lanes still afforded only the occasional glimpse of the surrounding landscape, but they were enough to show Howard he was now several thousand feet above the plain. These brief flashes lent much to the impression he was driving across the bed of an ancient ocean, with islands, trenches, and seamounts. The mesa he now climbed looked like some undersea mountain, and as large as it was, it was dwarfed by the terrain he could see in the distance.

Above him, the remainder of the mesa rose in jagged defiance of the sky, as if to resist both the elements, and time. The two lanes wound through spires of stone the size of office buildings, their great bulk towering above him to block out the light.

Howard moved along at a crawl, rarely exceeding twenty-five miles an hour; driving this slow made him anxious, but the possibility of losing control of the Lincoln was of greater concern. He concentrated on the changing contours of the road with all his will, knowing even the slightest mistake could be his last.

As he rounded a bend, the highway leveled, and Howard spotted something he had not seen before, something he did not expect; just beyond the edge of the asphalt on the right side of the road, looking out of place against the bizarre landscape, were a series of three small rectangular white signs. Each were spaced about fifty yards apart, and had a single word painted across its center.

Howard had encountered similar signs many times in his travels, on scores of roads in as many suburbs, advertising apartment complexes, or informing the reader of the dates for the county fair. The placards were designed so they would be read in a series as the reader drove by them, a notion that while quaint to some, always struck Howard as silly. "If you lived here," one would say, followed by 'You'd be home now!" and other gleeful messages designed to inspire curiosity while giving the reader a chuckle.

There was nothing humorous or silly about these signs, however. Whatever their purpose, Howard knew it was not to give him a laugh.

He grew nervous as he approached them; he was certain he would not enjoy whatever message they contained. A moment later, the word imprinted on the first sign came into focus. DOGS, it read in bold, black characters. It was not a word he expected to see, was not even on the list of the words he would think to find on a sign in the middle of the biggest nowhere he could imagine.

He turned to watch it pass, his brows knitted in concentration. He only had a moment to contemplate its meaning; the second sign was upon him within seconds. He almost missed the word LOVE printed across its bright white surface. He was given just enough time to register the letters before the third sign presented itself: CARS it stated, as if its meaning should be obvious.

_Dogs love cars_. _Now what the hell does that mean?_

He remembered the words of the Devil's Advocate, in what seemed an age ago. It had only been the night before, but the passage of time felt strange here, even without an accurate timepiece. He felt it, just as he felt the gnawing hunger in his stomach, and the steadily growing pressure building in his bladder.

His mystery caller had said, _'there are things you need to see_.' The caller had said many things, some of which he had missed, partly due to the shock of dealing with someone, or something, that seemed to be able to read his mind, partly due to the anger the Devil's Advocate provoked in him, but he remembered that phrase, along with the message that he was not dreaming.

Under the circumstances, Howard could forgive himself for this, but he could not help thinking that some of the very clues he was looking for had passed him by. He wondered if the signs were one of the things the mystery caller had been talking about.

It would not be long before he found out, and when he did, he would regret it.

CHAPTER FIVE

The two-lane highway did not appear to have been cut into the bedrock, but followed the natural contours of the mountain. Howard could not see any signs of blasting or grading on the slopes or rocks bordering the road.

_It's like it grew here_.

The top of the mountain was a blasted ruin of razor sharp rocks and broken stone. The highway wound its way among twisted spires that jutted at torturous angles from the bedrock. The entire mountaintop looked to Howard as if had been devastated by a tremendous, earth-shattering explosion.

He was forced to slow the Continental until it was almost drifting in order to keep from losing control on the sharp turns, and driving headfirst into one of the massive obelisks. The highway itself was clear of debris, however, and appeared as if the pavement had been laid yesterday.

He had no sooner lowered his speed before the highway arced over the arch of a natural rock bridge. Here, the stones bordering the road fell away, and provided him with his best view yet of his surroundings. He did not like the idea of crossing such a span, but his path was clear; he had set his course, and he was not about to be stopped by something as simple as a lack of guardrails.

As he began to traverse the arch, Howard recalled the parting words of Dr. Zaius in the original version of _'The Planet of the Apes._ "Be careful, Taylor," the orangutan had warned Charlton Heston's character, "You may not like what you find." The words played in his memory, both ominous and prophetic in light of his current situation.

Howard forced the memory away. He looked back the way he had come, wondering if he could still see the multi-colored forest from his new vantage point, but the crags of rock blocked his view. He discovered he did not feel disappointed over this at all.

He wanted to believe this whole experience was a dream, and he would eventually wake up in his hotel room to discover he had not left at all, but he knew this would not happen; getting home would be much harder than simply waking up. He turned the events over in his mind, looking for a way to put them into a logical context that did not involve him being on some other world, but could not. What had happened to him was impossible, and yet it had happened; he felt like the bottom had fallen out of the world.

The reality of his present situation could not be denied; he was in a different place, far removed from anything he knew, a dangerous environment that could very well kill him if he gave it the chance. This realization was terrifying enough, but the possibility there might be some premeditative force behind his coming here was much worse.

Howard thought again of the strange forest, with its changing colors. It occurred to him the place seemed to possess a sentience of its own, a consciousness that had reacted to his presence. This was a disturbing concept, one of many he had dealt with since coming to this strange and terrible place. He tried to put the ever-changing hues into a logical context, but this proved futile. Try as he might, he could not rationalize their existence; he could not explain how the forest had reacted as he drove through it.

_It's like they were showing off._ _It's like the trees knew I was passing through, and wanted to show me what they could do._

Howard tried to convince himself he was being ridiculous; trees couldn't think _._

Sure they can't. They can't change color like a goddamn kaleidoscope, either, but they did.

The reality of his situation could not be ignored; it kept coming back to haunt him like restless spirits, appearing from the dark recesses of his mind to fill his soul with dread. He was not prepared for this, not on any level. He was not Rambo. He was not Chuck Norris, or Bruce Willis, or even Crocodile Dundee. He was a thirty-something techno-geek, not a survivor type; he was in no way qualified to survive a trip through the Twilight Zone, a fact he knew all too well.

Prepared or not, it still came down to a matter of survival; it only took one look at the harshness of the desert to make that fact clear. If there was a way back, he would have to find it on his own. Though he was not an action hero, he did have a brain, and it was the one weapon at his disposal that might give him any chance at all to return to the world he knew. As long as he could still think, there was a chance for him to survive.

_You have other weapons in that arsenal_ , a familiar but long silent voice said from the depths of his being. Y _ou have other ways to fight back._

Howard willed that inner voice to go silent, pushed it back into the dark where it belonged. What he needed now was logic, nerve, and spirit, not the memories of his bygone self. Hearing voices, even his own, was not a good sign; it meant his mental armor was beginning to weaken.

Exhaustion was setting in, and this latest mental vocalization was not the only indicator; as he wound his way among the rocky crags, Howard grew ever more paranoid. The feeling he was being watched had grown steadily since his pursuit by the unknown thing with the glowing eyes, until it became like sandpaper abrading his nerves. He had tried several times to shake the sensation, but it had only become worse as time passed. He had not seen a single sign of life since exiting the forest, but that fact did not bring him any comfort; despite the desolation, he did not feel he was alone.

There was also the matter of the signs.

The memory of the small, white placards brought Howard's paranoia to full bore; he felt the need to look everywhere at once, lest he be caught be surprise.

Off to his left, he saw a small cascade of rocks tumbling down the slope. From the corner of his eye, Howard caught a flash of movement. He turned quickly, attempted to find the source, but only saw more rocks and shadows. Had there been a flash of yellow, there among the rocks? Or was it just a trick of the light, playing upon his fear?

He chewed the inside of his lip, a habit he possessed since childhood. He gripped the wheel tighter, moved his eyes over every crevice, tried to peer into every shadow. The sensation of being watched intensified with every passing moment; he could feel eyes upon him now, watching and waiting.

The highway crested the top of the mountain, a jagged, blasted ruin, and ran only a short distance before it began to descend toward the plain once again along the far side. Howard tried to take comfort in the fact he would soon put the towering butte with its shattered peaks and sinister shadows behind him, but his sense of anxiety continued to grow; the rocks looming to the sides of the pavement felt too close, the shadows between them too dark. A sense of menace filled the air. He began to sweat freely as claustrophobia and a feeling of imminent danger washed over him. His chest felt too tight, his mouth as dry as the desert air.

As the Lincoln rounded a switchback curve, Howard confronted a vision that shocked the breath out of his lungs. A small, strangled cry of dismay and horror escaped him, but he did not hear it; his eyes were glued on the scene before him.

Straddling the thin shoulder and the edge of the right-hand lane was a Volvo station wagon. Looking closer, Howard could see it had Georgia plates.

Dismayed, he realized it was the same vehicle he had passed on the road between Cumberland and Berkeley Springs, where an overheated engine had caused traffic to come to a standstill as four lanes of traffic rubbernecked its way past the stalled car and its occupants. He had been given plenty of time to observe the car as he inched along, and the memory was still fresh in his mind. There was no doubt this was the same car that had caused him so much frustration back in his own world.

The car alone was not what caused the sweat on his skin to turn cold, the last vestiges of saliva to evaporate from his mouth like a puddle in the desert sun, or his testicles to draw up into his body like two cowering children confronted by the boogeyman. No, not even the visual impact of the vehicle's shattered windows, the jagged glass hanging from the frames, the doors open, nearly hanging from their hinges, the paint nearly invisible under a patchwork of gleaming scratches, could do that.

No, it was the blood. It was the blood, and what lay around the car, that stunned him.

It was everywhere; it covered the body of the Volvo in long streaks and splashes. The interior of the car was shredded as if subjected to a bomb blast, the seats and dashboard drenched in crimson.

Scattered around the vehicle in a random jumble, the luggage previously tied to the roof rack were torn open, and their contents strewn about in a fashion that spoke of pure savagery. The remains of shredded clothing lay scattered on the rocks around the ruined suitcases. Near the back of the car, a child's doll lay covered in blood like an aborted fetus; its blank eyes stared unknowing into his own, its hair matted with gore. The asphalt around the car was stained red in large, wet patches.

As the Lincoln drifted closer, details resolved in Howard's vision with dreadful clarity: the torn leg of a pair of blue jeans, the fabric black with blood, a blouse, turned inside out, the cloth wet and shining in the light of the unseen sun. Every detail stood out with a gruesome clarity that held his eyes transfixed.

Howard wanted to look away, but could not move his gaze from the ruined Volvo and the detritus surrounding it; his head turned as the Continental drifted by, as if it were a needle caught in a magnetic field. Here lay a man's sock, torn and splattered with rusty spots, there the tattered remains of a coloring book, the pages all colored in a cardinal monochrome.

His stomach clenched, threatened to rebel at the sight, but he still could not look away; it was not until he spied a tangled mass, one he believed at first was the remains of a fur jacket, but upon drawing closer revealed itself to be a ragged shred of human scalp, was he able to close his eyes, and break the spell the scene had placed upon him.

_My God_ , _what happened here? What in dear God's name happened here?_

The answer to that question was obvious; the car had stopped moving, for whatever reason, and its occupants had been massacred.

Perhaps the station wagon's engine had overheated again, or maybe the driver had needed to take a leak. The car could have run out of gas, punctured a fuel or brake line, or blew a head gasket. There were a thousand other possibilities, but whatever the cause, the vehicle had stopped, and those inside, a husky man who could not have been much older than Howard himself, his wife, a plain-looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties, the child he had spied in the back seat, as well as the infant, had met their final, tragic ends.

Dogs love cars.

An image flashed through Howard's mind, a creature with tawny yellow fur and black stripes, walking across the highway in the glow in his headlights, a human baby in its mouth. The memory of the voice of his mystery caller played against his will, a voice that said, "See the stupid fat man get eaten by wild dogs."

At that exact moment, as the voice played unbidden in his brain, as he realized just how vulnerable he was sitting out in the open, as his stomach squeezed into a tiny, hard knot, and his foot started to move from the brake pedal to the accelerator, hordes of Tasmanian Tigers swarmed from between the rocks bordering the highway in a swirling tide of yellow and black.

They appeared from everywhere, scrambled over the rocks and boulders lining the sides of the highway, poured from every crack and crevice, and raced down the slopes of the broken crags toward the Lincoln. They howled and yipped as they ran, their voices combining to rise in an unholy chorus that threatened to deafen Howard despite the rolled up windows. The animals appeared from every shadow, as if by magic; they streamed over and around everything in their path, spreading toward the drifting Continental in a quickly closing ring of rippling fur and gnashing fangs.

See the stupid fat man get eaten by wild dogs.

Time slowed...and then seemed to almost stop; it took an eternity for his foot to reach the accelerator.

NoNoNoNoNoNo...

Fueled by fear, Howard's foot over-shot its destination by several inches, and missed the accelerator pedal completely. He pressed his foot against the floor several times before his brain got the message it was only pressing the floorboard. Adrenaline poured through his system; the muscles in his arms and legs began to twitch and jerk. All logic and reason was washed away in a flood of pure fear. A single word, ' _NO_ ', repeated in his mind as his consciousness vocalized its impending end in violent denial.

With the speed of cheetahs chasing down prey, the animals closed on the barely-moving Continental, taking only moments to close the short distance between themselves and the vehicle. Howard was powerless to do anything but stare in abject terror as they ran toward him, his eyes wide, his lips pulled back in a grimace as his foot pressed harder against the floorboard. A scream tore its way out of his mouth, only to be lost in a wailing wall of sound as the creatures howled with triumph and anticipation.

His foot found the accelerator just as the first of the creatures crashed headlong into the side of the Lincoln to form a large dent in the metal of the passenger side door. Another hit the other side, closer to the rear, and the Continental swayed with the force of the impact.

Howard let loose a throat-ripping shriek; he instinctively jerked his arms up to protect his face, and his right arm hooked, unnoticed, onto the gear shift lever, pulling the car out of gear. He pressed down hard on the accelerator, pushed it almost to the floor, but the automobile continued to drift, began to slow down, even as the engine raced. Howard did not notice this, just as he did not notice the stream of urine that ran down his leg as his bladder let go; he was only aware of the swarm of hungry eyes, the sea of razor-sharp teeth.

More of the creatures collided with the automobile, denting the metal in a hundred places. They surrounded him, pawing at the Lincoln's sides, their claws digging gleaming grooves through the paint.

Those closest to the windows stood on their hind legs, and darted their heads forward in an attempt to bite their way through the metal and glass protecting him. Smears of blood and thick, yellow saliva ran down the windows in streams as the animals bit and gnashed in their frenzied attempts to get to their prey, and the Continental swayed to and fro on its springs with their weight.

Several of the creatures sprang onto the back of the car, and began to bite and claw at the vinyl top, shredding it in seconds. A moment later, another jumped onto the roof, causing it to buckle inward slightly, and a fresh spurt of urine flowed into Howard's tailored trousers.

Howard was still screaming, but his throat had lost its capacity to produce sound; his mouth worked soundlessly, his lips pulled back so far it seemed they must soon split, gray-white with the strain. He covered his head with his arms in an attempt to ward off the violent death that stared at him from less than two feet away with glittering orange eyes, his image reflected in their corneas.

See the stupid fat man get eaten by wild dogs...

His mysterious caller had been right. He was going to die, torn apart by creatures that resembled tigers more than dogs, but which belonged to neither order. He had come upon a scene that spoke clearly of a recent horror, of danger so obvious as to be tangible to anyone with a scattering of sense, and what did he do? He had simply sat and stared, as ignorant and vapid as the buffoons who aggravated him with their rubbernecking on the Interstate. To say his reaction had been idiotic would not even come close to describing his stupidity, for he had failed to respond to even the most basic of self-preservation instincts. Here was a man with an IQ that topped 170, one who had carved his own niche into the specialized world of computerized entertainment, and yet he had ignored both common sense and ages-old instinct. He would die having done nothing of great importance to the world, despite his wealth and success.

The front end of the Lincoln rocked downward as one of the Thylacines jumped on the hood. Howard was pulled forward, and his head smacked the steering wheel hard enough to make his eyes water. When he wiped away the tears, he was confronted with the sight of the predatory marsupial straddling the hood; its body, almost the size of a lion, rippled with muscles.

The thin metal covering the engine compartment sagged under the animal's weight. It lowered its head to look through the windshield, its orange orbs staring straight into Howard's own.

The monster opened its long, pointed snout. The mouth yawned wider than what seemed physically possible, revealing a double set of two-inch fangs lining both the top and bottom jaws. A bloody tongue lolled out of its mouth, nearly a foot in length, and Howard could see it was forked at the tip, like that of a snake. Stringy yellow mucus, tinged with blood, dripped from the double tip.

The creature lowered its head until its nose touched the windshield, its mouth open. The animal's gaze never wavered; its eyes were fixed on Howard. There was intelligence in those eyes, the cold, calculating stare of a predator, one that had cornered and devoured more than its share of prey, one who savored the moment of the kill.

From his position, Howard could see straight into the creature's mouth. He could see shreds of flesh clinging to the animal's impossibly long fangs. Worse, he could look down its throat. Things squirmed down there, deep inside.

I don't deserve to die like this. Not like this...

Deserving or not, he was going to die. In just a few more moments, he would be dragged from his car and ripped apart; reduced to road-kill in seconds. It would not take long for the animals to chew their way through the glass, and that would be all she wrote for the founder of Langford Technologies. It would be the end, game over. Now, he was only another bit of prey, nothing but food for the predators.

It wasn't fair. His trustworthy Lincoln had let him down; he had done his best, but the Continental had failed him. It had refused to move, and there was nothing to be done.

Behind him, there was the sound of breaking glass as one of the Thylacines forced its snout through one of the small oval panes set into the sides of the wraparound top. It chewed at the opening, shredding the leather and metal as it widened the opening. Blood and spit dripped onto the leather interior in red and yellow foam.

What are waiting for, you idiot? You want these mangy mutts to feast on your innards? No? Then DO SOMETHING!

The voice in his head sounded like that of his father, though it was really his own. As a child, he had often been afraid of that voice, hated the way it made him feel small and somehow dirty, as if he had been caught playing with himself. How many times had he been forced to listen to that voice, when he wanted more than anything to beat it into silence? How many times had he been forced to feel that dark anger, mixed with shame, so intense it flushed his ample cheeks to a dark rose, as he stood staring at the floor? How many times had he been given no choice but to endure the patronizing tones, the condescending words, the belief he was nothing but fodder for all those who underestimated him? More times than he could count, to the point where he had internalized the voice; it had become a part of him, haunting the shadows of his being, to reappear whenever he did not live up to his own expectations, its power to make him feel the old, dark anger untouched by the passing years.

Now, that emotion rose in him again; it burned through the haze of panic enshrouding his mind, snapping him back from the edge of madness. It washed over him like a flood, melted the ice in his veins, and replaced it with liquid fire.

Howard broke his gaze away from the snarling horror on the other side of the glass, and instead focused his attention on the dashboard, just above the steering column. There, only little more than a foot away, was the transmission indicator panel. This display had letters and numbers arranged in a vertical line, and a small red needle to show which gear had been selected by the driver. At the moment, the little needle rested in the center of the strip, over a single letter: the letter N.

N, which stood for Neutral.

The automobile had refused to move because the transmission was in neutral. He realized he had knocked the transmission out of gear, and failed to notice in the midst of his pain and fear. It was a little thing, but enough to ensure his demise.

Howard looked back again at the thing on his hood. The creature pulled back its head as it crouched on its powerful legs. It raised its head to the sky, and howled in triumph. It looked back at him then, its muscles tense for its final lunge through the windshield, its mouth dripping with anticipation, anxious to wrap around the throat of its victim.

Then, as it looked down again, the creature's expression changed. Its look of satisfaction drained away, to be replaced by what might have been confusion. Perhaps it was puzzled by what it saw beyond the thin glass barrier that separated them. Its prey no longer cowered in fear, as it had been but a moment earlier. The smell of terror had faded from its pores, and fear no longer twisted its features. Now, the prey was smiling, though the creature did not understand the expression, nor its meaning.

From inside the Lincoln, Howard gave the Thylacine his best Get Even Smile. His right hand gripped the gearshift lever.

"Fuck with me, will you, you ugly shit?" Howard said, his foot resting on the accelerator pedal. "You think you can fuck with me and my baby? Let's see how you like it when she fucks you back."

He pulled the gearshift down into Drive, and pressed down hard on the accelerator as the transmission took hold. Over five thousand pounds of steel and glass shot forward, the tires shrieking on the pavement. The front end of the automobile lifted with the momentum, as if the Continental were trying to stand on its tail.

Howard's body sank deep into the upholstery as the monster on the hood was thrown face first into the windshield, splattering blood and mucus across the glass. The windshield buckled along the passenger side of the Continental as its neck broke with the force of the impact; a thousand cracks spider-webbed across the glass, sent a small shower of fragments onto the front seat, but the safety glass, with its layer of plastic sandwiched in the center, did its job well, and stayed within its frame. The creature's body followed, its spine twisted, its legs pawing at the sky savagely for a brief moment before it was thrown over the car, its body spraying fluids as it spun through the air.

Behind him, another Thylacine, unnoticed by Howard, had chewed an opening large enough for it to force its head through where the oval window had been. The sudden forward motion caught it off guard, and as its hind legs were pulled under the Lincoln's rear wheel, the unfortunate creature's head was ripped from its neck, and the decapitated head sent rolling into the back seat. Black red blood spouted from the wound and from its snout, spraying the seats and floorboards.

Though dead, the animal's mouth opened and closed as if it were still alive; the razor sharp teeth severed its tongue and sent it to the floor, where it writhed like a two-headed worm for a full minute before it became still.

Outside, as the headless corpse spun from under the Continental's wheels, it was fell upon by its pack-mates, who began to dismember and devour it in a flurry of fur and teeth, black stripes, and bloodstained claws.

The front end of the Lincoln seesawed back and forth as it passed through, and over, the pack surrounding it. Several animals were pulled under the vehicle to be crushed beneath its wheels, their bodies torn to a bloody pulp by the underside. The Continental painted the highway in shades of gore as it tore through the pack. Those farther along the road saw the car coming for them and attempted to get out of the way, but to no avail; they were held in place by the bodies of the surrounding animals. The heavy front end smashed into them, sending jets of blood shooting from their mouths as they died, their howls of hungry triumph turning into choking wails of pain and fear.

The right fender crumpled, the passenger side headlight and turn signals were obliterated as the heavy vehicle crashed into more of the animals, but Howard neither noticed nor cared. He laughed wildly, his hands gripping the wheel until his knuckles turned white.

He watched as a piece of the grille was torn off, saw it sail over the hood, a piece of hide from the Thylacine it had flayed open still attached, and this made him laugh even louder. The sound came out of him in hoarse gurgles so harsh it made his throat hurt, but he did not notice. He was focused only on survival, and damned was anything that got in his way.

"MESS WITH ME, WILL YOU, YOU HAIRY FUCKS?" he screamed in hysterical, cracked chords. "TRY TO EAT ME, YOU GODDAMNED SONS OF BITCHES? TEAR UP MY BABY, WILL YOU? THINK YOU CAN PISS ON MY MAP, DO YOU? EAT SHIT AND DIE, MOTHERFUCKERS! HAHAHAHAHA!"

The Lincoln pitched about in a violent frenzy as it continued to ride over the animals in its path. The vehicle bounced so hard it threatened to throw Howard from his seat; only his death grip on the steering wheel prevented him from suffering a severe head injury, or worse, as the Continental's suspension was strained to its limit.

Through it all, Howard continued to laugh, even when he hit his head against the roof, and bit his tongue hard enough to send blood dribbling down his chin in thin, glistening tendrils.

The vehicle broke free of the pack as the last few animals scattered out of the way. Howard looked into the rear view mirror, fearing the animals would regroup and follow him. In his mind's eye, he could see the creatures relentlessly pursuing him, tracking him across the desert, chasing him until he ran out of gas. Then they would enact their revenge for their pack-mates, and tear him apart on the road, spreading parts of him in all directions in a savage fury.

What he saw in the mirror, however, told a different story. Behind him, the pack of Thylacines surged and boiled. The creatures formed a tight, swarming mass on the asphalt, pushing against each other as those on the outer edges of the pack jostled for positions closer to the center. Those in the middle were merely blurs as they fought each other; they shook their heads with savage ferocity as they tore at the bodies of those who had been run down. A crimson mist of blood and gore sprayed into the air around them. The highway had become the scene of a feeding frenzy, the bodies of the fallen reduced to nothing more than meat to their former compatriots.

"Bon appetite, you mangy pieces of shit," Howard croaked, his voice now almost shattered from strain. His larynx felt like it was full of broken glass, and it hurt even to draw breath. He swallowed, and was rewarded with sharp, stabbing pains.

Howard was grateful to feel the hurt, grateful he could still feel anything at all; he knew he just as easily be laying helpless back in the road, as the animals tore with glee into his quivering carcass, his last sensations those of teeth ripping him apart. When put into that perspective, a little throat pain was a small price to pay. He was alive, and that was all that mattered.

That, and getting off this damned mountain.

The ravenous animals fell quickly behind him; within only a few moments, they disappeared as the road turned to follow the contours of the mesa, blocking them from his sight. Nothing followed him.

He looked back often, always with the expectation he would see a yellow and black wave chasing him, but the pack did not reappear. He knew the animals had the advantage of speed on the twisting, turning highway. They were better suited to the environment, and more, they were on their home ground; they would have no trouble catching up with him if the pack decided to follow him after it finished its meal. It would be easy enough to outrace them on the open road, but here on the mountain, he would be vulnerable until the highway straightened again.

It was rough going; the adrenaline pumping through his system made even the simplest tasks, such as pressing the accelerator, or the turning of the steering wheel, into a painstaking operation. Howard's body had lost all traces of fine motor skill, and he had to struggle to keep the Lincoln in the lane.

Every movement required his full concentration; he felt like a novice driver again, rather than a veteran motorist who had driven across the country more times than he could remember. He felt wired to the extreme, as if he had overdosed on caffeine. A headache was beginning to form behind his eyes and in his temples, and his stomach felt cramped and nauseous. Muscles in his gut, his arms, his legs, twitched in rhythmic spasms. His fingers kept wanting to cramp. His death-grip on the wheel caused pain to run from his palms up into his arms, but he could not will himself to relax even for a second; the creatures could return at any moment.

After nearly losing control of the Lincoln on a particularly sharp turn, he decided to drive in the center of the road. In his present state, the possibility he would overpower the wheel on one of the many sharp curves and send the car off the pavement and into the rocks, or worse, off one of the many cliffs bordering the highway, were much too great for him to drive normally. This effect would last for hours, and even when it began to fade, Howard questioned whether he would ever truly be able to relax again.

The image of the baby in the mouth of the Tasmanian tiger kept returning to invade his imagination. He did his best to shut it out, but it kept coming back, the vision of the struggling infant, the malignant intelligence in the eyes of the beast carrying it, haunted him like a restless spirit. He would manage to distract himself for a short time, but it would slowly creep back to dominate his mind, along with the image of the Volvo sitting amid a sea of carnage.

_Why?_ His mind was alive with the images of the blood-soaked highway, the torn clothes and tangled mass of hair. _Why did they not just kill the baby too?_

The question made him uneasy, and the answer was not something he wanted to know, but it came to him almost immediately.

They had pups. Those animals had a litter out there somewhere, and their young had to feed.

Howard's already pallid face became even paler at this realization, and what little spit remained in his mouth tasted like acid. His windpipe wanted to close; he had to struggle for every breath. He felt like he was going to faint, throw up, or both. It took all his will to keep his eyelids open, and his gorge where it belonged.

_I can't afford any of this shit; it's do or die_. _Those hairy fuckers could still be after my ass. I can vomit later, if need be, but right now, there's work to be done._

Somehow, Howard managed to keep from both puking and passing out, even though both sensations returned each time he remembered the wrecked Volvo. He thought of networking protocols, configuration settings for the computers that controlled his simulation rides, even wrote code in his head, anything to keep the images from invading his brain. Even so, the look in the creature's eyes, and on the face of the infant it had been carrying, refused to leave his mind.

As he continued his slow descent down the side of the mountain, the image kept coming to him again and again, the baby struggling in the grip of the creature's jaws, the monsters strange, cat-like eyes looking into his with a dark and feral intensity, the way it seemed to smile at him, as if to say, _'a little tidbit for the litter back home, unlike you, big guy. You're an all-you-can-eat buffet, and me and my pack can't wait to have you for dinner.'_

His mental picture was only the half of it; the other half was knowing the baby, the son or daughter of the Volvo's driver and his wife, would never be able to understand the how and why of its own death, knowing only one moment it was safe and happy, the next it was alone and in pain.

Then, it would feel nothing at all.

The thought jabbed its way into his brain like a spear. He had seen many accidents in his time on the road, from minor fender-benders to multi-car pile-ups, and everything in between. Many of these had involved injuries, and some had even resulted in fatalities. On several occasions, he had witnessed these events at close range, but for Howard Langford, these had always been someone else's problem, the concern of some faceless other person. They were like the pictures he saw of crime and natural disaster victims in distant parts of the world, anonymous and unknown. They did not concern him; they were just things that happened.

It was not that he did not care; no one deserved that kind of tragedy in their lives, but like most people, he only had time to deal with his own problems. There was only so much that he could deal with at any given time; the rest of the world would have to deal with its own share. He would see these on the news, and would realize whatever had happened had already taken place, and could not be changed.

When it came to the baby, however, it was a different story. There was no rationalizing its fate, no matter how hard he tried, and he did try, telling himself the baby might not be the one from the Volvo, that it might have come from somewhere else, or that it was an illusion, a trick of the light, but this was bullshit, and he knew it.

It was not a phantasm; it had all been real. The child had done nothing to deserve such an end, had done nothing to bring such a thing upon itself, could not have done anything to defend itself even if it understood what was happening. It drove the unfairness of existence home in a way no amount of second hand, after-the-fact experience or philosophizing ever could. It did not matter if you were an innocent babe, or a wealthy, self-absorbed man nearing middle age; life could end for anyone in a sudden, violent event, at any place, at any time.

Howard wrestled with both paranoia and guilt as he continued his downward trek. He could not help but feel he should have done something, anything, to help the infant in its plight. He could not, of course; he was an intelligent man, but he could think of nothing he could have done to save the infant. Even so, the guilt weighed on his conscience like a stone, even after he reached the desert floor, and put the mountain, with its pack of man-eating marsupials, behind him.

Still wired hours after his encounter, Howard could not wait to bring the Lincoln up to speed once again, and put distance between it and the mesa as fast as he could.

As the needle on his speedometer increased, he heard a whistling sound behind him as air rushed into the hole torn into the side by the Thylacines. The sight of the opening made him nervous; it reminded him how fragile the vehicle could be, and how the thin skin of metal and glass covering her was the only thing standing between him and a potentially nasty death.

Without the protection of the Lincoln, he would not survive for long. As large as the Continental was, even with all the steel and wire and glass used in her construction, she was still a fragile machine, requiring steady maintenance to keep her in running condition. Besides fuel, she needed oil and coolant, as well as transmission and power steering fluids, to keep her systems operating; if any of these failed, she would die, and if she died, then he would die as well.

The shock of his predicament kept slamming home in his mind. _How? How can any of this be happening? How can I possibly even be here? I'm driving through a place that can't exist, yet it does._

More, he was driving for his life. The Continental was his only hope for survival. There were so many things that could go wrong, so many things that could leave him stranded in this nightmarish world.

It could be worse, though, he realized. He could be driving a more modern car, one that was more fiberglass or plastic than steel, or even worse, a convertible, neither of which would have survived the attack of the Tasmanian Tigers.

He glanced at his gas gauge, which he had almost forgotten since the animal's ambush, and saw the needle had barely moved since the last time he had checked. Again, he did not know whether he should be grateful for this, or worried. He had driven much more than the normal range of the vehicle; if the gauge was to blame, he figured he would have run out of fuel already.

After a few moments consideration, he decided perhaps it was not wise to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying went. Whatever the reason, he was grateful, and prayed it would last him until he found a way back home.

The highway began to descend into a canyon, and Howard's unease intensified. He detested the notion of being vulnerable to another ambush, but he had no choice; he had to go wherever the highway led him.

He gritted his teeth, determined to be more vigilant in the future. He continued to drive straddling the broken white line that divided the lanes. He would never have considered driving in such a fashion in his own world, but it was not like he had to worry about other traffic; besides the Volvo, his was the only car on the road, and he didn't feel that would change any time soon, if ever.

Memories of the ruined Volvo station wagon, and its surrounding carnage, forced its way into his thoughts again, bringing with it all the dread and fear he felt earlier, the reminders of the finality of death, so dramatically encapsulated within that one scene. Life could end in a blink of an eye, with no warning, extinguished like a flame of a blown out match. It meant everything, and nothing, was both the most fragile and the strongest force in the universe simultaneously.

Howard was not a philosopher; concepts such as these were normally beyond his ken, and their sheer enormity left him feeling frightened and very small in the scheme of things. He knew if he dwelt upon such subjects for too long, he would surely go mad.

He drove on, a lone traveler in a harsh and forbidding landscape, as these and harsher implications crowded his mind. He was left to wrestle with these demons alone as the Lincoln took him deeper into the canyon that split the desert plain, and as the angry purple clouds, full of menace, drew ever closer.

CHAPTER SIX

When he was a boy, Howard had been an ardent reader, with a particular affinity for classic works of science fiction and pulp adventure. While other children his age were reading nothing more complex than a comic book, he was immersed in the stories of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Robert E. Howard and Tolkien.

The worlds these authors created were compelling and rich, filled with colorful, larger-than-life characters, heart-racing suspense, and exotic landscapes, some very similar to the one he now observed through the windows.

His father, despite being impressed by Howard's intelligence, was less than pleased by his son's flights of fancy. He scorned Howard's love of fantasy; to Carl Langford, such tales were another excuse for his son to 'keep his head in the clouds'.

Anything that distracted from the harsh realities of day-to-day life was nothing but a nuisance. His wife would sometimes remind her husband that Howard was just a child, but he always reminded her the poorhouses and welfare lines were full of dreamers, and then the discussion would end, with Howard slinking away to find a quiet place to enjoy his books without condemnation. His father would never fail to warn him of the dangers of allowing himself to be carried away by fables. "One day," he would say, "you'll regret you wasted your life away in those stupid stories, mark my words."

Perhaps his father had been right.

What if it was even worse than he realized? What if he had suffered some sort of psychotic break? What if he wasn't driving at all, but merely suffering some sort of ongoing hallucination? It would certainly explain why his gas gauge had barely moved, despite the great distance he had traveled. Maybe he wasn't really moving at all, but was merely sitting on the side of the road, as his imagination unrolled a make-believe landscape around him.

Howard found the notion strangely attractive; he preferred the idea of a mental breakdown rather than some unexplainable event that somehow brought him to another world. The former could be cured through therapy and medication; the other—not so easily.

Regardless of whether the world around him was real, or a product of a deranged mind, his course of action remained unchanged; he would continue to drive until he either found a way back home, or came up with a more reasonable solution.

It was the only thing he could do, the only thing that made any kind of sense to him.

As the Lincoln climbed out of the canyon, the thoughts that plagued him earlier continued to gnaw at his nerves like a starving dog set upon a bone. He fought them as best he could, but it continued to be a losing battle; he would no sooner clear his mind than the memories would come flooding back. The struggling baby, the giant eyes, the Thylacine ambush, the ruined Volvo, all of these memories and more would rematerialize out of the darkness of his mind, threatening to consume both his attention and his resolve.

He sat hunched over the wheel, mumbling, his words muffled and thick from his wounded tongue. He ignored the cramps that flared in his legs and stomach, ignored the drying urine stain on the crotch of his slacks, his aching head. He did not have the energy to deal with such things; only the road ahead held any meaning for him, the road, and the desert that stretched away from him in every direction.

Muscle spasms attacked his limbs, and his arms ached as he struggled to keep the Continental from drifting. The cruise control allowed Howard to move and stretch his legs, but despite the luxurious amount of space offered by the interior of the large automobile, he was allowed only a limited amount of room to flex his calves and thighs.

He stretched as best as he could, wincing as his spinal vertebrae popped, and massaged his thighs often, but these remedies afforded only a temporary respite. All too soon, his muscles would begin to twitch and cramp again.

It took time for the shock of the Thylacine attack to wear off, for the effects of the adrenaline to leave his system, and when it did, it left him feeling empty, both physically and emotionally. Exhaustion, hunger, and thirst replaced the hyper-alertness caused by the hormones released by his sympathetic nervous system, and Howard dealt with each of these as best he could. He ate sparingly, taking measured bites of one of the Snickers bars, with alternating swallows of Pepsi. The carbonated beverage tasted like warm syrup, but the caffeine and sugar helped energize him. None of the edible items assembled on the passenger seat had much nutritional value, but they would keep him alive, and that was all that mattered.

Although a far cry from the swordfish steak he had enjoyed in Vegas, he relished the taste of the candy bar as much as any fine cuisine. He had always enjoyed food, but his appreciation for the act had never been deeper. The simple fact he was still alive, and thus could enjoy the simple act of eating, affected him on a deep and profound level; every bite he took of the candy drove home this fact, and he found the taste of the chocolate and peanuts to be as rich and satisfying as the best filet mignon.

Any relief provided by his scant rations was short-lived, however, a fact Howard learned in short order. The emptiness in his stomach quickly returned; it grew into a void that felt as vast and deep as interstellar space, and his meager meal vanished into it as if it had never existed. He had to struggle not to consume every edible item in the car in one sitting. It was not an easy task for man whose idea of self-restraint was deciding against a third helping of dessert; his mind kept turning back to the need for nourishment, and soon his eyes would follow.

Several times, he would be on be on the brink of giving in, and reach toward the small pile of snacks before he managed to regain control of his hunger. His stomach was not used to being denied in such a fashion, and made its dissatisfaction clear; it complained frequently with loud gurgles and growls, while doing its best to imitate a black hole.

It felt to him like his organs were slowly being drawn up into an ever-growing cavity inside him. Howard resisted this sensation for as long as he could, but at last he relented, and the rest of the Twizzlers disappeared into the growing vacuum of his stomach in the same manner as the candy bar.

Pace yourself. You have to pace yourself. You have to make what you have last as long as you can, unless you like the idea of starving to death.

This would be easier said than done; he had never been able to deal with hunger well. In his youth, when acceptance by his peers had meant everything, he had tried to diet many times, and all had ended with failure, most after the first day, some by the time of his next meal. The insults, the jibes from his classmates, the disapproving looks he got from his father and teachers, had all proved easier to endure than that gnawing feeling in his gut, that sensation of emptiness. To Howard, it felt like dying.

He wondered if he could really stay in his car once he exhausted his food supply. Until the ambush by the Thylacine pack, starving to death had been high on his list of unpleasant ways to die, and though being eaten alive by the dog-things now vied for that position, Howard realized he might have to reconsider his opinion on the matter. Neither option was pleasant, but at least the Devil Dogs would be quick.

Howard pushed the thought away; it would do him no good to dwell on such things. He needed to stay as focused and alert as possible. He checked his instrument panel; the fuel indicator had edged a bit closer to the three-quarter mark, but not by much. He was relieved to see there were no warning lights.

He had been lucky; he remembered his frantic, panicked drive through the pack of man-eating marsupials, and shivered. What if the radiator had been damaged? He imagined the Continental overheating on the desert plain as the Thylacines circled it in an ever-closing ring. What if the fuel line was punctured, or the tires? The answer was one he already knew; he would end up like those in the Volvo station wagon, with nothing left of him but blood and matted hair.

_Good girl_. _You've never let me down yet._

Yes, the old girl had come through for him, but he could not risk such a hasty maneuver a second time; the pack had exacted too heavy a toll. The front end was nearly gone, the hood dented, the fenders crumpled. The windshield was shattered and buckled for nearly half its length, limiting his field of vision. The front wheels had lost their alignment, making the steering wheel thrum in his hands. The grille was gone, and though he could not see it, he knew the front bumper had become badly twisted, perhaps even torn away completely, in his mad dash to escape.

He wished he could see the full extent of the damage, even though what little he could see drove a thorn through his heart, but he did not need to see the front end to know it could not take such a beating a second time; another collision would certainly be enough to finish her. Even a flat tire could mean the end for him; his spare had been used to replace the flat he suffered earlier, and there was no Triple-A to come to his rescue.

Try as he might, Howard could not push the image of being dragged from the Lincoln and pulled apart by ravenous animals from his mind. It played in his imagination with dreadful clarity, every detail rendered in full Technicolor, complete with Sensurround sound. All it would take was one of a hundred possibilities: punctures to the tires, hoses, fuel or brake lines, radiator damage, leaking transmission fluid, distributor or alternator failure, fouled spark plugs. The list went on. In order to survive, he would have to drive through the harshest landscape he could imagine, while also keeping wear and tear to the Lincoln to a minimum.

This did nothing to improve his spirits.

The world passing by outside the windows, as strange as it was, could not distract him from his inner voice, or his stomach, or his bladder. During the next several hours, he drank the last of his Yoo-Hoos, consumed two of the remaining Slim Jims, and relieved himself into the empty bottle without leaving the confines of the Continental.

Those actions dulled the ache in both his guts and his loins, and this in turn calmed his nerves, and gave him a slim measure of confidence. For the first time since the start of this strange adventure, he felt like he might yet come through it without loss of life or limb. The Continental still purred like a contented kitten, despite her marred exterior, and seemed to relish the long stretches of open highway.

It was just another challenge, and though the exterior details were vastly different, the dangers more physical, more direct, than in his own world, they were at their heart not any more complicated than anything he had already faced. He had escaped the bondage of his controlling, demeaning father, had not only defied his expectations in terms of ability and ambition, but had gone on to forge his own niche in a highly specialized field. He had fended off bullies, defeated corporate sharks, and rose above his competition in an unforgiving profession. So what if he was reduced to peeing in bottles?

He could take it; he could handle that, and much more. He wouldn't allow this world to take him without a fight. Others had believed him an easy target, and on every occasion he had proven them wrong. Many of them had been made to regret it. He had survived because he had never given up, and he would not begin now.

As the vast expanses of the desert continued to unfold beyond the windshield, Howard tried to work his way through some of the questions that had been bothering him while he was still calm enough to think. If he had indeed somehow been transported to an alternate dimension, or another world, why then was there a highway running through it? What was something so normal, so human, doing in such an alien place? How had it come to be there? Where was it taking him?

Howard did not know which of these questions were the most important, nor did he have any answers, no matter how long and hard he contemplated them. Try as he might, he could not imagine a road crew, out in the middle of such a vast emptiness, laying asphalt. It was absurd.

Ahead, the two lanes of the impossible highway wound its way into a range of small mountains. Howard felt his anxiety return as he drew closer to them, and the sensation intensified as the asphalt wove its way around first one peak, than another, until it became a stabbing pain in his chest. This persisted long after he cleared the range, though he saw no signs of life as he wound his way across the plain.

These mountains were composed of a different type of rock than he had seen earlier; those that housed the pack had been a dark yellow, with a texture like granite, while those he now passed through were dark blue in color, and possessed a glass-like, volcanic quality to them similar to obsidian. Great pillars had fallen away from their sides to shatter on the plain, and they reminded Howard of icebergs, giant icebergs of blue glass floating in an ocean of yellow sand.

Beyond the mountains, the landscape began to change again. The blue, volcanic rock was much more plentiful. The yellow sand and boulders gave way to a gently rippling plain of what looked like dried mud or sediment, with large cracks and grooves crossing its surface, as if something large had crawled through the mud before it hardened. In many places, the rocks had a crumbly, almost fuzzy appearance, and after some time, it occurred to Howard he was looking at the remains of dead coral. There were huge mounds of it, some almost as large as the mountains.

His earlier theory was correct; he was indeed driving across a dried sea bed.

He gaped at the mounds in wonder, and tried to fathom the scale of time, the force necessary to dry an ocean. In the distance, huge expanses of plain glistened in the sunlight as the glow of the hidden sun reflected from huge salt deposits. The vision of these left him stunned by their sheer size and majesty, the crystalline flats, stretching for miles into the distance, possessed a stark beauty that overwhelmed his senses.

The land rose and fell in long, undulating waves. His weight seemed to lessen in the troughs of these waves, and increase again on the crests. He remembered enjoying this sensation as a child; it had given him a slight rush, like the hills of a roller coaster. Here, it only did nasty things to his near-empty stomach, and he was forced to reduce his speed, lest he vomit.

At the top of one of the ridges, Howard saw something new. Beginning at the base of the wave he was now starting to descend, and continuing beside the highway for at least a quarter mile or more, were a series of curving white structures, rising at even intervals out of the dried mud.

As he got nearer, he realized that here was the long, winding skeleton of some gigantic creature, long dead. The curving structures were ribs, buried in the sediment, the spine collapsed along its length, broken by its own weight. The bones ran parallel to the highway, and the curving ribs, easily forty feet high, flashed by like an enormous picket fence; alternating bands of light and shadow washed over the Lincoln, causing spots to form in his vision. It made the fossils of the largest dinosaurs seem minute by comparison. What kind of creature could grow to such a size? How long had it been there?

Howard found he really did not want to know the answers.

An arc of bone, half-buried in the hardened sediment, passed by his window, the remains of a giant flipper, several times the length of the Lincoln. Some eighty feet beyond lay the skull, an enormous, sloping thing of peculiar angles and huge, needle-like teeth twice the height of a man.

There was something about the shape of the skull that reminded Howard of the deep-sea angler fish he had seen pictured in books, all jaws and teeth, with strange, waving protuberances that glowed with their own phosphorescence as a means to attract prey. As Howard drove past the gaping eye socket, he could see it was easily large enough for him to drive through. The idea of a living creature with eyes that large was disturbing.

Howard turned his weary gaze back to the ribbon of asphalt that rolled in gentle waves before him. His eyes seemed heavier, as if they had gained weight in his skull with the passage of time. He rubbed at them with hands numb from their constant grip on the wheel. He flexed his fingers, and wondered how long he had been awake.

Looking at the clock, he could not remember what it had read when he checked it last. He could no longer remember the day, or the date. Dark clouds continued to obscure the sun; Howard could not even gauge the length of the day; he felt completely disconnected from time. Was the sky slightly darker? Was it nearing dusk, or was it only his imagination?

The rocks around him were soon almost completely replaced by winding reefs of dead coral that stretched to the horizon. Jagged spikes of bone littered the spaces between the spires and mounds of these reefs, sticking up from the hardened sediment where the remains of whatever creatures that swam this sea had come to rest. It was easy to get lost in the vastness of the plain, the endless waves of long-dried mud and eroded seamounts now exposed to the desert heat.

Then, as he crested another rise, Howard observed a large, tubular shape embedded in the hardened silt. The shape quickly disappeared as the Lincoln descended into another trough, but upon the next crest, he was afforded a much better view. It appeared to be a giant species of worm. The thing resembled a cross between an earthworm, and the tomato worms that often frequented his Aunt Bessie's garden, but appeared to be hundreds of feet in length. The creature lay in one of the grooves that crossed the plain of dried mud, between the ribbons of dead coral reef, and he realized they were caused by the weight of these creatures as they traveled across what was once a wet seabed.

In the distance, the vague shapes of other worms twisted among spires of desiccated coral, caught in similar channels as the mud and sand hardened, leaving them to desiccate in the harsh sunlight.

The sight captured his attention so thoroughly that he was completely caught by surprise when he collided with the thing blocking the road.

He had been looking out the window, looking at the dried hulk of one the creatures as it passed by, when he crested a rise to find one of the great worms stretched across both lanes of the highway.

There was no room to swerve; mounds of coral sprang on both sides of the asphalt, obscuring any sign of danger until it was too late. He did not even have time to apply the brakes, not that it would have helped; at fifty miles an hour, he simply would have skidded into the thing blocking the road, or perhaps into one of the mounds of dead coral on either side. He could only tighten his hands on the steering wheel, and gasp in surprise before the Continental struck the curving wall of the worm, sixty feet high, that rose before him.

The front end of the Lincoln struck the side of the worm, and punched through it with little more than a slight shudder. The mottled gray skin had the consistency of thin paper-maché, and Howard screamed, even though he barely felt the impact at all. The vehicle lurched as the wheels rode up on the interior of the worm's hide, and passed into the creature's body, which was completely desiccated; the interior of the worm had been composed almost entirely of liquid, and had dried away. The worm's skin was thin enough that light was able to filter through, and as he shot through the long-dead creature's innards, Howard was given the impression he was driving crossways through a tunnel; he was given a glimpse of walls curving up to meet high overhead, supported by a thicker, wrinkled strip, likely the monster worm's spinal cord, stretching off into darkness in either direction.

Within the space of only a few seconds, the Lincoln punched through the opposite wall in a cloud of dust and dried flesh, and was deposited back onto the pavement with nothing more than a sharp jolt. Only then did Howard react, bringing the Continental to a squealing stop, forming long streaks of rubber on either side of the highway's broken centerline.

Howard's mental transmission felt locked in Neutral; he sat there for almost a full minute, shaking and gasping for air, before he realized he was unharmed. Then he blinked, and looked around slowly in disbelief of his good fortune. Other than a coating of dust, the Lincoln did not appear to have sustained any further damage; no warning lights blinked, and the engine purred quietly under her hood as if waiting patiently for her owner.

"Holy crap!" Howard exclaimed, his voice shaking. He gave a small, nervous laugh. "Did that just happen?" He looked himself over, checking for injuries, but found none. "Holy crap," he repeated. He shivered with the realization that for the second time in one day, he had confronted what appeared to be certain death, and survived.

"At least you didn't piss yourself this time," he said aloud.

He put his foot back on the accelerator and drove away, leaving a small cloud of dust behind him.

It took some time before Howard calmed to the point where he could think rationally. At first, he tried not to think at all, beyond the mechanics of negotiating the Continental along the highway. Driving was the one thing that had always relaxed him, was his only means of escape from the stresses of his profession, and he drew upon that now in order to relieve the anxiety produced by his latest narrow escape.

He set the cruise control for thirty-five, pushed his seat back as far as he could and still reach the wheel comfortably, and tried not to think about the terrors he had faced since entering this realm of the bizarre. He concentrated only on navigating the highway, and watching for potential road hazards. He had allowed himself to become distracted, and had almost paid the ultimate price. Vigilance was called for now, vigilance and caution, and he would answer that call with grim determination, and whatever will he could muster.

Howard did not know if such a course of action would have the same results, given his current location, but concentrating on the road ahead did give him something to occupy his time. He spotted several more of the giant worms, but encountered no more obstacles, and slowly began to relax into the routine of driving again.

His mind cleared, became more focused as the white noise of fear retreated. He could think of his most recent brush with death without his heart beginning to race, or his chest threatening to constrict, and this was vital; without a clear head, he was an accident waiting to happen.

He wondered if perhaps an accident would have been a preferable alternative to his current circumstances. He would have been cared for in that event, at least; he was too valuable an asset for his company not to give him the best health care services money could buy. Les Tanner would spare no expense in that regard, nor would he stop searching for his employer should he not return.

Had that process already begun? This would depend on how long he had been gone. If Tanner had tried to contact him and failed, he would first try to locate his employer by using the GPS tracker in Howard's phone. This would fail, of course; his phone was lying where Howard had tossed it, back in the Prismatic Forest. After twenty-four hours, he would alert every law enforcement agency along his employer's route. He would check every accident report, every hospital, and every morgue, in his quest to find his boss. Howard had chosen his people well; they would not rest until he was found.

If there was anything to find, that is.

This last was not a pleasant notion, but it helped to know he was capable of thinking in an ordered fashion again. He knew it would be best if he approached his situation as if it were a particularly difficult piece of computer code, one line at a time. He used this method whenever he was looking for bugs, and it had proven quite effective; they stood out to him, places where the code broke down, where functions did not work as intended, like a neon sign.

Here, the sign pointed to the matter of the highway, and the worm lying across its lanes. The seabed looked ancient, as if it had dried long ago, yet the highway, which appeared as if it were laid down yesterday, ran under the desiccated creature.

So which was older? Logic would dictate the highway had to have been paved after the seabed dried away, so how had the huge worm lived to cross it? The sign was there, flashing in his mind, a sign that read _'something is wrong with this picture'_ , but the answer continued to elude him.

_Maybe the seabed isn't always dry_.

Maybe the entire ocean or sea dried up, only to be periodically replaced. Perhaps it is part of a natural cycle, one the indigenous life had somehow adapted, as regular as the seasons. He could imagine such a thing, huge expanses of water vaporizing, only to be replenished by torrential storms, rains which would soften the dried seabed and awaken eggs and larvae buried within the mud, allowing them to hatch. Of course, any land-dwelling creatures caught in such a deluge would meet certain doom, and would likely stay on higher ground, as was the case with the Tasmanian Tigers.

Howard did not care much for this hypothesis; it threatened the stability he had worked so hard to regain. Fortunately for his nerves, however, Howard was able to dismiss this theory; if the highway was subject to flooding, it would almost certainly be subject to sedimentary floes, which would result in the pavement being covered in dried mud. The highway was pristine, and unless there was some otherworldly street sweeper prowling this world, such a scenario was unlikely.

Howard glanced at the sky, and his expression became grim. The clouds he had spied in the distance earlier were now directly over the Lincoln; they had closed the distance sometime between his encounter with the worm, and his subsequent struggle to regain his composure.

He searched for traces of the green lightning that had accompanied the clouds, and though he saw nothing, the clouds above him were now more ominous; they darkened the sky, writhing as if in pain, and only served to reawaken his anxiety.

_This can't be good_.

As if in response to his thoughts, the clouds above him uttered a low rumble, the sound of distant thunder. A moment later, the sound repeated, this time closer, and much louder. He could hear another sound now as well, a faint, constant noise, like static on the television, or the sound of bacon frying, or perhaps a waterfall heard from a long distance away.

It was the unmistakable sound of rain.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The sound reminded Howard of long ago Saturday mornings, when he would sit, huddled in a quilt, with a box of Fig Newtons, and watch television while Mother Nature beat her spring rhythms on the Langford roof. The susurration of falling rain had been a pleasant childhood experience, but now, on this dry, sun-baked seabed, it was a very bad omen, especially for a large land-dwelling mammal trapped inside a metal box.

This could actually be very bad.

Another burst of thunder split the air. The clouds overhead seemed to shatter at the sound; the vibrations from the collapsing air made Howard's teeth chatter, and caused several small pieces of glass from the broken side of the windshield to shake free, and fall to the seat and floor.

The noise echoed through the clouds, rippled and seemed to gain new life as it moved through the boiling masses of dark vapor. A single drop of water spattered on the windshield, and the splash it created was roughly the size of a tea saucer. Another struck the hood of the Lincoln with a bang, and Howard saw the drop of water was the size of a billiard ball.

This could be very, very bad.

Behind him, the angry dark of the clouds extended to the horizon, and along it, Howard could see a curtain of water streaming from them down to the dried seabed. Even at that distance, he could tell it was moving toward him. Tremendous, raging sheets of water, composed of massive raindrops and driven with the force and fury of a hurricane, were drowning the land, turning the endless plains into a wash of gigantic proportions.

More drops slammed onto the highway ahead of him, turning into fountains of spray with the force of their impact, leaving dark stains on the asphalt. The sound of the rain was getting louder now, and Howard could see the storm front clearly in his rear view mirror, a black wall of water moving relentlessly forward, swallowing the land as it moved. Ahead of him, the line of sky that provided the only light receded as the storm advanced.

Drive. Now.

Howard gripped the wheel with a newfound determination and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The cruise control disengaged as the carburetor opened up, and the Continental began to gain speed with an almost imperceptible shift of its transmission.

The speedometer climbed from thirty-five, to sixty, and then to eighty miles an hour. The vastness of the landscape made it impossible for Howard to judge the scale of the storm. It threw off his sense of perspective, but he guessed the curtain of water to be at least fifty miles behind him.

He could not tell how quickly it was moving, but it was coming toward him at a fair clip. He did not know if he could outrun it, but that was just what he planned on doing, and if he was lucky, he would be able to reach high ground before the storm caught up with him. Far in the distance, he could see what might have been a coastline rising above the plain. Reaching this was likely his only chance; he knew he would not survive if the storm overtook him on the seabed.

The speedometer topped eighty-five as the Lincoln roared over the crest of another hill. The front end seemed to float in space for a moment as it topped each rise, before coming down hard enough to strain the Continental's suspension; the changes in gravity made Howard feel seasick.

The front of the storm stretched away to the horizon on both sides behind him; the purple clouds reached down to cover the entire seabed with its dark caress. Besides the first few windswept drops, Howard did not see any more rain in front of him; by acting fast, he had so far managed to escape the full brunt of the storm. He could only hope, as the Lincoln seesawed along, mile after grueling mile, that he had acted quickly enough.

Howard knew it could not last, however; the clouds were gaining on him. The storm front, driven by hurricane-force winds, became more distinct behind him.

As the Continental raced along the parched seabed, along the hills and gullies of the steadily rising ocean floor, and the highway wound its way among ancient coral formations, the clouds continued to close the distance between them and Howard, bringing with them a seething wall of water and wind. Thousands upon thousands of fist-sized drops hammered the dried plain with relentless force, a dark, moving curtain of destruction hundreds, if not thousands, of miles wide.

The wall of water had already closed the distance between itself and the Lincoln by half. Howard was afraid to let the Continental go any faster; the highway was not straight or level enough for him to drive at full speed without losing control. He could hear the wind increasing in force, could feel it buffet the car as it sped along. He knew it was just a matter of time until the main brunt of the gale caught up to him.

The Lincoln soared over another rise, and then sank into a long turn as the highway curved around a wall of house-sized spikes of stone. The tires squealed in protest as Howard struggled to keep the vehicle on the asphalt. Howard could almost feel the black wall of water closing on him; his instincts screamed for him to drive faster, faster, but he resisted the urge; an accident at this speed would be as fatal as getting caught in the storm.

The Lincoln shot over the next rise, and his stomach took another of those empty, sagging lurches that made him want to vomit.

_The storm had to come along now_. _It just had to come now, just as I happened to be cruising along a damn seabed. It could have happened any time, before of after, but no, it picked this one time to rain. What are the odds of that, boys and girls?_

Given more information, it was probable Howard could have figured out the odds in his head, but as it was, he was left to wonder. Just what were the odds? How often did such an event occur? Once every ten thousand years? A couple of times a millennium? Every decade?

Regardless of frequency, he found it very strange that the storm had begun no sooner than he had postulated its existence, as if it had somehow chosen that exact moment to unleash itself upon the landscape, and the traveler speeding across the seabed. Was it coincidence, or was it something more?

If he had not been busy dealing with the more pressing matter of staying alive for another ten minutes, he would have examined that question in greater depth. He made a promise to address that question in more detail later—if he survived.

As he topped the next rise, the highest yet in an unbroken chain that had lasted nearly an hour, Howard could see the storm front reflected in the driver's side and rear view mirrors. The rushing wall of water had again halved the distance between them, and was getting closer by the minute. The mirrors were filled with the image of the highway and the clouds; he could see no trace of the sky.

He was running out of time.

As he raced down the far side of the ridge, the clouds disappeared from the Lincoln's rear view mirror, to be replaced by the hill rising behind it. Howard kept his eyes on the road as he went over the crest; he had no wish to be caught by surprise again. He knew the next thing lying in the road would likely not have the crepe-paper resistance of the desiccated worm. Luck had been with him on that occasion, and he did not expect to have that level of good fortune twice. Everything about his surroundings told him such things were extremely rare.

Howard wished again for one good smooth stretch of highway, and wondered if he would indeed reach the mainland before the sea basin started to fill. If he could get inland by any appreciable distance, he might escape the full force of the storm. On his home world, hurricanes usually began to run out of steam once they made landfall. He could only hope storms in this world behaved in like fashion.

Up and down, up and down; it was like riding the longest roller coaster in the history of mankind. His stomach churned, his teeth kept clicking together, and he bit his tongue again on one particularly sharp downgrade. Still, the clouds continued grow closer with each passing minute.

Up. Down. Up. Down. From his viewpoint, the storm was a great, churning wall of black cloud, so low to the ground that it appeared to be rolling across the surface of the seabed. He could not discern any details, but it appeared as if there was something moving inside that great, moving wall of wind and rain, something that made the front of the storm look like some solid, living thing.

Fuck me.

The Lincoln performed another trampoline motion as it sped over another summit, and he got another glance at the storm through his mirrors. Realization washed over him like a bucket of ice water.

_It's a tidal wave, held up by the force of the storm._ _There's a goddamned tidal wave back there, and it's coming right for me_.

The storm was close enough now for Howard to see the great wall of water in the distance behind him, towering over all but the tallest of the peaks jutting from the dried sea floor. He could also see a line of dark funnel clouds advancing before this wall, a line of evenly spaced tornados. These churned up the ground into a swirling mass of dust and flying debris. The sight of it took his breath away; he emptied his lungs in a rush.

_The mother of all storms is behind me_. _I am so screwed!_

Howard pressed the accelerator harder as the car put another hill behind him, and the speedometer needle climbed past ninety. The worry in him was very great now, and it was hard not to watch the scene revealed in the mirrors.

The great wall of water was only ten miles behind him, maybe even less.

He grimaced with the effort it took to keep from vomiting, both from the fear, and the constant motion of the Lincoln. He did not know how much longer he could keep the meager contents of his stomach where it belonged.

A shiver ran through him every time the Continental descended the side of a ridge, followed by a nauseating, pulling sensation as it crossed the trough, and then another moment of freefall as she crested another summit. Saliva ran hot in his mouth, like acid, and it took all his will to keep his gorge down.

The next slope was much higher than the previous ones, and Howard knew it would be his undoing; he would surely lose whatever remained of his last meal.

As the Lincoln sped up the steep incline, he tried to prepare his insides for the moment, but as she crested the top, he was due for another surprise. The hill behind him was the last in the chain. Beyond this point, the highway descended for the last time, before stretching out in a long, gradual incline toward the unmistakable shape of a sea wall, the edge of the shoreline. Howard felt a small glimmer of hope. Ahead, the highway rose in a gradual slope until it disappeared over the apex, perhaps some twenty miles distant.

"Come on baby, you can do it," he said in a near whisper to the engine humming under the hood, as he added more pressure to the accelerator pedal. "You can do it; just buy me a little more time."

The hum became a deep, liquid purr as he pushed the speedometer to the hundred miles per hour mark and beyond. The Continental shot down the far side of the last hill, and as it began to climb the final incline, the needle read just over one hundred ten miles per hour. He had never pushed her this hard before, had never driven this fast in his life. He regretted having to put such stress on her engine, but he had no other choice, not if he wanted to survive long enough to ever see his home again.

Howard began to feel as if he might actually make it, and then the storm came raging over the last hill.

He happened to be looking in the rear view mirror when it happened, and the vision reflected in the glass caused shivers to run through the length of his body. He pressed his right foot all the way to the floor, and the throaty purr of the engine deepened as the speedometer needle traveled to the far right extreme, where it could go no further. Howard did not see this, could not look at the mirrors with its impossible image of wind and water; he had eyes only for the road, and the shoreline that beckoned like a lover from only a short distance away.

Wind buffeted the Lincoln, did its best to tear the steering wheel from his hands. Behind him, the line of advancing tornados tore loose boulders the size of small houses, and carried them up into the clouds to hurl them down again across the ancient sea floor. Rain tore holes in the cracked floor of the plain like machine gun bullets. The giant wave of water behind the storm front raced across the seabed, crashing over the mountains of coral in an unimaginable torrent. Great slabs of stone and crumbled away at the onslaught, only to be swallowed by the great, moving wall of water and wind.

Somewhere in the distance behind him, lightning flashed, followed by booming thunder that reverberated inside the Lincoln's interior as if it were a drum. Howard raced before the barricade, his eyes focused only upon the coastline, his foot pressing the accelerator firmly to the floor.

The steering wheel squirmed in his hands like a trapped animal trying to escape his grasp. He was not used to feeling such a sensation of speed; driving sixty miles an hour normally felt like he was traveling no faster than thirty. Even on those rare occasions when he took her to seventy on the expressway, the ride had been smooth and comfortable. The landscape would float by at a pace that belied her speed, as if slowed somehow by her presence. Now, the terrain to either side of him flew by at a blur, and his body sank deep into the upholstery as he raced up the steady incline toward the shore.

Behind him, the storm raced on, slamming into the plain with a force he could feel; a deep vibration, different than that of the engine, ran up through the tires, and through the interior into the leather of the seats.

With every passing second, he drew closer to his goal. He had already traveled more than two thirds of the distance from the last hill to the edge of the mainland. The rear view mirror reflected only darkness. Angry gusts of wind pulled at the rear of the Lincoln, and the constantly changing air pressure began to play havoc with Howard's eardrums. The sky lit with fire, and the Lincoln shivered with the thunder that followed. Sweat beaded on his brow, and ran into his eyes in salty streams.

The storm was almost upon him now. Thunder crashed around him, the sound almost lost in the growing roar of the storm. The shockwaves produced by the storm penetrated him to the core; they vibrated through his body, made his stomach clench, and his teeth knock together. A wide, dark band of funnel clouds raced before the black wall of water like a wet, writhing shadow, tearing the ground apart as it advanced with relentless speed.

Howard knew it would not be long before it overtook him. He dared not look into the mirrors; he knew the image reflected there would steal his resolve, and send him over the brink into panic. His heart hammered in his chest, and he wondered, briefly, how close he was to having a coronary attack.

Time seemed to slow; each heartbeat spanned ages as he raced the storm toward the mainland. The scenery to either side was nothing but a darkened blur in his peripheral vision. His gorge tried to rise, and he swallowed, forcing it down again.

"Almost there, baby," he said to the Lincoln, as if he were speaking to a living thing, rather than to a machine composed of metal and rubber, glass and plastic. "I know you can do it. Just hold together for me. Get us to the mainland. Just a little farther. I have faith in you, baby. I know you can do it."

The air in the car was sharp with the scent of his fear. His stomach twisted at the smell of it, but he did not care; survival was his only concern. He bore his concentration on the highway, on the vehicle that surrounded him, and willed it to go faster. "You've never let me down, baby, ever," he said. "You got me through that pack of devil dogs, and you can get me through this. I know you can. I just know it."

The mainland drew closer, resolved into the eroded line of the continental shelf, stretching away into the distance to the left and right of the highway. Howard could make out details in the rock now, could see the bulges of reefs, and marks where the tides had eroded them. He looked again at the point where the highway joined the shoreline. It was so very close now. The engine continued to sing its vibrant song from under the hood, as if to reassure its owner not to lose hope.

There was less than a mile to go.

Howard glanced into the mirror, and saw nothing but a dark blur. He risked a quick glance behind him, and the image there imprinted itself not only upon his retinas, but upon his mind as well. Time and distance lost all meaning in the spectacle behind him; all sense of scale, all sense of reason, were swept away in the swirling darkness that stretched as far as he could see in either direction.

As a boy, he had watched video recordings of the Mount St. Helen's eruption in school, and he had never forgotten the scenes of the great cloud racing down the mountain as the top of the peak exploded. Mesmerized, he had tried to comprehend the magnitude of such an event. He had wondered what it was like for the victims of such a natural disaster, for them to watch helpless as death raced toward them. He had pondered this, and failed; his young mind could not grasp the true scope, the reality of such a thing.

He could grasp it now; the overpowering sense of awe he had felt when he was younger came back to him in that single glance. The wall of clouds and wind behind him now made the eruption of May 18, 1980, look like the flare of a fresh-lit match by comparison.

The seething barrier of water, the driving rain, appeared to cut the world in twain as it moved. A line of writhing black tornados advanced before the rain like a line of heralds announcing the Apocalypse; they tore and gnashed at the rocky plain like the fingers of some evil god. Deep green flashes glowed from within the darkness as lightning bit through the clouds; the bolts arced from within the seething vapor to the tornados, forming a net of green fire.

Behind this, seen only as dark shadow within the swirling chaos, a massive tidal wave raced forward, locked within the storm. Torrents of wind rocked the Lincoln, threatening to toss her from the road. Air blew in through the hole made earlier during the ambush by the Tasmanian tigers in hard, wet gusts to soak the rear seat. Freezing cold water drenched his hair, his shirt. It ran down his spine in icy rivulets, caused his muscles to clench and drive the air from his lungs. Howard gritted his teeth in a fiendish grin, and willed his baby to go faster.

As the Lincoln crested the summit of the last incline, all four tires left the asphalt, before coming down once more upon the highway with a thud. The frame groaned as they made contact, and the tires squealed as the rubber regained its grip upon the road. Howard grunted in pain as the vehicle touched down, and the impact caused him to bite his tongue yet again. The taste of copper flooded his mouth, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

The dark horror of the storm continued to close the distance, and was now less than two miles behind him.

The Continental raced along at almost one hundred twenty miles an hour, its engine growling from under the hood like a lioness protecting her cubs. Howard's mind was focused only on escape; reaching the mainland did not mean he had escaped the storm. The appearance of the tempest that pursued him was not coincidence; it had a will, and a purpose. He was certain of this, and was determined to do everything in his power to defeat that purpose. He would continue to race it until the end.

The Continental shot over the asphalt like a dirty green bullet. Howard gripped the steering wheel so tight the casing creaked with the pressure, his knuckles white. His face was grim with determination, his mind filled with nothing but static, and the will to survive.

Moments later, a sound rose, so loud it filled the world. It swallowed the growl of the Lincoln's engine, swallowed even the static in his mind; it was the sound of worlds colliding, of the land being torn asunder. The storm had reached the coastline, and the sound was of the tidal wave crashing into the mainland.

Howard saw it happen. He chanced to glance into the rear view mirror at the moment the storm struck the coast. Jet-black water, in a wall towering hundreds of feet high, engulfed the entire shoreline. It curled over, and crashed down onto the land in a tremendous rush of foam, pulled onto the shore and driven into fury by the line of tornados advancing before it.

The twisters, unlike the tidal wave, were not affected by the changing elevation of the land. Great chunks of rock broke away from the coast, only to be swept up into the darkness. The landscape blurred under the force of the impact.

Behind him, the world had been consumed; the highway ceased to exist behind the storm front.

And it was still coming.

A wave of hail washed over the Lincoln, mixed with the large drops of rain, and the metal body rang in the rhythm of its passing. One of the taillights shattered as it was struck by a chunk of ice the size of a fist. It felt to Howard as if the vehicle were being shook to pieces. The windshield buckled inward along its broken half, and new cracks spread out on the remaining glass.

The wave of hail passed over him to punish the land with its wet and frozen fury as it had pummeled the Continental. Even moving at full speed, the wave of ice and water passed him almost as if he were standing still. Howard had known from the beginning that it would be impossible to fully outrun the storm, but he had hoped against hope he might somehow escape its fury. That hope was gone now, however, washed away in a racing wall of wind and ice and rain.

The storm had caught him.

The land dropped away from under the Lincoln without warning, as if a huge hand of air had grabbed the vehicle from its place on the road, and lifted it with no more difficulty than a child picking up a toy. To either side of him, whirling funnel clouds the size of a city block writhed as if possessed. Howard felt his stomach drop away as the land fell beneath him. He wanted to scream, but his vocal cords were paralyzed with fear; he was reduced to holding onto the steering wheel with all his strength as he waited for the end, unable to vocalize his terror.

Lifted from the highway, the Continental was flung upwards into the storm.

The vehicle pitched and rocked, caught in the grip of the winds; it plunged to and fro like some insane carnival ride. Caught between two of the tornados, the Lincoln continued to gain altitude, the air between the two great funnel clouds acting as a vacuum cleaner would to a scrap of paper. Rain blew in through the hole in the rear side in a numbing spray.

Howard could not shut his eyes. Even as the Lincoln was lifted and flung about, though it threatened to flip end over end at any moment, he could not stop the vision unfolding before him. The Continental was spun around to face the full horror of the storm, but still Howard's eyes remained open, locked into position, as if his eyelids had become paralyzed.

During his youth, and even into adulthood, Howard had often wondered, while he lay alone in the dark waiting for sleep, what it was to look into the final darkness of oblivion. He tried, on those many empty nights, to imagine what it was like for those who were about to die, those who saw their end coming but were helpless to do anything about it. What did they feel? What did they see?

As he contemplated this, laying there in the darkness, as his mind tried vainly to grasp the true finality of death, his heart would race faster and faster as he tackled the concept of an eternity of non-being. In the end, he had always failed; he had always fallen short of any true realization, had always jumped off the train before it made its last stop.

But now, as the Lincoln shot over the ground, sixty feet in the air and moving backwards at over one hundred fifty miles an hour, he felt as if he knew the true answer. As the actual moment of death neared, time began to slow; each moment was illuminated in brilliant detail, with an eternity to fear the coming end. Then, at the precise moment of death, time stopped, with the soul trapped forever in the moment of its mortal passing. For those unfortunates who knew death was coming for them, it was the worst of all, for they were trapped, forced to stare at their own death for all time.

A brilliant flash of green fire brought Howard back to himself as a bolt of lightning arced past the Lincoln to disappear into the wall of water following the tornados. Before the image of this could fade from his retinas, something shot out of the water at the spot where the lightning had struck. He was given a glimpse of a form, incredibly huge, writhing and white, terminating in a cavern of teeth, and then it was gone, sucked back into the great face of the storm by the wind.

The Lincoln rocked and spun, and the last traces of reason left him; he was reduced to a staring hulk as the vehicle spun first one way, and then the other. He barely registered the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when the Lincoln dropped twenty feet before being caught once more by the air currents. The Continental's nose rose toward the sky, stood on its tail for a moment, and his mind became clear and calm in the midst of the chaos and the numbness.

S _o this is what it feels like to die._

Time slowed. All of Howard's fear drained away; he felt no emotion, as if someone had pulled a plug, and disconnected the emotional centers of his brain. He did not wish to die, did not accept his fate, but he would not spend his final moments in blind panic, and for this, he was grateful. He would pass in peace, and that was all anyone could really hope for in the end.

The front end of the Continental dropped down, and in a series of three sharp, heart-skipping dipping motions, much like the hills of a roller coaster, the vehicle came down onto the highway again at slightly more than thirty miles an hour as the tornados dissipated with nothing more than a whisper.

Howard had long since taken his foot from the accelerator, and now pressed the brake pedal. The long back end swerved a bit as she touched down, but he corrected the skid instinctively, spinning the wheel to bring the Lincoln back on course.

Within a few moments, he brought the automobile to a gentle stop on the side of a hill two miles from the point where the wheels regained contact with the road.

It was over.

The Lincoln sat idling in the center of the alien highway, the light rain dripping from its battered surface the only remnant of the storm's former fury. Inside the car, Howard sat very still, his head tilted slightly to one side as he stared out the windshield, his face devoid of expression. He sat that way for a very long time, without moving, his hands limp on his ample thighs

The rain beaded and ran in crooked streams upon the windshield, casting strange, twisting shadows throughout the Lincoln's interior, and making it appear to ripple. Drops continued to blow through the hole in the side of the top, and dripped through the cracks on the broken side of the windshield, wetting the upholstery and cellophane wrappers on the seat in an uneven rhythm.

Howard blinked several times, shook his head, and looked around with the expression of someone coming out of a hypnotic trance. He looked at the instrument panel on the dashboard, and saw the gearshift lever was set to the 'Park' position, though he could not remember moving it there. The dashboard had no warning lights, and there were no unusual noises coming from the engine.

He reached down, turned on the headlights, and was surprised to see beams of light from both sides of the wide front end. The passenger side windshield wiper was missing, but the driver's side seemed to work just fine. It left a slight smear on the glass, but functioned well enough for him to see the road.

Shifting the Lincoln into Drive, Howard continued up the hill. Raindrops, stained red by the remaining taillight, swirled like bloody fireflies behind the automobile as it disappeared into the rainy night.

He was alive. Somehow, he was still alive.

CHAPTER EIGHT

###

You should be dead.

It was his first coherent thought in the time since he had escaped the storm, and Howard did his best to ignore it. He coasted through the rainy twilight, watching as the lone windshield wiper skittered across the ruined glass. The sound it made as it passed back and forth made him cringe.

He had spent a good amount of time, not to mention money, on restoring and customizing the Lincoln, on keeping her running in near-perfect working order, and the noise of the wiper was a reminder of how much she had suffered. He tried to tell himself this was the only reason he felt on edge, tried to rationalize his taut nerves, focus on something he could fathom, but his mind kept coming back to one simple truth: he had escaped the storm, an escape that by all logic and reason, should not have been possible.

You should be dead.

However he tried to distract himself from that fact, it kept echoing in his mind. He did not know how long he had driven before he was able to think in a normal fashion again.

After the car had touched down on the highway, he had been in shock; he had felt detached, disconnected from himself and his surroundings. With his mind temporarily on hold, his instincts had taken over, and he had followed the highway as if on autopilot.

It was only later, when his heart resumed a more or less normal pace, and his synapses began to reconnect, that the questions began, bringing with them their own share of doubt and anxiety. His mind insisted on bringing up all the things he really did not want to think about. How, exactly, had he managed to survive? How, after being caught in a storm of such unbelievable proportions, had he simply been dropped back onto the road, with hardly more than a bump on the head and a bitten tongue to show for it?

There was also the question of timing, of the storm appearing not just while he was crossing the seabed, but at the exact moment he was thinking about the very possibility of such a thing. There were implications there that he didn't like, not one bit. He could not forget the cold, alien voice coming from his cell phone, telling him there were things he needed to see, that it controlled everything on this strange world.

The storm hit you right when you were thinking about it. You were allowed to live on purpose.

No, that can't be true. It just can't.

But it is; how else can you explain it? The voice on the phone, the Devil's Advocate, said as much.

Stop it; that's ridiculous.

Is it more ridiculous than finding yourself on another world? More ridiculous than living an Edgar Rice Burroughs story brought to life?

He tried concentrate on the task before him, but they would not be denied. If the Devil's Advocate was really powerful enough to summon the storm, if it were powerful enough to tease him with his own death in such a fashion, then what chance did he really have?

It was luck. Luck, coincidence, or some freak side effect of the skewed physics that control this world, this dimension, or place, or whatever the hell it is.

That's bullshit, and you know it. No one has luck like that; it doesn't exist. It had to be something else.

Perhaps the fear would have overpowered him then, taken control of his ability to reason, had not a sharp pain in his bladder kick-started his brain in an entirely new direction.

He had denied that particular organ for far too long, and it would be denied no longer; it signaled its rebellion in the form of a cramp which stabbed through the welling fear in a single piercing cry which ran from his groin upward through his intestines and into his chest. Another cramp followed; it shot through his testicles and up his spine. His bladder felt like it was full of nails.

He searched the surrounding area, suspicious of hidden threats, as he brought the Lincoln to a gentle stop. The rain was now little more than a heavy mist, but the sky was darker. The wiper did little more than smear the windshield, and Howard stared out into a world of shadows and darkness, full of twisted shapes, half-seen through the smudged glass. The headlights revealed only more asphalt; the misty rain turned everything else into shadow.

Since the storm, Howard had seen no sign of animal life, living or otherwise, but this did not alleviate his fears in the least; he knew there were animals out there, animals and worse, things with giant glowing eyes, for instance. He would not want to be caught in the open. Even in the car, he would need to be careful, alert for any sign of movement.

His bladder sent a bolt of pain through his mid-section, breaking him out of his reverie. He searched among the refuse on the passenger side floorboards, and found two plastic bottles from his rapidly shrinking store of rations. He grabbed these by the necks, sat up, and moved the driver's seat as far back as it would go, grateful for the ease in pressure the movement afforded.

The relief was short lived, however, for his bladder seemed to sense his intent, and intensified its urgency in response. Howard felt like he was going to explode. Not since he was a child had the need to urinate been so overwhelming, so painfully intense. There had been one other time when he felt as he did now, but it was an unpleasant memory, and he pushed it away before it could fully form, as he always did; thinking about the past would do nothing to help his present.

Howard was fastidious in his bathroom habits, and was far from pleased at having to relieve himself in his car, but it was the safest way for him to accomplish the task. When he was done, he capped the bottle, and placed it onto the floorboard on the passenger side. He briefly considered throwing it out the window, but his instincts told him leaving any kind of trail was a bad idea; something could use it to track him.

He looked out of the window, and watched as the rain ran in small streamers along the glass, glad to be rid of the pressure in his bladder. Sitting there, he became aware of a sound from outside the automobile, one familiar to him from summer nights in his own world: the chirping of crickets. Howard smiled. The sound reminded him of happier times, of nights spent chasing fireflies, of laying in the grass and staring up into the vast, star-filled sky amid the smells of freshly mown lawns and honeysuckle.

Listening to the peaceful chirping of insects, Howard could not help but be struck by how the rain had seemed to breathe life back into this world. He wondered if this was indeed a good thing, as all the creatures he had encountered so far had done their best to make him their next meal. Some had almost succeeded. It made him wonder how the ecology worked in a place such as this. There had to be many more inhabitants than he had seen; where there were predators, there had to be prey.

_Maybe YOU'RE the prey_. _Maybe enough people are transported here to feed whatever predators roam this world._

Howard dismissed the idea; it sounded ridiculous. His sensibilities might have been somewhat skewed by his present situation, but he knew people did not just pop into another dimension—much less travel to another world—every day. He thought whatever had happened to him, had to be as rare as it was strange.

At least, he hoped this was true. There were close to seven billion people on Earth; who knew how many of them just up and disappeared every year?

Howard looked out into the darkened landscape, his being overtaken by apprehension, but saw nothing to justify his fears. The land remained still but for the gently falling rain, and the sound of crickets.

The scenery had become green again; the surrounding land appeared very similar to that of his home world. Had the landscape appeared on a calendar, it would look like Maine in the summer, perhaps, or possibly Oregon, or Washington State, all rolling green hills and rocky shoreline.

What the picture would not show, however, was the danger lurking behind every shadow, the fear lying just beyond view, haunting every crevice, hiding and waiting behind every twist and turn. It would not show the packs of man-eating Thylacines that prowled within its borders, or display the creatures with the glowing headlight eyes, or colossal storms capable of sucking a large automobile into its maw. It may have looked peaceful, but Howard was not fooled; it was dangerous, and he knew it all too well.

It was strange, that he had accepted the idea of somehow being transported to another dimension, or world, so easily, despite all he had seen. He was a logical man, and not prone to flights of fancy, unlike when he was younger.

Actually, considering everything he had been through recently, it was a wonder he was still in possession of all his marbles. He had been through a great deal in a very short time; his beliefs and perceptions were being challenged in ways he never could have imagined. He was trapped in a hostile world with little food or water, and limited fuel, without the slightest idea how he had gotten here or how he would get back. These would have been enough to push almost anyone over the edge, which meant he was handling things pretty admirably.

Right now, however, he needed to clean himself up. He could deal with a lot; had dealt with more stress in the short time he had been here than he had at any other time in his life, but he did not know if he could deal with having urine on his hands for one more minute; he needed some small measure of sanity, some tiny bit of normality, in his life, and right now that meant being able to clean his hands. It was a little thing, but he would be damned if he would give it up.

Howard packed in a light, but efficient, manner when he traveled on the road. On a typical trip, he carried one bag for clothes, and a travel case for toiletries. These were his only luggage, unless there was equipment that was too sensitive or important for him to trust to subordinates. These items were essentials; like an American Express Card, he never left home without them. Normally, he carried these items in the trunk of his car, but on his last stop in Ohio, Howard had put the travel bag in the back seat instead. There would be hand towels in the bag, as well as anti-bacterial wipes.

Things were looking up.

He turned around in his seat, taking care not to bump anything vital with his legs, and bent over the top of the seat to look for the case. The bags were no longer on the seat; they had bounced around the interior during his several encounters with near-death.

Looking down, he saw something on the floorboard, and his gorge began to rise. Sitting next to the case was the severed head of one of the Thylacines, its fur clotted with black blood, the blank eyes staring up at him. As he watched, the orb closest to the floorboard began to swell; it bulged from the socket, and then burst like an overripe fruit left in the sun. Yellow and black fluid sprayed from the socket to stain the floor and the rear of the passenger seat.

Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye...

The words to the classic Beatle's tune played through his head, as if it were tuned to some kind of internal radio. A trail of gore led away from the jagged hole that had been the rear opera window to where the thing had finally come to rest. Howard observed this with a blank expression, his mind numb, the need to clean his hands temporarily suspended.

_There's no way in hell I'm cleaning that_ _up—koo kooka choo, my ass._

Spotting the case, he reached down and grabbed the handle. It was an act that took some small measure of courage. As he did, the hair from the back of the creature's severed head brushed his hand, and he jerked it back with a surprised cry. He knew the creature was dead, that it could no longer hurt him, but its power to repulse and terrorize him was undiminished. The head stared at him, daring him to come near. Howard could see shards of glass sticking from its muzzle and gums. The animal's lips had been shorn away in places, exposing double rows of teeth. Howard grimaced; the thing had chewed its way through a window to get at him, and as far as he was concerned, it got what it deserved.

_That is one Devil-dog that will never fuck with Howard Langford again_. _Damn straight._

Howard pulled the case over the back of the seat, and set it next to him. He debated for a moment about the grisly relic lying in the rear of the car. He would have to get rid of it eventually; it would begin to stink soon. He could smell it already, a dark oily odor like drying piss at the bottom of an old trash bin. He did not want it to get any worse, but he could not bring himself to touch it, not now, perhaps not ever.

Howard pulled the zipper of the dark leather bag, and lifted the top open. The case was compact, but there was room for a number of essential items. The bottom compartment held his shaving and bath articles. Shampoo, aftershave, cologne, soap and a washcloth shared space with a hand towel, a tube of toothpaste, and his hairbrush. Packed into the top portion were his razor, trimming scissors, nail clippers, toothbrush, comb, and dental floss.

Along with these items, Howard had added a package of antacid tablets, a traveler's size bottle of Pepto-Bismol, a small bottle of aspirin, a small container of anti-bacterial towelettes, another of baby-wipes, and, secreted within a pocket on the top, a Sucrets tin containing four codeine tablets he had stashed in the event of an emergency, saved after an impacted wisdom tooth he suffered during last year's convention.

Howard used the towelettes to clean his hands, and dried the rain from his face and hair with the towel from the bag. This mundane, ritualistic task made him feel calmer, more assured. The world may have become strange, stranger than he ever could have imagined, but he could still clean his hands. All was not yet lost.

He closed the case, and wiped it clean of the water stains and the smudges of gore it had picked up during its bumpy journey in the back seat with a paper napkin. With this task complete, he tossed the wadded paper onto the floorboard, where it joined the bottles he had used to relieve himself. The cleaning of the case, although a simple chore, gave him a sense of accomplishment. It was a little thing, but it helped him restore a small amount of calm. Even trapped on some other world, he still had some measure of control over his life.

This action helped stabilize him emotionally, but did nothing to help the feeling of despair that lurked on the edges of his consciousness, or provide relief from the physical stresses he had undergone. His eyes felt hot and scratchy; cramps racked his thighs and calves. Burning sensations ran along his legs and up his spine in a painful chorus. His ass felt completely numb. Turning around in the seat had been the most exercise he had been allowed since his last stop in the real world, back in a time that felt like an age ago. His brain felt full of cotton; exhaustion had taken a heavy toll on him, and he wondered if he was becoming delusional. He could no longer remember when he had slept or eaten last.

His stomach sent a wave of nausea through his insides, accompanied by a loud gurgling noise from deep inside his belly. He no sooner looked at the small collection of snacks lying on the seat, when another piercing pain ravaged his insides. He tried to resist, even as he reached for the food, even though he knew he would likely do the opposite.

Howard did the best he could to restrain himself, but in the end, he was left with only half a bottle of water, a small handful of potato chips, and half a Snickers bar. Saving even this small amount was more difficult than he could have imagined; as soon as he took his first bite, his hunger revealed itself in all its voracious glory.

At first, it was as if eating merely increased his appetite, rather than relieve it. It took but minutes for him to consume most of his food reserves. He had to put his hands on the steering wheel in order to keep from devouring what little remained. He sat there, staring out into the rain, until he was certain he could resist the urge to eat the rest. He counted to a hundred, but it wasn't enough; his eyes wandered back to the food, so he counted again.

He had counted to eighty-five for the third time when he noticed a strange phosphorescence amid the dark, rain-blurred landscape. It was dusk now, and his range of sight was dwindling at a rapid pace. This caused him no small amount of unease; knowing what was out there was bad, but not being able to see what was out there was a big load of worse.

Strange, glowing points of light pulsed in the distance like multi-colored fireflies. Howard narrowed his eyes, and peered into the dark, trying to fathom their nature. The lights appeared to move slowly out in the darkness, and as he watched, more appeared in the distance. He discovered he really did not care about the moving lights; he did not really want to know what they were as much as he wanted to be moving again, away from the lights, regardless of what they might be.

He turned to shift the Lincoln into Drive when the first of the glowing objects drifted through the path of the headlights. The thing passed in front of him at a distance, just at the edge of the beam flooding from the front of the automobile, looking like a large, floating jellyfish. Its glowing surface undulated in a steady rhythm. A mass of glowing tentacles trailed from beneath the main canopy; they floated away from the body in a rippling mass.

_Wonderful_. _More additions to the freak show._

Every living thing he had seen in this world had tried to kill him, and there was no reason to think these creatures would be any different. He reached for the gearshift, curious as to the mechanism that allowed the creatures to defy gravity. His hand closed on the gearshift just as there was a loud, wet, smacking sound near his head, the type of sound a wet towel would make if thrown against the car window.

Howard turned his head, and was startled to see one of the jellyfish things plastered to the driver's side window. He could see the skin of the strange creature was almost transparent. Glowing blobs that were likely the creature's organs illuminated its body from within. It was stuck to the glass with a viscous fluid, and trails of the stuff remained on the window as the creature moved over the glass.

Fascinated, Howard reached up with his left hand and placed it palm first against the pane. The glass under his hand felt warm, and grew uncomfortably hot within moments. He pulled his hand away, but could still feel the heat on his palm. Outside the car, smoke or steam began to rise from where the jellyfish thing's slime contacted the glass.

_Okay,_ _looks like it is time for me to leave._

He pulled the gearshift into Drive, and brought the Continental up to a cruising speed of thirty-five. There were more of them now; they floated through the rain, hovering lanterns of green and pink and neon blue. He glanced at the glowing blob still attached to the window, and wondered if the creature's slime was powerful enough to eat through the glass. He was tempted to drive faster, hoping to dislodge the thing, but common sense told him doing so, in the rain, and at night was unwise. Also, he did not want to hit any of the things if he could avoid it. He certainly did not want to lose control of the Lincoln on the wet asphalt; any sharp turn at speed could be fatal.

He glanced again at the window, but no sooner did he divert his attention from the road before the heavy vehicle collided with one of the floating jellyfish. The creature exploded over the front corner of the automobile. Most of it spun away into the dark, but a good amount stuck to the fender and hood, as if it were a balloon filled with Vaseline. In the reflected light, Howard could see the paint bubbling where it came into contact with its flesh.

"Hold together for me, baby," he said to the Lincoln. "You're a tough old girl."

The Continental was indeed tough, but Howard knew it was reasonable to assume the designers and builders in Detroit had not been thinking about terrain that included packs of mutant Thylacines or physics-defying jellyfish filled with corrosive slime at the time of her creation.

Another jellyfish thing, this one pulsing orange and a deep, electric blue, came into range of the headlights, and Howard was forced to swerve. The tires slid across the pavement, and Howard had to fight for control of the automobile as the rear end fishtailed. The slickness of the asphalt, if it was indeed asphalt, caught him by surprise. His heartbeat seemed suspended in his chest as he fought to keep the car on the road.

He managed to keep the car on the pavement; the years he had spent behind her wheel had put him in touch with her every nuance, to the point where she became an extension of his body whenever he got in the driver's seat, but even so, it was not easy.

Once he was back on course, and his heart resumed its normal rhythm, he lowered his speed, and kept on the lookout for more of the jellyfish. The one that had attached itself to the window was gone; it had been thrown from its perch by the force of the skid, but a cloudy, etched area remained where the creature's slime had contacted the glass. He could still see through the window, but a milky haze blurred the glass.

Around him, the air was aglow with floating blobs of light, like fireflies on a summer evening. Many drifted through the air alone, but others clung together in groups. Some danced around each other in a slow-motion ballet. They came in all shapes and colors, with no apparent pattern to their distribution. Some trailed long, glowing tentacles, while others were bell-shaped, with a fringe of waving cilia. The only thing they seemed to have in common, was they all appeared to move away from the Continental's headlights; they changed direction immediately whenever the beams found them. This made avoiding them easier, but he could not relax. He was forced to drive in a slow, uneven slalom among the floating creatures, a painstaking process that left him gritting his teeth until his jaw ached.

In his youth, Howard would have found the idea of bizarre, floating creatures fascinating, perhaps even beautiful, but any possible interest he may have had was lost on him; they were just more hazards to be avoided, just another obstacle between him and the end of his journey, and hopefully, the return to his own world.

It was a notion he clung to, an ending he hoped beyond hope would happen sooner rather than later; he was out of food, nearly out of water, and his ass was one big, aching mass. Exhaustion and stress had pushed him to the brink. If he did not find a way back soon, it was likely he would go insane.

Unless you suffered some kind of psychotic break, and are already crazy.

Howard believed he had dismissed the notion that all this was happening in his head, concluded everything happening around him was too real to be a dream, or the product of psychosis, but how could he know? How could he know for certain he was not lying in a hospital bed somewhere, deep in coma, riding through the worst nightmare his traumatized brain could produce? Those scenarios were no less plausible than actually driving into another dimension, and were, in a way, even more frightening; his brain made him who he was, and the possibility he may have lost his mind troubled him more than any amount of floating jellyfish or marauding Thylacines ever could.

No. It had to be more than that _._ There was something more directed at work here, something evil, that could not be explained by mere insanity or hallucination. Besides, he didn't think he was Christ, or think the CIA was controlling his mind. He could still write computer code in his head. He could still entertain the possibility of insanity, which, by definition, should mean he was sane, shouldn't it?

In all other respects, he was still the same Howard Langford, the Great Kahuna of Consumer Electronics, poster child of the Good Life. He had never heard of any type of delusion that could change his perceptions of the world to such a degree, while leaving his other mental processes intact. He was the same now as he was yesterday, and the day before that.

The scope of his problem was giving him a headache. Too much of it did not make any sense, and much of it violated all he had come to know and believe to be possible. He squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head in an attempt to clear his head. When he opened them again, he saw a group of the bell-shaped jellyfish floating in his path.

He pulled the wheel to the left, crossing into the left lane to avoid them, but he could not avoid them all. One of the creatures struck the upper right corner of the Lincoln's roof where it met the windshield. There came a thick, splattering sound, a muffled thump, and a spray of pink phosphorescence as it exploded. Its remains stuck to the glass and the shredded vinyl top like tar. Howard cursed at the sound.

He had to restrain the desire to drive into as many of the floating oddities as he could. His sensibilities had been insulted, and his anger at the world now around him was near the boiling point. If the creature's corrosive qualities had not been so well demonstrated, he might have followed through with the impulse.

A moment later, Howard cursed again as a small hole appeared in his windshield. The glass, shattered by his earlier encounter with the Thylacine, was no match for the corrosive fluids of the jellyfish. There was a tinkling sound as a chunk of safety glass fell into the interior of the Lincoln to land in the sea of debris that occupied the passenger side floorboards. It left a hole in the windshield the size of Howard's fist. Water sprayed into the vehicle in a fine mist, to condense on the passenger side door. It ran down the window on that side, and moistened the back of the seat. Hissing droplets formed on the edges of the hole before dripping on the dashboard, the seat, the floorboard.

Howard had wrapped the last few remaining bits of food in a plastic bag, and now he drew the bundle closer to him, his eyes on the opening in the glass. The small bundle of food was more precious to him now than all his worldly possessions combined, save for the vehicle that so far had protected him from this world's deadly elements.

Food. His stomach rumbled, deep and cavernous. He would have gladly traded his credit cards for a pizza at that moment. It could even be cold, and it would still be worth the price. His stomach grumbled again in response. He could almost taste the cheese.

But that was not going to happen, and he was not doing his appetite any good by torturing himself in such a manner. Things were as they were, and he had to deal with it. He could not afford such distractions, just as he could not allow his meager rations to be ruined by a little rain. Discipline could mean the difference between life and death. He brought his attention back to the road, and allowed the craving for food to drift away.

From the corner of his eye, Howard saw something move, something that was not a jellyfish. He could not tell what it had been, could not tell if it had really been there at all. His vision was getting worse as fatigue took its toll, and his eyes were blurring more often. He did not look in the rear view mirror to know his eyes were bloodshot and beginning to take a glazed, puffy look; he could feel it.

At first, he was convinced the movement was nothing more than a trick of the light or of his own tired mind, but then he saw it again a moment later, a flash of motion among the rocks. He was given little time to wonder before his unspoken question was answered. An animal that resembled an overgrown hedgehog ran alongside the road ahead of the Lincoln, and then ran across the asphalt. Howard slowed the car; he didn't want to hit the creature, and possibly send the Continental into another skid. He half-expected the animal to turn and attack him.

As he drew closer, he could see his fears were groundless; the animal that stood to gaze back into his headlights did not look dangerous in the least. Indeed, it looked almost comical, with a long, thick body, oddly shaped limbs, and eyes that were disproportionately large for its face, like that of a lemur.

The creature looked as if some mad scientist had attached the head of one animal to the body of another. It stood by the side of the road, bathed in the Lincoln's high beams, staring into the light with rapt fascination. It was a look Howard had seen many times before, in the eyes of deer when they strayed into the road, of raccoons and skunks and opossums as they went about their nightly forages, and ventured closer to the deadly bands of asphalt than were good for them.

Howard slowed the Lincoln even more, in case the animal decided to run in front of the vehicle at the last moment. He could see the headlights reflected as points of light in its large, round eyes.

Just as the Continental approached the captivated creature, there was a flash of phosphorescence as a jellyfish-thing dropped down upon the animal from just outside his range of vision. It alighted on the hapless creature just as it came out of its dazed state. The animal's response was immediate, and left no doubt as to the effects of coming into contact with the glowing blobs.

It began to scream in high, warbling screeches as it first tried to run, then fell rolling and thrashing onto the ground. It disappeared from view as the car drew alongside, and Howard was thankful he did not see more.

After he passed the animal, however, he felt compelled to look into the rear view mirror, perhaps to confirm what he already knew, perhaps to satisfy the primitive urge to know, to see. The image reflected there showed the animal had already stopped moving.

Howard felt queasy for some time afterwards. He brought the vehicle up to forty miles an hour, and concentrated once again on the road before him. He wished he had never looked into the mirror. He tried not to wonder how many of those things it would take to melt their way into the Lincoln, and failed. At least the Tasmanian Tigers were decent enough to stop being a threat if he happened to hit one of them enough to kill it; the jellyfish-things could still melt their way through a windshield even after it was dead.

This was not a pleasant idea. It reminded him of a scene from one of his favorite sci-fi films, _Fantastic Voyage_ , when the villain, played by Donald Pleasence, is attacked and absorbed by a white corpuscle during the final scenes. The film had left Howard spellbound as a child, but now, he felt no fascination or wonder, only a sad, sick feeling, a mixture of dread and pity, deep in the pit of his stomach. Now, the curtain between imagination and reality had been torn asunder, and being absorbed by some huge floating blob was not something that was confined to books or movies, but was something that could happen to anything stupid enough to be caught out in the rain.

Howard felt another surge of anger, for the helpless creature being devoured behind him, and at the jellyfish thing, but that was only part of it. Mostly, he felt anger at the unfairness of everything around him, at a world that was unjust in every way he knew. Everything about this place was strange, and fundamentally wrong. More, it was _unnatural_. That was the word for it: unnatural.

_Of course it's unnatural_. _You're driving along the Twilight Zone Expressway. What did you expect, fuzzy bunnies and cute little elves?_

In a way, fuzzy bunnies and cute little elves would have been even more frightening, for it would have confirmed to him that his cheese truly had fallen off his cracker, and against real insanity, he would have no defense. Seeing bunnies and elves would have been proof everything around him was fantasy, nothing but a warped hallucination. Worse, it would mean he could no longer trust his own judgment; even his own mind would be suspect. Fear, anger, disgust; he had experienced these things before, and he could handle feeling them again. But he knew insanity was the one thing he couldn't handle.

It was much better for him to be seeing Tasmanian Tigers and floating jellyfish, things he knew he could never have dreamed up in his wildest nightmares. Common sense and logic had taken a back seat to the improbable and bizarre, and the world he drove through now contradicted almost everything he believed about the nature of reality, but it was better than the alternative. Even if some type of external force was manipulating the world in which he now travelled, it was better than being at the mercy of internal ones. At least he had some clue on how to fight the external kind.

The downside to this was obvious; he wouldn't wake up, in his own bed or anywhere else. Everything around him was real. He could not wish it away, or ignore it. He had to face whatever happened to him head on, if he wanted to survive. There was simply no other way.

Howard wished more than anything that this wasn't true. At the moment, he would have given anything to be able to collapse into a nice, warm bed for eighteen hours or so, and a good meal when he woke up, back where there were no man-eating Thylacines, and the jellyfish stayed in the water where they belonged, to just be able to come around the next bend to find a Super 8 Motel waiting for him. If only this were all the product of an exhausted mind; if only he could somehow make this all go away.

"All the wanting in the world isn't going to make it happen." His mother's words spoke to him now as they had so many times in the past, a catchphrase of his upbringing, as it had been in hers. "Shit in one hand, wish in the other, and see which one comes true first." It was his father's voice echoing in his head now, the words dour, fatalistic, and most likely a reflection of the elder Langford's own childhood. The voices were alive in his memory; they spoke to him, the pictures of those times still vivid in his mind.

With these memories came the old feelings that went with them, a feeling of having his dreams murdered, of deep anger and humiliation that had fueled a slow, burning determination. They were old emotions, ones that ran deep.

Howard had not felt those feelings for years. Success had gone a long way to silence those voices, and build a wall against the feelings that went with them. He had found he could exorcise even the most malignant of his childhood demons if he threw enough money at it, and Howard had done so until the voices of his parents, his sense of ineffectuality and humiliation, his anxieties, had quieted. They were never completely mute, to be sure, but they were quiet enough.

In this land, however, with nothing to distract him from his memories but the hostile landscape and a strip of asphalt, he was at the mercy of his past, and the emotions it carried with it. They returned with a vengeance, and Howard responded to these memories as he did then, with the old, dark anger of his youth, which made him forget his itchy, puffy eyes, his tired legs and cramping muscles, his empty stomach.

_I am going to make it through this._ _I am going to make it, no matter how long it may take. I am going to make it._

Howard repeated this, again and again. Whenever his mind started to drift, he would concentrate on that anger, stoke the fire into life once again, and his resolve would be restored. He would grumble, shift his position in the seat to relieve his aching muscles, and continue on as before, staring out into the rain with puffy, bloodshot eyes. He saw several of the luminescent horrors at a distance, but none appeared close enough to be a threat. This was good, because he didn't have the energy to spend on any more threats.

The world wobbled in his vision.

He snapped his head up, and his body jerked with a start. He had almost let himself slip away.

Stupid. Can't afford to fall asleep on the job, especially now.

He turned to look out the window, into the dark, where the rain fell on an unseen landscape. God only knew what else was lurking out there, watching, waiting patiently for him to attempt to rest so it could make its move.

He shuddered as the memory of the Thylacine staring at him, a baby writhing in its mouth, forced its way unbidden into his mind. Perhaps even God did not know what roamed about in this realm. This dimension, land, or whatever it was, did not seem like the kind of place that could be attributed to the image of God taught to him in Sunday school. It seemed more like a strange kind of Hell. Perhaps he had died and gone there, gone to Hell, and was doomed to drive through the Netherworld forever.

No, whatever the actual explanation for the existence of this place, and he was certain there was an explanation, it certainly was not that he had gone to the Infernal Realm. If he had been in Hell, it was unlikely he would have been left to wonder; he would have known beyond any doubt. He was no expert on the subject, but it seemed to him that part of being in Hell, would be to know one was in Hell.

Still, there was the matter of the Voice on the phone. It had claimed to be everything, and that was certainly a claim of Biblical proportions, was it not? After all, what was Hell but another dimension? If he had crashed while behind the wheel, would he even be aware of his own death? Would he have felt the passage into the Great Darkness? He could easily imagine a Hell where he was doomed to drive forever, haunted and hunted by the twisted forms of the damned.

Cut it out. You're freaking yourself out, and that won't help anything. As freaky as things get, there still has to be some type of explanation. It may not be obvious, or even make any sense, but it is there. You might now know what it is, but you know what it isn't, and it damn well isn't Hell, Voice or no Voice, so cut it out.

No, it couldn't be Hell. Howard did not know if he even believed in such a place. His parents had been moderately religious; they had attended church on Sunday, and both Howard and David went to Sunday school as children, but the whole thing seemed shallow and contradictory to him, especially the whole afterlife thing. He just could not envision a Heaven of saintly angels where the flowers always bloomed, and well-dressed middle income families lived in perfect harmony for all Eternity, like the illustrations in the tracts displayed in the church foyer. To him, death was nothing mystical; it was simply the end of everything. Swallowed by the dark without the knowledge of having lived in the first place. No angels, no devils, no Heaven or Hell, not even any memories; just the end of being, forever.

This was one area where his adult imagination had never let him down; and he still fled from it as he did as a child. It was this perfect picture of oblivion that started him awake in the moments just before sleep, or from deep in dream. It was this understanding that would come upon him at strange hours, mostly while alone, sometimes while traveling, sometimes in the early hours of the morning while working a marathon shift to meet a deadline, that made his blood run hot in his veins and his heart race as if it needed proof it was still beating. The fear would overtake him, and he would try to run from it, do anything he could to distract himself from the fear it awakened.

When this happened, he would get out of bed, make a pot of coffee, and center his attention on the latest schematic, block of code, sales figures, anything to channel his mental processes in a more productive direction.

Now, that same fear crept back into his mind; it squirmed through the dark corners of his psyche, and this time, he could not escape it. His breathing became loud in his ears, more acute. He began to hyperventilate. He could hear his blood as it rushed past his eardrums in a background cacophony that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He broke out in a sweat, and small lights began to dance in front of his eyes. The colors of his surroundings began to take on a washed-out appearance, becoming brighter, as if someone had turned up the contrast on the world. He felt disconnected, and time became surreal as that perfect vision of oblivion engulfed his mind.

_You're having a panic attack._ _You have to get control of yourself. If you pass out, it will likely be bye-bye and goodnight._

Nothing. The darkness refused to budge. Howard could see it in his mind: a great, black void, one that stretched out into infinity, and consumed everything. The universe was nothing in comparison; the darkness would swallow it as easily as it swallowed his mind. All was darkness in the end.

Howard's mind reeled. He slumped forward in his seat, his head almost resting on the steering wheel. The Lincoln's interior began to slant and ebb in a sickening fashion, and he knew he was on the verge of losing consciousness. Strange it should end in such an anticlimactic way, after he had survived so much of what this strange world had thrown at him. He had known better than to look in the abyss, but he had looked, and it had been waiting for him. He knew that should the world fade from his vision now, it would never return. He knew this instinctively, like a field mouse knows the end is near, when the shadow of the hawk falls over it and there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. He would become unconscious, and then something would come out of the darkness and find him. He might have one more clear moment, when the teeth or claws of the predator bit into him, and then he would belong to the darkness forever.

_You have to snap yourself out of this._ _You have to snap yourself out of this right now._

He was vaguely aware of his arm reaching out, searching, his arm heavy and distant, groping without knowing what it sought. He clawed at the dashboard, not knowing why, and then his fingers found a small knob. It was a familiar shape, a knob he saw every time he sat in the seat, instantly recognizable under his touch, but one he had never used before. He felt his fingers push the knob inward. He fell forward even more, pressed the knob with the sheer weight of his body.

The world was going dark. Howard felt his fingers grip the knob, and pull the cigarette lighter from its housing on the dashboard. Holding the lighter in his leaden fist, he moved his right hand down to his left, still gripping the wheel, and brought the glowing end down on the back of his hand.

The result was instantaneous. A flower of fire blossomed on his skin, and the pain startled him upright, made him jerk his hand away in reflex. The lighter flew away, bounced from the window back to the top of the dashboard, where it became lodged in the space where the vinyl met the glass, the glow in the recessed coil of metal inside a fading orange.

Howard brought his hand to his mouth. The pain was intense, so much so it caused his eyes to water. He could see a blister the size of a nickel already beginning to form there, the skin raised and filled with fluid, the surrounding area an angry red.

_Congratulations, big guy. You're awake. Maybe not the smartest move for someone who is supposed to be at the top of the intellectual food chain, but at least you're awake_.

The self-criticism was only a feint; he was not only awake, but was also free of the panic. He had acted without thinking at all, it seemed, but it had served him well.

With his head cleared, and the fear broken into fading fragments, Howard found the small first aid kit he kept under the seat, and opened it. He located a tube of hydrocortisone ointment and a small pack of adhesive bandages, and used both to treat the burn. The skin there still felt hot, and had a shiny appearance, as if it had been melted. His right hand shook slightly as he applied the medication, but the ointment was beginning to work by the time he applied the bandage.

He took a roll of gauze tape from the box, tore off a few strips, and applied them to the edges of the bandage to make sure it stayed in place. He held the still-throbbing hand in front of his face, and wondered at the new emotion he had discovered. He was happy to feel the pain. He was thankful beyond measure he could still feel even that sensation.

He looked back at the little first aid kit, and was overcome with a feeling of nostalgia and gratitude. Along with his travel case, and one or two other items, the first aid kit had been a Christmas gift, given to him by his brother and his sister-in-law. As a child, Christmas had always been a strange time for him, where relatives he barely knew, and who never spoke to anyone else in the family for the remaining three hundred sixty four days of the year, got together for one night to stare at each other and exchange gifts with no real meaning. Every year, he would be given the task of handing out presents to people whose names he could not remember. Some of these gifts would have his name written in the ' _from_ ' space on the gift tag. Though these were obviously purchased by his parents, the barely-known relative would end up thanking him just the same, and he would feel strange, embarrassed and somehow ashamed.

Of course, things changed as the years wore on. He became older, for one thing, but now he had also become one of those forgotten names. He never visited most of his family, and only came into contact with his closest relatives once a year. These days, he bought the presents, and he did the best to remember the names, but the gifts were still empty, meaningless. Most were sent to people he knew only in brief memories, as a name in a database. He kept good notes, and never gave the same gift twice. He always bought quality items, but there was still something missing. His gifts lacked personality. The items he bought were practical things. They were good things, and more often than not, they were expensive things, but they were not personal things. They were just objects, bought because he could afford them, and because it was expected of him, as it was of everyone during the holiday season. Most often, he would receive phone calls and thank you cards, from these barely known people, telling him how much they appreciated his gifts, but it still left him feeling empty. The Christmas Spirit had always eluded him.

He remembered when his brother David and Karen, his sister-in-law, had started giving him travel accessories as holiday gifts, five years ago now. The first gift had been the travel bag, and the next, a matching set of luggage. He did his best to show his appreciation, but still felt awkward; the feelings of the past had been too strong. His words sounded hollow in his ears, and in his heart.

The following year, they had given him, among other gifts, the first aid kit for his car. The year after that, he had received a compact automotive tool kit. They were nowhere near as wealthy as Howard, but they tried to be generous, just the same. Howard had kept a straight face on these occasions, although he was secretly amused that they had made travel accessories 'his thing'. He always thanked them for his gifts, even though he knew he would never use them. The slender, yet heavy-duty case, with its battery tester, collection of wrenches, sockets, and other tools, would find a permanent spot in the vast interior of the Lincoln's trunk.

Last year, they had given him a roadside emergency kit with flares, a can of sealant for a cracked radiator or flat tire, and a small, battery powered air pump. "You never know when you might get stranded with no one to help you out," David said, when Howard had unwrapped his gift. "That's why it's good to always be prepared. That little case can help you get going again, through all kinds of trouble. It has everything you need to go that extra distance if you have a flat, run out of gas, or if your battery dies. It even has a flashlight if you get caught out on the road in the dark."

The memories played through Howard's mind as he drove in the darkness; he relived those moments as if the events had just taken place, as if they were happening now.

"I appreciate the gesture, David," he replied, but inwardly, he was thinking _, it could have been worse. It could have been a tie._

Karen, David's perfectly coiffed wife, had given her husband something similar in function, though very different in content. Unlike his younger brother, David had always possessed an interest in sports and the outdoors. He enjoyed hiking, camping, white water rafting, rock climbing, and mountain biking, anything that involved fresh air and sunshine. For these excursions, Karen had given David the outdoorsman's version of the roadside emergency kit, which included a Mylar poncho, miniature fishing rod and tackle, compass, survival manual, first aid supplies, and even a small device to condense drinking water out of the air.

"This is great," David had said upon unwrapping his gift, "I could go anywhere with this." He gave her an enthusiastic kiss. "Thanks, honey."

"I was out shopping for stuff for the boys to take camping with them when I found it. I knew with one of those, you could get lost in the middle of the Sahara and make it out with nothing more than a good tan," Karen said, looking decidedly elfish as she smiled over her cup of eggnog, a Santa hat perched on her head at a dainty angle.

"You know, Howard, it might be a good idea for you to have one of these," David said, examining the nylon bag with its many pockets. "What would you do if you got stranded far from help?"

"Two words: cell phone," Howard had replied, grinning in spite of himself. He had helped himself to generous helpings of Karen's turkey, not to mention several glasses of very good wine.

Karen came around the couch to sit on her husband's lap. David looked quite pleased as she settled herself into position. "Really, Howard, what is it about driving that appeals to you so much? I mean, so much is going on in the world these days, and you're all on your own out there. Don't you ever worry about stalkers, or kidnappers? With as much as you're worth financially, you could afford your own private jet, but instead, you drive around in that old clunker. Doesn't that worry you at all?"

Howard detected no trace of innuendo in Karen's words; she genuinely cared about him. Insults were never her style, and Howard liked that about her. "Don't make fun of my baby," Howard replied, his lips pursed in a mock pout. "She's getting along in years, but she's hardly a clunker." He took another sip of wine, wondering how to best address her question.

"Howard's afraid of flying," David said, deftly taking the cup from his wife's clutches.

"No, I'm not," he countered, feigning disdain with a flourish. "I am simply aeronautically challenged."

The three of them laughed, and David finished what remained of the eggnog.

"Seriously though," Howard said, "being on the road is the best part of my job, well, that and the money. I don't like flying, but I could handle it, if I absolutely had to; I could do the whole corporate executive thing. You know, ride in a limo or a private jet, and have an entire goon squad follow me everywhere I go, but, as the kids say, that's just not how I roll. I like it that way. I like my privacy, always have, and that is just too important to me to give up for a small measure of security."

He took another sip of wine, and poured himself another glass. "I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, 'those who sacrifice freedom for security, deserve neither'. Besides, I like being unpredictable that way."

"Well, then, here's to hoping you never need to use your present," Karen said, taking the glass from her husband and pouring more eggnog. "Here's to happy driving and a Merry Christmas!"

Now, driving through the dark, rainy wilderness, Howard contemplated their presents, and how they might just be the most important ones he had ever received in his life. If he ever made it home again, he would make sure he got David and Karen were made aware of just how much he appreciated their thoughtful gifts.

His trip down memory lane triggered something else, something to do with David's gift that year. It sat, half-formed in his mind, but then it was gone, and the harder he tried to remember what it was, the more it slipped away, until at last he just gave up, and turned his attention back to his burned flesh, and the land around him.

The back of his hand throbbed in slow, hot pulses. The wound flared into life whenever he moved his fingers or wrist. It was annoying, but not extreme; it was just enough to keep him awake, and for this he was grateful; it would help him stay alive. He disliked physical pain, had managed to avoid it for a good number of years, but he welcomed it now; it sharpened his perceptions, kept him going.

He wondered if he had perhaps done too good a job at avoiding pain. Pain existed as the body's natural alarm system, a way of alerting the mind when the physical body suffered damage. Pain served the evolutionary process by providing a means by which potentially dangerous obstacles could be avoided, thus keeping the organism alive. Those organisms which could translate those signals in the best way continued onward, while those that did not process them properly became evolutionary dead-ends. Perhaps he had been too successful in his quest to live a life of wealth and comfort. He had become soft; his lifestyle had dampened whatever natural survival skills he once possessed.

But, what of it? What was the point of being successful if not to enjoy the benefits of that success? If it meant he would never break any track and field records, what of it?

But it was more than that, and deep inside he knew it. It didn't take falling into the backwaters of the Twilight Zone to isolate him; he had accomplished that to a fair degree, had slipped into a life centered upon two things, to the exclusion of all else: his work, and his own comfort.

He looked at his hand, wondered at the marvel of pain, and how his perspective on that particular sensation had changed. If he could change his viewpoint that much, perhaps he could change other things as well.

This realization gave Howard a glimmer of hope, but they did nothing to stem the tide of memories that flooded into his mind, like a collage of unpleasant and embarrassing moments from his past. His father's disapproving looks, the many times he was taunted by his schoolmates— _hey fatboy, hey Sasquatch, hey thunder-thighs_ — all the girls that gave him a nervous, sad smile of pity as they walked by, giggling with their friends, often within sight of him, the jealous bosses and co-workers, who schemed to make him suffer for his intellect.

Try as he might, Howard could not escape his memories as he drove on through the night, the rain spraying from the Lincoln as it sped over the pavement. By the time the highway climbed into a range of mountains, he had become so distracted by the interior slideshow, he almost did not register the change in scenery. It was more than mere exhaustion or melancholy that gripped his mind; no single label could convey the perplexity of emotions that coursed through him.

The reminiscences brought their share of sadness, but they brought something else as well. Howard felt he was on the verge of gaining a greater degree of self-understanding than he had ever known before, a perspective that bordered on epiphany. He stood on the precipice of discovery, just short of that moment of total comprehension, when he glimpsed something on the edge of the road that diverted his attention.

Howard had been watching the highway for hazards, the mechanism of his driving habits well oiled despite his exhaustion. Even so, with his conscious mind engaged with the flood of memories, he almost missed the rectangular, green road sign as he rounded a bend in the road. The sign was almost invisible in the darkness, and lost in reverie, it was below his personal radar. By the time his mind registered what he had seen, the sign was already behind him.

Howard brought the Lincoln to a stop, but did not shift into Park. He sat there for a moment, his foot on the brake, wondering if he really wanted to know what was on the sign. He wanted to just keep going, wanted to just drive on as if he had never spotted the damn thing waiting there.

Waiting, that was the proper word. The sign was waiting for him. It wasn't paranoia; he had no reason to doubt his mental stability. He knew the sign was there for him alone.

After all, who else would see it?

His common sense said he would regret going back to read the sign, but no matter how much he wanted to keep driving, he had to see, had to know. He shifted into Reverse, and backed the Continental up slowly, fighting the sense of foreboding that was building in him. He dreaded knowing whatever was printed on the other side of the sign, but could not resist; his curiosity demanded satisfaction.

The back of the sign was outlined by the pale glow cast by the Continental's remaining taillight. Howard stared at the rectangle as it drew closer. What message would it contain? Did it bear a prophecy of doom, something along the line of 'the end is nigh'? He didn't think he would be that lucky, or the message that simple. What else could it be, then? What dire missive (and he knew it would be dire, yes indeed) or warning did it have in store for him?

The sign drew alongside the Lincoln, and Howard turned his head to follow its progress. Within a few moments, he had backed far enough for the words there to be picked out by the headlights. He shifted into Neutral, and sat unmoving, staring at the brief message. There were only three words on the sign, written in white against a green background, but those three simple words confirmed the fears that had taken root in his heart since he first entered this nightmare world. They were words that had singular importance for the one human being that now sat reading them, the only human being who would ever read them. It was a message with a particular history, one that stretched far back into Howard's past, back to his childhood. In the wake of those three simple words, Howard felt all of his earlier confidence melt away.

The words on the sign read:

NOW ENTERING SPLITSVILLE

CHAPTER NINE

The words on the sign brought back more memories, as if they had opened a floodgate in his brain. They streamed through his mind, pictures of times gone by, like a moving collage of the past. They came in no particular order, memories of sights and sounds and smells, of things done and not done, said and unsaid. They came with increasing frequency and vibrancy, until they gained a vise-grip hold over his mind.

The flood of memories began with a vision of when he was five years old, as he looked up at the woman with blue hair and heavy glasses that were pointed on the ends. "My, oh my, he is certainly big for his age," she said, and though her voice sounded kind, her eyes were not kind at all, and Howard was afraid of her. The way she looked at him made him feel funny, and he wished she would stop.

He became even more afraid when he learned his mother planned to leave him there for part of the day, and not just that day, but every weekday. He wanted to leave with his mother, rather than stay with this frightening stranger, and he began to cry. The lady with the blue hair spoke nicely to him as his mother got in the car, but her voice turned cold after they were alone. "You may get pampered at home, young man, but here, everyone follows the rules. Crying for your momma like a little baby isn't going to help anything. You are five years old, and you need to start acting your age, understand?"

Howard told the lady he wanted to go home, but she just snorted, and said all children went to Kindergarten when they were his age, save for heathens—he had no idea what they were, but was too terrified to ask—and instead led him into a room where groups of children sat at small tables. They stared at him as the lady introduced him, and he heard a few of them laugh. He knew, at that very moment, he was going to hate everything that happened there.

His memory skipped a beat, and he was eight. He stood in the corner of another classroom, where he had been sentenced to stand for the remainder of the day for 'acting out'.

Earlier in the day, the boys who sat directly behind him had begun calling him names, like _marshmallow_ and _spud_ and _fatass_. Howard put up with this as long as he could, but he could feel it as his face grew hotter, and knew it was turning red. The other children snickered in their seats, careful not to attract the attention of the teacher and possibly ruin this interesting distraction. Finally, he lost control, and turned in his seat to shout in their faces. "Stop it! Just stop it, dammit! Why can't you assholes leave me alone?"

A sudden shocked silence descended on the room, and for a brief moment, he believed he had won. His blatant use of swear words in front of an adult, in front of the teacher, even, caught everyone by surprise. Perhaps now, they would not be so quick to tease him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the looks of astonishment and disbelief on the faces of the other second graders. There was also a look on some that might even border on fear, and that made Howard feel good.

But then, he turned in his seat to find Ms. Samuels standing right in front of his desk, and it all came crashing down around his ears.

Ms. Samuels, who was sixty-one and had never married, first reprimanded him in front of the class, and then he was forced to stand in the corner with his back to the room. He could feel the blood rush to his face, could feel the tears as they welled in his eyes, but he did not let them fall, even as the boys congratulated each other in hushed whispers as he stood to take his punishment. Even when he faced the wall in the corner, as his back burned from the stares of his classmates, his face mercifully hidden, he refused to shed his tears.

After several hours, he began to feel pressure in his bladder, and attempted to ask Ms. Samuels for permission to go to the restroom, but he was ignored. He made several more unsuccessful attempts as the pressure intensified, but was admonished again and again, until he could hold it no more, and his bladder finally gave in to the call of nature. Urine ran down his trouser leg to form a puddle on the classroom floor. He still did not allow himself to cry. He pushed his hands against the wall, and squeezed his eyes shut so tightly it made them hurt. Deep down inside, he knew that as long as he attended this school, he would never be able to live this down; he would never be happy.

The picture in his mind jumped forward again, and now he was eleven. It was supposed to be the year everything started over, and changed for the better. Instead, it was the year he earned the nickname that haunted him throughout the rest of his school years, a name which would come to haunt him again more than twenty years later, as he sat staring at a sign that had no right to hold the power over him that it did, helpless to stem the tide of memories its message carried.

Earlier in summer of that year, his father moved his family from the small Maryland community where Howard had lived his entire life, after receiving a long-overdue promotion. A week after school let out for the summer, both boys bid farewell to the only home they had ever known, and began their trip to a house they only knew from photographs. As they began their drive, Howard wondered if his mother was as glad as he was for a chance, any chance, to move away from the dull, dreary little town that had served as the background of her life for so long. It was not the kind of thing his parents talked about in front of their children, but it was quite likely he was correct.

David had been apprehensive at the idea of moving, of leaving his friends, but Howard had been secretly overjoyed. They were only moving a few counties away, but that didn't matter to him; the important thing was he would be living in another school district. Did it even matter if the kids there had peculiar slang, or were into different things, or if the class curriculum did not match that of his current school? He didn't care if they were purple and spoke in rhyme; he would be free.

Unlike David, he had no friends to speak of, and really did not care if he made new ones in the coming year or not. He would be content to simply be left alone. This move was a golden opportunity, a chance for him to break free of his entire life. In Sander's Cove, they had called him _Howie the piss boy_ , and _whiz kid_. They called him _whaleboy_ and _blubberbutt_ and _homo_ , or even worse. After the move, he would be an unknown quantity, and he would be careful to avoid attracting the attention that had resulted in many of those names. He could start anew.

For that one summer, he was allowed a small glimmer of hope. For almost six weeks, he believed he would be able to change his life. Then came the day when everything started to change.

He managed to lay low during the initial moving day chaos, while his parents and David adjusted to the new house, but on this day, his mother suggested, in a tone that was more command than recommendation, that he needed to get out of the house and explore the neighborhood. She wanted to see her son make a few new friends before he entered the new school. Howard was not overjoyed by the suggestion, but knew better than to argue.

He left the house, after he made the standard promises to look both ways before crossing the street, to mind all the traffic signals, and to not to speak to strangers. He planned to only go as far as the local 7-11 for a Slurpee and a comic book, but since there was the possibility he might see other children there, he felt his promise would be safely kept.

The trip to the store was uneventful, but upon his arrival, he met Chris Barrett, a lanky, sandy-haired boy of eleven he later discovered lived only six blocks from him. As Howard left the 7-11, he noticed the boy was following him on a bicycle, and as the boy approached, he wondered if the other would just ride by, or if he would tease him like the kids did so often back in Sander's Cove. As it turned out, he did neither, but instead pulled alongside Howard, and introduced himself.

Howard was cautious at first, but found he liked the other boy in spite of his earlier apprehension. As they traveled along the sidewalk toward his home, talking about their favorite comic books and cartoons, Chris regaled him with an almost constant stream of wisecracks and poorly done impressions. Howard realized that, with his freckles, sandy hair and glasses, Chris was just as much of a social outcast as he was, and that under the jokes and attention-getting antics, there was just a boy, lonely like himself, who was looking for acceptance. He began to relax; maybe he would end up making a new friend after all.

As they neared the Langford home, and he was preparing to say goodbye, Chris surprised him by inviting him over to his house for the afternoon. Howard hesitated, unsure how to respond; he was not used to being invited anywhere.

"Come on," Chris said with a laugh, "you can help me break in my trampoline."

"Trampoline?" Howard asked.

"Yeah," Chris said, "part of my dad's plan to put me in intensive care. We can read some comics, have some lemonade, and jump on the tramp. I can break my arm. Then my dad's happy, I get to miss some school, so I'm happy; we're all happy."

Chris smiled. Howard looked at him a moment, and then asked "can you see me jumping on a trampoline?"

"Well," Chris answered, "you don't have to jump so much as bounce." He grinned. "It'll be fun. I'll give your mom my phone number, and we can hang out, if you don't have any plans."

Howard had a moment of uncertainly, a sense of foreboding, but he ignored it; this was a new place, and one of the good things about being in a new place was that he had a chance to start over. Maybe this was a whole new beginning for him. "Sure," he said, "I'd like that. Let me check in with my folks, and if it's okay with them, we'll head over to your house."

Howard's mother was delighted, of course, and after some awkward introductions, he was allowed to escape. His new friend continued his rambling banter during the six block trek, but he was not paying attention; he was thinking about what it would be like to jump on a trampoline, about how good the August sun felt on his face, and about second chances.

They arrived at the Barrett residence, a large two-story covered in brown shingles, and as the two boys circled the house to the back yard, they came upon two more children, identical save for that one was male and the other female, Nordic twins with platinum hair and blue eyes. They sat at the large picnic table near the rear of the house, upon which sat several glasses of lemonade next to a larger pitcher on a tray.

As they approached the other children, Chris turned to Howard and said, "Howard, let me introduce you to some friends of mine." He gestured to the twins. "These are Ken and Barbie. They are the plastic people. There's a factory that squeezes them out somewhere. Kind of like a Play-Dough Fun Factory, except with people."

"You are a sick and twisted being, Chris Barrett," said the female twin between sips of lemonade.

Chris smiled. "Thank you," he said.

The male twin looked at Howard and said, "Please pardon Chris. He suffered brain damage from being bounced on his head as an infant."

Something about this statement seemed to please Chris, and he smiled even wider as he introduced the pair. "Howard Langford, this is Billy and Sue Gander, future inmates of our institution of higher learning. They live just down the street, and share the cell block I like to call the fifth grade."

With the introductions made, they spent a few minutes drinking lemonade, and were soon taking turns jumping on the octagonal black nylon bed of the trampoline, bouncing and laughing and whooping with excitement. Howard enjoyed the feeling of being on the trampoline, even though he sank much deeper into the nylon than the others, and the force of jumping up and down made his flesh jiggle in weird ways that made the other kids laugh. The sensation was extraordinary, and he discovered he really did not care what he looked like; he was having a wonderful time.

Although they had been advised to only bounce on the trampoline two at a time, it did not take long for the children to disregard their parent's advice. First one, then another, joined in until all four of them were bouncing on the nylon together. This led to the discovery that Howard possessed the power to catapult the other children upward with great force when he landed out of unison, much to their delight.

Chris dubbed Howard 'Gravity Man', and they made a game of seeing just how far they could loft each other. Gravity Man was by far the best at this game, and after several rounds, it was agreed they should see how many of them he could bounce at the same time. Howard, a.k.a. Gravity Man, obliged, and managed to bounce first one, then two children into the air together. Then it came time for the real test: could Gravity Man bounce all three of them at once?

"Can he do it," Chris asked in his best (though still poorly done) Howard Cosell impression. His voice rose and fell in time with his bouncing motion, "does Gravity Man have the power to launch three people into space? What say you Gravity Man?"

"Of course I can, for I am Gravity Man!" Howard replied, smiling.

As all four of the children bounced in unison, Gravity Man came down onto the nylon in time with the others, and then bent his knees to stop short. This movement caused the others to be launched into the air. The first try was a success, and the others laughed excitedly as they were propelled skyward. It was not enough, however; Gravity Man was the master of propulsion, the conqueror of natural forces. He knew he could do better.

The plan was simple; the other children would bounce together as before, with Howard in the center, alternating in time with the others. When he got high enough, he would time his landing for the ultimate expression of the amazing physics-bending powers of Gravity Man.

He bounced higher and higher, and felt real joy at playing with other children his own age, a rare event in the pages of his memory. No one had made faces at him, or laughed at him, or called him bad names. The other children were having fun _with_ him, not making fun _of_ him, and the difference was so refreshing it made him giddy. It was a wonderful feeling, and Howard wished it could last forever.

"Are you ready?" Sue called, "because we are!"

"Go for it!" her brother said.

"Yeah, Gravity Man," Chris chimed in. His voice rose and fell in sync with the others. "Give it your best shot."

Howard grinned. "Okay, here we go! Three bounces to get ready, and we all come down on number four for the send-off!"

The other three cheered him on as Howard launched his body into the air.

One...

Howard's body came down, and sunk deep into the black nylon of the trampoline bed. Even with the others spread out around him, he still pulled the fabric down to within two feet of the ground. The springs groaned. A strange vibration ran through the synthetic material, and if anyone had paid attention, or any of the children had heeded Mrs. Barrett's warning about only jumping one or two at a time, then the day may have ended differently than it did. Maybe the nickname he would come to loathe throughout the remainder of his grade and high school years would never have been his, and perhaps, just perhaps, everything that happened to him afterwards, including his side-trip into the weird reality in which he now traveled, would not have occurred. Had he been paying closer attention, perhaps he would never have entered the strange little town of Splitsville at all.

Two...

Again, the nylon stretched down to an alarming level. Again, there was the thrumming sound of the springs stretching, and another vibration ran through the cloth, unnoticed by any of the children. They were aware only of the enjoyment they felt, the thrill of the moment, in a way known only to the young, when the last days of summer are filled with an intense, almost desperate, need to enjoy what can be enjoyed, to experience all that can be experienced, before the new school year begins. Lost as they were in their desire to savor these last days of freedom, they forgot the warnings about safety, as kids are prone to do.

Three...

Unseen beneath their feet, the nylon fibers that composed the bed were beginning to fray. Unknown to the children, Chris' father had obtained the help of several friends to help move the trampoline into the back yard. During this operation, one of the movers had been smoking a cigarette, and at some point while moving the tramp, the ember had fallen from the tip of the cigarette onto the nylon, and melted a small hole into the fabric just inside the heavily stitched perimeter. The fibers around this hole began to snap from the strain, and widened as the children continued to bounce.

The combined weight of the four of them enlarged the hole into a small tear, less than three inches long. Had anyone looked closely, it would have been obvious that the fibers at the end of the rip were strained to the breaking point. Had that person also felt the area around the tear, they would have felt a weak spot in the fabric, a lack of tension in the material, spreading far beyond the opening, like an infection growing from an open wound, but the children were busy with their game, and no one noticed.

Four...

All four children struck the nylon at once; they had timed their jumps with perfect precision. As they sunk into the fabric, the stress caused the nylon to split from one side to the other. There was a sound, much like a wet bed sheet being torn, as they made contact, and there was just enough time for them to see the gaping wound appear in the bed of the trampoline before they were flung up and away.

The tear had radically changed the tension of the fabric, and this in turn altered the trajectory of the children bouncing upon it. Instead of bouncing straight up and down, those to either side of the tear, Chris and Sue on one side, Billy on the other, were thrown away at odd angles. Sue came down to strike her arm on the metal frame of the tramp, saved from a broken bone only by the safety padding tied there to prevent just that kind of accident.

Howard was not so fortunate; as he came down onto the nylon, the tear shot across the fabric squarely between his legs. Caught completely by surprise, he was thrown off balance; his large body attempted to flip over as he was propelled into the air again, his arms and legs flailing, to fall back into the space created by the tear. One leg caught the edge of the material as he passed through, and his body spun again as he struck the ground face down. He had only enough time to think, _'oh shit!'_ , and then the world was filled with noise as he collided with the grassy earth. He landed on his stomach, and all the air in his lungs was forced from his body in a rush as a million points of light exploded in his head.

Howard's mouth was full of grass and dirt. His body ached. His lungs were on fire, and his blood was hot with fear that something dreadful, maybe even fatal, had happened to him. He struggled for breath, his lungs burning and his head throbbing, for what seemed an eternity. He wondered how badly he had been injured. Would he need to go to the hospital? Had he broken his legs or his back? Would he be crippled, confined to a wheelchair? These thoughts, of going to a hospital, of living the rest of his life unable to use his legs, filled him with dread.

Within a few fearful, gasping moments, his lungs began to recover, and he found he was able to breathe again. The pounding in his head began to fade, and the noise of the world came back into focus. He could hear the sound of the wind in the trees, of cars as they passed on the street, the voices of the other children.

"Are you okay, man?" Chris asked from above him.

"I think so," Howard answered. He tried his best to keep the shock and embarrassment from his voice, but knew he did not sound convincing at all. He moved slowly, picked himself up from the ground onto his hands and knees. He still felt shaky, and there was an ache in his groin, like he'd been kicked in the testicles, but he had managed to escape serious injury.

"Is everyone okay?" Howard asked.

"Yeah, we'll live," Chris answered, "but you sure did a number on the tramp."

Howard was still on his hands and knees, and was in no hurry at all to get up. It wasn't just the embarrassment, or the pain in his balls that made him feel that way; he had wrecked the trampoline, and for that he knew there would be hell to pay. He closed his eyes, and wished he could just go back to the beginning of the day and start over.

"Man, you should see what you did to your pants," Chris added, in an amused tone. "The butt ripped right out when you hit the ground. A double split, man—two for the price of one. I don't think I could top that one if I tried." Chris' voice changed back into the persona of the sports announcer again, and said, "Preparing to compete here at the trampoline gymnastics competition is Splits Langford, the human cannonball. Here's the launch—and he goes down, ladies and Gentlemen, the victim of an apparent equipment failure! Can we have that on instant replay?"

Howard knew Chris did not mean any harm, knew the other boy was just trying to break the tension, but the words were hurtful to him all the same. In the matter of a moment, it felt like the world was coming to an end; he just could not take being there any longer. He felt the blood rushing to his face, could hear it running past his ears. He needed to be away from there. He crawled out from under the trampoline as quickly as he could before standing up, and walked fast, almost at a run, from the yard without looking back.

Howard came through the front door and found Gloria Langford on the phone. From her exasperated expression and overly sweet tone, he knew she could only be speaking to Chris' parents. He saw the look in his mother's eye, and it all fell into place. She either called the number Chris had given to them to check on when Howard would be home for dinner, or the Barrett's had called her. Either way, she was now being informed of a minor accident having occurred while the children were playing in the back yard. Mrs. Barrett had spoken to the other children, and though she had been told no one had been hurt during the incident, she would feel better knowing the boy was okay.

As Howard entered the room, he heard his mother say she apologized for any inconvenience, and she could be reached any time if they needed to speak to her.

He wanted nothing more at that moment than to escape to the safety of his room, but his mother caught him before he could make his exit. He spent the next ten minutes answering her questions as she checked him over for bruises and scrapes, pulled his eyelids back to examine his pupils, opened his mouth to check his tongue.

He discovered it was Mrs. Barrett who had made the call; the other children were fine, but Howard had left before he could be checked for injuries. He assured his mother throughout this procedure that he was fine, but this did nothing to deter her examination. He had no choice but to submit to her prodding, answer her questions, and wait for it to be over.

From there, Howard's day went rapidly from bad to worse. No sooner did he manage to escape his mother's clutches long enough to change his pants, when his father arrived home, and the whole cycle began again. Only with his father, he knew it would be much worse.

The elder Langford was seldom in a good mood, especially when he got home from work, and even when he was, he had no patience for his son's shenanigans. When his father called him from his room, Howard's apprehensions were proven correct. There was no concern for his health or well being evident in his father's reaction to the news, and he expected none; he knew his father too well, and Carl Langford was not one to disappoint.

"You were told not to jump on the trampoline together, weren't you?" he asked the boy, his voice like a leather strap. "I think we taught you better respect for your elders than that. Someone could have been seriously hurt." He looked at the boy, his face grave, his eyes cold, and Howard imagined he could almost see the gears turning behind them. "This, what is his name again? Barrett? The Barrett boy said the trampoline might have been damaged before you jumped on it. The children's mother doesn't blame you, or any of the other children, for the ripped trampoline, but it sounds to me like she was just being polite. In fact, she probably can't help but to put some blame your way, considering your size."

"Carl, is that really necessary?" his mother pleaded. "Can't you see he feels bad enough as it is?"

"Cool your jets, Gloria," Carl Langford told his wife, without taking his eyes from his son. "I'm just being realistic, here. They are most likely just trying to avoid a lawsuit. I bet if it were the other way around, if it was their kids who had been hurt, we'd be hearing from their lawyer in a heartbeat. Who knows? That may still happen, if they think they can get some money out of it." He paused for a moment, as the gears continued to turn behind his eyes. "That's why you're going to pay for your share of the damage out of your allowance."

His mother opened her mouth to say something, but was silenced by a look from her husband. It was a look that would brook no interference, one that reminded her of her place in the scheme of things.

Carl Langford turned back to his son, who at eleven was only inches shorter than his father. "Do you understand me, son?"

"Yes sir," Howard replied. Like his mother, he knew better than to give any other response. The family structure from the 1950's was alive and well in the Langford household, which meant it was first and foremost a patriarchy. Outbursts of any kind, even if it were to express the truth, would only result in further punishment. Howard's only hope was to say as little as possible, to speak only when spoken to, and to hope the storm would blow over quickly.

"Good," his father said, satisfied at his son's remorseful expression, "now go to your room until we call you to dinner. It will give you time to reflect on the consequences of your actions."

"Yes sir," Howard replied, and turned away to shuffle to his room. He tried hard to show the proper amount of humility and regret so his father would not turn his lecture into an hours-long crusade.

Some of those talks ended with a few licks of his belt to his backside, and although it had been some time since his old man had resorted to such draconian extremes, Howard knew his father would not hesitate to use capital punishment if he felt the situation warranted it. Showing disrespect during a lecture was always a capital offense. He felt a certain amount of remorse at what had happened, to be sure, but what he felt more was anger at his father, for insulting him, for all the times he had been made to feel like a germ under a microscope, anger at having to endure a punishment for something he knew wasn't his fault, and anger at Chris, for calling him that name.

It was all happening again. He knew come September, when he arrived at his new school, it would not be long before the name-calling began. The catcalls and the disgusted looks, the talking and laughing behind his back would all start again. He would be helpless to stop it, and his helplessness fueled his anger more, stoked it until it burned bright within him. He sat in his room and fumed, too upset to read, to play, or do anything but lie in his bed and stare at the ceiling.

Would it always be this way? Was he doomed to always be the butt of the joke, to be laughed at, to be humiliated?

No.

He laid there, his eyes open, but seeing nothing, looking instead inward to the landscape of his mind _._

It will not. One day, I will be finished with this school, and everyone in it. One day I will be an adult, and I will dare anyone to laugh at me then.

He did not know how he would make this happen, not yet, but he knew the days of making fun of Howard Langford were numbered.

After all, Mister Dibbs wasn't laughing any more, was he?

As he sat in his room, Howard pictured his father locked away, walled up forever in the walls of the house, like the cat had been, like Fortunato in _'The Cask of Amontillado'_. The thought made him smile.

Later, during dinner, he did not smile, even though the image returned to him as his father reiterated Howard's misfortune. Carl Langford took care to express his distaste, while stressing the importance of listening to one's elders to David, under the pretense of relating the events of the day. Perhaps he imagined he was giving his other son a vital lesson in morals, although Howard felt he did so just out of spite. He did not reply or respond to his father's speech, but merely finished his dinner, and afterward, asked to be excused to go back to his room.

Howard decided, at least for the time being, it would be best to keep a low profile, lest his father get any more bright ideas as to what the consequences of not listening to his elders should be. He could easily imagine being made to work off his debt by laboring at the Barrett's, doing yard work or washing cars, or some other thing. Wouldn't that be a joy?

He could just see it now, having to mow their yard, his body covered in sweat, while Chris and the Gander twins sat eating ice cream, laughing at him. Fortunately, this did not happen, and for this, he was much relieved.

The days passed, and before long, Howard was caught up in the hustle and bustle of a new school year. He paid attention to his classes, was studious in his schoolwork, and adjusted the best he could to his new schedule and surroundings. He tried to keep to himself, but part of him knew it is just a matter of time before the same old crap started all over again. He also did his best to avoid the Gander twins, and this was easy, as they are not in any of his classes, but Chris Barrett shared his English class, and could not be avoided so easily. The other boy approached him almost right away.

"Where have you been keeping yourself?" Chris asked.

"I had things to do at home. Chores and stuff," Howard replied. This was only a half-truth, the full truth being he was still embarrassed by the trampoline incident, but he could not muster the courage to tell the other boy how he felt. In an attempt to change the subject, he asked, "did anyone else get in trouble from what happened?"

"What? You mean the thing with the trampoline?" Chris asked. "Hell no. My dad said the tramp looked like it had a hole burned in it, which caused the split. He was just glad no one else got hurt. Why, did you get in trouble with your folks?"

"Sort of," Howard replied, ashamed at how his parents had handled the situation. "My dad said I should have listened when we were told to jump one at a time, and that I have to pay for my share of the damage out of my allowance." He did not want to admit this, but it was too late.

"Damn, man," Chris said, his tone sympathetic. "Sorry to hear that. Sure does suck to be you. So, what do you say, Splits, you wanna maybe come over after school, and catch the new Robin Williams special on HBO? The guy's a blast, man."

"Thanks, but I can't," Howard said, without looking at the other boy. "I've got homework to do, and chores after that." This was not true; he finished most of his homework during lunch, but he did not want to go over to Chris' house, not now, and perhaps not ever. The incident with the trampoline had changed things forever.

Before then, he had been looking forward to a fresh start, but afterward, he spent the days with the knowledge his hopes of starting over were doomed to failure, with no hope of escape. Perhaps if he had told Chris how much it hurt him to be called 'Splits', the name would not have followed him all the way through High School.

If he had spoken up, that name would not have come to symbolize everything that was wrong with his life. But every time he contemplated doing so, he was overcome with that feeling of helplessness and shame that came from always being seen as different. He was a very large boy living in a normal-sized world, and Chris was right; it did suck to be him. He knew Chris did not mean to be cruel, but it didn't matter; part of him came to hate the other boy for it anyway.

Howard felt the same impression of dark destiny now, as he wound his way along the dark twists and turns of the highway. He could sense the mountains around him, could almost feel their jagged cliffs rising in the night air to either side of the Lincoln. The rain had slackened to little more than a mist, and since passing the strange sign, he had not encountered anything living.

This did not diminish his fear, however. If anything, his apprehension had intensified. The message on the sign had been much too personal, much too private. He did not even want to consider the implications of what it could mean, but his mind insisted. Half-formed theories and speculations ran rampant in his mind, none making any real sense, and all serving only to heighten his trepidation. The one thing he did know for certain, was he would not have to wait for long to find out the answer.

As he rounded the next turn, Howard spied a pair of flickering lights. He tried to estimate their distance from him, but the darkness and misty air made it difficult to determine. His curiosity aroused, he slowed the Lincoln until it was drifting, and waited for the lights to reappear.

After a few moments, he spotted them again, and now he could see there were two of them, moving in the distance. He assumed they were headlights, and for a moment, he was filled with a sense of elation; some other poor soul had become lost in this strange world, another wayward traveler had been forced to wander this world as he had been. He felt the urge to signal them, whoever they were, and let them know they have been seen, that they are not alone. For a moment, he felt a small ray of hope.

The lights appeared again, closer this time. They were still some distance away, but it looked like they were moving in his direction. Howard reached for the knob that controlled his headlights, meaning to flash them at the other car, but then hesitated. On the movie screen of his memory, he could see another pair of lights coming up behind his car, lights that weren't lights at all, but were actually eyes.

Howard pushed the knob forward instead, and the Continental's lights went dark. He shifted the transmission into Neutral, and pressed his foot on the brake. The ground was level here, and the car did not drift from its course.

The lights continued to draw closer; their glow wove back and forth, sometimes winking out for a moment as they passed behind an obstacle, only to reappear a moment later.

Watching this pattern, Howard was reminded, for no reason that he knew, of their neighbor's dog, a big, friendly German shepherd, whose sole purpose in life was to play fetch. From Frisbees, sticks, and rubber balls, to beanbags and lawn darts, the dog would fetch anything he was thrown. He could no longer remember the dog's name, but he could still see his neighbor's son, Jesse, in his mind. The boy would throw a stick far into the field behind their house, and the animal would race out into the grass to bring it back. Sometimes the dog would not see where the stick or ball touched down, and would run back and forth through the field, his head down as he sniffed the ground as it searched for his prize.

The lights continued to move, one way, and then the other.

The lights were searching.

Howard sank low in his seat, not daring to take his eyes from the lights. When he first spotted them, they looked to be about a half-mile ahead of him, and perhaps a mile off to his left; now they were drawing ever closer to his location, and were almost even with the Lincoln. It looked like it might just pass right by him.

He had not seen any other roads since coming to this place, but he would be foolish to think they did not exist. Perhaps he had only been touring one small part of this strange world. Perhaps there were many roads, joining to form one great Insanity Superhighway. No, he just could not believe that. Since arriving in this place, there had only been the two lanes, the single ribbon of asphalt.

Howard began to feel afraid.

Light washed over the Lincoln as the twin beams drew closer. They were moving in a straight line once more, heading toward the idling automobile. Until now, Howard held out a small bit of hope the lights belonged to a fellow traveler, another victim of highway hypnosis, someone with whom he might form an allegiance against this hostile world, but that hope died as the lights splashed over the wounded automobile.

He could feel a vibration as the lights drew closer, weak at first, but growing stronger, like that of an approaching train. There was just enough time to think whatever lay behind those lights must be very large indeed, when he was afforded a clear vision of their owner.

Howard's mouth dropped open, his entire body numb with fear. His mind, however, was not under any such restriction _._

_THE LIGHT IS COMING OUT OF ITS EYES!_ His mind screamed, _JESUS, MARY MOTHER OF GOD! LIGHT IS COMING OUT OF ITS EYES! PLEASE, LORD, PLEASE, IF YOU ARE LISTENING, PLEASE DON'T LET IT SEE ME! GOD, PLEASE DON'T LET IT SEE ME!_

The monster that approached the Continental was the size of a tractor-trailer, with a head as large as a cab-over Kenworth and eyes like glowing basketballs. A fell light blazed from its pupils, and bathed the landscape in an evil, yellow radiance that made Howard's skin crawl as it moved over his body. Under the thing's eyes, the lower end of its head disappeared into the dark cavern of what could only be its mouth, where giant teeth gnashed like a threshing machine running at hyper-speed. Fangs the size of sword blades vibrated around each other at an impossible rate in the darkness of its maw.

Beyond this, Howard saw a mad mixture of what his mind interpreted as machine, insect, and dinosaur. It was impossible to tell exactly where one ingredient ended and another began. Together, they formed a portrait of incredible speed, ferocity, and sudden, inescapable, death.

The monster was at least sixty feet long, and easily a third of that in height. Just looking at it was enough to make him whimper in fear, made his testicles draw up into his body as his bladder threatened to let go. It approached to within thirty feet of the Continental—and stopped.

Howard sat frozen, so rigid with terror his joints creaked with the strain, and as the thing's great, glowing eyes rolled toward the automobile, the dire yellow radiance spilling from the tremendous orbs like malevolent searchlights, he almost lost his self-control. Every instinct within him screamed for him to run, to bolt from the car, to flee as fast and as far as he could.

The need for survival rose to wash over his intellect, for surely, logic could not stand against what waited just a short distance from the Lincoln. Rationality vanished in the wake of the vision before him, burned away to nothing in the incandescence of the creature's gaze. It did not matter that he could not get very far before he was run down; all that mattered was the deep, urgent need to run.

But he did not run. In the light that shone from the monster's eyes, Howard could not even breathe. He sat there, immobile, while his mind continued to yammer at him in an incoherent stream. He could feel himself slipping into madness. He knew he would go mad, and then he would die, as something his mind could not even accept as possible devoured him.

Beams of yellow light crawled back and forth over the Lincoln, searching. What do we have here, a tasty little tidbit? Maybe a quick bite for the road? Care for Howard-in-a-can, anyone? His heart felt like it was about to explode; his blood screamed so loudly in his ears he felt certain the thing out there could hear it. Even if it did not kill him, the fright building inside him certainly would.

But then the great eyes and their fell illumination turned away, and a moment later, the thing was gone, propelled on a curtain of legs that would look as much at home on a robotic millipede as it would on this Cthuluan horror. Within seconds, the searching beams from the thing's eyes were once more nothing but flickers, and Howard found he could breathe again.

Howard sat in the dark, frozen, afraid the slightest movement would break the spell. When he was sure the monstrosity was gone, and after a few deep breaths, he filled his lungs full of air and shouted, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? JUST WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT THING SUPPOSED TO BE? HOW IN THE HELL CAN ANY OF THIS BE HAPPENING TO ME? HOW CAN ANYTHING LIKE THAT BE REAL? ARE YOU LISTENING UP THERE, ANYONE? WHAT IN THE HELL IS IT? TELL ME!"

As Howard screamed into the darkness, he beat his hands in a random and painful flurry about the steering wheel and dashboard as he raged at the injustice of his plight. He cursed in a strained and hollow tone, flailing his limbs about as he did so. Then, he calmed down, and in a quieter voice, he said, "God, I don't want to die here. Not here. Not like that. Don't let me die here—not here, please."

If God was out there, he did not seem to be listening. Howard did not know if there even was such a thing as God. His parents proclaimed to be Methodists, and he and his brother David were made to attend Sunday school and morning service at the local church. Both had attended vacation bible school in the summer, but their parents had been far from regular attendees

Howard and David both had grown up with this apparent contradiction; church was simply a way to keep them occupied, and a medium by which their children could build their moral character. He did not really know what being a Methodist was supposed to mean. As for there actually being an all-powerful being that controlled the destiny of everyone who lived, well, he really was not sure; it was not something he had seriously contemplated since childhood.

Howard realized it did not matter worth a rat's ass what he, Howard Eugene Langford, wanted; he was one long way away from anywhere, and if God was responsible for creating this place, then he must have been tripping on some galactic-strength acid at the time. He was thinking he was more alone now than he had ever been, and if he did not want the question of whether or not there was an afterlife answered for him, then he had better get with the program.

He brought his hands in front of his face, looked at them as if seeing them for the first time. He knew now, deep within his being, all the way to his soul, that the only way he could survive was to keep moving. Nothing else mattered.

He turned his hands over, brought them to rest on the steering wheel. He could feel the rhythm of the Lincoln's engine through the steering column, through the bottom of his seat. He could still feel, and as long as he could still do that, he was alive.

Howard shifted the Lincoln back into Drive, turned on his headlights, and put his foot onto the accelerator. The Continental responded as it always had, and moved forward at his touch.

Once he was moving, he felt calmer, more in control; the hum of the engine as it ate the miles subliminally soothed his frayed nerves. Driving had always been this way for him, when he was not dealing with flat tires, impossible traffic, and Giger-esque monstrosities prowling along alien highways.

While others relieved stress with booze or other drugs, sex, thrill seeking, or combinations thereof, Howard had always preferred to be behind the wheel. After finishing a project, he would celebrate with a meal at one of his favorite restaurants before sliding into the leather comfort of the Lincoln's interior and hitting the road for a long drive.

There was a singular type of relaxation in the solitude of the open highway. If he had possessed a more daring personality type, he would have bought a low-slung Harley Davidson. He would often look at the motorcyclists he spotted on his journeys, an unconscious jealousy in his eye as he watched the way the wind whipped over their clothing, the way the sun gleamed off the chrome of their bikes.

Seeing those free riders of the asphalt frontier never failed to stir a longing within him, a longing he knew he would never be able to fulfill. He did not have what it took to be one of them, and he knew it; he was too much a slave to his comforts. He still enjoyed the open road, however, as much as any biker. Driving helped to free his mind, relaxed him in a way nothing else did. In a way, that sense of calm was itself a form of highway hypnosis, and he had become accustomed to it over the years.

More, he had become addicted to it. In this way, he was fortunate, for he was in the best possible element in which to recover, if even only to a small degree, from the shocks he had experienced. To his surprise, he found he could, indeed, keep moving. He had managed to overcome his panic once again.

Time and distance had lost all logical meaning. He was exhausted, and had witnessed and escaped horrors he could never have imagined, but he had not yet given in to panic. As long as he could still do that, as long as he could push back his fear, he could still reason, and that meant he still had a chance to make it back home.

He thought again of the road sign, the sign that announced he was entering a place named after his childhood nickname. Considering what had happened shortly after he saw the only other sign on this forsaken highway, it would be prudent, no, absolutely necessary, for him to remain alert and aware. He had an intense foreboding about that sign, and although he had forgotten it temporarily after encountering the leviathan a short time ago, the feeling had come creeping slowly back, like some crawling, rotting thing that refused to die.

There are things you have to see yet.

The echo of the alien voice of his mystery caller played again in his head. He wondered about that voice, wondered if the sign was one of those things he was supposed to see.

_Better hurry up and show me_ , _or I'll be too damned tired to enjoy it._

It was a noble effort, this attempt at sarcasm, one of the few weapons available to him to keep the panic at bay, but it did nothing to calm him. The sign may have looked innocuous, but this was a lie; Howard had no doubt that whatever waited for him, it would be more dangerous than anything he had encountered thus far.

By the time he finally entered the bizarre little town of Splitsville, the sun was beginning to rise, and things turned out to be much worse than he could have imagined.

CHAPTER TEN

After his encounter with the wandering horror that looked like a monster-movie escapee, Howard's adrenaline level remained elevated for some time. He kept a close eye on his mirrors and the surrounding landscape, fearful the creature would return. Was it the same creature that pursued him through the Prismatic Forest? It was a possibility; if not, something very similar, and every bit as deadly, had chased him through the dark forest of many colors.

Thinking of the vision of the creature in either circumstance made him shiver. He saw no trace of the creature, nothing but the empty highway stretching before him, and the occasional glare thrown back by his headlights from the rocks bordering the asphalt.

Eventually, however, the hormones absorbed into his system, and this left him feeling more exhausted than ever. He felt drained to the core; his body ached from his neck to his toes, his muscles creaking and throbbing with fatigue. He was driving in a waking dream state; he could see his hands on the wheel, but could barely feel the texture of the steering wheel.

He felt disconnected from his body, as if it were a separate entity, one that did as he commanded, but only reluctantly. Howard knew this was bad, that he could not allow his mind to wander, but he was helpless to fight it. He felt unfocused and confused, as exhausted emotionally as he was physically.

Dreams, reality, where did one end, and the other begin? Which word applied to the land through which he now drove? Neither? Both? Or, did the explanation lie somewhere in between?

He had an almost overwhelming feeling there was something he had overlooked, some vital clue he had failed to see. He would feel like he was on the verge of a revelation, as if the answer, all the answers, were right in front of him, but when he tried to reach for them, when he tried to draw back the curtain of realization and attain enlightenment, he was left with nothing but frustration. He sensed it had something to do with his dreams—about dreams and reality—and how they came together, but it was only that, a vague sense; when he tried to make it coalesce into something more, it would fade away into the mist of exhaustion.

The rain slowed to a drizzle, and then stopped. Howard turned off his remaining windshield wiper, and as he did, he noticed he could make out details in the gloom. Dawn was approaching, the second he had seen in this alien land.

The darkness pulled away from the landscape as his surroundings took shape from shadow. Jagged peaks came slowly into view, thrusting into the sky like upraised daggers. The highway wound its way among them, its immutable black surface, replete with yellow and white markings, uncaring, unchanging, drawing him onward.

His body cried for rest. His tissues were full of fatigue poisons; his arms and legs felt heavier than they actually were, his brain was full of fog and tortured him with fantasies of sleep. Why not just pull over and take a nap? Why not put an end to the suffering?

Because some big, nasty, indescribable son of a bitch might just come along and eat your ass, that's why.

Despite the intervention of his common sense, it was a temptation that took effort to resist. Time had become elastic, each second stretched to the point where minutes became hours, and hours became more like days. He had lost track of the number of hours he had been behind the wheel.

The land he traveled through now had a cycle of day and night, but those cycles did not correspond to those of his own world. He was reasonably certain the clock on the dashboard had ticked off close to eighteen hours since the last sunrise, perhaps even more.

This was not a time for weakness; he would need his strength soon. The sign he had passed earlier promised there were more horrors to come. He did not know what form those horrors would take, but he knew, somewhere down the road, there would be a town, and something, some dark, evil thing, would be waiting. Perhaps it would even be his mystery caller, the Devil's Advocate.

If indeed the owner of the Voice was waiting for him, then perhaps his journey was nearing its end. If he could get past the town, maybe he would be able to return to his own world. He did not know what he would need to do, but the possibility alone was enough to give him hope.

He brought the Lincoln to a stop on a level stretch of the road, and shifted into Neutral. He scanned the landscape for any trace of movement, determined to drive away if he saw so much as a bug, but sixty yards to either side, there was only grass, and scree surrounding spires of rock jutting into the brightening sky.

Here, he ate the last of his food, drank his last Pepsi, and half his remaining water. It was a pitiful meal, but he savored every bite just the same. The food, what little there was of it, was gone all too quickly, but it helped clear some of the fog out of his mind. He felt fully aware again, though still fatigued.

As he sat there, eating the last of the food he had purchased in that long-departed Gas and Go and the rest stop, the sky transformed from a deep velvet purple to a rich wine, mixed with scarlet on the horizon.

As the light of the sunrise crept higher into the sky, Howard was afforded a better look at the peaks and spires around him. The mountain range surrounding appeared to be made of volcanic glass; faceted towers of obsidian rose from the plain to throw back bloody gleams of light, as if covered with the life-blood of the sky.

By the time he was finished eating, the sky had turned from red to a pale yellow-orange, and the tips of the mountains were ablaze. Rainbow reflections chased him as he shifted the Lincoln into Drive once more and continued on his way, until at last, the blood-red sun broke over the mountaintops, and turned them into rotating prisms of light.

Even with the visor flaps lowered to reduce the glare, Howard was forced to drive at little more than a crawl. The reflected light reduced the visibility to a point where he could only see what was directly in front of him, and then for only perhaps ten yards beyond the Lincoln's nose. Colors swirled over his skin and throughout the Continental's interior; he was reminded of David Bowman's journey through the monolith in _2001: A Space Odyssey_. It left him feeling queasy, disoriented, and made it harder to concentrate. Even at a slow pace, he wove from lane to lane as he fought to stay on the asphalt.

At last, he saw the sun. The blood red orb of the sun ascended far above the peaks before Howard passed beyond the chain of mountains. The sky was now the color of aged urine, contrasted in places by wispy clouds that looked like fresh wounds. The polychromatic glow that filled the air behind the Lincoln reminded him of the changing trees he discovered shortly after he entered this world.

As the prisms of light faded in his rear view mirror, Howard began to externalize his thoughts; he talked to himself as he often did in times of great frustration or fatigue. "I'd love to have an atlas right about now," he said. "I can see it now: Rand McNally's Guide to the Netherworld. See the Prism Mountains, tour the Stygian Wastes, and be sure to use our handy location guides to find a convenient fast food restaurant near you and enjoy an Inferno burger!"

It was just simple banter, a need to hear something other than the sound of the tires on the asphalt, but the words stirred something else in him, some distant memory. Again, there was the feeling he was on the brink of understanding something important, some vital fact or clue he should see, but could not.

He struggled not to let the feeling fade; fought to focus his mind, to not let it slip into chaos. He was on that mental precipice again, and just when he believed he might have a breakthrough, he rounded the final turn in the highway, and was afforded his first sighting of the town of Splitsville.

Beyond the mountains, the land transformed into rolling hills covered in waving yellow grass. The highway exited the crystalline range of mountains on one such hill, and the unmistakable shape of a cluster of small buildings was evident at the end of the rolling knolls. Beyond the town, he could see nothing but another stretch of empty desert.

Dread settled into the pit of his stomach, but he did not hesitate, did not alter his speed whatsoever as he descended the hill toward the town. If his destiny was there, then so be it; he was tired of always being afraid. Whatever waited for him there, he would confront it head on, and let the chips fall where they may.

From his vantage point on the hill, Howard estimated the town to only be a couple of miles from his present position. It would have been easy to turn around, easy to avoid the little cluster of buildings, but what purpose would that serve? The sign had been both a warning and a taunt, daring him to come into the town, to come and see whatever sights and dangers it had to offer. Howard was determined to answer it with whatever courage he could muster.

He was afraid of the town, but he could also feel the old anger lurking just below the surface of his conscious mind, and it drove him onward, just as it had in his childhood. He didn't like being pushed, and if there was any possibility he could end this nightmare by going to the town, he would gladly take that chance.

Within minutes, Howard rounded a turn that ran between two hills, and got his first clear look at the town of Splitsville. At first glance, it could have been Anywhere, U.S.A.; average, everyday homes lined either side of the highway, complete with lawns, driveways, and quaint little patios and porches, all arranged in tidy little blocks. The town appeared like any other, normal in almost every way, but taken in context with the surrounding landscape, it was as out of place as a Wal-Mart on the surface of the moon.

Other details, and the lack of them, also testified to the strangeness of the area. No power lines were visible; the streets were bare of poles and wires. There were no mailboxes, no cable or electrical service boxes. The side streets, of which there were several, led nowhere; they were all dead ends. The yellow sky lent an unusual cast to all the surrounding colors; bricks were the color of dried blood, and siding and other white surfaces glowed with an unhealthy, fallow aura.

Cars and trucks of various ages littered the town, some parked in the driveways of the houses, some along the sides of the road. Some were in decent shape, but most were damaged, some mangled almost to the point where their model was unrecognizable.

Howard wondered how these vehicles had made even made it to their final resting place. Here was an early model Mustang, sporting familiar scratches along its sides. Further on, a late '50's Bel Air station wagon, dented and rusting, sitting over the curb, its front end in one of the front yards. A mauled cargo van was parked in the driveway on the opposite side, its front two wheels devoid of rubber, its windows shattered. On a side street to his left, he spied what might have been a '40's era Chevrolet pickup truck. There were others he could not identify, some barely more than a frame with wheels.

The wrongness emanating from the place was tangible; it pulsated through him in waves, and made his skin crawl. He could sense something behind the darkened windows of the houses, something dark and ancient, watching and waiting.

Waiting for him.

Even so, there was a small part of him—the part most vulnerable to the fear and exhaustion—that was tempted by the strange town. This part of him wanted to forget the nightmare landscape that existed beyond the collection of buildings, beyond this oasis of brick and glass and wood siding, wanted to ignore that there was not a gas station or post office or even a convenience store in sight, wanted to deny there could be anything wrong with a group of houses in a place where they had no right to exist. This part of him wanted to pretend the vehicles littering the town were not the derelict remains from stranded victims, but instead wanted to believe they belonged to normal people, just like him, who lived out their lives inside comfortable homes, folks who might give him much needed food and rest.

Howard pushed this voice of temptation away, pushed it down into the sea of exhaustion that had spawned it in the hope it would drown there, but he could not silence it entirely; it stayed deep in his mind, lurking in the shadows like a hungry ghoul.

As he approached the first of the houses, Howard was convinced the darkened windows concealed the watching eyes of monstrous creatures ready to rush out of the doorways as soon as he got within range. But as he passed them, two identical brick ranchers that sat opposite one another, so perfectly matched they formed a mirror image of each other, nothing happened; the doors remained closed, the windows dark. The town remained still, unmoving, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

Howard was not fooled by the town's deserted appearance. Instead of easing his fears, the empty streets and dark windows only heightened his paranoia. There was evil here; he could feel it.

Two more identical houses followed, two-floor colonials, and then a pair that appeared to be a cross between the other two models. All had simple, average lines, looking very much like a normal development or suburb around any city or town in America.

_In exactly ten seconds_ , _all the doors will open, and identically dressed children will walk to the end of the driveways and bounce a red ball five times, all in perfect unison..._

Howard shuddered. The town was strangely reminiscent of Madeline L'Engle's ' _A Wrinkle in Time_ ', and this disturbed him on an intrinsic level. He hoped any similarities he could draw were merely the product of an over-taxed mind. Howard had read that particular book in the fifth grade, and what he remembered of the story still bothered him. He recalled how a disembodied brain had enslaved the populace, controlled their actions, and ruled every aspect of their lives.

The memory caused a feeling of revulsion within him, as it did when he first read it all those years ago; its ability to frighten him remained undiminished despite the passage of time.

As he approached the first intersection, Howard turned to look down the side street as it passed. He knew better than to turn down any of them; he had seen earlier they did not go anywhere. The streets did not end in a court or turnaround, or even a barricade; the blacktop merely crumbled into rocky desert terrain, like a painting abandoned by its creator, left to sit unfinished and forgotten in the back of a closet.

He turned to look in the other direction, and the view was the same. The last houses on either side of the narrower lanes, where the asphalt disintegrated into sand and rock, were hardly more than shapeless mounds. None of the streets had names, but Howard could guess what they would be called: Hopelessness Lane, Depression Circle, Insanity Loop, Suicide Avenue, and Terminal Street.

_Fake_. _It's all just a fake. Of course it is, and I'm supposed to know it. I'm supposed to know how wrong it all is, just another bit of strain on my sanity, to see if I'll crack._

This realization brought with it the feeling of almost understanding, a will o' the wisp of comprehension that taunted him, led him on, only to disappear and leave him stranded in the swamp of his own mind.

He turned his mind from such pursuits to ponder instead on the ruined hulks rusting in the streets around him, and the people who had owned them. Had they all experienced the same horrors, or was the trip different for each of them? Where had they come from, and where had they gone? The end result was certainly the same for all of them; they had wound up here, and had never left. They had been seduced into thinking they might find safety, but instead met dark ends in a town that was not really a town, but was more like a hungry animal, waiting to feed.

_Whatever else happens_ , _I won't let the same thing happen to me. No way in hell. If it wants a bite of me, it'll have to come out and get me._

No sooner than he started to feel confidence in his resolve to handle anything the town might have waiting for him, when he came upon the boy.

He almost missed him; in his attempt to watch everything at once, he almost overlooked the young man standing just on the other side of the cargo van, raking leaves in the yard of one of the colonial two-story homes.

Howard slowed the Lincoln to a crawl, and looking closer, saw the boy appeared to be about seventeen years old or so, with unkempt reddish-blonde hair and pale, sunburned skin. He was dressed in a maroon polo shirt and blue jeans, and his arms and face were covered in freckles that were almost lost in his reddened flesh.

He brought the Continental to a stop in front of the house where the boy stood, as he looked around for anything that might look dangerous. The boy seemed not to notice his presence at all, but continued to rake the yard despite the fact there was nothing in the grass to rake. He stood where Howard first spotted him, his head down, his arms working the leaf rake in a semi-circle around him. It was not until Howard rolled down his window in order to call out to the young man that the other looked in his direction.

"How ya doin', Mister?" the boy called to him, as he continued to comb the stiff grass, "Dry day, isn't it?"

Howard did not reply at first; he was trying to make up his mind if what he was seeing was real. The boy seemed solid enough, and he supposed some of those who came to this place might have become trapped here, perhaps even lived here. This boy was still alive, and that was amazing considering all he had been through since entering this world, though certainly suspicious. Regardless, Howard would not be falling for any such obvious ruses today, no thank you.

The boy continued to rake as he waited for a reply. He looked at Howard with red, puffy eyes, almost as puffy as Howard's own, and in them, Howard saw desperation. The boy made an attempt at a smile, but it came out looking twisted and strange. "Sure is a dry day, isn't it?" he repeated.

Howard wondered which of the cars now rusting in the driveways and on the street used to belong to the boy raking grass in the middle of the biggest nowhere Howard could ever imagine. He didn't think the boy drove the cargo van. Perhaps he was the driver of the Mustang he had passed earlier, covered in scratches and bearing Maine license plates. Maybe he had only been a passenger, brought here unwittingly by another. Either way, Howard was certain his fate had been sealed at the moment he left the protection of his automobile.

He looked at the boy, who still smiled that ghastly smile. The younger man's lip twitched, and revealed too many teeth. "What's your name?" he asked. The boy looked uncertain; his eyes darted back and forth. Howard repeated the question, his voice firm, but even. "What is your name, son?"

The boy's agitation increased, and for a moment, Howard did not think he would answer. Then, the other boy replied, "K-Kevin... Kevin Hobbs."

Howard opened his mouth to ask the boy any of the dozen questions that were jumbling for a position in line in his brain, but Kevin cut him off. "Are you thirsty, mister? I have some iced tea inside, if you would like some." The boy's voice was strained, almost to the point of hysteria. Howard was impressed; he doubted he could have done better under the circumstances. He was not fooled, however; he knew whatever was inside the house was sure as hell not iced tea.

The silence in the town grew even more profound; it hung on every word exchanged between them, as if the entire movie-lot town paused as they spoke. They were being watched. He could feel it.

Howard decided he was tired of the charade; he wanted answers. He would play along, but he would play on his terms. "Sure, I'd love some," he answered. "Why don't you just run inside and fetch me a glass." He knew the boy would do no such thing, of course, but it was part of the game, a game he was determined to win.

Kevin looked uncertain at the response, uncertain and very afraid. Then, he managed to work his face into its former expression as he asked, "How about some food, mister? You look like you've come a long way. I bet you sure could use something to eat."

The words were lies, of course, just another pathetic attempt to lure him out of the car, but the mention of food made Howard's mouth water, and caused his stomach to tighten in a painful way. The boy either saw or sensed the impact of his words upon the man in the large automobile, and the look of desperation, mixed with wild hope, surfaced on his face again.

Had Howard been more desperate, or less intelligent, he might even have fallen for such a ploy, but he had been shown in gruesome detail the consequences of such a reaction. Even so, it was hard to tear his mind away from the need for food.

_Be careful_. _You're playing a dangerous game here, and you're in enemy territory. Stay focused._

Howard gave what he hoped was an easygoing grin. "Thanks," he told the boy, "but no thanks. I just ate."

The silence around them seemed to recoil, and Howard found he rather enjoyed it. "Just an hour ago," he added, his voice casual and smooth. "Big turkey dinner, mashed potatoes, stuffing, all the good stuff. But thanks for asking all the same." He turned his attention down the street, and nodded in that direction. "How far until the end of town?"

He never considered himself to have any acting ability, but he felt his performance so far was worthy of an Oscar. He was calm. He was cool. He was just a man out for a drive. He sensed this was important; he needed to appear relaxed and in control. If he could do this long enough, then perhaps whatever lurked here, just beyond his view, would make a mistake and be revealed.

Kevin had stopped his manic raking. He visibly traced Howard's gaze back to the rake he was holding, and began going through the motions once again. Instead of answering Howard's question, he said, "Sure don't get too many visitors around here. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was being inhospitable, no sir. You can feel free to freshen up here if you like, um, maybe use the bathroom?" The look of wild hope came back into his eyes. "It's gotta be better than at some gas station, am I right?"

The Mustang down the street may have come from Maine, but the boy's accent did not. Perhaps he had been attending college up that way, and had been driving home during a break in classes. Maybe the boy had only recently moved there, and not had time to pick up the accent yet. Howard wondered how long the boy had been here, how much he had seen and experienced, how many unspeakable things he had faced. He felt pity for the boy, but he knew better than to tip his hand by trying to help him; there was just too much at stake for him to give in to such feelings.

"Again, thanks but no thanks," Howard replied. "I took care of that a little while ago, but I appreciate the offer." He wondered how long this charade would go on. The air felt as if it were growing tense around them; something was going to happen, and Howard wanted to be far away when it did. First, however, he wanted some answers, and this boy might be the only person who could provide them.

"So, tell me, Kevin," he began, his voice calm and amiable, as if they were long-time neighbors just having a friendly chat, "how did you come to be here? Did you fall asleep at the wheel? Was there a flash of light, or did you just wake up and find you were somewhere else? Did you know right away where you were, or did it take awhile for it all to sink in?" He smiled wider, as if he were just asking directions to the nearest gas station. "You look like a smart kid," he said, the smile never leaving his face, "so tell me, why in the world would you to get out of the car?

The boy's composure started to falter. Howard watched as the boy's face first quivered, then collapsed into a mask of dazed panic. His eyes darted back and forth. He wet his lips as he wrung his hands on the rake handle. He attempted to take a step forward, but was stopped short. That one step was enough to prove Howard's suspicions. It was more than just fear that held the boy in place; when he moved, Howard saw something hidden in the grass, wrapped around the boy's leg.

"I didn't know, I didn't know," the boy said, his voice so strained and full of despair Howard could barely make out the individual words. "I didn't know. How could I? Now it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all." He looked down at the rake he was holding, as if just noticing it for the first time, and then let it fall to the ground. His shoulders slumped. "I didn't know," he repeated. He looked at his empty, trembling hands, and then turned his gaze to Howard. The look in the boy's eyes filled the older man with sorrow and dread.

"I thought maybe when I saw the town, I had made it back." Kevin said. His shoulders hitched as he began to sob. "I thought once I made it here, everything would be alright." The boy's voice increased in pitch; his words came faster and faster. "It looked so much like home, I figured it was the way home, but I was wrong, and now I can't go back." His chest convulsed, and Howard saw the boy was crying in long, sharp breaths.

"I was wrong, and I can't go back! And then it said if I did what I was told, it would let me go and everything would be alright, but he LIED AND NOW I CAN'T GO BACK AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE RIGHT AGAIN!"

The door to the house behind the boy opened at that moment, and someone, or something, began to come out of it. The boy must have known it was terrible, whatever it was, because he began to scream.

"I WAS JUST GOING TO VISIT MY GIRLFRIEND! I SHOULDN'T EVEN BE HERE, MISTER! HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME!"

A figure walked out of the doorway onto the lawn. It began to walk toward them, but Howard's attention was on the screaming boy. "PLEASE MISTER! I DON'T WANT TO DIE HERE!" he pleaded. "I DON'T BELONG HERE! PLEASE! I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!"

The young man's words were almost incomprehensible, the individual words blended into a single, bleating wail of sound. Howard shifted his gaze to the figure that walked across the yard toward them. Kevin paused his ranting to look behind him, and the panic at what he saw twisted his face into an expression of pure terror.

"IT'S GOING TO KILL ME MISTER! HELP ME, PLEASE! PLEASE, I DON'T WANT TO DIE! PLEASE DON'T LET IT GET MEEEEEEEE!"

The boy's words trailed off into an incoherent screech. He tried to run toward the Continental, but was pulled back; he fell to the ground as if the yard had been pulled out from beneath his feet. He flailed in the grass, clawing at the air. He strained to reach the Lincoln, and now Howard could see the manacle clamped to the boy's leg, near the ankle. There was a short chain connecting the shackle to the top of a metal ring sunk into the ground, both camouflaged by the tall greenery.

The figure that walked across the out-of-place grass, the being that even now drew nearer to Howard, was a familiar one. He recognized the figure the moment he saw him.

It was Marcus Saul.

Next to his father, Howard despised Marcus Saul more than any other human being. Saul was Howard's first employer, and was the man who had stolen his ideas, taken credit for his work, humiliated and then fired him. Though it was many years, and millions of dollars, since then, the old emotions locked away in Howard's heart since that time began to rattle the door to their cage. He could feel the blood as it rose to his cheeks, as the old shame and anger fought their way to the surface.

Marcus Saul was the last person Howard ever expected to see. He had to fight to keep the emotional cage locked, lest they managed to escape and overwhelm him. If there was one person that could push Howard over the edge, one thing that could have reduced Howard to blind acts of rage, it was his old boss.

It did not matter that those events had taken place so long ago, did not matter worth a damn that he had gone further in his career than his adversary could ever dream of going, just as it did not matter that Howard had achieved the ultimate victory when he purchased Titan Software in order to reverse their roles. None of this mattered one iota when the man walked out onto the lawn; the humiliation and anger he had felt all those years ago came back to him in a rush, and it was all he could do to keep from bolting from the car in order to punch the other man straight in the face.

_It's not real_. _It can't be._ He forced back the tide of anger, the rush of memories the man brought to his mind. _Whatever that thing is, and however you would like to think of someone like him winding up in a place like this, it can't be real. It's some kind of trick, some type of illusion, designed to make you slip up, to make you drop your guard. It's just what they want._

The figure was tangible enough to the boy flailing about on the lawn, however. The boy reacted as if nothing short of Death walked toward him, which Howard realized was likely an accurate approximation.

"NO! GOD, PLEASE, NO! GOD, PLEASE!" the boy screamed. He sounded like his vocal chords might tear out at any moment; his words cracked in his throat. Each syllable sounded like a bone being splintered after being stressed beyond its breaking point.

"Now, what is all this fussing about?" asked the figure that could not possibly be Marcus Saul, as it walked in the jocular waddle Howard remembered from days of old, up to where Kevin strained at the chain that tethered him to the yard. The boy grew still, as if paralyzed by his approach, his hands clenched at his throat. Gurgling noises came from his mouth, his face horribly contorted with fear. The figure that was not Marcus Saul stood and looked at the boy as if amused, an amicable grin on his thick-lipped mouth, his hands on his hips. "What is all this hullabaloo?" it asked.

"Something seems to be wrong with your help," Howard said to the Marcus-thing as the boy struggled to his feet. It took effort to keep his voice steady as he added, "more than likely it has something to do with that chain around his leg." As afraid as he was, he managed to keep his voice even and controlled.

"Looks like the boy went and got all tangled up," drawled the Marcus-thing cheerfully in a 'why-lookey-here' tone. The words had a disturbing, bubbly quality, full of dark humor.

The boy's eyes were pleading pools of anguish. From his place on the lawn, he silently begged Howard to help him; his mouth formed the word _'please_ ' over and over again.

The Marcus-Thing walked over to where Kevin was standing. The boy's eyes were still on Howard, and in them he saw the look of a man who knew he was about to die. Howard's heart twisted in his chest. He desperately wanted to help the boy, but knew there was nothing he could do; to try would likely prove fatal.

"Looks like he just got caught up, is all," the thing said, its voice full of dark effervescence, which sounded nothing like the real Marcus Saul. "Boy just probably let his mind wander too far, and got himself caught up, but we can fix that, yes we can. We can take good care of that, can't we son?"

At the word _son_ , the Marcus Saul look-a-like slapped the boy on the back with its right hand, and pulled the boy to his feet. The slap looked friendly, a good-to-see-you-old-buddy kind of smack, but it did not sound friendly at all to Howard. It sounded wet somehow, like a soaked towel slung against a wall. The sound was offensive, and made a shiver run down his spine. Kevin's back arched at the moment of contact; the muscles of his neck stood out in stark detail, as if he had been struck with a whip instead of a hand. It was the reaction one would expect from someone as they were electrocuted.

The grinning man Howard knew could not be Marcus Saul left his hand where it struck the boy, as if in affection, but as Howard watched, the boy's legs unhinged at the knees, and his head slumped forward. It was plain that the creature, whatever its real identity, was the only thing holding him upright.

Kevin's head hung askew, his chin almost touching his chest, his mouth open. His arms hung limp to his sides. All expression drained from his face; his features were transformed into that of a mindless idiot. Except for the eyes. The boy's eyes remained lucid, fixed on Howard's own.

The boy began to drool. Howard saw this with perfect clarity, as if his sense of sight had become magnified. He watched as it dropped from the corner of the boy's mouth. In this heightened state, he could even see the light reflecting from the spittle, could see it form a miniature prism. Finally, the boy's eyes began to dull as the life in them faded. He sat frozen, unable to look away as the last of the boy's life drained away.

With effort, Howard tore his gaze from the ghastly spectacle that was taking place on the lawn. As he looked away, his eyes came to rest on the cargo van parked in the driveway. Though the image was distorted, and dulled by dust and grime, his intensified visual perception allowed him to see with astonishing detail.

There, reflected in the driver's side mirror and what remained of the vehicle's windows, he could see the boy, Kevin, looking just as he did on the lawn, save for the viewing angle. What stood next to him, however, was certainly not Marcus Saul, former senior manager for Titan Software. No, the thing reflected in the glass standing next to the boy was not even close to what could be described as human.

What stood next to the already dead Kevin Hobbs was an amorphous, silvery blob, with appendages protruding from a central mass, giving it a vaguely human shape. One of these appendages disappeared into the back of the dead boy's skull.

Rainbow hues ran in rivulets over the thing's surface, which was featureless save for the area roughly where the face would be located on a human being. In this area were two black rings, spaced where a human's eyes would be, and protruding above each of these was a patch of waving black cilia, similar to those found on sea anemones, which, for some reason, reminded Howard of Groucho Marx.

Howard looked back toward the Marcus-thing and the boy. He could still see Marcus Saul standing there, one hand casually resting on the boy's neck, but he could also see the blob-creature. The two images were superimposed on top of one another. If he concentrated, the image of Saul disappeared, and only the blob remained.

"See? He's free now," it said in a wet, bubbly voice. "Soon, you'll be free too."

"Like hell I will, you sick bastard," Howard replied jovially. "Why don't you just go fuck yourself?"

Kevin's body appeared to be shrinking inward, and Howard realized what was happening; the creature was literally sucking the boy dry. Somehow, the monster was drawing the teen's insides up through the back of his head. He was being absorbed, consumed, from the inside out, like the way a spider would consume a fly.

Howard could not bear to see any more. He felt numb, and sick to his stomach; he turned away from what was left of the unfortunate, doomed boy, and hit the button to raise the window just before he shifted the transmission into Drive. He could hear the creature's bubbling laughter as he drove away, a vile, perverse sound that made his gorge rise in his throat.

There were more of them. He could see them now. They stood in the doorways of the houses where rusted vehicles sat in the driveways, chrome blobs that swirled with color. Some moved slowly along the highway, moving like mercurial paramecium, their cilia waving in the yellow light.

As Howard cruised around the rusted remains of an old Packard roadster that sat in the lane, he encountered one of the blob-things that had managed to reach the highway. It was moving in an attempt to intercept the Lincoln. At the sight of it, Howard became filled with rage, and a deep sorrow for the desperate, weary people who had become trapped in the dangerous little town, all the owners of the various abandoned vehicles that rusted in the driveways and in the street. It was not a feeling he was accustomed to, but he did not consider this as he swerved the Continental to strike the thing with the vehicle's front end.

"Eat this, you lousy piece of shit," he said as the front end plowed into the shimmering mass. There was a jolt, though less of one than he expected, and he felt pleasure as the thing exploded from the impact. The creature sent rainbow-colored goo in a ragged spray away from the Continental. Howard was rewarded with a high-pitched, gurgling scream that cut short as the remainder of the creature was dragged under the Lincoln's wheels.

Behind him, what was left of the blob-thing began to lose what was left of its shape. It melted, quivering, into puddles of chrome. Around him, the air was filled with a mournful drone, as the town's inhabitants sang a dirge for their fallen comrade. Howard gritted his teeth at the sound, despite the feeling of victory it gave him.

_Don't like it so much when it's one of their own, do you, you bags of pus_. _Maybe you'll think twice the next time a car comes rolling through town._

Howard turned his head, watched as the blobs continued to move toward the Lincoln from every direction, apparently undaunted by the loss of one of their fellows. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash at the edge of his vision, and turned to see even more blobs propelling their way toward the curb.

When he turned back, he saw another car, a rusted, barely recognizable hulk even older than the Packard, straddling the lane barely three car lengths ahead of him. He turned the wheel hard, and it first appeared he would miss the wreck completely, when there was a sharp scraping noise behind him, and a slight vibration as the rear fender caught the rusting ruin. Howard grimaced, and gripped the wheel tighter.

Flashes of silver passed him on both sides. He could almost feel their hunger, their hatred for him, as they continued their approach. Howard knew they feared him as well, especially after taking out one of their kind, an event he was certain rarely, if ever, occurred. Knowing this gave him a small measure of comfort; it felt good to strike back. The blobs ahead of him were slowing down; they hesitated at the edge of the highway, visibly disturbed by the moving Lincoln. They knew better than to step in his path.

_Damn straight_. _Go ahead. Make my day._

Less than a quarter mile ahead of him, the houses ended abruptly; the last few houses were nothing more than crumbling wrecks. Beyond this point, the road entered the vast, rock-strewn desert Howard had spotted from the hill outside of town. A mile or so beyond that, there was another structure, its nature impossible to discern due to the waves of heat rising from the blacktop and rocky ground under the burning mid-day sun. Howard did not place any importance on the building; he was almost clear of the town, and that was all that mattered.

As he passed the last of the houses, a great wailing sound filled the air. It was an evil noise, full of greed, want, and frustration, a sound of anguish for their lost comrade, and Howard smiled when he heard it.

Howard noticed the outlying building straddled the highway, as if the asphalt had cut it in two. This structure was surrounded by an expanse of razor-edged rocks. There was no question of driving around it; the rocks were easily sharp enough to puncture his tires.

The edifice had familiar, authoritarian lines, and its appearance made sweat break out on his skin. He had encountered many similar buildings in his travels, and they had always given him a vague sense of unease. They appeared as imposing now, in his thirties, as they had in his childhood.

Sitting here, on the outskirts of the strange little town of Splitsville, the effect was intensified; he felt as if he were a child again, as if he were encountering something he had never seen before, something that could end his journey with no effort at all.

Ahead of him, he could see the unmistakable shape of a tollbooth blocking the highway.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As Howard drew closer, he could see a small sign erected on the right hand shoulder, just before the cubicle-style structures that bordered each side of the highway. The sign read:

NOW LEAVING SPLITSVILLE

PREPARE TO PAY TOLL

Beyond the sign, the booth itself, a rectangle of metal and glass, sat on a raised concrete platform. A barricade ran across the two lanes from the back of the cubicle, a steel bar screaming with black and yellow stripes. Beneath the barricade, gleaming metal spikes sprouted like fangs from a grille set into the asphalt. A similar structure sat opposite, on the right side of the highway. Both looked solid enough to withstand a bomb blast.

The setup was one he had seen in one incarnation or another dozens of times, including on the lots of the high security facilities where he so successfully plied his trade, but those other structures had always conveyed a sense of authority, had projected a feeling of structure and security. But here, the attitude of the buildings gave him a sinister feeling, like spiders crawling on his nerves.

_This can't be good_. _This can't be good at all._

Howard brought the Lincoln to a stop without thinking. The booth, with its angry black and yellow barricade and gleaming teeth, waited less than ten yards from the front of the automobile. Behind the glass in the left-hand booth, almost completely hidden in shadow, something stirred.

Howard looked into his rear view mirror, his suspicions aroused. Reflected there, blobs of chrome moved in the distance. He turned his attention back to the booth. He could not make out much of what might lie beyond the glass, but it didn't matter; he had passed any point of turning back some time ago, and even if he had not, he could not drive back through the little town, with its cars rusting in the street, especially after watching Kevin meet his death. He had killed one of the boy's attackers, and even now, they massed behind him with the intent of taking their revenge. There was only one way to go, and that was forward.

As Howard sat looking at the booth, an arm waved to him from the side window. It beckoned him forward, as if to say, "drive on up, pal, what's the holdup?" The arm looked normal enough, dressed in a pale blue uniform shirt, with a perfectly normal hand attached to it. Howard was not fooled; he had seen that trick before, just a few minutes ago. He thought there was a very good possibility that the arm in the booth actually belonged to another one of the things back in the town. Worse, he knew there was very little he could do about it if it turned out to be true; he needed to get beyond that gate.

What the hell are you waiting for?

He eased his foot from the brake, and allowed the Lincoln to drift forward. He did not have a plan; his mind was working at a furious pace, but he had no idea what to do, no course of action.

One thing he did know, however, was he meant to stay as far from the booth as the road would allow. The rocks on either side of the highway formed a natural barrier to anyone who would attempt to bypass the tollbooth. There was no easy way around the barricade, but Howard was not about to let that stop him. If things got out of hand, even by a little bit, he planned on blasting out of there as quickly as possible, tollbooth or no tollbooth, even if it meant driving on the rims.

_Clever_. _They might be slow, but they're not exactly stupid, whatever they are. This whole place is like a roach hotel. Tourists check in, but they don't check out._

The Lincoln crept closer, and the booth, with its waving arm, grew larger. The beckoning appendage, with its chipper hey-can-you-see-me wave, seemed very big to Howard, more appropriately proportioned for an ogre or a troll than for a toll attendant. But then, as he began to pull abreast of the booth, he realized he was mistaken; the arm was rather muscular, but not much greater in size than his own. This did nothing to alleviate his trepidation. It wasn't a question of _if_ something was wrong, but _what_ was wrong.

Howard pulled up beside the small concrete and glass enclosure, and stared with bleary eyes as the side of the building came into view. He already knew what he would see: a Dutch-style door set into the wall, divided halfway up its length, through which the arm performed its jaunty come-hither wave. It was like every other manned tollbooth he had ever encountered; only it was here, where no tollbooth had any right to exist.

But that did not matter; it did not matter worth squat. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting past the barricade in one piece. He looked again at the waving arm, and followed the arm with his eyes to its owner, seated at the window. The arm joined the shoulder of a large and rather bored looking man with blond hair. He looked to be about Howard's age, and was dressed in typical fashion for one in his position: a long-sleeved shirt with an insignia over the chest pocket, and khakis. These details did not matter to Howard; he was a fast learner, and it had not taken him long to learn that almost nothing was as it appeared in this Land of the Bizarre.

The man in the booth, if that is what he was, had stopped waving his arm, and instead rested it on the edge of the door as he sat there. He stared at Howard with an expression of mild curiosity.

_Stare all you want, asshole_. _I don't move until I see what type of game you're playing here._

He looked around carefully, paid particular attention to the reflections in the windows of the booth, the surfaces of his car, and in his mirrors. He hoped to experience the clarity of vision he had experienced back in the town, in the moments that led to the boy's death. Dissatisfied, he turned his rear view mirror as far as it would go, and managed to catch a partial view of the booth and its occupant in the glass. The reflected image was poor, but the scene it displayed bore no difference to the one he saw out the window; the man in the booth still looked like a man.

_Bullshit_. _There's something going on here, and I'm going to find out what it is_. He doubted the person in the booth was a man, even a man who had become trapped here like himself, or the former Kevin Hobbs. It was possible the blob-things had made a deal with one of the human visitors, as they did the boy, to stall any escapees from the town while they closed in for the kill, but Howard doubted this; he suspected something else, some other game, was at play here. He allowed the Lincoln to drift a bit more, until it was even with the window of the booth.

The booth attendant made a circular motion with one hand, one which Howard and most motorists were familiar, the signal for him to roll his window down. Knowing no better response, he did so, allowing the glass to drop about four inches. The attendant watched him patiently from his seat inside.

"Didn't you read the sign?" the bulky man asked in a bemused tone. Howard observed the man in the booth had the build of a football player, and was almost his size, only in better shape; he was the type of man you wouldn't want to make angry.

This made him realize that if the attendant were a normal man, he might prove more troublesome than the blob-creatures. Howard was not a fighter, and knew his only chance would be to flee if the man proved to be violent.

Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead, and began to run down his face, despite the air conditioning running on high. He felt the salty sting of his own sweat as it ran into his eyes. He debated just running through the barricade, weighed his chances of survival if he veered around the booth and drove through the field of rocks beyond, but knew he would not get far. He had to get the attendant to raise the striped arm barring his progress if he was to have any hope of escape.

"You have to pay the toll," the man in the booth continued. Howard just sat and stared; he did not know how to respond. Inside the booth, the attendant sat waiting, as if this were just another nine-to-five job. As if to emphasize this, the man gave a long, bored yawn. There was something disquieting about that yawn, something disturbingly familiar about the way the attendant's lips pulled back from his teeth. It was almost as if he was meant to think this was all normal. Did they really think he was that stupid?

_Give me a break_.

Howard could understand the principle behind that expectation, could even understand how so many people could fall for such an obvious ruse. Overwhelmed by exhaustion, driven by hunger, perhaps even wounded from the strange and terrible predators that stalked the landscape, it would be all too easy to fall prey to hope, to give in to desperation. Under such conditions, anyone could become trapped in the honey, could be deceived by a pitcher plant of a town whose lure was the chance, however slim, that they might find salvation.

The man in the booth finished his yawn. "Look buddy," he said in a bemused tone, "it's like this, see, you pay the toll, and I push this button." He pointed to a red knob on the console spanning the width of the rectangular structure, just visible from Howard's position in the vehicle. "And the gate there," he pointed to the barricade, "goes up. You get to go on your merry way. Otherwise, you get to stay put, or you can turn around, pal. I don't particularly give a damn." He spoke like he was talking to a child, one with whom he was running out of patience.

_Like he doesn't know this is all part of some twisted game_. _Okay, you want me to play? Fine; then let's play_.

He lowered the window another inch before calling to the attendant, "How much is the toll? I didn't see that on the sign."

The large blonde man in the blue shirt hesitated a moment, before he smiled, and said in a very loud voice, "ONE MILLION DOLLARS!" He laughed then, a deep, hearty chuckle, before adding, "Just kidding, sir. Sorry about that, but I just couldn't resist. I love the look on folk's faces when they hear that. This is something of a tiresome job, you understand. Sometimes I have to find ways to deal with the boredom to keep my spirits up."

_I bet you do_.

The attendant smiled warmly at Howard and stood from his chair to stand by the partitioned door. "The toll is only one dollar, sir."

Out of the corner of his eye, Howard spotted a glint of silver in his rear view mirror. They were not close enough to pose a threat yet, but they were coming. He had to get this moving along; the blobs were getting too close for comfort.

"One dollar?" Howard asked. "Is that all?"

"That's it." replied the attendant, his voice deep. "Twenty nickels. Ten dimes. Four quarters. A paltry fee to keep your date with destiny." An amused look overtook his face as he said this. "Hey," he added, "that rhymes. What do you know?"

Howard had his hand on his wallet in an instant. He took it from his pocket and flipped it open in one continuous motion. Perhaps if he acted quickly, he could catch the attendant, whatever it really was, off guard, and maybe get away from this place in one piece before the blob things caught up with him.

Howard shifted the Lincoln into Neutral, and thumbed through the bills in his wallet, unsure of the denominations he might find _._

_Let there by at least one single in there_. _Let me surprise this sucker and have exact change_.

He knew without looking the chrome-colored creatures were only minutes away from catching up to him. Every second he delayed here brought them closer. Most of the bills in his wallet were twenties, but when he thumbed through the bills again, he came across a single dollar bill, the last in his billfold, nestled between two tens. He peeled the bill out of the wallet and held it up for the attendant to see.

One dollar, and I get to move on, correct?" he asked.

The toll-taker nodded. "Yes indeed. That's the deal." He held out his hand with his palm face-up. It was obvious he wanted Howard to hand him the money. At his present distance from the booth, Howard would have to open the door in order to do this, something he was not prepared to do, not by a long shot. He would not allow himself to wind up like Kevin.

Howard rolled down his window without taking his eyes from the attendant. His plan was to act like he was going to hand the bill to the attendant, and then pretend to drop it by accident, before hitting the button to roll up the window again. It was not a great plan, but it was the best he could think of under the circumstances.

_If I can just play it cool, who knows_? M _aybe I can get out of here before the attendant even knows what is happening_.

He reached out the window with his left hand, the dollar bill folded neatly along its length, tucked between his first two fingers.

Howard would have considered it impossible for anyone, especially the bulky booth attendant, to move so quickly. One moment he was sitting in the Lincoln, his forearm extended out the window, and the next his arm felt like it was trapped in a vise. In the space of less than a heartbeat, he was being dragged from the automobile.

The vise on his arm was the hand of the booth attendant. He grasped Howard at the wrist, causing the bones in his arm to groan in protest. The large man had moved out of the booth with such speed, his eyes barely registered a blur before the attendant was at his window, and he was being pulled out of the Lincoln.

"Hey now, did you really think it would be that easy?" the attendant asked, his voice a throaty purr. He pulled even harder on Howard's arm, and his shoulder screamed as his body was pulled farther out the window. The toll-taker grabbed Howard by the front of his shirt with his free hand, and hoisted him from the opening to his waist.

_Trapped...trapped...I'm trapped_.

The words flashed through Howard's brain again and again as he was pulled from his seat. He flailed his other arm about, tried to loosen the toll-taker's grip, beat against it with his fist, but could not get his attacker to loosen his hold; it felt to Howard like he was beating his arm against an iron bar.

Liquid fire ran through the muscles of his arm, shoulders, and back. The edge of the Lincoln's top raked along his spine to his hips, where it smacked into his kidneys with the force of a well-swung baseball bat. He cried out with the force of the impact, and the world began to go gray. Had he not been such a large man, he would have been pulled from his vehicle with the ease of an oyster scooped from its shell; his bulk was the only thing that saved him.

Howard locked his legs, tried to become one with the car door. His arm and shoulder screamed in agony, and his legs felt like they were being pulled from his body at the hips. Any moment now, he would be pulled in two, but he would be unconscious before that happened.

"A dollar, hell, that's a pretty good joke," the toll-taker said in his tiger-purr voice, unconcerned that he had failed to pull Howard free from the Lincoln. "Damn, but I crack myself up."

The attendant let go of Howard's shirt, and grabbed him by the throat. A palm the size of a tea saucer pressed deep into his copious chin. Muscular fingers reached up around his jaw clamped into his windpipe and cheeks; the pressure nearly cut off his air supply.

Howard gripped his attacker's arm with his free hand, and when the toll-taker, who appeared much larger now that he was up close, let go of his wrist, he immediately grabbed it with that hand as well. For Howard, it felt like he was wrestling a tree trunk. He hung there, suspended, barely able to breathe.

"Fuck you," Howard gurgled.

"You already did that once," the toll-taker snarled, "and now you're going to pay the toll, boy."

"I never did anything to you!" Howard managed to spurt.

"Oh, but we know better, don't we boy?" The attendant pulled his face close to that of his victim, and Howard watched as the pupils of his eyes changed into vertical slits. Howard could feel something moving through the sleeve of the man's shirt, as if a mass of worms writhed beneath the cloth.

The toll-taker moved his free arm, but Howard was too preoccupied with the effort to breathe to pay much attention. Lights swam in his field of vision. Things were moving too fast, and the attendant's eyes...

Then, Howard got a glimpse of something, some kind of instrument or tool, in the toll-taker's hand, an instant before it was jammed into his mouth. Adrenaline poured into his veins; he was certain the man, or whatever it truly was, intended to kill him.

There was a pinch in his mouth, and then the toll-taker yanked his arm back with sudden, terrible force, and a flare of pain shot through Howard's head. White spikes of agony spiked through his mouth, followed by the bitter taste of blood spraying over his tongue. His eyes flooded with tears, but he was helpless even to wipe them away. It felt as if he had bit down on a hot coal; the pain lanced through his brain, and more pinpoints of light danced before his eyes.

The toll-taker now appeared more feline than human. It held something up in front of Howard's face. With his eyes full of tears, it was difficult to see what the thing held. He blinked away some of the water, and his vision cleared just enough for him to see the attendant held a pair of pliers. Clamped in these was a single, bloody tooth. He could see where it had been filled, and could still remember the trip to the dentist nearly ten years ago, when the work was performed.

"Always have to pay the toll," the attendant said, his voice little more than a growl. There was a distinct glow of pleasure in its voice, an overtone of jaunty happiness that chilled Howard's bones. He pulled and beat against the arm that held him, but without effect; the attendant seemed unconcerned by his efforts.

Howard could feel the muscles of the attendant's arm as they coiled and flexed beneath his fingers. The other's wrist and arm became thicker under the fabric, so thick that he could no longer encircle the other man's wrist with his hands.

There was a tense, popping, shredding noise as the toll-taker's shirt tore at the seams; the sleeves ripped down their length in tatters, to reveal a coat of gray and black fur. A similar pelt crept up his neck and onto his face, covering the exposed skin in a matter of seconds. Then, with the sickening sound of crunching bone, the booth attendant's head flattened before Howard's wide-eyed gaze. The skull broadened, pulling the skin taut, and forcing the ears to the top of the creature's head. The ears rose into points, and were instantly covered in fur.

Horrified and nearly unconscious from lack of oxygen, Howard watched as the creature yawned, and the bones of its jaw creaked as they changed shape; they widened and pushed outward to form a muzzle. Its teeth lengthened into needle-sharp points. His fingernails grew into claws before his eyes.

The transformation was complete. Though his eyes ran with tears, his vision dotted with firefly lights, Howard could still recognize his attacker's new form. The lycanthropic monstrosity was now a seven foot tall version of Mister Dibbs, the family cat he had walled up in the Langford home all those years ago.

"Who could've known after all these years," the creature growled, "that I'd be able to make you pay what you owe." The monster's voice was thicker now, but the joy in its voice was plain. Howard struggled, helpless; his eyes began to bulge from their sockets.

The Dibbs-Monster brought the pliers and their bloody trophy up in front of Howard's face. It lowered its now-feline head down to the level of its struggling victim, clearly relishing the expression of panic it saw there. "And you owe one heavy fucking toll, Howie-boy, I tell you what." it said. "See this here tooth, boy? Well, it's only the start. Only a small part of what you owe. Let's see, for walling me up in that attic, I think ten—no, make it twelve—teeth ought to do it." The creature stared straight into Howard's eyes. "Ah, what the fuck," it said, its eyes ablaze with glee, "I'll just YANK 'EM ALL OUT!"

The creature grinned. On its were-feline face, the effect was hideous, like the Cheshire cat from Hell.

_Are you going to take this?_ It was a familiar voice, one from the recesses of Howard's mind. _Are you really going to put up with this from this...thing? Give me a break._

Pictures flickered into Howard's mind. First came the image of Tommy Coates as the boy pushed him back into a row of lockers in Junior High, and told him that if he ever spoke to his sister again, he would kick Howard's big fat ass. This was followed by another memory, this one of himself in the third grade, surrounded by a ring of fifth-graders, while the largest of them kicked him in the nuts and stomach after he charged one of them for stealing his jacket for a game of keep-away. These visions were followed by an image of a certain gray and black cat, how it stared him in the eye as it pissed on his map on the bedroom floor.

The same cold voice, so much his own, and yet so different, had spoken to him on each of these occasions; when the shit had hit the fan, when he had done nothing more than be at the wrong place at the wrong time, when his only crime had been an attempt to achieve peace or happiness, or when he had been unjustly punished, the voice had driven him to act.

The voice disturbed Howard in a way he did not fully understand, but it had never failed him; it came to him at the darkest of times, and though it may not have been a pleasant voice, it had given him strength in times of need, and allowed him to triumph over adversity. This voice spoke to him now, after being silent for many years, and Howard listened closely, as he always had, to what the voice said to him.

The Dibbs-creature laughed. It paused, and looked down into Howard's eyes, its fang-lined mouth twisted into a fiendish feline grin. Howard met the gaze of his captor, and did not look away. The monster hesitated; there was something in his prey's eyes that it could not immediately identify. It was not fear, and this confused the creature, for his victim should not be capable of feeling anything else at this point. It should have been shaking like a cornered mouse, whimpering and gasping and maybe even pissing itself—but it was not.

A new expression began to register on the monster's face, one of understanding, of awareness of what was about to happen, but it was snuffed out as quickly as it appeared as Howard grabbed the hand that held the pliers, and pushed it forward with all his strength into the creature's right eye socket. The metal instrument, with the bloody tooth still affixed to the end, pierced the gleaming orb within; Howard felt a vibration run up his arm as the pliers punched through the soft tissue and scraped on bone.

The creature screamed in surprise and pain.

"Here's your fucking toll, you piece of shit," Howard gasped, and pushed at the pliers again with all his strength. The force of this second blow plunged the tool into the creature's orbital socket for more than half its length. Green-black fluid sprayed from the ruined eye as the Dibbs-monster roared again in agony and rage.

It released its hold on Howard's neck, and his body fell headfirst toward the pavement. He put his hands out to help absorb the impact, but he still struck the asphalt with enough force to skin the palms, and smack his head in a way that made him see stars. He grunted, and a fine mist of blood sprayed onto the highway. Flecks of it glimmered on the backs of his hands, a wet red-brown in the yellow light.

Howard was repulsed by the touch of the pavement; it felt vile, like the coating of road dust and oil that accumulated on the engine of an automobile through heavy use. He dragged his body forward far enough to pull his feet from the window opening. His knees smacked the blacktop, and then he stood upright. Sharp pains shot through the muscles of his back and legs as he spun back to unlock the door of the Continental, and pull it open. To his right, he saw the first of the chrome blob-shaped parasites coming toward him, not forty feet away. He threw himself into the driver's seat, and pulled the door shut behind him.

"DIE, BITCH!" he screamed at the Dibbs-creature. "DIE YOU ROTTEN PIECE OF SHIT! THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR PISSING ON MY MAP, MOTHERFUCKER!" In his rage, Howard was not even aware of his own words; they gushed from his mouth in an articulation of pain that strained his vocal cords as blood sprayed from his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

The Dibbs-monster continued to howl. It tore at its head with claws that slashed great gouges into its flesh as it spun and staggered back into the booth. Great quantities of fluid, yellow and black and purple, oozed in thick streams from the wounds. The creature flailed about in the booth, ramming its head back against the far wall. More viscous fluid sprayed from the creature to coat the windows, the walls, and the floor.

Howard continued to watch the display as he hit the button to roll up the Lincoln's window once more. He could feel his own blood trickling from his mouth and palms. He blinked away new tears of pain as the creature in the booth went into even greater spasms; it crashed its head through first one side window, then the other, before it collapsed to the floor. As it fell, the monster's right hand struck the console Howard had glimpsed earlier. The clawed hand fell, raised and fell again, this time directly on the big red button the creature had pointed to earlier, when it first explained how he needed to pay the toll: the button that controlled the gate.

Howard knew the gate was opening, heard the spikes set into the grilles in the pavement retract into their gratings, could see the crossbar beginning to raise out of the corner of his eye, but he could not tear his eyes away from the spectacle of the dying Dibbs-thing. The creature's spasms were becoming weaker. As he watched, something like a huge wood grub began to work its way out of the creature's ruined eye socket.

_And that's my cue to exit, stage left_.

He looked away, and pulled the gearshift lever down into Drive. As the Lincoln approached the raised crossbar, he lowered the window enough to extend his arm out of the opening, and give the finger to the silvery blobs behind him. Though he knew the spikes had retreated into the grilles set into the pavement, he still held his breath as the tires thumped over the grating, and did not exhale until he saw the back of the toll booth in his rear view mirror. Reflected there also were a number of bright, moving blobs of chrome; they had come very close to catching him.

As he put the booth and its deadly toll-taker behind him, a single thought sustained him, through all the pain and the fear: distance. The strange town of Splitsville was a deathtrap; there was nothing more important now than putting as many miles as he could between the Lincoln and that lethal collection of buildings and its inhabitants.

Blood dibbled from between his lips. The pain in his mouth made his jaw feel too large for his skull on the side where his tooth was pulled; the entire region felt like a single, inflamed nerve. His head and even his skin pulsed in time with this nerve, and he squinted his eyes in concentration as he struggled to keep the vehicle on the road. The toll booth had long since dwindled to its vanishing point, but Howard did not look back, did not even try to wipe away the blood that dripped down his chin and onto his shirt. He concentrated on distance, and about putting more of it between him and Splitsville. He could still feel the town behind him, waiting, reaching out to draw him back.

He drove for as long as he could stand the pain. When he could not bear it any longer, he brought the Continental to a stop, shifted the transmission into Park, and reopened the first aid kit. Small lights danced before his eyes in rhythm to the fire that pulsed in his jaw as he pulled the necessary items from the small case.

His hands shook as he opened the bottle of Evian. He used some of the precious bottled water to rinse the blood from his mouth, and swallowed four aspirin and one of the codeine pills from the tin in his travel bag.

_This definitely qualifies as an emergency_. He popped the tablet onto his tongue. _God, but that thing was fast. I didn't even see it move. Can't believe the son of a bitch actually pulled out one of my teeth_.

The pills were lumps in his throat, bitter with the taste of his own blood. He pulled the wrapping from a square piece of gauze, folded it into a small square, coated it with Ambersol from the first aid kit, and placed it into the hole in his gum his molar once occupied. He bit down on the gauze, and pain flared in his jaw, causing the world to go gray for several long moments where he felt he might actually pass out. Then, after several minutes, the medication began to take effect, and although it did not deaden the pain as much as he would have liked, it did make it manageable.

After tending to his mouth, Howard cleaned the abrasions on his palms with disinfectant pads, and rubbed antiseptic cream on the wounds before carefully taping more bandages to the scraped areas.

_Warning: do not use on deep cuts or puncture wounds_ , the label on the tube read _. In case of infection, consult a physician_.

Reading this made him giggle. It hurt his mouth to laugh, but he just couldn't help it. It was just too damn funny. He wondered if he was going into shock, but decided it was likely just the codeine taking effect. He had not eaten for some time; it would not take long for the drug to enter his bloodstream. He giggled again as he pictured in his mind a similar bottle. _Highway Hypnosis Lotion_ , this one read. _Warning! Do not take internally! In case of exposure, consult a mortician_.

Howard found this to be extremely humorous. He giggled again. It was a strange, strangled sound, with no real humor in it at all. It was not the sound of a happy man, but rather the sound of a man approaching madness.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After treating his wounds, Howard put the Continental back into motion, and set the cruise control for sixty. Although his outward appearance suggested a state of calm and control, this was an illusion. His motions behind the wheel were smooth, but his mind was in turmoil, his consciousness adrift in chaos and fear. He managed to keep the vehicle on the road in no small part due to his many years behind the wheel, the movements ingrained in his muscle memory after years of repetitive action. His eyes saw the road, his hands felt the wheel, but these things meant nothing to him; his conscious mind was too occupied.

It took a great deal of will power to hold the mental barrier against what had happened to him. Images raced through his brain, a chaotic collage of memories that played on the movie screen of his mind: a swarm of hungry Thylacines racing towards the Continental, his flight from the fury of the storm, sitting frozen as he stared into the maw of the creature that emerged from the face of the tidal wave, being lifted by the storm, facing death, only to be tossed back onto the highway.

The flood of memories did not stop; the movie conjured by his imagination continued to play through his mind, and with each image came the emotions associated with them, all the wonder and shock and fear they possessed when they had first been imprinted into his consciousness: the floating jellyfish, the lemur-thing being devoured as it looked at him with an expression of helplessness and innocence as it died in pain, the horror of Splitsville, and a boy named Kevin who perished with an almost identical expression as he too was consumed.
Finally, there was the toll-taker, who had ripped his tooth from his mouth and held it for him to see, who had transformed into a giant version of Mister Dibbs, the demon cat who had done as much damage during that time in his life as any bully he had ever encountered. The lycanthropic monster died again in his mind, and a giant grub crawled from its skull.

A cinematic view of the rainbow forest ran through his memory, the leaves changing color as he passed them. He recalled the strange voice that came from his cell phone, how it filled his brain in internal surround-sound. There was a vision of the Volvo, covered in blood and gore, a mat of hair here, a fingernail there, fluids from various organs mixed in with bits of flesh.

He tried to shut out the barrage of images from his mind, but he was helpless to purge them from his nervous system; they continued to flash by, captured moments in time that intruded on his present. He had no control over them; they continued to flash by in random order, jumping back and forth through time. He saw the trampoline bed split open under his feet, felt the ground take his breath away in a rush. He saw the baby as it struggled in the jaws of a Thylacine, a close-up view of the industrial tile that lined the hall of his school, of a puddle of spit, made red from his blood as the laughter of children echoed around him, Kevin Hobbs screaming for him to rescue him, empty cars parked in the Venus Fly Trap that was Splitsville.

How many lives had the town claimed? How many people had come to this world, this dimension, if that was what it truly was, and had never left again? Had anyone who entered this place ever made it home again? Howard tried to shut down the questions running rampant in his brain; he was walking the thin line between sanity and what lay beyond, and too many inquiries along that line might be the thing that pushed him over the edge, beyond the boundaries of reason. If he continued to think about these things for too long, he would blow a mental fuse, and completely shut down.

Instead, he tried to concentrate on more immediate issues, those of food, water, and the fact that he hadn't had a bowel movement in what seemed forever, but the memories continued to bombard him. They came faster and faster until they started to overlap, playing again and again in his mind.

New questions and implications crashed into his psyche with each repeat performance. How had he survived? Why was he still alive? Common sense, intelligence, and luck had all played a part, to be sure, but this did not explain how he had lived through the storm; no amount of good fortune or logic could have saved him from that deluge.

The physics of that event were almost beyond his ability to grasp; he could not accept such a thing as possible. He had the over-whelming feeling his miraculous escape had been deliberate, that some sort of intelligence or force intervened to alter the outcome. Could it have been the Devil's Advocate? He thought not; the voice on the phone had made its malevolent intent quite clear, and if that were true, he doubted it would go to such lengths to save him.

The questions spun in his head. Round and round she goes, where insanity begins, nobody knows. He could not be sure there even were answers; he had entered an Anti-Wonderland, a place where little girls were eaten by animals, and the Cheshire cat was a seven foot tall monstrosity with a penchant for pulling teeth. He tried hard to push away the questions, the memories; he felt if he looked at them for too long, he would start to scream, and once he started, he would not be able to stop.

In the end, it was the pain that rescued him. The codeine and aspirin began to wear off, and the wounds he had suffered, the burn on his hand, his abraded palms, the hole in his gum where his molar used to reside, his strained shoulder joints and muscles, began a tide of pain that lapped at his consciousness in large, rolling waves. His jaw felt like it had been violated by something large, perhaps a jackhammer, and this triggered a cluster headache of mammoth proportions. His hands itched and burned with every turn of the wheel or twitch of a finger.

He welcomed the pain at first, for it ended the torrent of memories and the questions they brought, but he could only stand it for so long; he brought the Continental to a stop, and chewed another of the codeine tablets from the tin secreted in his travel bag.

While he waited for the medication to take effect, Howard surveyed his surroundings, fully aware of the environment for the first time since he left the tollbooth. Before him, the highway narrowed to a point on the horizon, where the orb of the sun was slowly sinking behind a distant mountain range. Between that point and his present position, there was nothing but a plain of sun-hardened mud. Vast expanses of baked earth faded into the distance, with little to break up the scenery or provide hiding places for potential attackers save for the rare rock formation. It would be difficult for an enemy or a predator to surprise him here; he would be able to see trouble coming in plenty of time for him to escape. He was safe, for the moment.

The painkiller was making him nauseous, and he feared these effects would worsen the longer he went without eating. His stomach seemed to understand his fear, and gurgled in response. "Just shut the hell up," he said aloud. He wished his stomach would leave him alone, but he knew unless he found something to eat, it would only get worse.

Taking care to look around the vehicle often for possible predators, Howard began to search the car for anything edible. At first, he found nothing, but then he discovered a Slim Jim hidden under the small notebook he used as a service log, tucked away in the bottom of the glove compartment, a forgotten remnant from a past excursion. He had never been so glad to see a strip of processed meat jerky in his life.

"Thank you," he murmured, not aware he was speaking aloud. "Thank you, Lord. Thank you."

He pulled the small, vacuum-sealed package from the glove compartment, bit through the end of the plastic wrapping, stripped the meat free, and began to eat. The meat was salty, full of preservatives, and tasted like Heaven. Howard sighed with pleasure as the flavor spread over his taste buds. Without water, the salty meat was probably the worst thing he could eat, but he was grateful for every bite. There was barely enough to be called a snack, much less a meal, but the food helped clear his head, and allowed him to think without distraction.

Howard realized he could not continue to simply follow the highway with the hope it would lead him home. The incident at the tollbooth had taught him this course could be disastrous. It had been very close; he had again been pushed to the brink, and had just barely come through it alive. It was no quirk of fate, no unexplainable trick of alien physics that had saved his life, but his own resolve. He had reached deep into himself and tapped into that part of him that was not ready to die. Mere hope was a piss-poor strategy, if it was a strategy at all; he had to take action.

He felt there was some underlying scheme to the events he had experienced on this world, some pattern he had overlooked. Had he been in peak mental condition, he was certain he would have seen it, but he was near the limits of his endurance, and had been traveling that way for far too long. He needed to find some real answers, to find a way to come to terms with this environment, but how could he? How could he find a way to deal with what had happened to him when it was too dangerous to even stop and rest? Every time he tried to regain his strength, something happened to keep him running; he would be made to suffer just a little bit more, brought just one step closer to collapse. This also seemed strangely deliberate, as if these events were somehow contrived.

_Keep thinking along those lines_ , _and you really will go crazy_.

Howard turned his mind to more practical matters. The lack of potable water was the most serious problem he faced at present, more serious than the predators that might be lurking just beyond the range of his vision. He could do without food, could survive for many days without solid nourishment, but thirst was a different thing entirely; he would not live for very long without vital fluids.

The pain in his hands and mouth were fading; the codeine was taking effect. Howard took the opportunity to change the dressings on his hands, and replaced the gauze in his mouth after treating it with more of the Ambisol from his first aid kit. The medication had taken some of the edge off the pain, but his jaw still ached in jagged pulses that reached into his skull. Changing the dressing was a painful chore, and his gums were almost on fire before the ointment numbed the tissue. He wrapped the used bandages and gauze in a plastic bag, and placed it on the floor next to the plastic bottles full of his urine.

With this task completed, he closed the first aid kit and travel bag, shifted the transmission into Drive, and brought the Continental to a comfortable speed. Previous to his encounter with the Dibbs-monster, Howard never would have considered driving under the influence of narcotics, but he was beyond the luxury of such a choice now; the oral anesthetic alone was not enough to kill the pain. He just hoped the codeine would be sufficient; he could not afford to take more than one tablet at a time, both due to his limited supply of pharmaceuticals, and because he needed to keep his mind clear enough to drive. He had been taken by surprise more than once since his entry to this place, and it had almost cost him his life; he could not afford to be caught unaware again.

Howard was determined that if he were to die in this hellish world, he would die with a clear mind. He promised himself he would die as a rational, thinking human being, not one ruled by fear. He was a thinker, not a warrior, but if he had to go down, he would go down fighting. It was a promise he would give his absolute all to keep; the task might still prove to be beyond him, but it would not be due to stupidity, or lack of trying.

In the movies, in the comic books and later, the novels he read in his youth, the hero of the story would have felt a grim resignation at such a vow at the very least, and more likely, a barely contained feeling of rage, a hot flush of anger matched only by the strength of their convictions. In Howard's case, however, making such a promise, and knowing it to be a tangible reality, left him feeling nothing but cold and empty.

The codeine twisted his stomach with nausea. The medication often caused trouble for those with sensitive stomachs, which could be avoided or lessened when taken with food, but the meager meal he managed to scrounge before taking the pills was nowhere near enough to ease the effects of the narcotic. Eventually the nausea faded, however, and was replaced by a dim glow that spread slowly through his system, one that dulled the pain and discomfort to a tolerable level, made them fade to a background drone.

Hard drugs had never appealed to Howard; he had preferred other vices, such as expensive clothes, fine food, and even more expensive toys. It was easy, however, for him to understand the appeal of such substances, especially under his present circumstances. He regretted now that he had put aside so few; he was certain he would need more.

Sometime later, he stopped for a bathroom break, and watched as the scarlet orb of the sun dipped behind the mountains on the horizon, and the sky began to turn dark. As his urine streamed into another empty plastic bottle, he continued to scan the landscape for possible dangers. Far in the distance, he could see a faint blue glow in the sky. He had seen similar phenomena before, always when driving through sparsely populated areas in his own world, where they signified light pollution thrown off from cities or other urban areas. It was possible the glow was just the light cast by a rising moon, but the sight made him uneasy just the same. He decided he would need to pay attention to that glow, just in case.

The pressure in his bladder eased, Howard capped the bottle and placed it on the passenger side floorboard along with the others. Even in the fading light, it was obvious to him the color of his urine had darkened considerably, a fact he was certain did not bode well for him. He was beginning to feel the first stages of dehydration. It would not be long before the more pronounced effects made themselves known. He would have to deal with that problem, and soon, if he wanted to have any hope of survival.

Survival. It was a key word in this environment, perhaps the only word that meant anything. This place, or dimension, possessed a geography that was similar in many ways to his home world. There were oceans and deserts, forests and mountains. It had similar weather patterns as well, if somewhat exaggerated, and combined, they imposed a greater environmental pressure upon its natural inhabitants. If other natural laws applied as well, it would not be too far a stretch to assume those inhabitants would adapt to those conditions, would possibly develop mutations, as in the case of the Thylacines, or other, even stranger, abilities. The blob-creatures in town, the toll-taker, both had appeared to him as someone, or something, as in the case of the mutant Mister Dibbs, that was familiar to him. More, they were personal to him, and the only way those monsters could know about the painful things and people from his past, were if they could read his mind

_That's what they did...they read my mind. They somehow looked into my mind, and became something familiar to me. Maybe they do it by physically transforming themselves, like the toll-taker, or projecting some sort of mental camouflage, or both. It's probably the best way for them to get close to their prey_.

It was chilling thought, but not any greater than presented by almost any nature documentary one could find on the Discovery Channel. In the context of this bizarre world, it was no more unusual than a lion chasing down a gazelle on the African savannah. Only now he was the straggling herd animal, as it attempted to survive its migration across a hostile landscape.

What was more horrifying, more provoking, was the voice on the phone. He could not explain his mysterious caller in the way he could the creatures in the town, could not explain the road signs that read DOGS LOVE CARS and NOW ENTERING SPLITSVILLE. Those had been physical features of the landscape, and something that could create those were more terrifying to him than any of the creatures he had encountered, for it meant it, whatever it was, could perhaps change the features of the land itself.

If that was true, then how much control did it have? Did it have enough power to keep him from being engulfed by a cataclysmic wall of water and wind? If that were true, then he was doomed. The owner of the Voice had been clear about its desire to kill him.

Why then, had he been saved from the storm? If the mysterious caller had wanted him dead, then why rescue him? Had he been spared simply because he had not yet seen enough? These questions gave him a chill. What purpose could that possibly serve? What could the mystery caller gain, assuming for the sake of argument it had that much power, of putting him through this hell?

_Fear,_ his mind answered. _It gains your fear. Maybe it's trying to keep you afraid, keep you paranoid, always looking over your shoulder, waiting for the next monster to jump out of the woodwork. Maybe the mystery caller lives on that fear._

Howard had no rational basis for this theory, if that was even what it was, but he still felt this was something very close to the truth. It was as if his mind was communicating with him on an entirely different level, as if parts of his brain had been switched on for the first time, or if not the first time, the first in a long, long while. He was used to following his instincts when it came to business, and it had almost always paid off, but this was more than intuition, more than instinct or common sense; this was a different type of connection, one that told him he was the victim of something far more insidious than just a parallel dimension. This new connection suggested he may not have come here by accident, but was brought here on purpose.

This rationale was more disturbing than almost anything he could imagine, for if he was correct, if he was up against something that could reach across dimensions, or the vastness of space, and draw him to this place, then what chance could he have of ever getting home again?

_Stop it_. _Thinking that way will get you nowhere. If there wasn't a chance, I would have bought the farm long before now, at the toll booth if nowhere else. It wasn't anything divine, no mystical intervention that saved your ass from that tooth-pulling son of a bitch. It was just you. You survived because you dug down inside yourself and found a way to fight back. You found a way to hurt that thing, and if you can do that, there has to be a chance—even if it's a slim one—that you can make it home._

He looked at the bandages on his hands, at his swollen face and bruised neck in the rear view mirror. "You can't give up hope," he said to his reflection. "To give up hope, is to admit this place has won. To give up on hope, is to give up on living, and we like living way too much for that, don't we?"

The man in the mirror smiled. It was not the smile of a happy man, but the expression of one who had gained a sudden insight into the nature of his own character. Satisfied at what he saw, he headed down the highway once again.

When the sun passed the horizon, Howard turned on the headlights. The bulbs did little to push back the darkness that pressed in around him; it clung to the edges of the light like a dark fog. It swirled about him, almost tangible in its solidity.

He had driven through Arizona and Colorado, Kansas and Montana, had enjoyed the beauty of open vistas many times, but those places were small in comparison to the land he now traveled through, an expanse so vast that distance itself lost meaning. He could very well be a fly attempting to cross the Sahara. With no moon, he could no longer see the landscape stretching out around him, but he could feel it, could sense it, extending out farther than the eyes could see, or the mind could grasp.

Howard glanced at the fuel gauge, wondered how long it had been since he last checked the reading, or compared it against the odometer. He had stopped paying attention to how far he had driven some time ago; there really didn't seem to be a point to it. The needle on the fuel gauge stood just under half full.

_If I could find a way to get this kind of mileage back home,_ _I'd revolutionize the auto industry._

The issue of his gas mileage was just one example of questions for which he did not have answers. What if he was wrong, and his mysterious caller was everything it claimed to be? Worse, what if the voice on his cell phone had not come from a being, but from the land itself? What if this land, this dimension, was somehow alive? He tried to tell himself he was just being silly, but it did no good; as improbable as it sounded in his own ears, it made as much sense as anything else he had experienced. But then again, if the land was indeed sentient, it surely would have done more to demonstrate that fact, and if it intended to kill him, he reasoned it would have been able to do so by now, rather than allow him to live to contemplate the issue.

Howard had the feeling he was closer to understanding the true nature of this strange world. He had experienced a similar sensation several times since his arrival, usually right around the time when some critter came along bent on having Howard-burger for lunch. Nothing happened this time to disrupt his reasoning, but the answers he sought remained elusive.

His hands and jaw continued to throb, and his strained and tired muscles complained to him through the haze of the codeine in his bloodstream. He was starving, on the borderline of dehydration, and suffering from extreme exhaustion. Combined with the stress he was under, those factors could have a severe impact on his health, could even lead to a heart attack. He knew if he could not think of a way back, then he needed to find ways to supply the three things most vital to his mental and physical health: food, water, and rest.

Of these necessities, food was the least important. If he was forced, Howard was certain he would find a way to subsist on the native wildlife, rare and exotic as it was, even if it meant he had to run it over with his car to catch it. If not, he could still survive for several more days before the need became critical. He would hate it, would despise every stomach gurgle and contraction, but he could survive much longer without food than he could water or sleep.

Water was the most critical issue, but Howard felt confident it would be easier to find than food, or a safe place to rest. The rain proved there was water here, all he had to do was collect it, and pray it was potable. This might prove to be a challenge, but hopefully not an insurmountable one.

As for sleep, the problems were obvious. He would have to stop the car. He would have to turn off the engine. There was the possibility the car might not even start again; it had been running for over three days without stopping, a feat he had never had the need to attempt before. He had no guarantee the engine could continue to put up with such stress. He had not seen anywhere in this world he could qualify as 'safe', which meant he would be completely exposed. He would be easy prey for any predator that might be wandering the desert. Even if he found shelter, a remote possibility as best, he would be at his most vulnerable, and would be a waiting victim for killer storms, marauding packs of Thylacines, or any number of other threats.

Out of those three basic requirements, sleep was the most immediate, and posed the most risk. The fatigue poisons building in his bloodstream were already causing problems with his concentration and memory. His motor skills were beginning to be affected, and it would only get worse with the passage of time. Before long, he would not have the required dexterity to keep the Lincoln on the highway. The sooner he addressed this issue, the better.

It occurred to him, as he drove through the dark, he might just be in the safest spot he had seen since coming to this world: the middle of a great plain, featureless, devoid of anything to sustain life. The tollbooth was at least five hundred miles behind him by now. If there was anything dangerous here, chances were he would have spotted it by now. There was no cover here; he would have been visible from miles away, but he had seen nothing living. If he was going to attempt to get some sleep, here was as good a place as he was going to find. He could continue to debate the pros and cons of such an act all night, but it would bring him no closer to a resolution. Action was called for now, action and faith; the time for debate had passed.

If there was one thing he could count on, it was his baby. The Lincoln had carried him through everything life could throw at him, including several jobs, the rise to dominate a niche industry, and even a pack of mutant Tasmanian Tigers; he felt confident she would last as long as he needed her. He doubted the truck-sized abomination could match her speed, as long as he saw it coming. No, his baby would carry him through this hell, would carry him back to his own world, as long as he had the tenacity and strength to keep looking. If he kept her safe, she would keep him safe, until she drank her last drop of fuel, and could go no farther.

He looked out into the dark. The land here was higher than the seabed. Even if a storm did overtake him here, he doubted it would flood the land in a tidal wave. Unlike the sea bed, he saw nothing here which suggested the area had seen recent rainfall, much less been submerged. It was safe to assume he would not wake up underwater. If he was confronted by severe weather, he would just have to hope the sound of its approach would be enough to wake him.

The memory of the storm brought his mind back to the need for water. He was able to breathe the air, so it was reasonable to assume he would be able to drink the water as well. Even if not, it was a risk he would have to take. With a little bit of luck, he would be able to extend his water supply. He had missed the opportunity during the storm to collect water; he would not miss another.

Howard brought the Lincoln to a stop, shifted into Park, turned off the headlights, and switched off the ignition. The eight-cylinder engine stopped for the first time since leaving his home world. He did it without pausing to think, without giving himself time to reconsider; he needed control over his life. Since the beginning of his journey here, almost all of that control had been taken from him. Starting now, he intended to take as much of it back as he could.

Howard did not consider himself a brave man by any means; he had spend too much time hiding from bullies during his school years, and from corporate back-stabbers during his early professional career for that. Outside of his role as owner of Langford Technologies, he had never been what could be described as your 'front line man', but acting upon his desire to take control made him feel like one. The odds were against his plan working out as he intended, and he might never awaken to see another dawn, but he felt cleaner inside than he had in some time, as if some great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Sitting there in the dark, Howard thought of his brother, the only member of his family with whom he still maintained even a marginal relationship. He recalled how fond David and his sister-in-law were of the Great Outdoors. They had a large map on the wall of their den, with all the places they had traveled marked in various colored push-pins. Their home was decorated with dozens of trinkets and artworks brought back from their adventures, which gave their home a worldly feel. Their love of their hobby bordered on obsession, and extended to every holiday; whether it was their anniversary, Christmas, or even Valentine's Day, they would use the occasion as an excuse to give each other some type of gift related to their mutual love of travel, whether it was hiking boots, a new backpack, or cruise tickets. It was fortunate for Howard that they enjoyed this pursuit, for one of those gifts had given him an inspiration that might just save him from dying of thirst.

Howard had been invited on numerous occasions to join them on vacation, but had always declined. He had imagined becoming many things in his youth, but Grizzly Adams was not one of them. He was supportive of their wanderlust, however, and had surprised them on more than one holiday. He once gave them a two-week stay in a hotel suite in St. Thomas, and tickets for a Mediterranean cruise on their tenth wedding anniversary.

Two years ago, he had been visiting for their Christmas gathering during the holidays, when David had shown him the latest camping accessory added to his growing collection, a state-of-the-art backpack with all the amenities. Compact and lightweight, the pack contained everything a hiker would need to survive, from a tent, poncho, fishing and first aid kits, to a complete guide on outdoor survival. With such a pack, one could travel anywhere from the slopes of K2, to the Australian Outback, and be able to live off the land.

One particular item in the pack that caught Howard's attention was a solar still, used for collecting water from the atmosphere. He still remembered David's fascination with the device, little more than a plastic bottle and a collapsible Mylar cone, as he explored the pack's many pockets and compartments. Howard remembered thinking the contraption would look more at home on the moon than it did in David's living room. It was the last holiday he spent with them; his company put ever-increasing demands on his time, and the trip to the Vegas had been the most time he had spent away from his office in over two years. He missed those holiday celebrations more than he cared to admit, and hoped with all his heart it would not be the last time he saw them.

He may not have shared his brother's enthusiasm for outdoor activities, but the memory served to inspire him. The solar still was simple in its design, and Howard had the good fortune to not only see one up close, and remember the details of its construction, but to have the necessary components to build one of his own; all he needed to do, was assemble the needed materials.

To do this however, he would need tools, and that meant he would have to retrieve them from the Continental's trunk. He would have to go outside the vehicle, and he did not like that idea at all, no sir, not one bit.

Howard took a couple deep breaths to steel himself against his fear of leaving the protection of the automobile. He was a fast learner, and had learned long ago the value of being prepared for any eventuality. He kept the emergency roadside kit in the trunk for the same reason he kept a custom tool bag, to be prepared against the unexpected. On his debut showing in his first electronics convention, he discovered how important it was to have the proper tools when he had to jury-rig a multi-panel display at his booth.

Failure to plan for contingencies had cost him many hours of stress as he rushed from hardware store, to electronics supply warehouse, in order to fetch the required items. The tool bag in the trunk eliminated the need for such errand-running, as he carried all the tools he would need to repair any of the products or prototypes, up to and including a number of the most common circuit boards and other gadgets they contained in the event of an unexpected failure.

Don't think about it; just do it.

He pulled the trunk release lever, and heard a satisfying click as the lid to the spacious rear compartment popped open. Without hesitation, he opened the door of the Lincoln, and pulled his body out of the automobile. He took a step toward the rear of the vehicle, and was surprised when his legs did not obey him as expected; he had to support his body-weight on the Continental lest they give out from under him. He looked around, alarmed, but saw nothing moving. He was alone on the highway.

He leaned against the side of the car to balance himself as he made his way to the trunk, doing his best to stretch his limbs as he went. Confident he was safe from being eaten, at least for the moment, he paused to rub his arms and legs, kneading the muscles of his calves, thighs, and buttocks. He stretched his back, and felt several vertebrae pop. He grunted in relief. He tried to ignore the damage done to his baby by the Thylacine pack, or think about all the hours he had spent in her maintenance; either was enough to wrench his heart.

His circulation restored, he opened the trunk lid, and extracted the tool bag. It was a custom design, created to match his luggage, and with the exception of the bottle, contained everything he would need to carry out his plan. He closed the lid to the trunk, and walked briskly back to the open door of the Lincoln. He took one last check of the surrounding area, slid into the driver's seat, and placed the tool kit on the passenger side.

Howard opened the case, and examined its contents. The top section contained a selection of hand tools, from screwdrivers and wrenches, to a soldering iron and a cable crimper. From this, he took a pair of wire cutters, a pair of pliers, and a razor knife. The bottom of the case was composed of trays divided into compartments, and were filled with everything from electrical and duct tape, hardware, circuit boards, cables and connectors, to resistors, capacitors, and everything in between. He removed a roll of wire and another of duct tape from one of the trays, and a large, Mylar anti-static bag, of the type used to store circuit boards, from another.

Satisfied he possessed the proper materials, Howard got to work. First, he cut a length of wire from the coil, and fashioned it into a loop roughly two feet in diameter. Several coils of duct tape ensured the loop would not bend. He worked with the wire for some time, cutting more lengths, and bending the ends with the pliers to fix the lengths to the loop. He had to double the lengths to keep them stiff enough to keep their shape. With the razor knife, he cut the Mylar anti-static bags along their seams, turning them into wide, triangular strips, which he then used in conjunction with the wire and tape to form the main cone of the still. Every so often during this task, he would turn off the interior lights in the Lincoln, and survey the landscape for possible threats, before returning to his work.

He took his time; his concentration had waned from fatigue, and he could not afford any mistakes. He finished by taping the now completed cone to the top of one of the remaining empty plastic bottles. This process took longer than he anticipated, but when he was finished, he had created a fair approximation of the solar still he saw in his brother's living room that Christmas Eve. Phase One of his plan was now complete; all he had to do now was set up the contraption, and he could move on to Phase Two, and attempt to get some much- needed rest.

He set the fabricated condenser on the passenger seat, gathered his resolve once more, and opened the driver's side door. With the wire cutters and pliers in his pocket, he took the duct tape, the roll of wire, and the condenser, and stepped out once again upon the alien highway. He set the condenser upright on the torn roof of the car, and cut lengths of wire to act as bracers to hold it upright. He used the tape to secure the braces to the roof of the Lincoln, and wiggled the condenser as a test. The result was satisfactory; it would take more than a light breeze to dislodge the device.

Pleased with this accomplishment, Howard slid back into the driver's seat, and pulled the door closed once again. He hit the lock, pulled his legs up, and swung them onto the passenger seat. He settled his head against the door interior; his luggage would have to serve as a pillow. His height made this difficult, but he tried not to think about it, or about how visible he was out in the open, as he massaged his legs. He knew his plan bordered on insanity, that attempting to rest out in the open made him vulnerable, but knew he didn't have much of a choice; if he did not rest now, he might not have the opportunity to do so later, and that could spell even worse problems for him in the long run.

Yes, there was the possibility he might not ever wake up, but there was really no point in worrying about it. In his exhaustion, he realized that eventually, everyone had to take the Big Nap; it was just a question of when. It would happen despite the best efforts to keep it at bay, and was the destiny of all living things. He did not have to fall into an alien dimension to have his days cut short. He could have a massive coronary tomorrow, or suffer a brain hemorrhage, or become victim to any number of human medical difficulties. The possibility of death was always within the realm of probability, however unlikely, but the fatigue poisons building in his bloodstream was a certainty, and Howard was never one to bet against a sure thing.

He worried he would not be able to fall asleep, that sleep deprivation had pushed him into a state of hyper-exhaustion, but it turned out his worries were groundless; within just a few moments, he slipped into a deep sleep, his head nestled in his makeshift pillow.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

His final thoughts as he lost consciousness, was of clouds glowing on the darkened horizon, and of water, clear and cool, pouring down his throat.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Howard stood alone in an empty hallway. The walls were painted a pale green, and lined with lockers on both sides, interrupted only by stout, wooden doors inset with wired glass. Some distance down the hall, he could see darkened spaces where other hallways opened into the one he now occupied. He recognized his surroundings almost at once; he was in his old elementary school, the scene of many childhood traumas.

_I'm dreaming_. _I guess I didn't have to worry about being able to sleep after all._

He heard a hollow boom from far away, the sound of distant thunder. Howard turned to look behind him, and was rewarded with view similar to the one before him. The passage was large and imposing; the lockers on either wall appeared to tower over him. Looking down, he was surprised to discover he had been transformed back to his nine-year-old self.

"Well, isn't this just wonderful," he said. He looked back down the hallway. "Just what I need, a lucid dream from the third grade. Wonderful. Just wonderful."

A bell began to ring in the distance, echoing throughout the halls, and the doors along the walls opened. Hordes of children streamed out, flooding the hall around him, chattering and calling in a cacophony voices. Howard was caught by surprise, and stood frozen in place, not sure how to respond. The children milled around him, moving flashes of color. Their voices were mixed in a familiar din, but they paid him no attention at all, of course; it was only a dream.

Howard pushed forward through the crowd of children. There was the sound of locker doors being opened and shut again, the rustle of lunch bags and the squeak of rubber soles on the tiled floor. He moved down the hall, trying to get his bearings. The hall looked familiar, but he could not place the exact location. He was not surprised at this; school had often been a confusing maze to him, so it seemed only natural that those memories would find their way into his dreams.

As he worked his way along the corridor, he saw none of the doors bore room numbers, and it was not long before he began to feel disoriented. Children continued to flow around him, oblivious to his presence; they moved in almost faceless streams through the passageways. Another bell rang, and the crowds of children flowed back into the classrooms to disappear. Howard was left alone as the doors shut once more.

Except he wasn't alone; somewhere in the vast, shadowy labyrinth, something moved. He could hear it, faint but definite: a slow step, followed by a deep rustle. Howard could not tell what direction it was coming from; the source could be in front of him, or behind him, but either way, it was getting closer. He did not have to see the maker of the sound for him to know it was not a stray student, but something born of nightmare. His instincts told him this was true; he simply knew it, just as he knew that whatever was roaming the dim corridors, was searching for him.

"Remember, it's just a dream. "It's only a dream. It can't hurt you."

His voice echoed through the halls, and the rustling sound stopped for a moment. Howard froze; he knew whatever was out there had heard him. For almost a full minute, there was nothing, and then he heard another dragging step, another deep rustle. He wanted to believe he was safe, but his own words sounded hollow and meaningless. He was in the land of Highway Hypnosis, and he knew with the same surety as he knew his own name, that there were no normal dreams here. Whatever Cthuluan monstrosity roamed these halls, it would find him, and when it did, it could, and would, hurt him.

There was another step, and again came the sound of a wet rustle, as if someone were flipping through a stack of rain-soaked newspapers. Then, as if to confirm his deepest fears, a voice cut into the stillness of the air, shattering the stillness with a bubbling, evil glee that made Howard nauseous with dread.

"LANGFORD! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE PUNK!" the voice boomed. "DON'T MAKE ME CHASE YOU! YOU'LL ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE!"

The voice echoed angrily through the darkened hallways, loud enough to set his teeth on edge, and rattle the doors of the lockers. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, and Howard had a sudden flash of memory: a boy several years older than himself, with a nearly square head and a pronounced brow ridge that would have made a Neanderthal proud, as he pushed him into a row of lockers identical to the ones lining the halls of his dream, and held him there until he sacrificed his lunch money, his eyes filled with tears as the boy and his followers laughed. He could not remember the boy's name; he had become just another in a long line of bullies that had plagued his early school years.

"COME ON OUT, YOU FAT FUCK!" boomed the voice. It sounded very much like the boy that had extorted his lunch money, and yet not, "COME ON OUT BEFORE WE REALLY GET MAD!"

In his own world, dreams were merely the mind's release valve, and were nothing to fear, but he was no longer in his own world. Now, he was in the Land of Anything Goes, where jellyfish flew and packs of Thylacines devoured the unwary. He could no longer count on his dreams being only harmless images.

Out in the emptiness of the halls, there came another echo as something took another step. The sound crawled through Howard's bones like centipedes through a rotted log. He turned his gaze up and down the hall, wondering which direction he should take. The shadowy passages stretched away from him into darkness. Should he go forward, or back? He could feel his heart beating in his chest, could hear each contraction of is chambers. He could feel the evil drawing closer.

The choice was made for him as the voice called out from directly behind him. "THERE YOU ARE, YOU LITTLE PRICK!" it said. "YOU'RE MINE NOW!" The voice boomed in his ears, causing him to jump. He had time to glimpse a looming shape, a monstrous shadow that bulged and writhed, and then he was running as fast as he could down the hallway.

For a moment, he was afraid he would find he could only move in slow motion, a familiar element of many of his dreams, but this did not happen. Instead, it was almost the opposite; he ran with all the speed he could muster, but the halls seemed to continue on forever. He could hear the noises of the thing behind him with perfect clarity as it rustled and half-stepped, half-slid in pursuit, and the sound of his footfalls as they played through the long empty spaces around him. The sound lacked the fuzzy quality one would expect from a dream, and were instead endowed with a resonance that made the experience all the more dreadful for the realism.

Howard now understood he was not having anything resembling a normal dream, or even a lucid one, but was having a different sort of experience altogether.

Even the dreams are different here.

This was surprising, but hardly a revelation. The mysterious caller had gloated when it warned him of the dangers of falling asleep in this world, but he had not understood. Dreams were indeed different here, and the dark forces that inhabited this world were just as dangerous inside his dreams as they were anywhere else within the bizarre landscape in which he now slept. He was certain the consequences of such an attack would be just as severe as they would be if he were awake.

Howard ran. He turned corners at random whenever he found them, hoping to lose the horror that pursued him, while dreading the possibility that each turn would lead to a dead end. He ran as fast as he could, but the misshapen fiend always seemed to be just behind him, half-hidden in the shadows, just out of reach, but never far enough to escape.

He went to one of the doors and twisted the knob. It was locked, just as he suspected it would be. He continued running, past more doors, and the endless row of lockers

"COME BACK HERE, YOU SISSY!" the thing behind him bellowed. "COME BACK HERE AND GIVE US YOUR LUNCH MONEY, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!"

Howard did not dare to look behind him. The one glimpse he was afforded earlier had almost paralyzed him with fear; to actually gaze on whatever chased him now could unravel his mind. There had been the suggestion of a bloated body supporting three twisted, bulging heads, and sprouting a multitude of limbs from odd angles that ended in sharp, prehensile digits. He had no need to see more.

He wanted to think this was just a dream, wanted to believe it was just his body dealing with stress, but he knew it was more. In his normal life, his dreams faded away to other dreams, or sometimes even woke him from his slumber, only to fade again, but he was no longer in his normal life, and the rules had changed. The real challenge now might be to wake up at all.

The thing behind him shuffled, slid, and rustled. To his right, the lockers gave way to a row of windows. Outside, Howard could see not the playground of his old elementary school, but the desert of the alien world being deluged with a fine, steady rain. Flashes of lightning split the darkness, and he could see giant insects as they worked their way out of the drenched earth to crawl about the wet landscape and revel in the much needed moisture.

The row of windows ended, and Howard again raced through a maze of darkened hallways. He took a left, another left, and then a right, the shuffling monstrosity always close behind. It snorted and growled in rage. He rounded the corner, and caught only the briefest glimpse of a shape moving from within a recessed doorway, before an arm reached out, grabbed him, and pulled him toward the opening.

"In here," a voice whispered.

Howard was pushed through one of the wooden doors that lined the walls of the hallway. The window in the door of this room was not dark like the others he had seen, but blazed with light from within. As he crossed the threshold, he was forced to shield his eyes from the glare. It took him a moment to understand where he was, and longer to grasp the identity of the person standing there with him.

He was standing outside again, in the middle of the highway, with the alien desert stretching away as far as the eye could see. The door had vanished; there was no trace of the school, with its catacomb of hallways, or of the bellowing beast behind him.

Standing next to him, smiling in his knowing, fifth-grade way, was his brother David.

His brother looked pleased. "That should slow him down for awhile," David said. He looked up into the sky for a moment, his hand held to his brow to shield his eyes from the glare of the crimson sun, before he turned back to face his younger brother. "I never could stand that guy," he said.

Howard stood where he was, perplexed. "I get that I'm dreaming," he said. "I get that, but even for a dream, this is some pretty messed up shit."

David chuckled. "You got that right, Howard. This is some pretty messed up shit. You always did have a penchant for understatement." He looked his brother up and down, and added, "You're right about the dreaming part, but dreaming here is different. I think you know that by now, don't you?"

Howard took a deep breath. "Different. That is one word you could use to describe it, I suppose. I can think of a few choicer ones to apply."

"I bet you can," David replied, "but you're safe for the moment."

"I guess I am. Thanks for that."

"Don't thank me yet. Besides, you're not out of the woods yet."

"I don't understand," Howard said. "I don't understand any of this, actually. Not since I fell asleep and woke up in fantasyland, that is."

"This place, this experience, isn't done with you, Howard," his brother said, his tone grave. "You have quite a way to go before you learn what you need to know, before you have a chance of getting out of here. In fact, you're lucky to be here at all; most don't even make it this far."

"Wait a minute," Howard said, suspicious. "How do you know that? Did you bring me here? Are you the one behind this? "Who are you, really?"

David looked at him with such an expression of sadness it caught him off guard. Howard felt his anger drain away with that look, even before the other boy responded. "No, I didn't bring you here," he said. "It doesn't matter what I say, Howard. There are just some things you can't be told, things you just have to learn on your own, or it loses all its meaning. Besides, we don't have time. The thing that was chasing you won't be fooled for long, so you have one of two choices: you can trust me a little, listen to what I have to say, and maybe make it out of this place alive, or you can go back and deal with that thing in the school. It's your choice."

"Okay," Howard said. "I get it. Say what you need to say."

"First, you have to understand that sleeping here, in this world, is very dangerous. It's difficult to explain, but things here are very different here."

"No shit," Howard interjected.

"Listen. There's something you need to know. Even if you find a safe place, if you go to sleep, your mind will be vulnerable to the thing that brought you here."

Before Howard could interject, he added, "Yes, you were brought here. Normally, it doesn't happen that way, but in your case, that's the way it went down. Right now, though, you need to understand something." He bent down and placed his palms on the asphalt. "Here, feel this," he said.

Curious, Howard did as he was asked. The pavement felt warm, and oily to the touch. He could detect a steady vibration through the asphalt.

"Do you feel that? They're coming."

"Who?" Howard asked. "Who is coming?"

David stood up, and beckoned for his younger brother to do the same. "The dwellers, Howard. The dwellers are coming."

"What dwellers?" Howard asked, but he knew the answer before his brother could reply.

"The things from that little town you passed through," David said, "they don't take it too well when someone gets away. It's not often someone does. Nice job on the toll-taker, by the way."

"Thanks, I guess. It's about time someone evened the score with those bastards."

"Granted," David nodded, "but they're not ones to give up easily, Howard. They are intelligent, and that makes them dangerous. You made them angry, and they're coming after you."

"How could they? I've been driving all night. The only way they could do that is if..."

"They could drive," David finished. "Seriously, did you think you were the only one who could drive a car? Those things in the town back there absorb memories, Howard; they know everything their victims know. They found a car with an engine that still ran, and began following you within hours after you cleared the tollbooth. You have to wake up; you don't have much time."

As his brother spoke, Howard realized he could hear the voice of the monstrosity from the hallway, carried on the wind. "Okay. I have no idea how to do that, but I'll take your word for it."

"It's getting closer," David said, his agitation obvious. "It'll find us if I stay here too long. You have to listen to me carefully, Howard, because your life depends on it. You are headed into a very dangerous place. The glow you saw on the horizon comes from a city, and this highway runs straight through it. If you can't go around it, you will have to go through it as quickly as possible. Whatever you do, Howard, do not stay there any longer than ten minutes. Get out any way you can."

"How? How is it dangerous?"

There was another roar on the wind; this time it sounded closer, more distinct. The look of worry on the other boy's face deepened.

"The whole city is poison. If you stay there too long, you will die."

Again, Howard heard the call of the creature from the school, so clear now he could almost make out the words. He turned around, trying to find the source. When he turned back, he discovered he was alone; David had vanished.

_Great_. _Now what?_

Howard turned back and forth, looking down the stretch of highway in either direction. "Now what I do?" he asked.

He began to walk, uncaring as to direction, pondering his brother's words. How could he wake himself from a dream? He was able to ponder this but for only a few moments before a noise invaded the atmosphere, a crescendo of sound that built from a mere whisper, to a deep drone. When Howard realized what the sound was, he knew it was already too late; the source was too close for him to outrun. It was the sound of tires on pavement.

He turned, and froze, shocked and amazed by what he saw. The vehicle bearing down on him was no ordinary car, but a gleaming, black hearse. Behind the elongated hood, sitting behind the wheel, was Marcus Saul. Next to him, sat Mrs. Samuels, his third-grade teacher, and next to her, on the passenger side, sat his father.

Howard had just enough time to see their matching grins before the hearse ran him down.

He awoke in the darkness of the Lincoln, a scream on his lips. He struggled to sit up, bumped his head on the door panel when his shoulder caught the steering wheel, and tried again. He had to force his cramped limbs into position. Outside, the horizon glowed red with the light of near-dawn. The highway remained clear, as did the desert to either side of him. He rubbed his eyes, and tried to remember the already-fading dream, but the details were hazy, indistinct.

Howard massaged his legs; they felt still and cramped. He unlocked his door, and started to exit the car, but an image in his mind of a waiting Thylacine crouched on his roof, prepared to pounce, made him hesitate.

_That would be just my luck_.

He rooted through his travel bag until he found the hand mirror. He removed it, closed the bag, and opened his suitcase, a custom, leather case that allowed him to carry a folding clothes tree, from which he took one of wire hangers normally reserved for his shirts. Untwisting the hanger, he bent it into a long length, and attached the mirror to the end with more of the duct tape from his tool bag. He extended this out the window, and turned it to check the roof.

The area above the vehicle was clear, save for the condenser. Howard breathed a sigh of relief, tossed the mirror onto the seat, and opened the door. As he stepped out of the Lincoln, it became obvious there had been at least a light rain the night before; the sand was still dark, and the pavement glistened with the sheen of recent precipitation. Water beaded in the dust covering the Continental; it ran in small streams from its surface, and dripped into muddy puddles.

Howard turned to face the Lincoln, and was shocked to find the bottle below the Mylar cone was nearly full. He carefully removed the tape holding the condenser to the roof, and removed the bottle from the cone-shaped framework surrounding it. He fished the bottle cap from his pocket, twisted it onto the bottle, and set it onto the dashboard. Then, he removed the wire and Mylar construction from its place on the roof, and returned to his place behind the steering wheel. He stored the framework on the rear floorboard, and placed the filled bottle on the passenger seat with reverence; the water was a gift that had come none too soon. In that, he was a lucky man.

But was it really luck, or was it something else? There was a flash of memory from his dream, vague and half-formed, but it slipped away from him before he could grasp its meaning, as the question of the whether the Lincoln would start again took its place in his mind. He had never pushed his baby so hard, and the fear he would become stranded in this world was never far from his thoughts. If he truly was lucky, she would continue to run with the same reliability he had come to expect through his years of diligent maintenance, and not leave him to become a victim of exposure.

Howard reached for the steering column, took a deep breath, and turned the key. The starter motor began to turn, and then the large engine rumbled softly into life beneath the scratched and dented hood. He let out a relieved sigh, grateful for the familiar purr coming from her front end.

"Thank you, baby, thank you," he said, his head resting between his hands on the steering wheel. "You're the one thing I've always been able to count on. Thank you. I knew you wouldn't let me down."

Every penny he had ever invested in her, from every changed tire, to every three-month tune-up, had been validated by that one turn of the ignition. No warning lights shone on her dash. She may have been dented all to hell, her lights broken and her top shredded, but she still ran like a top.

He pulled the gearshift lever into Drive, and put his foot on the accelerator pedal. The Lincoln began to move forward, and then gave a lurch, as if it had gone over a speed bump. The unexpected motion caught Howard by surprise; he banged his head on the roof, and nearly let go of the steering wheel. The Continental weaved across the lanes as he fought to bring the vehicle to a stop. He blinked sleep and tears from his eyes, shifted back into Park, and looked in his mirrors, curious as to what he could have run over to make the vehicle move in such a fashion.

The view from the mirrors revealed little; he was forced to lower the window again, and lean out in order to get a clear look. Some twenty feet behind him, the object he had run over was easy to spot; it was over six feet long, and a third of that distance in width. He had run over a giant centipede. Its flat, segmented body writhed wherever the Lincoln's wheels had not crushed it into the pavement, its meter-long antennae thrashing like whips. Chunks of a white substance, the consistency of curdled milk, spurted onto the asphalt from its wounds in time with the thrashing of its legs. Two wet lines ran from the flailing creature, to end under the Lincoln's tires.

Bastard hid under the car.

Howard watched the creature's death spasms with a stony expression. It may have simply crawled under the vehicle for shelter, but there was an equal chance it had hidden there in order to attack him. Either way, it had paid the price, and that was perfectly fine with him.

"Tough luck, pal," Howard said as he rolled up his window. There was no hatred in his voice; it was just a statement of fact. He was numb to all but the need for his own survival. He could afford neither pity nor compassion for the creatures of this land. He was certain he would be given no such luxuries were the situation reversed.

He brought the Continental up to sixty, and set the cruise control. He stretched out his legs, and massaged his thighs with his free hand as he drove. He did not feel fully rested, but he felt nowhere near as exhausted as he had the previous night. Even so, the act of driving became increasingly uncomfortable as time passed; it felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach, and the feeling grew more intense with the passage of time. At first, Howard assumed he was suffering from hunger pangs, and waited for them to pass. After more than an hour with nothing but increasing nausea to show for it, however, he realized it was something else, something more serious: the need to evacuate his bowels.

_This should be interesting_. _Guess it's time I finally learn if I can take a shit without getting myself killed._

Despite the sarcasm, he knew it was no laughing matter. He could do a lot of things from the interior of the Continental, but that was not one of them; he would have to leave the safety of the Lincoln, and that was something he did not find amusing at all.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Howard had managed to ignore one of the most basic of human functions, the need for evacuation, for longer than he would have believed possible. His forced reduction in food intake had played a part, to be sure, but his entire bodily routine had been thrown off by his entry into the world that now rolled past his windows. Stress had also been a factor; one horror after another had kept him on the edge of panic, kept him too tense to even consider the need for elimination.

Urination, though inconvenient, had been a relatively easy task, thanks to the fact he had several empty plastic bottles at his disposal. Those containers made it possible for him to stay within the safe confines of his car, but there was no easy fix for going number two. He absolutely refused to defecate in the Lincoln, so he was left with only one choice; he would have to leave the car.

The discomfort in his belly increased. Howard began to search the countryside for a spot safe enough to perform this necessary function. It felt like a great fist was twisting in his guts, and he was reduced to driving with his back nearly straight, his hindquarters hovering above the seat, as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. This was all he could do to find relief from his distress, and it would not be effective for too much longer; the time was approaching when he would have to answer the call of nature, whether he found a suitable location or not.

In the distance, Howard found what he sought: a large, flat rock near the highway, with a clear line of sight in all directions. He had passed several rocks large enough to suit his purpose since he began his search, but none had been close enough to the asphalt to be of any use. At any other time and place, he would have felt the need for the utmost privacy, but he was far beyond any such concerns. Now, his need was for the exact opposite. He would be visible, as visible as could be, but so would anything trying to approach him. It was a necessary trade-off, one he was all too happy to make if it meant he could remain safe.

Howard slowed as he approached the stone, and then brought the Lincoln to a stop. He shifted the transmission into Park, retrieved his travel bag, and took out the package of baby wipes before placing the bag back on the passenger seat. With this done, he took a deep breath, opened the driver's side door, and after only a moment's hesitation, swung his feet out onto the ground, and stood up.

_You've come this far_. _Let's get past this and be done with it._

Leaving the door open, he turned from the car and headed for the flat-topped boulder. Dried mud cracked and crunched under his feet as he walked. His intestines were racked with cramps, and his gait was unsteady as he made his way to the chosen spot. His logical mind told him he should just take his chances inside the Lincoln, that nothing good could come of this attempt, and he was putting his very life in danger merely for the sake of comfort, but he knew better. It was not about comfort at all; it was about dignity, and taking back control of his life, just as he had when he stopped the Continental in order to get much needed rest. He needed to prove he could take care of himself, and not have to hide in the confines of his car like a spineless coward.

Howard reached the rock, a flat projection of veined granite that stuck out of the barren ground like a tooth. Howard pulled his body onto the top, and was surprised at his own weakness; his confinement in the Lincoln had left his muscles cramped and flabby. The short walk to the rock was enough to tire him, and by the time he swung his leg over the edge and rolled himself on top of it, he was short of breath.

"When I get back," he panted, "I'm going to get...myself...in better shape. Right after I take...a long vacation."

Howard forced himself to a standing position, brushed the dirt from his slacks and shirt, and surveyed his surroundings. Around him, the cracked plain of the desert, broken only by the occasional crooked tooth of stone, stretched off to the horizon, shimmering with mid-day heat. Off to his right, the Continental sat with her engine running, as if it were waiting patiently for his return. Nothing moved. He was safe, for the moment at least.

He positioned himself near the edge of the rock, at a spot that provided the best viewing angle of the land around him, and with the container of baby wipes at his feet, Howard undid his belt, and pushed his trousers and underwear to his ankles. He squatted over the edge with his bottom hanging over the side of the rock, and waited for nature to take its course. He felt nervous and exposed, and though there was not a soul to be seen, he still felt he looked as silly as a grown man could, sitting with his bare ass hanging over a rock, taking a dump in the middle of the desert.

_Well_ , _it's still better than taking a shit in the car._

He had read somewhere that squatting was supposed to be the natural position for humans to evacuate, but this did not reassure him. He had never been fond of outdoor elimination; the very concept repulsed him, and was an act he found impossible to perform if there was anyone else nearby. This was one reason why he had never joined the boy scouts, and despised camping. Despite his earlier urgency, however, he found it impossible to complete the act; he was constipated.

Howard hung his head and groaned.

I really don't need this.

Any number of things could have brought on such a condition: dehydration, stress, or just a bad case of nerves. Regardless, he needed to find a way to relax, and get the job done.

Howard wiped the sweat from his forehead; the desert was warm despite the early hour. Waves of heat rose all around him, and distorted the landscape. He lowered his head and tried again to recall the dream he had experienced the night before. It seemed so vivid at the time, but most of it had faded away, as was the way of dreams. He remembered it had been frightening; there was a memory of being chased, and of his brother David telling him something—something he knew was important—but that was where his memory failed.

Howard cleared his mind as best he could, slowed his breathing, and his muscles soon relaxed enough for him to complete the task at hand with a minimum of discomfort.

Within a short time, the cramps in his stomach lessened, to be replaced with a familiar gnawing sensation. He dropped the used baby wipes behind him without thinking, and stood upright. He pulled his trousers and underwear up as he went.

As he stood, the blood rushed from his head, and the color drained out of the world as it slowly tilted over. Howard sat down on the rock so hard it made his teeth click together, and his rear end went numb. He sat for a moment, and waited for the blood supply to his head to return to normal. Points of light swirled and danced in front of his eyes, and the sound of his blood as it rushed past his ears was very loud in the desert stillness.

He took several deep breaths, and waited for the sensation to pass. Opening his eyes, he imagined at first the world was still tilting, and was about to close them again when he realized that it was not in his head. The desert heat, which was intense despite the sun's recent arrival over the horizon, blurred his surroundings as it rose in waves from the parched ground, evaporated the recent spate of rain from the night before. Dust devils spun in the distance, kicking up dust and blurred the air still further.

Once his head cleared, he stood up again. He fastened his pants and tucked in his shirt as he watched the dust devils play upon the plain. The funnels of wind drove along the sand, appearing like miniature tornados. After his terrifying ordeal with the great storm, the sight of the whirlwinds gave him pause, but they appeared too small to be dangerous. Still, he knew it would be best if he did not waste time, and decided to return to the Lincoln.

As he turned to collect the container of baby wipes, his eyes happened upon one of the wrinkled crevices that wound across the crown of the rock. There was something wedged in the crack, something he had failed to notice earlier. Looking closer, he saw the final remains of a small animal, charred and blackened from fire. The rock surrounding the small collection of bones was also darkened, and Howard began to think of the photos he had seen as a child, in his many visits to the school library, of the supposed victims of spontaneous combustion.

Howard snapped his head up, his senses on high alert. Then he heard it, a rising whine, like an approaching car engine. A fragment of his dream came back to him, vague and disconnected, a memory of his brother David, telling him the creatures from Splitsville had followed him. He could see a shape, the image blurred by the thermal waves rising from the asphalt, as it moved along the black strip of highway. It had almost reached him before he even became aware of its presence.

He looked back to his immediate surroundings, his mouth opened to utter a curse, when he spotted the dust devils. One of them had approached to within twenty yards of the boulder on which he now stood. This was very peculiar, considering that a light breeze was blowing in the opposite direction. He looked again at the charred skeleton in the cleft of the stone, and then he was running across the rock, toward the safety of the still-running Continental.

There was a form within the swirling cyclone of the dust devil, a shimmering, transparent shape that distorted the light passing through it, and it moved toward him with a purpose. It then dawned on him how the skeleton came to be on the rock. He believed he knew what the cyclone forms were: some type of heat elemental, beings of pure energy. To be touched by such a thing would mean he would also be reduced to charred bones, like the unfortunate animal caught in the cleft of the rock. He did not question the impossibility of such things; he was in the Land That Sanity Forgot, and it had taught him well.

Howard ran to the edge of the rock, and jumped. Though he was only five feet above the ground, he came down badly, and his left ankle turned under him. There was a moment of savage pain, accompanied by a nasty grinding sensation as his leg gave out, and he tumbled onto the baked desert hardpan. He came to rest on his back, the air knocked out of his lungs. He stared up into the sickly yellow sky, blinking back tears as he tried to remember how to breathe.

The sound of the vehicle was drawing closer.

_Move!_ _You've got to move! NOW!_

He pulled himself into a sitting position, grunting in pain. "Stupid," he groaned. "That's what you get for thinking you're an athlete." He looked around quickly, trying to get his bearings. He had fallen with his feet pointing back toward the rock; the Continental was behind him. From the corner of his eye, off to his left, he could see the wavering shape of the approaching vehicle, a growing dot in the distance, coming from the direction of the pitcher-plant town of Splitsville.

The heat elementals moved towards him. They converged, the closest of them just beyond the rocky outcropping that had recently served as his toilet. At this close distance, the forms within the dust devils could be seen clearly; they looked like thin, wispy sprites made of rippling glass.

_Living heat_. T _hat's what they are, beings of living heat._

The nearest heat elemental began to move around the rock as it came for him. It reached out a wavering limb, and the container of baby wipes melted, then ignited into flame. Howard scrambled backward along the cracked ground. His ankle screamed. The baked hardpan tore at the bandages on his palms. Baked, broken clay and small stones bruised his thighs and buttocks. Pain flared in his ankle with every movement, but Howard ignored it. He rolled over, his hands clenched into fists, and began to move in a limping run, but this only lasted for a few steps before his tortured ankle gave out on him again.

He could hear them now, a hissing whisper like a drop of cooking oil dropped onto a hot frying pan. They were getting closer. Howard pulled himself up again, but could only manage to crawl. He kept his eyes, his will, focused on the Lincoln, every ounce of his being committed on reaching the car alive. He was aware of the sound of an engine decelerating, but he could not be concerned with that now; nothing mattered except reaching the car.

Howard hoisted himself upright again, and staggered forward. There was only a short distance to go; he was sure he could make it. Then, just within feet of reaching his goal, he stumbled, and his shoulder struck the open door of the Continental. As he hit the ground, he heard the door shut with a thump.

He clawed his way up the side of the Lincoln to a standing position, a grimace etched on his face. He reached for the door handle—and froze. He could see the image of one of the heat elementals reflected in the window, a thin, wispy form with long, skeletal fingers and shadowy features where a face should have been.

It was right behind him.

Without moving anything but his eyes, Howard looked to the left. He could see it, hovering in its own heat-generated vortex, not five feet away from him. He could feel it too, as it floated there, as if someone had trained a heat gun, or a strong sunlamp, upon his flesh. He watched as it gathered itself to strike.

Behind him, off to his right, the car that had pursued him from Splitsville, home of the mutating toll-taker, pulled to within a car's length of the Lincoln, and stopped. Shifting his eyes in the other direction, he got a glimpse of the Mustang convertible he had seen during his trip through the evil little town. The top was down, and even in that one glimpse, he could see what was behind the wheel.

Both the driver, and the other two occupants of the arriving car, were silvery, roughly man-shaped blobs. Black cilia waved from above where the eyes would normally be, on the projection that served them as a head.

The heat elemental hesitated at the approach of the other vehicle, and then changed direction. The whirling cone of heated air surrounding the nearly transparent form within began to drift toward the other car, slowly, as if apprehensive. Howard saw his chance; he grabbed the door handle, pulled it open, and threw himself onto the seat in one motion.

As he opened the door, the elemental sensed his movement, and dived toward him with a hiss. A flash of searing pain ripped along his arm and shoulder, and the left sleeve of his shirt ignited into yellow flame with a puff.

_Burning_! _I'm burning!_

Howard ignored the pain, ignored the screaming voice in his head, and pulled the door closed. He beat at the burning fabric, putting out the largest of the flames, before ripping his shirt off in a frenzy. Buttons flew in every direction. He threw the smoldering bundle to the floor between his feet, and stomped on it with his good foot. Through the rising smoke, he could see the heat elemental as it moved just beyond the window, and there, in the center of the cone of heated air, he could see its features, the face of a transparent demon.

The elemental continued to flicker and dance outside the glass. An acrid smell began to invade the Lincoln's interior as the rubber weather strip around the window began to soften and bubble. Wisps of smoke began to drift above him, and Howard realized the shredded vinyl top of the Continental was beginning to burn. The Lincoln was on fire.

Howard reached for the gearshift lever, and then the heat elemental was gone; it darted away, and moved toward the back of the car. He turned his head, trying to pinpoint where it had gone. The dust-devil, or heat elemental, reached the pursuing Mustang, which, unlike the Continental, lacked the protection of a hard top.

_It's the heat_. _It's been driven long and hard, and it's a hotter target._

Several more of the transparent entities, each within their super-heated cyclones of air, had reached the Mustang, and now they had it surrounded. One darted down into the vehicle, followed by another on the opposite side. Anything they touched burst into flames.

The blobs in the Mustang began to scream.

It was an unholy sound, one that tore through the air and clawed its way into the brain, a sonic abomination that assaulted Howard's senses. As much as he felt they deserved their fate, Howard could not bear to listen to that sound; he dropped the gearshift into Drive, and stepped on the accelerator. He threw repeated glances into the rear view mirror as he drove away, and watched the spectacle behind him with a grimace. The entire Mustang was on fire now, and the heat elementals danced around the burning hulk. There was a flash as the flaming car exploded in a bright red fireball, and the vibration of the detonation rippled through the Lincoln's interior.

_There goes the fuel tank_. _Good riddance to bad rubbish_. A bolt of pain shot through his leg, and he groaned. _Could have been worse_ , _it could have been the other leg, and then I'd really be fucked. Good thing I don't drive a stick shift._

The flames on the leather top were now extinguished, but Howard neither knew nor cared. Pain pulsed along his leg like a dying heart. Any movement caused tidal waves of agony from the injured joint. Before long, he was forced to pull the Lincoln over again.

_Please let it only be a sprain._ _Please don't be broken._

He shifted the Continental into Neutral. The pain intensified as he turned to pull the leather suitcase onto the front seat, and for a moment, the world turned gray. "Watch it," he hissed, "that's all we need. Can't afford to pass out, not here, not now. Those fuckers back there might not be satisfied with their barbecue, and come looking for seconds."

Howard gritted his teeth against the pain. There were only two of the codeine tablets left, which meant things would likely get worse before they got better. In fact, he was being optimistic; things already were worse. His jaw had begun to ache shortly after he awakened, but he had put off changing the dressing in lieu of relieving himself. In the time since he had injured his ankle, however, the ache in his head had intensified. His jaw seemed to time its excruciating flashes just after his ankle finished with its own burst transmission to his nervous system. Together, the two sensations sent a recurring shock through his body from his left foot, through his spine, and up into his head, where it was echoed by the spot formerly occupied by his missing tooth.

Howard pulled the first aid kit onto the top of the suitcase, turned it to face him, and opened the lid. He searched through the items in the kit, thankful for how fortunate he had been to receive David's gifts. As intelligent as he was, he would never have considered carrying a first aid kit, or the emergency tool kit in the trunk. Why would he need to? There were practical reasons why he should, he knew, but it was just not in his nature. He had begun carrying the tool bag and the first aid kit because his brother had given them to him as gifts, and only later realized their value.

He was very thankful for that decision now.

Inside the compact first aid kit, he found what he was looking for in the form of a small booklet: the first aid manual. He flipped through the pages until he found the treatment for sprains and breaks. The little kit contained almost everything he needed to treat his injuries, including an ace bandage, some aspirin (not as powerful as the codeine, but they'd do in a pinch) packed in plastic bubbles in pairs, and two small plastic bags that turned cold when kneaded, which served as temporary ice packs.

What he lacked was a splint.

The need to immobilize his ankle was plain; simple movement brought swells of torment rippling up his leg. The manufacturers had failed to provide anything that could serve as a splint; the designers had likely reasoned that some sort of rigid material could be found almost anywhere, save perhaps in the arctic, or the Sahara.

_I might have to write those guys a letter_. _Good thing I have some tricks up my sleeve yet._

Howard closed the first aid kit, moved it aside, and opened his suitcase. Inside, he found another wire hanger, and untwisted the neck to form a single length of wire, which he doubled in the same way as when he fashioned the handle to the mirror he used to check the roof that morning. The splint did not need to be perfect; it only needed to add support to his ankle. Still, he needed more than a single piece of wire to do the job.

Howard retrieved the mirror he had fashioned earlier, and removed the duct tape that held it to its makeshift handle. He doubled the wire over, so that it matched the first, but could tell it would not be strong enough to suit his needs; he would have to do better. He took the other three hangers from within his suitcase, and repeated the process of untwisting and bending as he had the others. He then proceeded to use the razor knife to cut his ruined shirt into strips. It was a sloppy job, but it would suffice.

He checked the surrounding area, but saw no dust devils, nor any other threat. He opened the driver's side door, and swung his legs out the opening. Fresh flares of pain erupted in his ankle. He slipped off his left shoe, and eased the sock down past his ankle. He took care to be as gentle as possible, but it still hurt. Under the sock, the skin was mottled with red and purple.

_That doesn't look good_.

Howard crushed the two plastic bags of crystals from the first aid kit. By the time he had taped them around his swollen ankle, they had grown cold. His trouser leg had torn at the knee when he botched his jump from the rock, and he used the razor knife to finish the job; he cut the fabric from around his leg, and slipped it free. His knee bore several bad scrapes, and he could see flecks of mud embedded in his skin. He gave it a cursory inspection, decided it could wait until he finished with his ankle, and cut the pants leg into long strips as he had his burned and ruined shirt.

Using the wire and strips of cloth, he fashioned a makeshift brace. He tied more strips around his leg, pulled them as tight as he could, but still needed to use the duct tape in order to make certain it would not move. His ankle still hurt like hell, but as long as he did not put his full weight on the injured joint, it would not buckle under him again. He pulled his feet back inside the car, and closed the door, taking care not to bump his leg. With this done, it was time to take care of his lesser injuries.

The skin felt seared on his left side and arm in a wide band that ran from his hip up to the top of his head. The hair on his arm had been burned off, leaving the skin with a shiny appearance. Small blisters covered the burned areas. In the mirror, he saw they had spread to his neck and face. He touched his right index finger to his left eye, and the eyelashes crumbled and fell away, singed into ash.

Howard retrieved the first aid kit again, and took out the tube of antibiotic lotion. The label listed aloe as one of the ingredients. He applied the liquid to his tortured flesh, and by the time he finished, the pain was reduced to that of a mild case of sunburn. Even so, under the cooler surface, he could feel the heat radiating from the tissue.

After he tended to the burns as best he could, Howard put an adhesive bandage on his knee, applied the last of the antibiotic ointment to the scraped and lacerated flesh, and crunched the third of the four codeine tablets from the Sucrets tin. He tried not to think about his dwindling supply of pharmaceuticals, concentrated instead on allowing the medicine numb the pain. It was not long before the familiar numbness began to spread through his body. He sighed, thankful for the relief it afforded.

He changed the dressing on hands and in his mouth, and when he finished there was little left in the first aid kit other than a few adhesive strips, four aspirin tablets, and a bottle of eye wash. He hoped he would not need to use it again.

Howard settled into his seat, and pulled the seat lever to slide it back as far as he could. His ankle throbbed, but the codeine reduced it a tolerable, if painful, annoyance. He pulled the gearshift lever into Drive with a leaden arm, and brought the Lincoln up to speed.

_Keep moving_. _Survive_.

It was all that mattered, and as the Lincoln once more began to eat the miles, Howard found his resolve firmer than it ever had been before.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Despite the codeine and its pharmaceutical magic, Howard was in considerable discomfort. His ankle was swollen and throbbing in its makeshift splint, and his jaw, now short one tooth courtesy of the transforming booth attendant, pulsed in rhythm with his leg. It was a conspiracy of anguish, one determined to prevent even the briefest respite during his stay in highway purgatory. His entire body was battered and bruised; every part of him voiced its own complaint, and the heat-tortured flesh of his arm, face and neck added their own notes to the growing chorus. The limited first aid treatment was not enough to still any of those voices, but it served to make their pleas just a bit more bearable. Now, he needed to conserve as much energy as he could, but this would prove to be a difficult task.

In addition to the pain, the dark specter of hunger was forever lurking in the background, ready to pounce. He was out of food, and after his ill-fated rest stop, he was emptier than he could ever remember. Nausea rolled over him in thick waves, accompanied by bouts of stabbing cramps.

He talked to keep his mind off his aching body and empty stomach, spoke at great lengths on any subject that came to mind, any observation made, no matter how trivial. He sang every song he could remember, dredged the depths of his memory for lyrics he had not heard since childhood. He debated with himself, arguing opposing viewpoints on every social issue he could bring to mind. He pondered the various possibilities on how he had come to this world, examined the questions each raised in regard to the laws of physics as he understood them, as the endless desert continued to roll by his windows.

Through time, his strategy worked; the rumblings of his stomach faded, and although his injuries continued to protest, Howard found their voices had diminished to the point of being tolerable, at least for the time being. The thought of the last codeine tablet, sitting in its protective tin, came back to tempt him from time to time, but he resisted the urge to take it. When the effects of that last tablet wore off, there would be nothing stronger than the aspirin to protect him from the full brunt of the pain. This worried him, and he would fall silent as the dark shadows crowded their way into his mind. Whenever this happened, he would break the stillness with a song or heated comment to the air in an attempt to drive them away again.

He could not escape the feeling he was running out of time. He could feel the sand running out of the hourglass of his life, each moment of his existence another grain spiraling down into oblivion. He could not hope to last much longer without a safe haven where he could rest, and food to restore his strength. So far, there had been no sign of either, and what sleep he had been fortunate enough to get had been both fitful and disturbing. It had turned out to be a dangerous enterprise, one that had come close to killing him.

Still, he reasoned it could have been worse. He could be in the belly of a devil-dog, drained of life by one of the blobs in Splitsville, or burned to a crisp by a heat elemental, but he was still alive.

_I'm alive because I've refused to give up_. _I've refused to start thinking like a dead man. The minute I start doing that, I might as well already be dead._

The heat was another item to add to his list of worries. Howard judged the temperature to be more than a hundred in the open, perhaps as high as one hundred thirty degrees, or even higher. The landscape blurred with the rising of thermal waves, a pattern repeated every day as the sun crossed the heavens. The desert rippled in time to harsh and ancient rhythms of temperature and atmosphere.

Even with the air conditioning turned on high, the interior of the Lincoln remained warm; the heat streaming in through the holes in the windshield and back window was more than a match for the compressor under the hood. His undershirt began to stick to his back where it contacted the leather upholstery. The sweat stung the burned areas of his skin, igniting them into fury. Without the air conditioner, however, things would have been far worse; he would have been in agony.

Howard checked the dashboard often, watching for any warning lights that would indicate low oil pressure, a high engine temperature, or weak electrical charge to the battery. So far, those lights had remained dark, and he hoped it stayed that way. If any of the critical systems failed, it would mean he was dead meat—well-done dead meat.

As the hours passed, his one-sided conversations became more self-critical. Howard was unaware of the change; he spoke to keep his mind occupied, to help fight the exhaustion clawing at his body and his brain, to ward off the boredom of mile after endless mile of unchanging scenery, but the anger it provoked, while effective, wore him down both emotionally and mentally.

"You just had to be independent. You just had to drive yourself, didn't you?" He pulled his lips back in a snarl. "That is just so typical of you, Howard. Everyone else uses a limo, takes a train or flies, but not you, oh no. You had to go against the grain, do things differently than everyone else. If they say you can't do something, you have to do whatever it takes to prove them wrong, don't you? Just look where that philosophy—or psychosis—has gotten you. Out in the middle of the Land of the Incredibly Insane. Do you think anyone else making your income would try such a stunt? Hell no; they'd come in a private jet, and ride to where they wanted to go in chauffeured luxury, maybe with a couple high-priced escorts to keep them happy while they sipped martinis. But you couldn't do things like other people, no sir. You decide it's better to drive your ass all the way across the country and back. What in the hell were you thinking?"

The truth behind these questions was irrelevant. It did not matter that he already knew the answers, regardless of whether he wanted to admit the fact. What mattered to him now was only the present, the fact that he had somehow become trapped in a hostile world, and his only chance of survival rested on a machine that was over twenty years old. Even with spotless maintenance, all it would take was one split hose, one tiny defect, one too many road hazards, to finish him.

After some more self-berating criticism, Howard gave up on that tactic. It took time, but he saw the futility of such notions; they would get him nowhere, and could very easily do more harm than good. It would be better to remain positive, to keep his spirits up with hope, rather than with anger and regrets.

She'll hold up. If I owned anything newer, like one of those cute plastic sports cars David likes so much, I would never have survived the first day here. I just have to have faith. She won't let me down. She never has, and never will.

His attempt at positive thinking reminded him of the day he had purchased the Lincoln, the mental images so strong it became more than just a memory. He remembered those events as if it were yesterday, as if he were just now taking his first test-drive.

"She'll never let you down," the salesman had told him on that long-ago day when he first spotted her, sitting in the lot with 'SPECIAL' painted on her windshield in neon-colored soap. "If you take care of this baby, give her what she needs, she will always take good care of you. This baby was built solid, unlike the cars these days, I tell you what. Those things are little more than plastic with wheels." The salesman gave the leather top an affectionate pat. "But not this girl, no sir. She's built like a tank, but drives as smooth as anything."

In his memory, Howard bent to look into the vehicle's interior. He wondered what he would look like behind her wheel, the sunlight reflecting off her broad expanses of chrome. The salesman, a pale man with a plastic face and a perpetual smile that never touched his eyes, noticed his expression and moved closer, smelling a potential sale. "Her original owner was very sweet on her," he said, as he ran his hand along the Continental's fender. "Took very good care of her." He eyed his large customer in an attempt to gauge his age, his credit rating, or both. "She's a real classic. You don't find a beauty like this one every day. She's a real attention-getter, both inside and out. Yes sir, you drive by in this baby, and people take notice."

"I bet they do," Howard said as he let his eyes wander over the Continental's lines. "What kind of gas mileage does she get?" he asked. "I'm guessing she gets what, maybe a whole eight miles per gallon? Less if you open her up all the way, am I right? I'm betting she takes a pretty penny to keep filled."

"I don't think it's quite that bad," the salesman replied. He played it smooth, though it was plain he was beginning to feel as if he were wasting his time. "Any vehicle you buy is only going to be as good as the effort you put into her. They're all going to have needs, and as a car owner, you will need to meet those needs. Now, I'll admit the age of the vehicle does make a difference; the older the car, the more care it requires. One thing's for sure, though, as long as you take care of this baby, she'll take care of you."

Howard could feel the salesman's eyes on him as he spoke. "That's not a problem", he said. "I have more than enough money to take care of whatever I buy. I just wanted to see what you would say."

The salesman snorted. It was a small sound, little more than a hitch in his breathing, but Howard heard it, and it struck a chord in him. He had to force down his anger, struggle to keep it from showing. In recent days, he had been subjected to more than his share of derision, and he was already on a hair-trigger; it was time to show this nimrod exactly who was running the show.

"I think I'd like to take her out for a test drive, and see how she feels," he said, his voice controlled but firm, "why don't you just run and fetch the keys, and we'll see if we can't make a deal."

The salesman blinked in surprise. He had been selling cars for more than ten years, and was used to always controlling the conversation. It was his job. He was not used to being spoken to in such a tone, especially by some wet-behind-the-ears kid.

"Sure," he replied, thinking fast. "I'll need to see your license, and some proof of insurance, as well as a credit card, to let you take her off the lot." This was not the truth, but the salesman was willing to bet the kid did not know that.

Company policy said anyone with a valid license was allowed a test drive should they request one, but the salesman had decided he did not like his large customer. There was just something about the kid that rubbed him the wrong way, and he had decided the boy was just wasting his time. He was sure the kid was yanking his chain; there was no way he could afford the vehicle without a co-signer. The salesman's instincts were sharp, and if he could find some way to send the kid on his way without having to waste any more of his day, so much the better. If the boy wanted the car that badly, he could come back, preferably with an adult who could actually pay for it.

The salesman was in for a surprise, however. His young customer just smiled, and pulled out his wallet. "No problem," the kid said, flipping open his billfold and pulling out three cards. The kid was still smiling as he handed the cards to the salesman, but his voice held a cold edge as he said, "Now, how about you just run along and get those keys. Or do I need to talk to your boss?"

The salesman looked at the cards in his hands. The credit card was a Visa, and there was but a single name on it. Had it been a joint account, with one or both of the parents, he could possibly have requested the other cardholder be present, and sent the kid home, but as it was, he was stuck. "Sure," he replied. He tried to sound calm, but his voice wavered just a bit. He turned to go, but the younger man was not finished with him yet.

"While you're up there," the kid said, "feel free to run a credit check if you want. You can even call my bank and check on the status of my account. It's through First Fidelity Mutual. My branch is about ten blocks from here, if I'm not mistaken. Ask for Charlie Hughes. Tell him I might need a cashier's check drawn up."

The salesman turned and walked back to the sales office, his face set in a dark scowl. He did not like the kid's attitude, even if it did mean a commission. What he really wanted to do, was tell the fat kid to go shove it up his wide ass, but something, some salesman sixth sense, told him this was a bad idea. It warned him the kid had the potential to cause him some real problems, and not just the letter-writing kind, either, but the 'my attorney will be in contact with your boss' kind of problems, the kind of problems that could make him lose his job. People sued for just about anything these days, and he was not about to let some young punk do that to him, no sir. Not today, not ever. Best to just humor him, give him what he wanted, and get him off the lot as quickly as possible. The kid would get his test drive, and that would be the end of it.

The salesman's appraisal of the kid had been correct; Howard had seen the look on the salesman's face, heard his disdaining little 'who-do-you-think-you-are' snort, and decided to give the other a 'nobody-you-want-to-mess-with' reply. If the salesman so much as looked at him the wrong way again, Howard would do everything he could to make sure it cost the other his job.

For as long as Howard could remember, it had been this way; people had laughed at him, sold him short, underestimated his potential, and undermined his worth as a human being. Whenever people looked at him, he would see the judgments and opinions behind their eyes, thoughts of amusement, pity, or outright scorn. Whenever he voiced his hopes or dreams, he was met with patronizing words and condescending tones. They would always answer with carefully phrased responses on the importance of being 'realistic' in his goals, of not 'expecting too much', answers which did nothing but make him feel foolish and inadequate. Everywhere he turned, people made the assumption that he was incapable of achieving anything, thinking him unmotivated, stupid, or both. All of his life, people had misjudged him, abused him, looked down on him. He had suffered enough, and he could not, would not, tolerate any more of that kind of treatment from anyone, ever again.

The salesman did not stop to ponder the whys and wherefores of the younger man's attitude. He was there to sell cars, not play armchair psychologist, and so had no way of knowing he was the last straw in a long line of straws, had no idea of the commitment that Howard had made, one that would affect every aspect of his life. The man had no way of knowing it had been there, as the younger man stood in the car lot and looked into the disbelieving, almost mocking face of the salesman, that Howard Langford had decided to adopt a new life policy, one built around zero bullshit tolerance.

For Howard, it had been an epiphany, really, that moment in time, as the wind blew through his hair, and the small triangular vinyl flags that hung suspended on lines around the lot rustled in his ears. In this new policy, he would no longer allow anyone to dictate his future by their opinions of him. He would defy those expectations, and excel in ways that would embarrass anyone who misjudged or underestimated him. He would do so on his own terms, in his own way, and anyone who didn't like his attitude could take a flying leap. The time was ripe for a Life Change.

Howard knew he was partially to blame; he had allowed the false impressions to go unchallenged for far too long, preferring to avoid confrontation, rather than stand up for himself. He had allowed others to say what they would about him, paint him as lazy or worthless, allowed himself to be bullied and insulted by everyone from his father, to his schoolmates, to his co-workers. It was this behavior, he knew, that led to his encounter with Marcus Saul, allowed his father to dominate and demean him throughout his childhood, and was the primary contributing factor to his feelings of isolation and insecurity for most of his life.

The time had come to turn that around.

As he stood there in the breeze, as the brightly colored flags flapped around him, he came to the realization it was his responsibility to change his life; he was the only one liable for his outlook. It was as simple as that.

Part of him wanted to resist, wanted to struggle against this new realization. That part of him, the part that was used to the abuse, to the bullying, whimpered in the deep recesses of his being. It wanted to protest, wanted to deny the responsibility, tell him it was not his fault; others were to blame for all the misery and heartache he had been forced to endure. It wasn't his fault that whenever he exceeded other's expectations of him, he was made to pay a harsh price. Rather than receiving praise, or even begrudging acknowledgement, he was made to stand witness and bear the brunt of their anger or embarrassment, made to feel sorry for thinking he could rise above the judgment that had been made against him. It was not his fault his brains and abilities made others nervous about their jobs. He had done nothing wrong, nothing more than put in a hard, honest day's work. He had done things right, and could not be responsible for the jealous acts of those around him.

That was the Howard most people saw, but at that moment, he was no longer that person; that aspect of his personality had been changed in light of his current epiphany, transformed by a greater understanding, and the new version of Howard Langford had no interest in such self-defeating bullshit. No interest at all.

It was true he had been given plenty of help along the way; this was a simple fact, one he could not deny. Many of the setbacks he had experienced had been beyond his control, and for those he could not take all the blame, but the way he had reacted to those things were, and with this knowledge came the realization he did not have to sit back and take what life decided to dish out. He could forge his own way. He might be powerless to change his past, but he could sure as hell direct his future.

Howard looked across the lot toward the sales office, and considered the salesman and the reaction the man had given him, so typical of the acts of emotional sabotage that had been perpetrated against him over the years. Those crimes had never been forgotten nor forgiven, but cataloged in his memory, each filed according to perpetrator and severity of the offense.

The vast majority of the emotional violations committed against him had been perpetrated by his father, of course, but there were many others. When Howard entered college, he was already well beyond his classmates, in both experience and aptitude, despite being younger than most of his fellow freshmen. While he had built and programmed his first computer by the time he was fourteen, most of his peers were just beginning to become involved in computer science. While others were learning basic computer programming, Howard had written his own operating system, and was well on his way to mastering hardware design and electrical engineering. It did not take long for the other students to come to despise him for this, and the pattern established years before began to manifest once more.

First came the taunts, the verbal jabs, the barely concealed insults. The pranks soon followed. He would find Twinkies left on his desk in his dorm room. Crude, hand-written signs would be taped on his back as he walked the halls, or even during classes. Wide Load. Kick Me. Will Blow You For Cheap. These were antics normally associated with the halls of an elementary school, not on the campus of one of the best engineering and electronics schools in the country. He believed attending such a respected institution would finally elevate him above such childish things, but he had been wrong.

Over the years, Howard had been wrong about a good many things. He had assumed receiving a scholarship to such a prestigious college would have pleased his father, and earning his first patent by the age of twenty would garner him a bit of respect, but he had been sorely mistaken on both accounts. Nothing could break the cycle of ridicule started by his father. None of his accomplishments, from his academic success, to landing a job with the hottest game developer in the country, could gain him the least amount of favor from his father or his peers.

When he started at Titan Software, Howard imagined the elder Langford would be satisfied to know his son had been accepted for the position, but he had reacted with the usual skepticism and condescending remarks, and thus had begun the argument that ended with their estrangement from each other.

In a way, his father had been correct on that score. Upon his arrival, Howard had been overjoyed; here was an opportunity not only to make use of his talents, but to prove to all those who had misjudged him that they were wrong. He worked hard, helped the company to develop new gaming technologies that put them head and shoulders above their competition.

For anyone else, this would have brought hefty bonuses, raises, and advancement, but again, Howard was in for a surprise; he was disappointed to find the same quickness on the part of his co-workers to judge him based on his appearance as his former classmates, and was victimized by political maneuvering within the company.

At first, he tried to pass these aspects of the job off as incidental, the price one paid for being in such a highly sought-after position, but after he had revolutionized their product line, the powers that be refused to compensate him fairly for his work, denied him any credit for his work, and eventually fired him. His self-esteem, and his place in the world, darkened after that.

"Some people are cut out to make it in this business, and some people aren't," Marcus Saul had said to him, an ugly smile pasted on his rubbery lips. "I guess you're one of the ones who aren't. Better luck next time around, kid."

Howard could have argued half of Titan's best-selling titles were built on his programming, could have protested it had been his skills that made possible the 3-D shooters and online role-playing titles which had made them famous, but he knew none of that mattered to Marcus Saul. As far as Saul and the lawyers were concerned, all his work had been performed during company time, on the company property, for which he had been legally compensated.

In the end, Howard simply left, unable to believe how fast his life had changed. He knew it would do no good to get a lawyer, regardless of the fact it was his programming that made Titan Software's titles some of the best selling on the market; his signature on the release pretty much guaranteed that his case would be thrown out of court. There had been no choice but for him to walk away. It was only later that he found out how much his brains and work ethic had worried those above him, and turned his superiors into corporate enemies.

Now, armed with that knowledge, and the bright epiphany that had come upon him in the car lot, he knew he would no longer allow those above him to control his life, his career, or his destiny.

The seed had been planted, and as he had driven home from his encounter with Marcus Saul, Howard was filled with the need to do something good for his own peace of mind. It was this need to restore his faith in his abilities that had led to this realization, a need that became concrete shortly after he cashed in his benefits package, when he had spotted the Continental for the first time.

His first inclination had been to buy a motorcycle, a big, gnarly hog; he would become a techno-renegade, tearing up the electronics industry on a badass Harley Davidson. But when he spotted the Continental, sitting there in the sun, with the little vinyl flags flapping around her, he felt something like the touch of destiny; this was the car he was meant to drive.

After all that, here was this car salesman, a used car salesman, of all people, laughing at the notion that he, Howard Langford, might be able to afford to do something as basic as buying a car. It was too much. As far as he was concerned, it was time to start showing the world he meant business, starting with the weasel in the car lot.

It starts right here, right now.

This determination flared inside him as he stood among the lines of sedans, convertibles, and sports cars, waiting for the salesman to return with the keys to the Lincoln.

I'll teach people to never underestimate me again.

Howard had purchased the Continental outright. Saul had been right about one other thing; he had been well paid for his services, especially compared to others of his age. His purchase had infuriated his father, which made Howard determined not only to keep her as long as possible, but to drive her as often as he could. As he drove home from the car lot, he decided he would never again be the victim of corporate politics. He would start his own company, and work on his own terms.

In the years to come, he had done exactly that, using what money he had left to start a small technology start-up, and drove himself like never before. It wasn't long before he attracted the attention of others in the industry, as well as the finances necessary to make Langford Technologies a rising star. Throughout all that time, he never forgot what the salesman had told him on the day he purchased the Lincoln. He had always remembered to take good care of his baby, and for all that time, the salesman's words had been true; she had never let him down.

_Please don't let me down now, baby_.

He looked out over the blistering expanse of desert.

_Please don't let me down now_.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

During the course of his reverie, the landscape had undergone a dramatic change. The plains were punctuated by sharp, crystalline crags thrusting upward through the underbelly of the desert. The spires reflected crimson gleams from the sun, and appeared covered in the blood of the desert. The distance between the peaks was deceptive; Howard was not given a true sense of their scale until the highway curved around one of them. The crystal oasis was the size of a small town.

Howard did not care. He barely noticed the change in his surroundings; his mind was again at the mercy of his stomach.

Though he had been able to distract himself for some time, his hunger had returned with a vengeance. Images of food paraded unbidden through his mind. His imagination was filled with a never-ending smorgasbord of tempting and flavorful dishes that made his saliva glands flood his mouth and his stomach groan with need: thick, grilled steaks covered in onions, steaming mounds of mashed potatoes smothered in turkey gravy, piles of antipasto smelling of spices and herbs, stuffed Maine lobster drenched in melted butter, thick slabs of lasagna brimming with sausage and tomatoes and fresh ricotta cheese, blackened orange roughy, hot blackberry cobbler fresh from the oven and covered in vanilla ice cream. He could almost taste this mental buffet. The images called to his appetite in loud and powerful voices.

Cramps racked his body, followed by waves of nausea that left him trembling in their wake. His gorge began to rise, and he had to struggle not to vomit. Howard pressed the button for the window and began to lower the glass, with the hope to steady his stomach with some fresh air. The result was as harsh as it was unexpected; the air that came rushing through the window felt as hot as a blast furnace. It seared his skin and brought instant tears to his eyes. Almost blinded from the sudden rush of wind, he fumbled for the button to close the window as he struggled to keep the vehicle from swerving.

_Great move_. _How many more stupid things can you do today?_

The window clicked back into place. Howard wiped the water from his eyes, surprised the air could still feel that hot as it moved past his car at over sixty miles an hour.

_I am driving through an oven_. _Just miles and miles of baked rock_.

He wondered just how hot it would need to get in order to melt the surface of the highway. He looked again at the dashboard temperature warning light, wondered how long it would be before it activated, certain the Continental would not be able to endure such an environment for very much longer. He always kept her filled with all-season anti-freeze and coolant, the best money could buy, but he doubted it had ever been tested under these conditions, or that the engineers who designed her could ever imagine such trials.

The lack of lit warning lights did nothing to console him. The air conditioner did little more than push the air around the interior of the Lincoln, and Howard heard a noise under the hood, most likely caused by the strain on the vehicle's compressor.

Before long, the atmosphere in the vehicle began to close in; the interior of the Continental, which had always felt spacious and comfortable, began to feel cramped and stifling. Sweat matted his hair, crawled down his face and neck to his chest, and ran down his back and between his ample butt cheeks. It made his ass itch, and the itch soon became a burning sensation, as if someone had applied a lit cigarette to his anus. To make matters worse, he could not shift his position; each time he did, he aggravated the pain from his injured ankle, which had been reduced to a dull roar by the codeine.

The Lincoln was on its way to becoming a rolling tomb, a coffin that traveled toward its eventual cremation. With an effort, Howard struck the image from his mind. He gripped the wheel with white-knuckled intensity, determined not to succumb to such a fate.

He glanced over to the plastic container sitting on the seat next to him. He was parched, but still had reservations about drinking from it. After all he had experienced, he could not be convinced anything originating here in this world of pain and fear could be good for him. Still, he had no choice; all the liquid he had brought from his own world was gone. He pulled the bottle to him with one hand, never taking his eyes from the road, and removed the cap while holding it between his thighs.

Here goes nothing.

He lifted the bottle to his lips, and was given a pleasant surprise; the water was cool and refreshing. He allowed himself a few healthy swallows, amazed at the crispness of the water. Every bottle of water he had ever purchased in his life paled in comparison; the liquid cut through the dryness in his throat like a razor, obliterated his thirst. The emptiness in his stomach eased, and the ache in his ankle and his jaw faded to a low drone.

Within moments, his body began to cool, and the sweat on his skin evaporated with astonishing quickness. He wondered if the water had somehow intensified the effects of the codeine he had taken earlier, so noticeable was the impact upon his senses.

It was only with some effort that he was able to return the bottle to its resting place on the passenger seat. He was tempted to gulp the water down, wanted to revel in its freshness, its revitalizing quality. After all, if he ran out, he could just use the condenser again, couldn't he? He had succeeded once, so surely he could do so again.

_No_. _If there's one thing this place has taught me, it's that there are no guarantees._

He forced away any notions of indulgence, of temptation. If he had learned anything from this ordeal, it was he could not depend on anything in this world, not logic, not reason, or common sense, or even physics as he knew them. He could not afford to make any assumptions; just because the condenser had worked once did not mean it would work again, and could very well have completely unexpected results, or place him in harm's way.

A fragment of the dream from the night before came back to him, vibrant and clear, as if he had just awoke from it moments ago. In his dream, his brother had told him how very dangerous it was to fall asleep here, that dreaming in this world was not like dreaming in his own reality. He had been warned not to fall asleep again. He could understand that easily enough; everything he had experienced here served to prove how quickly his situation could change, how the winds of fate could reverse direction. He had been very fortunate in procuring rest and the bottle of precious water that rode beside him. He doubted he would have such luck again soon, if at all. It as almost as if the land itself was toying with him, trapping him in a twisted game of cat and mouse.

The water wiped away the deep exhaustion sleep had been powerless to cleanse, focused his mind into a state of elevated clarity, a realm of intuitive thinking he had only experienced during his most inspired moments. The ideas he had gleaned during such occasions had been responsible for a good portion of his wealth and reputation. Inspiration and insight would come into his mind as if teleported there, appearing fully realized as if they had not been born of his own mind at all, but had developed and grown on their own before birthing themselves into his consciousness.

These episodes seemed to occur when he pushed himself into a state of working exhaustion, always without warning, often when he was engaged in an unrelated project. Howard sometimes wondered if fatigue poisons actually helped spur deeper brain activity. It would be something to investigate perhaps, should he live to see the real world again.

He was experiencing one of those episodes now.

Perhaps it was nothing but fatigue worming its way into his mind, dulling his capacity to distinguish logic from fancy. Perhaps the line of reasoning he now followed would seem like utter nonsense if he was fully rested and thinking with a clear head. After all, this train of thought, like the Lincoln, was traveling through some very strange territory. Come to think of it, if the engineer to that train had not fallen asleep at the wheel, then it would not have taken that route in the first place. So maybe it would be better if he just got off, before it went any farther.

But he could not get off; he had ridden that train before, and though it sometimes rode through dark and unmapped lands, he had always ridden it to the end, and had always come out the better for it. This current mental excursion would be no exception. Regardless of the scenery, the ride always felt the same. It felt the same as it did now, as he sped through the darkest and most dangerous of territories. There was a sense of discovery, a feeling of correctness and quiet surprise that came when the pieces of a puzzle are seen whole and complete for the first time.

It was a simple mental push that started the train rolling on its way. After that initial mental connection, his thoughts just flowed into one another, as if possessed a will of their own, and he was helpless to steer their course. This process began when he realized that maybe there wasn't any one single answer to his situation, but several.

As he watched the road, and the effects of the water continued to invigorate his system, his train of thought made a brief stop in the time of his childhood. One of his hobbies during those early years, before his true genius manifested itself, had been the construction of jigsaw puzzles. His mother had always been surprised at how fast he completed them. She continued to bring him puzzles of greater and greater complexity, and by the time he was eight years old, he was assembling puzzles of all kinds, most with more than a thousand pieces, and most of these finished within a few hours.

On one occasion, his mother brought him a new type of puzzle. This puzzle was different than any he had ever attempted before, for it had a picture printed on either side. Howard was fascinated from the moment he saw it, and had gone off to begin assembling it right away. One side of the puzzle was a photograph of a large pile of ribbon candy, the other a stack of glass Christmas ornaments. Not the most fascinating subject matter for a puzzle, and certainly not anything a true puzzle connoisseur would lacquer and frame after completing, but the pictures were secondary; it was the difficulty of the puzzle that mattered. The bits of photograph on the two sides of the pieces looked similar to each other after being cut down into their individual shapes. No, what made the puzzle interesting was that there was more than one puzzle.

It occurred to him then that maybe there was not any one single answer to explain what was happening to him, and in order for there to be more than one answer, there had to be more than one question. To have all the answers, he had to have all the questions, and deep inside, he knew there were questions he had failed to ask.

He now knew some of those questions, or was at least close to knowing them. He began to go over what he knew in his head, listed the facts and events, looking for new insight into his predicament. He was certain he was not hallucinating or dreaming; the extremity of pain and exhaustion he had endured since his arrival was not something anyone could imagine in either state of consciousness. He ran his tongue over the dressing in the hole created by his missing tooth, and the resulting flare of pain confirmed this fact.

If he was insane, well, then nothing he did mattered, and that was something he could not accept, not now, not ever.

_Just get that crap out of your head_. S _tick to the problem, and figure it out. Put the pieces together, and if you find something that doesn't fit, leave it on the side for now, just like a jigsaw piece. Maybe it's part of a different puzzle._

His ankle and jaw throbbed in dull bolts. He watched the heat roll off the pavement in shimmering waves.

I've entered another dimension, or passed through some kind of temporal anomaly that brought me here, wherever 'here' is. It happened just as I fell asleep at the wheel, which is too strange to be a coincidence, so I have to consider the possibility that it is somehow linked to whatever happened, or even has something to do with the creation of the wormhole or anomaly that leads to this place. Maybe it only happens on that stretch of road, or maybe not. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and bang, I pull a Dorothy, and I'm not in Kansas anymore.

Those pieces seem to fit, but it was not enough. He needed to figure out the rest of it, including a way home, if there was one.

_Unless you dig the idea of staying here forever_ , _and it doesn't take a genius to know the answer to that. If there is an answer, I have to find it, while I'm still capable of thinking, so let's start with the pieces that don't fit._

One of the pieces that did not fit was the town, and the things living in it, such as the blob that had appeared to him as Marcus Saul. There was also the matter of the signs, the ones that seemed to have been created with him in mind. He needed an answer for those questions, needed a way to make those pieces fit the greater puzzle.

Perhaps the signs _had_ been written with him in mind. Perhaps the inhabitants of this world possessed some type of ability that allowed them to pull images from his mind, and use them to make him see what they wanted him to see, a type of psychic lure to attract victims, or to mesmerize or manipulate their prey while the hunter prepared for the kill.

The concept of creatures using a lure had parallels in his own world, though the application was much different, and fit into the context of his experiences in this reality. Perhaps the entire landscape interacted with his mind in this way. Maybe it somehow took images from his mind and used them against him. Maybe it was a combination of the two.

Sadly, it was this last possibility that seemed the most likely. As improbable as it appeared, it was also the explanation that seemed to fit, but it was not one that seemed to hold much promise in giving him an answer on how to get home again. Nor did it explain his mystery caller, the strange entity that claimed to be omnipotent in this world; it was yet another piece that did not fit, one he was determined to put into place.

So, who, or what, was the mystery caller? The voice on the phone had announced to him that it was everything, the Voice of God speaking to Moses from a burning bush, but it was possible the voice had been lying. Perhaps the owner of the voice was not everything it said; perhaps it was only another aspect of this strange place, and not the power it claimed to be.

An image played in his mind, in which another voice spoke to a group of startled and fearful onlookers. It was a scene from _'The Wizard of Oz'_ , when Dorothy and her company, after making it to the Emerald City, stood before the Wizard, and Dorothy's faithful dog Toh-Toh pulled aside a cloth to reveal a started figure, while the Wizard told them to pay no attention to the old man behind the curtain.

It was a fantastic theory, but not any more so than anything else he had encountered. As improbable and unrealistic as it sounded, it was better than the alternative, that he was trapped in a land controlled by a malevolent, god-like being with the power to shape reality to its will. To believe in that would be to believe there was no hope of ever reaching his own world again, and he was far from ready to accept such a thing.

No, as strange and fantastic as his theory may have been, it was at least remotely plausible that while powerful, the Devil's Advocate was far from omniscient, and that carried with it some amount of hope, as did the reasoning that where there was a way into this world, there had to be a way out. There just had to be, and he would hold on to that hope, however small, for as long as he could.

Until my dying breath.

Through the automotive glass, he gazed out upon a world that had no right to exist.

I will hold onto hope until my dying breath.

He hoped it did not come to that. He had been given all the benefits of a wealthy lifestyle for so long, he had come to depend on it. Now, deprived of that support for the first time, he would have to rely only on his resolve and force of will.

Back in his own world, there were protocols that would ensure his safety; were he to go missing for any amount of time, measures and procedures would be followed to find him, measures he was confident were already underway. Lester Tanner would have alerted his security people as soon as Howard failed to report in at the appointed time. He imagined Les would be pulling his hair out by now, when none of the established protocols bore any positive results.

_Unless he doesn't know you're missing yet_. _Time may be as unpredictable as anything else in this place. There's no way to tell how long you've really been gone._

This was a sobering realization, one that came back to haunt him often as the sun wheeled overhead. Matters of time and space and physics, how they applied to the world he now traveled through, circled his conscious mind, darted in to peck at him like a flock of ravenous vultures. They wearied his mind, and he had to fight to keep them at bay lest they consume his attention.

The day dragged on; Howard had no idea how many hours passed until the sun relented its hold upon the sky, and darkness crept back into the world. Out on the horizon, the electric glow Howard had noticed the night before returned. He wanted to know the source of the glow, how far away it might be. He wondered how it fit into the puzzle. Was it another Splitsville? If so, it was much larger, and that was something he did not want to think about. Whatever the source, his instincts told him it was not good. Just looking at that glow gave him the heebie-jeebies.

He wiped at his eyes, and opened his mouth in a long yawn. The sleep he managed to catch the night before had been far from satisfying; he felt like several large men had worked him over with baseball bats. He wondered how long a person could stay awake and still function, how long before it began to affect his perceptions, or his very sanity. He had read about the effects of sleep deprivation, which included everything from loss of motor skills, to hallucinations, paranoia, and even severe behavioral changes. He had only glanced at the article, but he recalled some of those who suffered from long-term sleep disorders had eventually become suicidal.

_Wouldn't that just be perfect?_ _Wouldn't that just be the ultimate kick in the nuts? If I were to actually find a way back home after managing to survive all this crap, only to off myself. But that's not going to happen, boys and girls. I'm going to keep my head, and my wits. Whatever happens, I'm not going to let this place get the best of me. It can kiss my ass on that score. I won't let it win. I won't._

As in the previous nights, there was no moon; the skies overhead revealed constellations spiraling where human eyes were never meant to gaze. The darkness concealed the landscape, and this made Howard nervous. He grew even more apprehensive as the highway began to slope upward once more, a change that signaled its entry into mountainous terrain. Given his past luck in similar territory, his emotions were more than justified.

Outside the Continental, there was only shadows and darkness. The lights from the vehicle revealed nothing but rocky ground and the unending ribbon of asphalt. Howard stared out into the dark, scanning for anything moving, any sign of danger. He would not allow himself to be caught by surprise as he had by the Thylacines.

_Now there is one piece to this puzzle I'd really like to see put into place._ _Just why would there be a two lane highway running through an alien dimension?_

He knew the answer to this was important, and could possibly be key not only to understanding the world around him, but how he had come to be here in the first place.

Just why, among packs of mutant Tasmanian Tigers the size of lions and bio-mechanical behemoths that would be right at home in a Ridley Scott movie, would there be such a normal thing as a road?

Well, as your old driver's ed teacher would say, roads are for transporting people and materials from one place to another, so maybe that's what this road is for as well. If it is just a manifestation of this land, one designed to bring people here, then its job would have been accomplished long ago. Same goes for the creatures in Splitsville. If they were responsible for the road, if its purpose was to lure people to the town, it would make sense for it to end there. It wouldn't benefit those things if their victims could escape, so it has to exist for some other reason.

Perhaps his idea that the terrain interacted with his mind was closer to the truth than he originally believed. Maybe the plane, the world—whatever it was—tapped into the minds of those who came here, and was altered on some level by that person's subconscious.

It was far-fetched, ridiculous, yet to his exhausted mind, it also made a twisted sort of sense. If true, it could mean the highway was a manifestation of his memories, perhaps even a conglomeration of the memories of anyone pulled here by what he had come to term a temporal anomaly, for lack of a better description. Maybe the drivers of all the cars he had seen, both the Volvo, and all the cars in Splitsville, had come here under similar circumstances. Maybe they had all been asleep, or almost asleep, and had helped to alter the landscape on some level. A highway would make sense then, being one of the last images imprinted into their minds.

Howard realized this might explain the familiarity that had tugged at the back of his mind many times since his entry to this place, yet had never made itself clear. He could almost see it in his mind's eye, but it remained just beyond the point of understanding.

He wrestled with this throughout the night, as the highway wound higher and higher through the mountains. He did not let go of this hypothesis, but strained instead to bring it into focus. He concentrated long and hard, and as the full implications of his theories about this world played themselves out in his mind, the cold hand of fear returned to grip his heart.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the course of exploring the various possibilities and explanations behind his plight, Howard's mind inevitably turned to matters of death. He pondered its nature, its causes, and its effects, on both people and events. What happened to the conscious mind at the moment of death, the precise moment when all physical processes ceased, and the body became just another inert object? Did everything simply stop, every experience, every memory, as if it had never happened? Or, did humans truly possess a soul, something that lived on after death? If they did, what was that transition like, and to where did the soul travel? Was it Heaven? Hell? Did it go to the Happy Hunting Grounds? Hackensack, New Jersey? Did it come here?

Howard's logical side forced him to consider these questions, as the implications of his new theory regarding the nature of the world around him began to unfold in his mind. These questions were disturbing enough for him consider at the best of times, without the added ambiance of the alien world that passed by the Lincoln's windows.

No application of either logic or faith, from quantum physics to religion, had ever explained the meaning of life to him, much less the dynamics of what occurred when that life ended. Those concepts always made him feel uneasy. Try to avoid them though he might, they came back to taunt him, always at odd moments, such as when he was preparing for sleep, lying in the dark after a tiring day, or during times of prolonged stress. He did not like the paths upon which his mind traveled, not then, and especially not now, but he had no choice; the thoughts haunted him, despite his best attempts to push them away. Their weight crushed down upon him in an avalanche of possibilities and uncertainties.

What of the poor souls who had met their ends here? What happened to them? Did their souls move on? Where they granted a final peace, or were their spirits trapped here? Did they become part of this world, like the blob-things in back in Splitsville? Nothing seemed too crazy a notion, not in a world of such impossible landscapes and creatures such as he had encountered.

He shivered. He had the feeling that was exactly what happened. Those poor unfortunates who lost their lives were sucked dry, like the boy back in Splitsville. They were drained of everything, of all physical, mental, and emotional energy, until there was nothing left. Perhaps the creatures that roamed this land, whether indigenous or created, feasted on the physical bodies of the victims, while the land itself fed on everything else. Perhaps the land was sustained by the life energy of the dying.

_Maybe there's a dynamic at work here I haven't even considered yet_.

He wiped away nervous sweat from his brow. _Maybe the whole system is tied together in ways I haven't been able to fathom. Maybe the creatures and the landscape work together as part of a natural order, similar to the way things work back home, only under different laws. Maybe the land itself drains the subconscious, and somehow uses that energy to sustain itself. Those who are unlucky enough to be transported here bring with them images, thoughts, fears and desires, all rich with emotion. Maybe anyone who ever came here helped shape this reality, each of them imprinting part of themselves onto the landscape._

It was crazy. The whole concept was koo-koo for cocoa puffs, but it might also very well be true. It might go far to explain how the highway could exist, and a host of other things. Crazy or not, he was here, and he needed to understand the rules if he intended to survive.

Maybe he did not have it exactly right, but most of the pieces seemed to fit. This did not make him feel better, but rather scared him half to death. Thinking outside the box was not new to him, but this was more than just out of the box; it was out of the building. This was a whole new zip code kind of thinking, boys and girls, and though he was capable of thinking it, he was not sure if he could accept it, despite the tangible reality that rolled past his windows with each passing second, a reality that should not exist, but did anyway.

He wondered how many people had been drained in such a way. How many things out there had been created from the dark unconscious of those unfortunate enough to be ensnared here? How many victims had been brought to their end by highway hypnosis?

Howard stared out the driver's side window into the dark, where hordes of shapeless terrors roamed in his mind's eye. He recalled all the cars he had seen in Splitsville, thought of how each one was a tombstone. What had their drivers seen before they died? If the land, or the creatures that inhabited it, could create things out of their deepest fears or hidden desires, then how could he expect to fight something like that? How could he ever expect to survive?

He pushed away those questions with a vengeance; he did not have the luxury of negativity. His only option was to go forward, to keep doing what he had been doing. He was still alive. He had made it past the town, unlike so many others, had survived horrors beyond anything he previously believed possible. He was still alive, and this told him he was not done yet. He still had plenty of fight left in him, and if could survive this long, he still had a chance to make it back home.

He recognized also that in a world where nightmares came true, it might not be a good idea to let negativity gain a foothold in his mind. There were plenty of other things, buried deep in his memory and in his heart, which could be used against him, nasty things that, if his theory was correct, could be transformed into reality. Thus, it would be best to avoid dark thoughts lest they take shape. He needed to focus his will instead on his need to return home, to concentrate only on salvation.

He knew time and observation would show him whether his theories were sound, but he could not stop thinking about the possible dynamics of the world passing by outside his window. He had come to believe he was in a place where almost anything could happen, where things were created from the minds of anyone making contact with it, and the implications of this were almost beyond his ability to believe. It meant he was dealing with a reality that operated on a whole different set of rules.

Perhaps ideas, nightmares, dreams, the entire creative process, were translated into some sort of natural force on this world, like rain or wind. Combine the right set of forces on Earth, such as the right temperature and wind pressure, and the result was a thunderstorm. Maybe, in this world, nightmares and dreams equated to the same thing, only instead of a thunderstorm, you got things popping into existence that were not native to the world. Maybe the highway itself was a manifestation of will, of the motives and desires of those who had come here.

Maybe his Mystery Caller was just another of those creations. Maybe it, too, fed off his emotions, or his life energy. The caller had a talent for pushing his buttons, of keeping him angry and afraid. Maybe it was more than just mind reading; maybe everyone who came to this place shared some deeper connection with the land, became open to it in some way that made it easier for the blobs, and other creatures like them, to pull images and memories from their minds. It was more lunacy that somehow seemed to make sense, whether he wanted it to or not.

_If that is true, it's one hell of a mechanism_.

The fact it was so personal, so invasive, disturbed him on a deep level. It was a rape of the subconscious, a violation of a man's soul, and natural process or not, it made for some scary implications. The fact that it would open a person's deepest fears and secrets, make them vulnerable to all the things they tried so hard to keep hidden, was high among these. After all, everyone had those fears—emotions, fantasies and experiences they fought to keep locked away; it was part of what it meant to be human. A person could not help but to respond with intense emotions, fear chief among them, when confronted by the ghosts of their pasts, the secrets that lurked in the darkest corners of their hearts. A tragic experience, a phobia, the emotional scars suffered from a rotten childhood or a failed marriage, all were just waiting to become part of the alien freak show that was this world.

_It could be the power of thought itself works in a completely different way here_ , _interacting with the land as a kind of primal force, and the creatures who live here have adapted to that dynamic, become dependent on that same type of energy for survival._

Not the power of thought, however, something about that was not quite right. No, it was not the power of thinking alone that shaped and sustained this world, but more like the power of dreams. It was dreams that made and re-made the world, dreams that dwelled alongside the fears and secrets, dreams that were unrestrained by the chains of physics and logic, that fueled this reality.

In his new, clearer state of thinking, he realized this to be true. Perhaps this world was where all dreams lived, where the consciousness came during the time of dreaming, set loose to play in a world where anything could happen. Maybe people were not meant to come here physically at all, but were only meant to travel in that dream state, and when they were brought here, it upset the natural order of things.

With this idea came an even darker, more sinister concept. Again, Howard would have preferred not to go down this mental path, but it was too late; he was being pulled along that avenue by his sheer need to know, and that need would not be denied.

How much of this landscape was his? How much of the world had been changed by his entry? How much of what he experienced had been dredged up from his subconscious? Did the highway connect him with places from the recesses of his mind? Did he affect this world on a minute level, or was he responsible for everything that happened to him?

These questions were both intriguing, and disturbing. Much of what he had experienced confirmed—at least in his own mind—his theories about the world around him. The sign on the side of the road leading to Splitsville, the creature in the town changing into Marcus Saul, or wearing his image, not to mention his encounter with the shape-shifting toll taker, had been pulled from the dark closets of his memory. Whether deliberate, or a natural by-product of interacting with this world, those incidents had served to play upon his fears, his hopelessness, all his most powerful emotions. It was a mechanism that had almost cost him his life.

Wouldn't there have to be a flip side to that equation?

It would follow that if the land were somehow working off the emotions and dreams of those who entered here, then wouldn't the land respond to the positive emotions and fantasies as well as nightmares and fears? If so, then where were the happy fuzzy elves and dancing girls?

_Probably serving as Tasmanian Tiger Chow_.

There probably were a good number of things created from visitor's happier dreams, but even if they were not food for the nastier denizens of this world, he would be unlikely to encounter any of them, especially if the world tailored its creations based on his mind. Howard could describe himself in many ways, but happy was not a word he would normally use in relation to himself. Successful? Yes. Wealthy? Indeed. Ambitious? Determined? Check yes on both of those boxes. But did these make him happy?

Howard frowned. It was true. For all his wealth and success, he was not an especially happy man. In fact, he spent more of his emotional energy on the behalf of his company than he did enjoying the success produced as a result of his efforts. It was easy for him to understand why he had seen the things he had seen, considering his personal emotional landscape.

All the things he had seen...

Howard attempted to picture the route of his journey since the moment he realized he was not where he was supposed to be, envisioning the highway and its landmarks from an aerial perspective. As the picture in his mind came into focus, a strange sense of Deja-vu overcame him, accompanied by a sick dread. These feelings grew as the mental image grew clearer, until both became complete. He became lost in them as the full realization of his situation bore down on him.

It was right there all along, right in front of his face. The answer had been everywhere, in every change of terrain. There had been ample opportunity to see what he saw now, but he had never made the connection; it had remained at the edges of his perception, always on the border of his logical mind, tugging at him in the form of unexplainable familiarity. The forest with its changing hues, the dry seabed and the almost endless yellow desert, all were obvious clues.

Howard's mouth fell open, worked soundless words.

My map. I'm driving through my own freaking map.

He could still remember them all, the wondrous places he had drawn onto his drawing pad on that sunshine-bright day, in a time and world far removed from his present, with crystal clarity. The Rainbow Forest, the Jagged Mountains, the Old Sea, all of these were his, each a place of magic and adventure. They had been his right up until the moment that piece-of-shit cat Mister Dibbs had ruined it, and angered Howard enough to seal the animal behind the wall in the attic.

A chill crept over his nerves. There had been more to that map, hadn't there? Yes indeed. He remembered there had been more, much more. He looked again at the blue glow lighting the sky ahead of him, backlighting a ragged chain of mountains somewhere near the horizon, and felt his dread intensify. He suspected he knew what that glow meant now, and it worried him, worried him to his core.

If his suspicions were correct, he was heading toward yet another spot on his map, a map that had been inspired by many sources, from movies, to comic books, to the many works of genre fiction he read as a child. On his drawing, beyond the Old Sea, beyond the Great Desert, he had sketched a city. It was toward this city that Howard felt he was now heading: the City of Mutants.

A feeling of dread gripped his heart. He recalled a fragment of the strange dream he had after succumbing to exhaustion, a memory of his brother David, warning him about that very thing. The memory caused him to grip the wheel hard enough to make the bones of his fingers ache as he looked toward the horizon, certain that he gazed upon his future. It was not a future he was anxious to greet.

He continued to watch that area of sky as the highway climbed its way towards the mountains. At times, the burden of his thoughts made it difficult to follow the changing course of the road, and as the hours passed, he had to struggle harder to keep from swerving off the asphalt. The task was made even more challenging by the increasing irritation of his burns suffered from the heat elementals.

The skin from his arm to the side of his face first began to tingle, then to burn, and finally to suppurate. He turned on the interior light in order to check the severity of his condition, but the light quality was too poor for him to make out enough details to satisfy him. He would have to wait until morning to see the extent of the damage, and would have to hope the pain did not become much worse.

Not for the first time, he wished this particular ride would end so he could get off; he had seen enough.

There are things you need to see.

The words hung in his mind, the memory of that alien Voice, telling him what was to come, still haunted him.

_Well,_ _I've seen more than I ever would care to see, that's for sure._

He knew even if he did live to see his own world again, the memories of those events would were burned too deeply into his consciousness for him to ever forget them; he would bear those scars forever. Whatever his Mysterious Caller might or might not be, their prophecy had come true, and that opened the door to some other serious possibilities, none of which he wanted to contemplate.

The stereo on the dashboard lit the darkness, and static filled the interior of the Lincoln, making Howard jump in his seat. Then, the static died away, to be replaced by the dark voice of the Devil's Advocate.

"Miss me, big boy?" the Voice asked. "I've been missing you. It took me awhile to pin you down after you gave me the slip, but now that I've found you, we're going to have some great fun, you and I. I'll be coming for you soon, Howie, and when I do, it'll be the end of the road."

As the sound of the voice flooded the car, Howard squawked in surprise and fear. His scream was accompanied by the squealing of rubber, as the heavy vehicle swerved toward the shoulder.

In a moment, the Lincoln crossed the lanes, and as the beams of the headlights swung toward the side of the highway, the light that emanated from the lenses disappeared as it crossed over into empty space. Just feet from the edge of the asphalt, the land simply dropped away; he was riding along the edge of a cliff.

Howard fought the wheel as adrenaline pumped through his system. His driver's instincts took hold despite the pain. He ignored the flares of pain in his ankle and his hands as he struggled to regain control of the Continental. He pulled the wheel hard to the right, but the Lincoln was slow to respond. The wheel resisted his efforts, writhed in his grip like a living thing. He knew he was riding the very edge of the roadway, the tires on that side caught in the slight ditch between the ground and the asphalt.

The ethereal voice of the Devil's Advocate continued to issue from the car speakers, the words booming in the close confines of the Lincoln's interior. The air inside the vehicle seemed to vibrate at the sound.

"Are we having fun yet?" it asked. "You don't want to have a flat tire out here, boy," it said. Its tone changed to mimic the slow drawl of the tow truck driver who had changed his tire. "You don't wanna git stranded in a place like this. Shee-it, if you git stranded out here, well, we can have all sorts of fun with a boy like you. Isn't that right, thunder-thighs? In fact, when you git to the city, we're gonna bend you over and make you squeal like a pig. Do you hear me, boy? Like a pig."

The Voice changed back into its original timbre, faded in from a squeal of static. "Take a good look around, Big Boy," it said, "because soon, I'm going to drain you dry."

"Shut up!" Howard screamed, as he fought the wheel. "Shut the hell up and get out of my head, you son of a bitch!" Rubber squealed, and the rear end of the Lincoln slid to the left. The rear wheel left the asphalt, and he heard the sound of crunching gravel. The driver's side of the automobile dipped, and it felt like his heart leapt into his throat. The headlights showed nothing but empty space. Howard was riding the very edge of the cliff now, with no margin for error; one mistake, and the Lincoln would plunge over the side.

Hollow laughter filled the air, booming between bursts of feedback. "Oh, this is rich," the Voice bellowed, its tone thick with glee, "this is ever so delightful. Don't let me down now, big boy. I want you to stay alive just a little bit longer. I wouldn't want you to miss the party I've got waiting for you; that wouldn't do at all."

The highway bent away at a sharp angle, and it took every ounce of skill Howard could muster to keep the Lincoln from plummeting over the side. The heavy vehicle hugged the edge of the cliff at twenty-five miles an hour; it hung onto the thin ledge as if it had a will of its own, as if it were aware of the abyss looming only inches away.

The sound of the gravel kicked up by the tires resonated through the interior of the vehicle like gunshots as they struck the underside. The splint on his ankle limited his mobility, and even shifting his weight to use the brake pedal caused pain to flare from his injury. There was little room for error; braking too hard could cause the vehicle to slide over the side, while too little would send the Lincoln over the edge like a missile. He had to get the wheels back onto the pavement without swerving too sharply. The Continental was a big girl, however, and had gained its reputation from its luxury, not its maneuverability.

The rear corner of the Lincoln dipped sharply, and for one long second, Howard was certain it must be the end; all of the pain he suffered, all of his efforts, would be proven worthless, all in the space of a single heartbeat. Then, at that very moment, the front tires managed to grip the road again, and pulled the vehicle up onto the highway. The rear end swung sideways with a savage motion as the front end found purchase, and Howard could almost feel the empty space stretching away below the rear bumper into darkness.

A moment later, the automobile crossed the centerline, and Howard was forced to fight the wheel again. Rubber screamed in torment as the Continental fought against the forces of gravity. It squeaked and creaked as it bounced on her shock absorbers. Howard cursed under his breath, but managed to gain control of her, and brought the automobile to a sliding stop in the center of the highway.

He slammed the transmission into Park, and sat in the darkness. Sweat poured from his face, and his lungs hitched as he gasped for breath.

"Impressive...almost," the Voice said from the stereo. "Let's see how well you do in the Big City. We'll be waiting for you."

"Bring it on, bitch!" Howard screamed. He pounded at the stereo, beat at it in time with his words. "What's the score so far, asshole?" He struck the stereo again, and one of the knobs broke off to spin away into the darkness. "What is it now?" he yelled at the damaged device, "Howard six, Casper zero?" He punched the stereo again, and a crack appeared in the plastic faceplate. "Keep fucking with me, and I swear I'll do worse to you than I did to that fucking cat back at the toll booth! So come and get me, you piece of shit!"

He knew it was pointless to let his rage get the better of him, but he could not help it; he was just too angry and exhausted to control his actions.

Laughter erupted from the speakers. Angered even further, Howard punched the stereo with his fist, but only succeeded in cutting his knuckles. "Fuck you!" he screamed, and struck at the dashboard, leaving behind a smear of blood on the vinyl. The laughter did not stop, but grew haughtier at his distress.

"You think it's funny you son of a bitch?" Howard yelled, his face livid with rage. "I'll show you funny, you cock-knocking coward!" He reached under the dashboard with his right hand, and began to feel about. It took a few moments for him to find the wires running from the stereo, and when he did, he grasped them, and pulled down hard. "How's this for funny?" he asked, and ripped at the wires even harder. It took several tries, but the wires gave way, and the display panel on the stereo went dark. The interior went silent, and Howard was alone in the dark once more.

"Are we laughing now, asshole?" he asked, as he collapsed back into the seat. Cradling his bleeding hand, he said, "You fuck with me, and I guarantee I'll mess up your day."

Even as he spoke, he knew it was as useless as it was foolish. He could tell he was alone again; the presence the Voice brought with it was gone. Inside the Lincoln, Howard shook with rage, his hands clenched into fists. They wavered like specters in his vision, shadows that quivered in the glow from the dashboard. His breath was hot in his chest, and his lungs labored with the effort it took to breathe.

Lights danced in front of his eyes, miniature fireflies that lived for brief moments, tracing bright arcs through his vision before fading. His left arm tingled, as if it were covered in fire ants. Then, sharp needles of pain stabbed into him, impaled him with lances of fire.

_Heart attack_. _You're having a heart attack_.

He gripped his left wrist with his right hand, searched for a pulse. Pain pounded through his head and chest. Unable to concentrate, he dropped his hands to his sides, and willed his lungs to relax and breathe.

_Don't you dare die on me now, you son of a bitch. Not now, not like this, not after you've taken everything this place can throw at you. If you die now, none of that will mean jack shit_.

Dark spots danced across his vision. The pain was incredible, unlike anything he had ever experienced, more than all the tribulations he had suffered in this world or any other. Agony spiked through him, shredding his nerves. His breathing was becoming more difficult; each inhalation taking more effort than the last. He knew he had to act fast, before he lost consciousness. After that, it would be too late.

He pawed at the case next to him with his right hand, and pulled the first aid kit into his lap. He flipped open the lid, groped inside the case. His fingers closed around a familiar shape, and withdrew a small packet of aspirin. It took all his strength to tear open the little packet, and shake the pills into his palm. He put the tablets into his mouth, and chewed.

The spots in front of his eyes were bigger now, and it was part luck, part memory, that allowed him to find the plastic bottle of water he had collected with the makeshift condenser. He took a large drink from this, and the bitter taste of the medicine was washed from his mouth. With what felt like the last of his strength, and an arm that felt disconnected from the rest of his body, he managed to replace the cap on the bottle. It fell from his hand, and rolled off the seat into the darkness of the Continental's floorboards.

Howard lay limp, and wondered how long it would take for him to die. He had done all he knew to do; all that was left now, was to wait for whatever came next. Either the pain would pass, or he would die. His fate now lay in the hands of something other than himself, and he was surprised to find he felt relieved at the prospect.

The pain passed. Within minutes, he discovered it was easier to breathe; the invisible weight sitting on his chest began to melt away. The spikes of pain piercing him grew smaller, their punctures less frequent. These diminished to a pins and needles sensation over his entire body, before this too faded away. Howard concentrated on his breathing, and was surprised and very thankful to still be alive.

_You're a lucky man_. _You are one lucky son of a bitch. That could have been more than just a minor infarction; it could have been the Big Nap._

He knew it had been very close. There was no way to dial 911 here, no one to give him CPR, no one to save him if he were to have another attack. He was truly and completely on his own. He resolved to listen more closely to the advice of his doctor, and take better care of his health in the future.

If he even had a future.

Before his reality had been ripped away and replaced with the Land That Sanity Forgot, Howard had not been used to such candid admissions. In that other life, he would have attempted to justify his actions, to find some way to escape the burden of his own guilt, some feeble attempt to relieve himself of his responsibility to his health. He was used to all these tactics, but he was not used to giving in to self-reprimand without resistance. In the wake of enduring a mild heart attack, however, Howard found he was not surprised. There was no debating the pain he had experienced, or how close he had just come to death. His refusal to take care of himself, his blatant disregard for diet and lack of exercise, had brought him very close to ending not only his career, but also his life, and everything that had ever meant anything to him.

As the last of the liquid fire ants crawling on his skin faded away into nothingness, Howard began to undergo a transformation, one often experienced by those who survived a life-threatening event. This was no epiphany; it was not a leap of intuition, or sudden knowledge that came rushing into his brain, but an infusion of will, an inner strength to act upon what he already knew. He was filled with a renewed zest for life, a sense of purpose and being that made all his inner darkness and secrets, all the pain of his childhood, all the loss and heartbreak of his past, seem petty and unimportant.

At that moment, Howard came to a Life Determination. If he made it through this alive, he would change the way he lived. If he survived to see his own world again, he would take measures to guard against stress. He would exercise. He would make health a priority, not only for himself, but for everyone who worked for him. He would leave his comfort zone, and become a different, better person, a new and improved Howard Langford.

Even as this determination formed in his mind, he could feel the change beginning, felt his old self as it burned away to leave something new, purged of the limitations his past had placed upon it. The world could be his, and he could finally be free to become the person he had always wanted to be.

Now, all he had to do was survive.

Promise.

The word was clear in his mind, clear and easily heard despite the fireflies of pain that still flittered through his consciousness. It intruded into his mind, as if born from some other source, though he knew better. This was coming from a deeper part of his being, a part he had stopped listening to a long time ago.

_Promise yourself that you will do things differently_ , it said. _Promise yourself that you won't allow yourself slip back into your old ways. Promise._

The voice in his head demanded an answer, and he did not hesitate to reply.

_I promise_.

Howard neither knew nor cared where the demand came from; it was more than just mental clutter, something to pass the time as he gathered his strength. He did not question the way it surfaced in the chaos of his mind, clear and vibrant amidst the static, did not pause to wonder at its source, or that it sounded so much like his normal voice, only much younger. None of that mattered; all that mattered was breathing, that he could still pass air in and out of his lungs, could still live from one moment to the next.

Time passed, and his breathing did become easier, but his anxiety increased. Sitting out in the open, he made an easy target. He tried to move, but found it almost impossible. He felt drained, weak, and could not even manage the energy necessary to sit upright in the seat again. He struggled, only to fall back into the leather when his arms refused to do his bidding. His body felt heavier, his limbs wooden; the slightest movement required more effort than he would ever have believed possible.

He tried again to raise his body from the seat, but then decided instead to just lie there and rest awhile. He was still too weak to do much more than twitch about. It was pointless to try and fight it; further strain would do nothing for him. He had no choice but to wait until his strength returned, and hope and pray nothing nasty came wandering along in the meantime.

If he suffered another infarction, it would most certainly mean the end of him, of this he was certain. He had pushed his body far beyond its limits, and now he was paying the price; all he could do now, was rest and wait. He was a sitting duck, without even the strength to shift the Lincoln into Drive, or drive it away from danger, should it find him. At least he had possessed the presence of mind to put the transmission into Park before the pain had become too great, otherwise the Lincoln would have continued to drift until it plummeted over the cliff and sent him to a certain, sudden, painful death.

Howard did not know how long he remained there. His hands hung useless at his sides, his head tilted back, his torso slouched, while he waited to regain enough strength to take the wheel. For long passages, his mind was a blank; he concentrated only on his breathing and the feel of his pulse as his blood coursed through his body. He rose above the pain in his head and his ankle, the smaller injuries to his hands, the singed skin of his face and arm; he waited, and listened for his body to tell him it was okay to try and move again.

Time became a vast expanse, an endless gulf through which he floated, disconnected and alone. Then, long after he had lost any concept of time's passage, he found he could wiggle his fingers again.

Not long thereafter, he discovered he could lift his arms. He still felt like ten miles of dug up road, but his motor skills were beginning to return. He straightened into his familiar driving position, winced at the pins and needles that ran through his arms and legs. To test this, he stretched his legs, and found he was capable of the action without any serious strain on his constitution. The cartilage in his back popped and creaked, and the sense of relief it brought was exquisite. He flexed his knees and elbows, worked the stiffness out of his joints, and went on to rub the rest of the numbness from his arms, shoulders, calves, and thighs.

He flexed his hips last. He turned as far as he could manage to the left, to the right, and back again. It was necessary for him to repeat this movement for several minutes, but it worked; his joints began to become more limber, the actions smoothing with each repetition.

_Now, let's see if we can get moving again_. _Let's see if I can't make the Voice out to be a liar._

He shifted the Continental back into Drive, and the tone of the engine lowered the slightest bit as the transmission engaged. In the distance, he could see the blue glow that emanated from somewhere beyond the mountains, the jagged peaks silhouetted against the cobalt radiance to be swallowed by the starlit sky. He hoped that if there was such a thing as luck, or destiny, or whatever it was that had allowed him to survive this long, stayed with him; he had a feeling he was going to need it.

The highway continued its relentless, winding course toward the crowning ridge of the mountain range. The road often switched back in sharp curves, and he was forced to drive at a slower speed to keep from losing control along one of the turns.

He was close to where he imagined the highway would cross the ridge when he noticed the stars were beginning to fade. The sky lightened, paled from velvet black to the color of an old bruise, before it assumed its now familiar yellow hue, and brought the details of his surroundings into focus with the dawn of yet another day.

What he saw in the early morning light did not encourage him.

The sides of the mountains stretched down from peaks that looked like spires of dark sand dripped from a giant's fist to solidify, twisted and convoluted, first on one side of the highway, then the other, as it wound its way among them. They terminated in darkened trenches and gullies filled with razor-sharp shards of rock the size of city buses. In the darkness below, things moved among the shadows, monstrosities that slithered and flowed away from the rays of the rising sun.

_This would be a very bad time to make a wrong turn_.

Ahead of him, the asphalt continued its winding course. It rose along a varied grade toward an unseen apex, where he supposed he would begin a similar journey down the far side of the range.

Next stop: the City of Mutants.

_You can't be sure that's what you will find there_. _It could all turn out to be just some half-baked theory._

Maybe he was right, and the land itself or some other agency was capable of pulling images from his mind and using them against him, and maybe some of those images came from the map he drew when he was a child, made up of assorted imaginary places from books and such, but it did not mean any one specific place existed beyond these particular mountains. There was just no way to tell until he got there.

The thing was, Howard knew he could be as certain of it, as certain of knowing just where his house would be if it were his home street he now traveled upon rather than an inter-dimensional highway stretching across a world of nightmares. He knew it with the same ease and familiarity as he knew his own social security number, or his address, or his telephone number. He knew the city would be there, and it was waiting for him.

On the movie screen of his memory, he saw an image taken from a dream, heard his brother's warning about what was ahead.

He knew it would be dangerous; he did not need any warnings, in dreams or otherwise. His mental debate was nothing more than a diversion, a way to pass the time, a distraction to pull him away from the feelings of panic and hopelessness and rage that threatened to surface over and over again. It was a task that required more energy as time went on, despite his attempt to rest.

_The land is draining you_. _The land, or whatever the Voice belongs to, or both, and the longer you stay here, the more of you it takes away. You have to push on, get beyond whatever is waiting for you on the other side of the mountains as quickly as you can, regardless of what happens._

Another memory from his dream came to him, of his brother, warning him that had to get out of the city as quick as he could, because staying there would kill him _._

So, you don't have a choice; you have to get your ass out of there, and fast. There won't be any time for screw-ups, because either way, you are running out of time.

Howard realized he had not checked the fuel gauge for some time, and looked at the dashboard. The needle on the gauge now stood at the quarter mark. After such a long time of seeing next to no movement on the part of his fuel level, it came as something of a shock to see the indicator had moved so far. He had worried for some time that the gauge had been broken during one of the many abuses his baby had been forced to endure, and there had been several occasions when he feared he would run out of fuel just when he needed it most.

Later, he theorized the Lincoln's thrifty use of fuel was a result of the particular physics at work on this world. He had imagined perhaps the vehicle might not require as much fuel as it did at home, maybe a great deal less, and in this he had been correct. Still, though he was getting the best mileage in automotive history, there was a definite limit to how far he would be able to go, a limit that was getting closer with every passing mile.

His ability to drive in Anti-Oz was drawing to a close, and he did not want to imagine his fate if he could not find a way back home before he used his remaining fuel. When the needle reached the empty mark, the car would die, and he would likely follow in short order. He tried not to think about such an eventuality, but it returned to haunt his mind. Despite his best efforts, he could not shake the image of being stranded, alone and out of gas, in the middle of a plain filled with Thylacines, from his mind.

Howard forced the pictures in his mind away. He told himself jokes, replayed scenes from his favorite movies and television programs again and again in his head. He talked to himself in order to distract himself from images of an unpleasant, impending future. Had he known then what waited for him on the other side of the mountains, or possessed even an inkling of just how far down the road to oblivion he would be forced to travel, he would likely not have done any of those things. In fact, had he been privy to the truth, he very likely would have given in to despair, perhaps even going so far as to drive the Lincoln over the side of the precipice and saved the Powers That Be the trouble.

Of course, he did not know, had no way to tell the future, and by the time he found out, it was much too late.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

By the time Howard crested the ridge, the sun was over the mountains. The crimson orb drenched the landscape in blood, and turned the surrounding spires of rock a dark blue-gray. He wondered, not for the first time, what the land would look like bathed in the spectrum of his native sun.

To look into the rear view mirror was to have a ruby-skinned demon stare back at him, its skin ablaze in an otherworldly hue. Exhaustion and hunger had transformed his visage into a wasted mask of near-insanity; the whites of his eyes glowed softly in the strange light, the lines of his face transformed into jagged gashes that bled shadows rather than blood.

Howard resolved not to look into the glass unless it was absolutely necessary; the sight of his face within the frame unnerved him.

He knew what waited for him down the road, and feared it, but was helpless not to look for views of the city as he wound his way up the mountainside. The need to know smoldered in his mind like an ember, ready to ignite into a blaze at every turn and gap in the mountains, and try as he might, he could do nothing to extinguish it. The impossibility of such a thing was no longer relevant; he could feel it out there, waiting for him.

_Did the city exist before I came here_ , _or was it created from my memories?_

For all he knew, anything he could imagine could very well come out of nowhere to eat him. He tried to imagine the possibilities suggested by a world where every thought could be translated into reality, but the scope of it boggled his mind. Who was to say what rules another Universe would follow?

Despite the time he had spent in observation of the landscape that passed by outside his windows, Howard knew nothing about how the rules functioned, the parameters under which this strange and terrible world worked. Still, he was fairly certain objects did not spontaneously pop into being with every mental fluctuation. If that were true, there would be banquets of food forming around him now. No, there was something strange at work here, to be sure, but he doubted it was anything as random, or as constant as that line of reasoning suggested.

Even so, he knew the city would be real. It was waiting for him on the other side of the mountains, as real and inevitable as the sunrise, and the certainty of it burned in his mind like a brand. It filled him with simmering dread, until he became nauseous with anxiety. He looked often for some view from the mountain, but was denied on every attempt. The highway curved among the peaks in such a way to obscure his line his sight. What looked like a promising opening would turn out to be blocked by other peaks, or the road would turn in such a fashion as to prevent him from viewing what lay beyond.

The lack of view was not all that troubled him about the peaks; the steep, jagged spires worried him a great deal. Any number of dangers could be concealed among those crags. All sorts of creatures could be hidden among them, waiting for the chance to attack. The area was a perfect place for an ambush; with its sharp turns and sudden switchbacks, there was little room to maneuver should things turn dangerous, and even less room for mistakes.

"What is it going to be next?" he asked aloud as he searched the shadows for potential enemies. "More floating jellyfish, or even some monsters from outer space? How about Godzilla? I haven't run into him yet."

Howard reflected on his last statement. If his theory did indeed approach the truth behind this world, then perhaps it was better if he did not think about such things, at least not for too long. Such things could lead to places he did not want to go.

"Now, that would be ironic," he said, both pleased and somehow irritated by the sound of his own voice. "That would be just brilliant, after making it through so much, to go and give this place even more crap to throw at me. That would just be brilliant. Besides, I already know what's next, don't I?"

He did. Several times during the course of his ascent, he imagined he saw things moving in the shadows, or dart from the edges of his vision, but when he turned his head to look, or when the Lincoln approached close enough for him to see, he would find nothing—no animals, no monsters, nothing but rocks and gloom and dust. Paranoia began to gnaw at him; it consumed his nerves in a steady, relentless attack upon what little remained of his physical and emotional reserves.

Hallucinations, bouts of intense paranoia, the rants and sudden mood swings, these were all indicative of the stresses he had suffered. The signs were all there; if he did not find a way back to his own world soon, he would not have to wait for the predators to find him. It would not be long before fatigue and exposure did the job for them.

"It's okay, Howard my man," he said, only partially aware he was speaking aloud. "It can't be considered paranoia when the world really is out to get you."

Perhaps when he crossed the apex, he would at least be afforded a glimpse of what awaited him, but it became obvious as he crested the range and the highway started to descend the other side, he would be allowed to see nothing new. He could almost feel the land mocking him as he curved around the crags.

"You know what is down there," it would say, if it could. "We know too, but we won't tell you, because that would spoil the surprise."

_So_ , _what is your little game? Trying to keep me in suspense, aren't you? Well, it won't do any good. I'm all out of suspense, although I'm having a special on 'tired-as-hell', and 'want to get my ass out of here'. Go ahead and keep your surprises. Keep them forever for all I care, because I really couldn't care less._

He hoped this would make him feel better, bolster his resolve, but deep inside, the fear continued to twist in his gut like a rusty fish hook.

Once over the crest, the spires became more crowded. The peaks looked older here, and showed signs of erosion and wear. Giant slivers of rock littered the slopes, and slopes of course gravel, littered with larger stones, lay piled by the strip of asphalt. Some had spilled onto the pavement, and Howard drove around these with deliberate care, keeping as much distance as he was allowed between the tires and the sharp stones.

In many places, entire spires had broken away to shatter on the slopes, or to become lodged in the many crevices between the crags. Some of these wedged columns crossed the highway to form crude overpasses. Howard rode under these with no small amount of trepidation; he could feel the weight of the stone above him, and did not dare to voice his fear that the land might somehow answer him with an avalanche of solid rock to bury him.

The drive down the far side of the range was far more difficult than the ascent. The turns were sharper, more frequent, forcing him to reduce his speed as he negotiated the bends, where even the slightest error could plummet the Lincoln over the edge, or onto razor-sharp shards that would cut his tires into ribbons. The task was made even more difficult by his injuries. The codeine was gone from his system, and this made the ride a torturous ordeal. His leg ached from his ankle to his hip. His blistered skin burned and itched, and a headache began to beat in time with his damaged limb. Flashes of pain from his jaw speared into his brain.

The spires of stone rose ever higher around him as descended the far side of the range; the asphalt became lost in shadow, and it was not very long before he was forced to drive with his headlights on. Without the passage of the sun, the ticking of the clock on the dashboard lost all relevance to the passage of time.

_Yea, though I drive through the valley of the shadow of death_ , _I will fear no evil, for I have the most horsepower in the motherfucking valley._

He gave a grim smile at this, but he found no humor in it; he would need more than just a big engine to survive what was waiting for him, much more. Ever since his realization that he was driving through a real life version of his childhood map, he had dreaded the passage of time; he knew each second brought him closer to a place far more dangerous than Splitsville.

Splitsville wasn't even on your map, which does not bode well for your theory. Maybe the city isn't there either.

But that was not quite correct, was it? There had been a town on his map, one he had begun to draw, and then started to erase. He had changed his mind at the last moment, and left the town in place. He never gave it an official name, but in his head, he had simply referred to it as 'the Ghost Town'. It was an appropriate name, all things considered.

Far from shattering his theory, this new recollection only reinforced the notion that, as crazy it might sound, he was driving through a physical manifestation of a drawing he had made as a child.

It did sound crazy. It was crazy, as crazy as crazy could get, but it was also real. The truth of it was all around him; endless miles of reassertion that the impossible was not impossible after all, but could, in fact, happen.

_Once you accepted that_ , _the rest was easy. The tricky part, of course, is keeping all your marbles in the jar in the meantime._

As the Continental crossed into the deeper shadows beneath the rocks, Howard lowered the window on his side to test the air. The results were much improved over his last attempt; the air here was much cooler. He drove for a while with his window down, allowed the breeze to circulate throughout the Lincoln's interior. The Continental's engine was very loud in the canyon; the sound reverberating from the echoing back upon itself among its many twists and turns. Small plumes of dust trailed down from the edifices as the vehicle passed, stirred into motion by the vibration.

"You don't have to worry, you haven't lost your marbles, yet." said a voice from his right.

Howard almost lost control of the wheel at the sudden announcement. As the heavy automobile swerved in the lane, he shot a glance in the direction of the voice, and was startled to see the twelve year old version of his brother David next to him on the passenger seat.

"Holy crap!" he said, as he fought to regain mastery of the Lincoln. "I'm dreaming again."

"No, you're hallucinating. There's a difference."

"Oh, and witty too, that's wonderful. And now I'm talking back to a hallucination."

"It means the barriers are starting to break down," the vision of his brother said. "You have to be careful about that. Get your act together, bro, because that is exactly what it wants."

"What who wants?"

"You already know the answer," the vision beside him answered. "The thing you call the Devil's Advocate, the thing that brought you here. You need to focus, before the walls between your conscious and subconscious break down completely. If that happens, you're screwed."

"Thanks a bunch. I always appreciated your ability to see the bright side." He glanced to his right, and saw his brother still sat there, a smile on his face.

"Why is it," Howard asked the boy-vision, "that I am seeing you, anyway? I mean, I understand the why of my hallucinating—I know it is just my overly tired mind screwing with me—but what I don't understand is why I'm seeing you in particular."
"You always looked up to your older brother when you were a child, Howard," the vision said, its voice as clear as his own. "Your mind is doing whatever it can to help you, using every defense mechanism at its disposal to keep you alive long enough for you to figure out how to get yourself home again."

"If there even is a way back," Howard said.

"You don't have the luxury of thinking like that," the vision of his brother replied. "That kind of thinking will not get you anywhere but killed. Right now, you cannot afford to waste time in pessimism, or self-pity, or even worrying about the city you're heading toward; you've got much more immediate problems at the moment."

"Yeah?" Howard asked. "Like what, the fact I'm talking to myself as if I'm two people?"

"No," David's vision answered. He pointed forward, toward the highway. "Like that."

Ahead of the Lincoln, the highway passed between two thin shards of stone, hundreds of feet in height. The top of the right hand tower had broken away to fall into the gap between them, where it had become wedged, some sixty feet above the lanes, its tip pointed down toward the asphalt. It was apparent to Howard, even at his current distance, that if the column was any narrower, even by a matter of inches, it would have slipped through the gap to block the narrow opening.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Again, you already know the answer to that question," David said. "It's one big mutha of a booby trap, another way of keeping your adrenaline pumping, another way to wear down your body's defenses, of keeping you scared."

The wedged edifice made Howard very nervous. It did not appear to him as if it would take much to dislodge the great needle of stone.

"It's going to come down, isn't it?" he asked. When he did not receive an answer, he looked to right, only find an empty seat.

"Great," Howard said. "Can't even trust hallucinations to stick around when you really need 'em."

As the Lincoln approached, small stones dropped from the side of the towers to rattle upon the pavement. Howard could see where the hanging section of rock came into contact with the spires flanking the highway, and what he saw served to heighten his apprehension; the sides of the twin spikes appeared cracked, the surfaces crumbled by impact and erosion. Small plumes of dust poured from these areas, disturbed into motion by the passing vehicle.

Howard was tempted to accelerate through the opening, but the highway took a sharp turn a short distance beyond the hanging stone; to attempt the turn at any great speed would be too dangerous. He was more than a little concerned the extra vibration might be enough to bring it crashing down.

_It's going to come down anyway_. _It won't matter what you do; you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't._

It took more than a little willpower to push those thoughts away, and allow the Lincoln to coast its way under the hanging rock, rather than press the accelerator to the floor in a mad attempt to race through the gap. Even at a low idle, the sound of the Lincoln's passage was very loud in the confined space of the narrow chasm. He watched the wedge of stone grow steadily in his windshield, and struggled to fight the rising tide of trepidation that grew in proportion to its proximity.

More dust showered down. Howard imagined he could feel the stone straining above him. Several larger pebbles clacked down the sides of the chasm, the echoes loud despite the sound of the engine. He heard his brother's words in his head, how it was meant to keep him afraid, that it was a trap. He tried to stay calm, but the feeling could not be denied; it stayed insistent, growing in his mind.

Small streamers of falling dust stretched from the wedge of stone to the highway. As the Continental passed beneath the hanging column, fragments of rock rained down around him to bounce and shatter on the asphalt. One such projectile struck the trunk lid hard enough to dent the metal. Howard yelped in fear and surprise, and pressed the accelerator hard with his foot, his earlier caution forgotten. There was a familiar shift in gravity as the Lincoln shot forward, and his body sank back into the leather of the seat.

As he cleared the shadow of the looming edifice, a great vibration ran through the stone. It reverberated through the asphalt, and up through the body of the automobile from its tires to the steering wheel. A new sound filled the air to drown out the echoes of the engine, as if the atmosphere itself had cracked open. Larger chunks of rock fell from either side of the overhanging dagger of stone as it lost its tenuous hold on the supporting pillars, and resumed its interrupted descent. Howard could see it in his rear view mirror even as he fought to follow the turn he spied earlier.

The Lincoln slid in a sideways skid for several yards as he struggled for control, and came within inches of the highway's edge before he managed to correct his course. Beyond the falling column, the wall of stone to his right had given way to empty space; a single mistake at the wheel could send the Continental over the edge into the shadowy depths.

The huge mass of stone drove downward onto the highway. An enormous cloud of dust and stony debris billowed from the column as it descended. It struck the pavement with a deafening crash of sound, so loud it brought sharp knives of pain to Howard's eardrums. The ground under the Continental shuddered, and a larger piece of glass fell from the shattered side of the windshield to bounce on the passenger seat. Howard did not notice; his attention was torn between the falling column of stone in his rear view mirror, and the twisting lanes of asphalt in front of him.

Darkness swept over the Lincoln. Howard did not have to look in the mirror to know the great shaft of stone was falling toward him. His heart raced as he stepped on the accelerator. He cleared the turn just as the huge mass of the column smashed down onto the spot he had occupied only a moment before.

The monolith shattered at the impact, and boulders the size of small buildings hurtled over the side of the mountain to crash into darkness, the sound of the tumbling stones echoing among the peaks like the stomping feet of angry giants. The ground beneath the Lincoln lurched under its wheels, causing it to swerve. The wind was sucked from his lungs at the change in air pressure. The atmosphere became filled with flying dust. Howard peered through the swirling cloud as he fought the wheel to keep the heavy automobile on a safe path.

After several nerve-wracking moments in which he lost sight of the road, Howard pulled ahead of the seething cloud of dust. Once clear of any immediate danger, he brought the Continental to a stop and checked his pulse, conscious of his racing heart and labored breathing. He had a new enemy now, and its name was stress. One push too far, and his heart might give out on him again, and this time, he would be unlikely to recover.

This enemy was not one he could outrun; one look out the windows was enough to induce severe tension, even when he was not being pursued by some creature who intended to make him part of its dinner menu. In a land this unpredictable, there was no way to know what he might encounter next. This was a source of deep concern, one that never left him, but sat hunched in the corner of his mind, and whispered words of worry, uncertainty, and ill tidings like some crazed inmate in a lunatic asylum. Howard was determined to keep that inmate safely locked away, where it could do as little harm as possible.

With the highway behind him blocked, Howard could no longer fool himself into thinking there was any option but to move forward. There was no longer any possibility of going back, no means of retreat. Then again, there had never really been any going back; it had been an illusion, one he kept to help bolster his calm. He had known this all along, but had refused to admit it until now.

_Damned if you do, damned if you don't_.

Howard discovered he was not as dismayed at this prospect as he expected. When the veneer of the environment was stripped away, with its shape-changing monstrosities and marsupial wolves, the task of driving was no more or less dangerous here than it was in his own world. People were so used to being behind the wheel, they forgot they faced death every time they buckled themselves in and turned the key. There were so many potential accidents, many of them fatal, which could occur on any given trip. A tire could blow out, and send the automobile into a tree or into oncoming traffic. The brakes could fail, or a drunk could cross the center line at seventy miles an hour, or any other of a thousand other unpleasant possibilities, any of which could mean a one-way ticket to the pearly gates. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Regardless of whether it was being crushed by a massive spire of stone, or being struck by an incompetent truck driver, the result was the same. Dead was dead, and that was the bottom line.

The only real difference, he realized, was that here, in this place, the danger was more obvious. In a world this strange, one would almost have to expect to encounter something dangerous, unlike in the real world, where the real danger lay in the accident you never saw coming. The teen driver who texted on their cell phone and ran the stop sign, or the deer that sprinted out of the darkness and into the vehicle's front end, for instance, were rarely if ever anticipated. In a way, the dangers of the real world were even more perilous, because they were insidious; they lurked, unseen, just around the bend of probability.

Howard gave the settling dust cloud a final glance, and put the Lincoln into motion once more. All life was a risk, he realized. Everything around him, the dangers he faced, were no different than those faced by humans since the dawn of their awareness. The rules may have been different here, but the goals were the same: to stay alive, to rise and fight another day.

Somewhere, beyond the city, was the key to his escape. He knew this, just as he knew he was driving through his childhood map, as he had known the hanging rock was destined to crash down upon the highway. There was a way back to his home world, somewhere out in the distance. He knew it, could almost feel it, just beyond his grasp, like a half-remembered memory, one that danced at the edges of his mind but never came into view. He was getting closer to the end, and some part of him, something deep inside, knew it.

The Lincoln, which had once been the epitome of diligent maintenance, was now barely recognizable, a dingy green insect that crawled on the back of a twisting black serpent, a battered parasite that refused to be dislodged. Inside, the owner of Langford Technologies watched the highway with dogged determination, his eyes weary and heavy in their sockets. His ankle continued to complain, as did his other injuries, but the volume of those complaints were no longer as great.

_I'm getting too tired to even feel the pain_.

Howard did not just feel exhausted, but drained, as if the land had reduced him, somehow fed off him. He felt the longer he stayed here, the more of him it would take, until there was nothing left of him to give. He would become as hollow and lifeless as the boy Kevin, hanging from the hands of the blob-thing that looked identical to Marcus Saul, as he were nothing more than a wet rag.

Perhaps that was the whole point. If his Mystery Caller somehow fed from his emotions, it was logical to assume it would do whatever it could to keep pushing his buttons, in order to keep him off balance, to keep him afraid, so that it could continue to feed. It was a crazy theory, but it didn't matter. If the thing on the other end of his cell phone meant to carry through on its promise, it would still be a good strategy to weaken the prey before the final kill.

He thought again of all the cars that were rusting away back in Splitsville, and wondered just how many people had fallen victim to this strange world, to its bizarre inhabitants, and to the entity he called the Devil's Advocate. How many people had fought, as he was fighting, to stay alive, only to meet their end in a place that defied almost everything they knew to be true?

He had been given to such inclinations before, and it did as little good now as it did then to dwell on them. Better to concentrate instead on the road ahead of him, because his course of action remained unchanged; he could only move forward, and hope that a way back to his own world existed somewhere along the two lane strip of asphalt he had yet to explore. There was no way to be sure the theories upon which all his hopes rested were nothing more than delusions brought on by fatigue and exposure. Without something toward which to strive, however, something he could wrap his mind around, the maniac of despair would be let loose from its cage, and overtake the frail hold upon his reason. Death would be certain to follow in short order.

It was more than this, and Howard knew it. Deep down, his instincts told him he was right, and in the midst of all that was happening to him, all the chaos and insanity and endless expanses of impossible scenery, his instincts were one of the few things he could trust.

He turned his mind back, rewound his memory to when he was a child, back to when he sat in a patch of sunlight, and worked on his fantasy map. He strove to remember every detail of that drawing, every nuance. This proved to be easier than expected; the memories of that afternoon were clear, undiminished by time. If there really was a City of Mutants somewhere at the bottom of this wavering decline, then there might also be reason to believe he was getting closer to finding a way back.

The topography of the landscape was not an exact match for the map he had drawn those many years ago, but it was very close, and he had encountered them in the same order as he had drawn them on that long-ago Saturday. The City of Mutants had been one of the last additions to his original map. He had created the city almost at the last minute, in order to fill an empty space left over after the other landmarks and features he wanted had been put into place. If the land through which he now traveled was shaped, or altered in some way by images from the visitor's mind, then perhaps the City was the last great obstacle he would face.

It was a small hope, but it was all he had.

Bands of light and darkness washed over him at irregular intervals; amber light fueled by the crimson sun cast demented shadows that danced among the crags. He could no longer see the orb, which meant it had passed its zenith, and there was still no end to the decline in sight. Howard began to worry he might not reach the bottom, and whatever surprises waited for him there, until after night fell.

"But of course", he said aloud. "Just one more problem to deal with, one more source of pressure. Anything to keep the odds in favor of the house." He spoke as if the very land around him could not only hear him, but understand his intentions. For all he knew, it could.

"Rig the game any way you want. All that does, is tell me that I must be getting closer to finding a way out of here. Either way, I'm going to teach a few lessons about what it means to tangle with Howard Langford."

He pressed his foot on the accelerator, and the Lincoln picked up speed. He pushed away his worries, forced himself to focus every ounce of his driving skill on the highway before him. He navigated the sharp turns and switchbacks with increasing speed, determined to reach the base of the mountain before sunset.

It was difficult work; the highway was harsh and unforgiving, with sneaky curves and sudden turns, fallen rocks and random areas of bright, yellow light hidden in the midst of deep shadows that dazzled the eyes. These obstacles combined to challenge his driving skill to the limit.

Once upon a time, in a saner Universe, Howard would have found the drive a great pleasure; the sinewy lines of the highway would have awakened the true driver's spirit within his personality, and energized his love of the open road, but this was a drive of survival, as dangerous as any of the predators he had encountered. His chances of surviving the City, if it existed— and he was certain it did—would drop precipitously with the loss of sunlight. His only advantage was good visibility, and that depended on daylight. The twists and turns of the highway were eating precious minutes from what remained of the afternoon. Twilight would be coming all too soon, and he wanted to put the City behind him before it arrived. Memories of his nightmare came back to haunt him, warnings passed down to him in a dream.

Twice, Howard witnessed great sections of rock as they broke away from the sides of the mountains and slid into the darkness between the peaks in rumbling, rocky waves. Watching the spires as they tumbled down into the darkened valleys dwarfed every nature documentary he had ever seen, except perhaps for volcanic eruptions. Great clouds of dust erupted from where the crags fell, and the vibrations of their collapse ran through the stone, made the highway vibrate under the Lincoln's wheels. Howard gritted his teeth as he fought to stay on a road that seemed to move under the automobile.

No sooner than he put the rockslides behind him, when he came upon a section of highway that bore the scars of a similar event; boulders littered a highway cracked and pocked by the passage of tumbling stone. To his right, the shoulder had been sheared away for almost a quarter mile, the edge of the asphalt gouged and broken. The conditions made it impossible to attain any great speed, and Howard was reduced to a drift as he dodged the remnants of the rock fall.

Once he was clear of the rubble-strewn area, things got easier for a bit, before a harsh sound began under the Lincoln's hood. Howard scanned the instrument panel with the fear the fan belt had broken. No warning lights shown from the dashboard, and this confused him for a moment. Then, the noise stopped, and the stream of cool air from the interior vents died away, to be replaced by the warm, vapid atmosphere from outside the vehicle. He breathed a sigh of relief; it had only been the air conditioner compressor failing, and not a critical system.

He paid more attention to the instruments after that, with the expectation of further problems, but there were none; the Continental's engine continued to purr from under the hood as it pulled him ever closer to whatever destiny waited for him at the bottom of the mountains.

Some time later, Howard spotted another of the Tasmanian Tigers. It sat alone, perched on an outcropping of rock, and observed the Continental as it passed. He watched the creature, his breath baited, as he waited for it to charge the automobile, or at least follow him, but it did neither; it merely sat and panted, barely turning its head to follow the Lincoln.

As he drew closer, it was obvious to him that this creature was different from the ones he had encountered earlier. This specimen appeared to be suffering from some sort of sickness. The animal's fur had worn away, and was falling out in spots, to reveal pink skin beneath. It was thinner than the others he had seen of its kind; its ribs made prominent ridges on its sides, and it breathed in an uneven rhythm that suggested it might not have long to live.

_Out alone, waiting to die_. _That's o_ _ne less of you sons of bitches for me to have to worry about. If I'm lucky, maybe the rest of your pack will follow soon._

He kept alert for another sighting, but no more of the creatures appeared. During this time, the mountains around him changed. The spires of rock, which had a texture similar to sandstone, had disappeared to be replaced by towers of dark glass. The peaks appeared fused together, their surfaces melted. Rock had once run like water, before solidifying once more. Some of the crags were shattered; debris fields cascaded for hundreds of yards down the canyon sides, their topmost sections blasted away. Howard wondered what immense force could have been responsible for such large scale destruction. Another huge storm, perhaps? If so, then what explained the change in the rock's appearance? Howard turned these questions over in his mind as his eyes roved over the landscape.

It was not much longer before his questions were answered.

When Howard arrived at the bottom of the decline, daylight still ruled, but the sun was low in the sky, and cast long shadows through the canyons. One moment, there was a wall of glass to his right, the dark side of another range of needle-sharp peaks across a shadowy gulf to his left, and the next, as he rounded the end of an S-shaped turn, an unbroken view of the valley floor. It spread out from the foot of the peaks not half a mile from his current position, and there he saw the answer to his fears. Howard brought the Lincoln to a stop, and let the engine idle as he sat and stared, his mouth open in astonishment.

Below him, the City of Mutants filled the floor of the valley.

It stretched as far as he could see in either direction; it filled the mountain valley, dark towers of concrete, steel, and glass of every size and shape that looked modern and somehow ancient at the same time. Most of what he could see was in ruins. Many of the taller buildings had either collapsed or fallen over to destroy even more buildings as they came to rest; great piles of rubble and debris blocked avenues and streets for blocks. Almost none of the buildings, many of which appeared similar in construction to those in his own world, others following bizarre, alien architectural styles, remained intact.

The sight of the City gave Howard a revelation. It was all clear now, all of it, from the warning given to him in a dream by the image of his brother, to the change in texture of the stone around him, to the blue radiance he had first spotted in the desert night. All of it made sense to him now, and what he saw left him feeling aghast and overwhelmed.

The City had suffered a holocaust.

Perhaps it had been some type of bomb, an act of some long-ago war. Perhaps it was an accident; a critical system had failed, or perhaps a meltdown had occurred, like those in Chernobyl or Fukushima. Either way, the result was the same; the entire area had been decimated. Before him was a landscape that had suffered the effects of a nuclear explosion. The City had not been the epicenter. If that were true, there would have been no city at all, just an expanse of rubble, or a blackened, fused wasteland. Still, the blast had been close enough, and hot enough, to destroy a great portion of the City, and to melt the surface rock of the nearby mountains into glass.

Howard swallowed hard. The City of Mutants was radioactive.

It's a hot zone. How long have I been exposed already?

A fragment of his dream ran through his mind, the warning from his bother that if he stayed in the City for too long, he would die.

This was all the motivation he needed. He shifted his foot back to the accelerator, and brought the Continental back up to speed, determined to make it through the City with time to spare.

From his vantage point, the ruined metropolis appeared to be laid out in a typical grid pattern, with the highway cutting in more or less of a straight line across its width. Although the valley was long, it was not more than a few miles wide. From his perspective, it was impossible to tell just how large the City was, or how many detours, if any, he would be forced to take. He hoped the view would allow him to see enough to plan his route in advance, but this proved impossible.

He was not foolish enough to believe he would find an uninterrupted route through the city; there would be too much debris for an easy passage. There was no way to be certain what type of dangers he would face, but if the City was the last landmark on his map, then it stood to reason it would also be the most dangerous. He would need every ounce of willpower, every iota of his reflexes, if he wanted to survive. He would need to keep both his wits and his sense of direction sharp, or the blasted metropolis would become his tomb.

He drove on, fighting the rising tide of dread that lapped at his heart. There had to be a way through the City, and he would find it. He just needed to keep himself together. He would survive as long as he continued to resist. He struggled to keep his fear at bay as he descended the remainder of the mountainside, lest his doubts rise above the threshold of his courage.

At the base of the mountain, Howard came upon a billboard, untouched by the devastation that affected the rest of the City. With no real surprise, he saw the message upon the sign was addressed to him. The board read:

EAT AT THE MOORLOCK INN

TRY OUR ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT HOWARD BUFFET!

Below these words was a disturbing picture. Pasted on the front of the billboard was of a salad bar, complete with sneeze guard, laden with organs and other bodily parts. His head stared back at him from a shallow salad bowl, the skin covered in sores. A red apple was thrust into his mouth.

_Don't let it get to you_. _It's just another scare tactic. You've dealt with worse._

He forced his attention back to the highway, but the sign's message stayed with him. It was not the gruesome scene it displayed, but the use of the word 'Moorlock', that stuck in his mind.

The word reminded him of when he was eight years old, and had read H.G. Wells _'The Time Machine'_. In his youth, Howard had been forced to keep his love for reading hidden as much as possible. It was not just bullies who liked to criticize him; his father would not hesitate to take away any book he believed would give his son 'bad dreams' or filling his head with 'crazy ideas'. Howard had gone as far as devising ways to hide these books, and would often place false book covers over them to disguise their true nature from his father's prying eyes.

His ruse had been successful, and though he had enjoyed the novel very much, he had also suffered from the exact effects his father tried to prevent. He was plagued by vivid dreams for weeks afterward. In those days, Howard possessed a vivid imagination, and it was easy for him to visualize the characters and events in any novel he read. The images of the dark caverns which were home to the Moorlocks, filled with ancient machines, where the peaceful surface dwellers were dragged away to be food for their caretakers took complete hold of his imagination.

What had been even more terrifying than the Moorlocks and their subterranean lairs, had been the sense of time the novel had awakened within him. For the first time in his life, Howard had come to understand the importance of time, or rather, the passage of it. He realized, in a way that boggled his young mind, the world would go on long after he was gone. The world would continue to grow, events would continue to unfold, but he would not be there to witness these changes.

At eight years old, Howard had felt the cold hand of his own mortality grip his heart for the first time, and for many years afterward, he would equate death with the humming gloom of the Moorlocks. In the years to come, he would lock away his imagination, and become a cynical, bitter workaholic, but the feeling of that dark grip upon his heart, his perception of oblivion, would stay with him always.

Now, the feelings of dreadful wonder and fear from his childhood wormed its way up from the depths of his past to take hold of him again. He understood the message the sign was meant to deliver. It told him the City was inhabited.

But of course it was; he would not have given the place such an evocative name otherwise. His long-ago self had imagined the city teeming with strange creatures and monsters of every type and description. He was certain the real-life equivalent would be just as populated.

This theory was confirmed within a short while, when he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye. The image of the sickly Thylacine flashed through his mind, along with the memory of the blue glow he had seen on the horizon. The idea of anything surviving—much less thriving—in such an environment, made him shudder.

Howard spun the steering wheel to the left, then to the right, giving the debris in the highway a wide berth. He looked around, as the familiar feeling of being watched preyed once more upon his nerves. He had entered the borders of the City, and with each passing second, his sense of unease grew. With his rising anxiety, there came also a heightened sense of awareness. The colors around him were deeper, richer, and the details of his surroundings appeared magnified. Time became distorted; he seemed to be moving slower, though he knew his actual speed remained unchanged. The seconds seemed to stretch out forever, became eons, as he drove through the ruins.

"I'm driving through a hot zone, he said to no one, repeated it over and over as he drove. "I'm driving through a hot zone."

Many of the buildings were similar to those found in any large city, and while some of them were possessed of strange shapes, they were still made of familiar materials. Around him sprang forms of concrete, steel, and glass. Of the tallest buildings, those that had not been blown over or blasted apart were blackened and melted, deformed and twisted by a heat whose intensity he found difficult to imagine. Most of the buildings had collapsed in upon themselves, but the ground floors of many of the structures were still intact. Up close, the signs of terrific heat were obvious; the edifices were charred and scorched. Some had fused together into abstract shapes.

_Airburst_. _It had to be an airburst. The melting of the stone into glass, the direction and pattern of the damage, all of it points toward an airborne event._

The Continental cleared another pile of stones and detritus, and the chassis groaned as he was forced to slalom among the debris. He caught another glimpse of movement in the form of a vague, brown blur. He strained to see more, but it was gone in the space of a moment.

Ahead of him, the blasted, blackened top section of a skyscraper bridged the highway; its stone and steel walls crossed the lanes eighty feet above him. Broken glass littered the asphalt in patches that gleamed in the sunlight. Large sections of concrete had fallen from the walls of the ruined structure to become embedded in the surface of the roadway. Howard was forced to drive at little more than a crawl, lest he flatten a tire, or worse, puncture the gas tank or oil pan.

The City reeked of pain, despair, and death. Vines grew among the various piles of debris, and ivy grew unchecked among the remaining buildings. Howard could feel the city all around him; it seemed less like architecture, and more like a living, breathing thing. To his right, the darkened holes of storefront windows, their glass blown out, stared at him like deranged killers. Across the street to his left, a thin sliver of alley ran between two brownstone buildings. Howard had the impression something watched him there from the shadows, just beyond the reach of the sunlight.

Rubble fell from somewhere nearby. Howard turned his head, tried to find the source of the sound, but saw only a small side street as it passed by, its entrance blocked by gravel and slabs of broken concrete. It may have looked deserted, but he could feel a presence, one that waited in the darkened buildings for its chance to strike.

How much radiation am I absorbing?

He could not afford to tarry; he had to find a way through the rubble before the City could poison him. He glanced around, tried to gauge how much daylight he might have left, and was not encouraged by what he saw; the shadows had grown long, and lengthened with every passing second. It would not be long before darkness descended, and then, Howard knew, all bets would be off.

Whatever foul denizens the City sheltered, they would likely wait until night fell to move, he reasoned. He needed to be clear of the area as quickly as possible. He only needed one clear, straight stretch of asphalt, and he could put the city and its unseen occupants behind him.

The City seemed determined not to give him anything like the opportunity, however. Though the highway was straight, Howard was forced to continue to drive a convoluted slalom course among the ruins. On several occasions, it was necessary for him to steer clear of areas where large sections of wall had fallen to rest upon the asphalt, sometimes having to slow to a crawl in order to fit the Lincoln between piles of fallen rubble. As he wound his way among the obstacles, it began to look more and more unlikely he would be able to get clear of the area in time.

Unlike Splitsville, the streets of the City were clear of vehicles. While part of him understood the significance of the empty streets, and was saddened by the possibility he was the only survivor to make it this far, he was also relieved. Had the streets also been littered with vehicles, they would have been impassable. Still, the silence gnawed at him, and the empty streets, with their slalom course of debris, whispered promises of disaster.

"Don't think about it," he said aloud. "Stay on task, and keep your eyes peeled. You only have ten minutes to get yourself out of this hell-hole."

His feelings of dread would not be so easily rebuked. "What happens after ten minutes?" he had asked his brother in his dream, a dream he knew was much more than random images or expressions of his subconscious, but was also a vision, a revelation given to him from a source unknown.

"You die," his brother had answered, his voice flat, an echo of prophetic finality in his words. "You die."

There was never any question in Howard's mind as to the accuracy of this dream; he had learned the hard way to always bet on the worst case scenario, both as a survivor in the tangled web of corporate politics in his own world, and the lethal maze of obstacles he had encountered in this reality. Lacking a Geiger counter, there was no way for him to know whether or not the City was actually radioactive. He did not even know if such a device would function here even if he had brought a brand new one along with him on the trip; it was both easier and safer to assume the worst.

Howard jerked the wheel again to avoid a sharp chunk of concrete that had come to rest on the highway's centerline. He passed under the bridge created by the fallen section of skyscraper, weaving his way among drifts of rock while the seconds grew into minutes.

_The clock is ticking_. _Faster. Have to go faster._

Although exhausted, Howard was also filled with a strange energy. The feeling of hyper-awareness he had felt earlier had returned; it felt like he had just finished his fifteenth cup of coffee. He no longer felt any pain from his wounds; his ankle and jaw were reduced to nothing more than numb spots. His eyes felt swollen and hot, and blinking no longer sufficed to keep them moist. He gritted his teeth, and resisted the urge to open the window. More seconds crawled by, and Howard was surprised he had not yet suffered another heart attack.

Howard's surprise turned to wide-eyed wonder as he turned a corner in the road, and saw a figure by the edge of the highway, on the far side of the bend. The figure was hooded, and dressed in dark, almost colorless rags. It had been sitting, hunched over, and rose to its feet just as Howard brought the Lincoln around a tall drift of cinder blocks, gravel, and broken brick.

As the figure stood, it came within inches of the driver's side window. Howard got a clear look under the tattered hood as the automobile drifted by, and had a glimpse of a face covered in shiny scales, like a fish. He was given an impression of a round mouth, filled with long, needle-like teeth, and then it was behind him. The entire event lasted but mere seconds, and Howard was given no time to react. Howard turned to watch the figure in his mirrors, but it made no move to follow the automobile; it just stood there, and watched the Lincoln as it passed.

Ahead, a jetty of rubble reached out toward him, jagged hunks of hardened concrete spread to within six feet of the highway's far side, while smaller pieces of gravel scattered away from the pile to cover the remaining distance. Howard was forced to drive over this, and he could only hope none of it was sharp enough to penetrate the steel belted radials. He managed to avoid the largest pieces, but the sound of the gravel as it grated under the Lincoln's tires still grated on his nerves; he expected at any moment to hear the sound of one of his tires as it blew out.

_I'm not moving anywhere fast enough_.

Several minutes had already passed since he first entered the City, and he had made no visible progress toward the City's far side. Howard now understood the confidence he heard in the voice of his Mystery Caller, the sureness it had that he would meet his end here. If the City was radioactive, as he was sure it was, then he needed to find a way out, and now.

A fallen chunk of blackened concrete, the size of a city bus, blocked both lanes of the highway, and part of the sidewalk. Howard saw it coming, and turned right onto an open side street. After three blocks, he found another clear street to his left, and after two more, was able to put himself back onto his original route. The detour was minimal, but it still cost him precious minutes, time he could not afford to waste. He had to pick up the pace, before his time ran out.

He drove faster, skirted the piles of litter as the wheels squealed against the asphalt. It was crazy to place his faith, his very survival, on a message delivered to him in a dream, but that was exactly what he was doing. In another time, another place, such a thing would be beyond his ability to fathom, but here, in this time and place, where normal rules did not apply, it was the only sane course of action he could imagine. He began to dodge the rubble with a fierce intensity. Clouds of dust spun from under the Lincoln's wheels.

Piles of debris passed by on either side of the Lincoln as Howard wove his way among the ruined City. He swerved left, then right, missing tall drifts of fallen stone and concrete, only to find his way blocked by more rubble. Howard scanned the highway from left to right, then back again, searching for a way through, but there was none; the wall of broken stone, shattered glass, and twisted metal formed a solid wall from one side of the pavement to the other, making even the sidewalks impassable. He glanced to either side, and discovered the streets to be closed by similar barricades.

There was nowhere to go; the highway was blocked.

Howard brought the Lincoln to a stop, and took stock of his surroundings. At first, it appeared a building had collapsed across the highway, and he prepared to make another detour, as he had earlier. Then, he noticed the nearby buildings were intact; there were no structures nearby that could have caused the rubble in front of him. He looked closer, and saw there was a pattern to the way the chunks of concrete, girders, pipes, and other rubble lay; the wreckage was not the result of whatever calamity had befallen the City, but had been placed there.

It was a roadblock.

As Howard spun the wheel in a desperate attempt to turn the Lincoln around, the mutants attacked from the shadows.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

In an instant, his heightened awareness was revealed to be nothing more than an illusion, a side effect of his exhaustion and hunger. His reactions were slow, his movements exaggerated satires of his intended motions.

Howard cursed as he fumbled at the steering wheel. In his extreme mental state, he had never seen the ambush coming; there had been just enough time for him to recognize his predicament before the trap was sprung. One moment he was alone on a deserted street, and the next he was surrounded by figures.

They scrambled over the rubble, poured through the shattered windows and the dark holes of doorways, some running, others shambling along like zombies. These creatures resembled the walking dead as well; their flesh hung in tatters from large, open sores that shone in the sun. Most were just shapes in rags that flapped and waved as they ran forward.

Time slowed to a crawl. Howard sat paralyzed as one of the humanoid creatures approached the Continental. Tentacles waved from where its arms should have been, and the ragged hood of what served it for clothing did little to conceal a head that resembled a giant cuttlefish. The pale, translucent flesh of its face ended in yet more tentacles. He knew he should do something to defend himself, but he was frozen, caught in slow time.

The waving, racing figures continued to close on the Lincoln. A chunk of rock bounced off the trunk lid with enough force to rock the vehicle and gash the metal. He watched, helpless, as death approached him in a slowly closing ring. Time itself had slowed, as he imagined it must do for all creatures about to meet their end. Hell, he now understood, was an eternity of watching death approach, of living those last moments forever. Compared to that, oblivion would be a release.

From his left, a creature Howard recognized as a Moorlock from H.G. Well's classic novel charged toward the automobile. This creature was larger than most of its fellow attackers, with grayish-blue skin, a shaggy white mane that sprouted from atop a Neanderthal visage, and eyes that glittered, nearly hidden, from below a protruding ridge of bone. Open sores were rampant on its muscular body; blackened flesh cracked and peeled from its shoulders, chest, scalp and arms.

In its left hand, the creature carried a large, lethal-looking axe.

The creature sprang into the air, and its spade-sized feet landed on the Lincoln's hood. It raised its weapon over its shaggy head, and brought it down with a savage scream to bury the blade of the axe in the Lincoln's top. The sharpened plane of steel sliced through the thin metal of the Continental's roof with ease, penetrating to shave the right side of Howard's head, parting the flesh where his ear joined his skull.

Howard screamed in pain as blood spattered against his shirt, his neck. Outside, the Moorlock tugged at the axe handle in preparation for another swing. The metal squealed as it rocked the handle back and forth in an attempt to free the blade. He could see other figures closing in on the Lincoln as well, some no more than ten feet away. In another moment, they would reach the vehicle, and the shaggy-haired monstrosity on the hood would use the axe to split his skull.

It was time to act.

Howard focused once more on the Moorlock as it tugged at the axe handle from its position on the Lincoln's hood, and what lay beyond his baby's nose. He judged the distance between the automobile and the barricade, and knew what he had to do.

_Just stay right there, you son of a bitch_. _It didn't work out so well for the last critter that tried it._

Howard lifted his foot from the brake pedal, and stomped down hard on the accelerator. The heavy automobile surged forward, throwing the Moorlock off balance. The creature's grip on the axe embedded in the Lincoln's roof kept it from hitting the glass, but that did not matter; Howard had a different plan for his attacker. He kept his eyes on the barrier of stone and steel.

No sooner than the Lincoln had picked up momentum, when Howard stomped his foot on the brake pedal again, and brought the vehicle to a tire-squealing halt. The sudden change in motion threw the monster from its position on the hood, and the axe blade in the roof disappeared with a metallic screech. The Moorlock sailed backward through the air for almost ten feet before its body slammed into the end of a four inch diameter pipe that protruded from the barricade of rubble, and was impaled through its back.

The end of the pipe shot through the front of the creature's chest. Gore erupted, black and red, from the jagged wound. The monster flailed about for a moment, and then went still.

Cuttlefish-head reached the Lincoln. In one final, stumbling lurch, it threw itself against the side of the vehicle just as the Continental came to a stop. There was a wet, slapping sound as the creature's tentacle arm struck the window. The suckers covering its surface stuck fast to the glass. It pressed an all-too-human eye to the window, and Howard observed with a shock that he could see fluids pulsing from beneath its milky, translucent skin.

Oh no, that shit just isn't going to fly.

Howard grit his teeth, and threw the transmission into Reverse.

Howard still felt like he was lost in slow time. Each of his movements seem to take eons, while time outside the Lincoln moved at a much faster pace; only his mind seemed to flow at a normal speed. His brain screamed at him to move faster, but his body could not respond fast enough; each movement took an enormous amount of time and energy. He was just too slow; time had become a fluid entity, slowing for him alone.

This was only an illusion, however, brought on by panic, and sustained by the fear peptides flowing through his bloodstream. As he lifted the gearshift lever into Reverse, the Lincoln jolted as the transmission dropped into gear, and the illusion was dispelled. Time flowed back into its proper focus, and the Lincoln shot backward to cover a distance of forty feet in a matter of seconds.

There was a thump as the vehicle began to move, and an anguished, gurgling scream rose from the creature outside his window. Howard glimpsed the cuttlefish-faced mutant as it fell to the ground, its tentacle-like arm ripped from its torso. The last twelve inches of the limb were still adhered to the vehicle, where the window and the door joined, by the suckers on its underside. He did not pause to watch the fate of the wounded creature, but brought his attention back to the steering wheel. He was moving on instinct now, his actions dictated by his need to survive.

The nose of the Lincoln spun back and to the right. The tail of the vehicle went over the sidewalk until the rear tires struck the curb. Howard hit the brakes, and threw the transmission back into Drive. He was facing the far side of the highway; the Lincoln sat crosswise in the left lane. He pressed the accelerator, and spun the wheel in a sharp right-hand turn.

The long vehicle had just enough room to curve around the piles of debris that led to the barricade. The driver's side of the Lincoln rose for a second as it completed the turn, the left-hand wheels riding up on a pile of debris for a moment before they came down hard enough to jar his insides and threaten his hold on the wheel. He managed to keep control of the heavy vehicle, and brought it around in a sliding turn worthy of any Hollywood car chase. He shot back the way he had come in a slalom course amidst the piles of debris.

Cries of anger and alarm cut the air, clearly audible in the closed interior of the Lincoln, and Howard knew without looking he was being pursued; the creatures were determined not to lose their prey. He heard something heavy strike the car, and then the sound of breaking glass from behind him, as the rear windshield was struck by a chunk of concrete. Howard resisted the urge to look back, but stayed focused on the task ahead. He had to go back, had to find a way around the barricade.

Unlike Splitsville, there were plenty of side streets and alleys in the City, narrow single lane strips of asphalt connected the myriad buildings of the wasted metropolis, lanes he had found useful during his earlier detour. The ones nearest the barricade had been blocked off, but the ones farther back would still be useable, he reasoned. If he could find one clear of rubble, he might still have a chance to escape.

Howard pulled the wheel back to the left, cleared another pile of rubble. He could still hear the cries of the creatures in the street, but could not tell their distance; he was driving much faster now, and this required his full concentration. Whatever their exact location, their cries sounded too close for his comfort. Again, he wondered when the pains in his chest would start, when the strain on his already exhausted system would become too great, and his heart would give out, this time for good.

He turned the wheel to the right, brought the Lincoln around in another sliding turn. A high ridge of broken rock and concrete blocked the way ahead. He began to go around this, when he saw the group of mutants waiting for him on either side of the littered highway, poised on the high drifts of rubble. There were more Moorlocks, several humanoid zombies, and another cuttlefish-thing, this one distinctly female; emaciated breasts flapped at its torn and sore-ridden torso. All carried weapons: axes, clubs, sledge hammers and more.

More creatures stood in the gap, blocked the way back with their bodies. Alike only in the filthy, ragged cloaks that covered their bodies, and the weapons they held, these creatures carried something else, something that for their crudeness, posed equal, if not more, danger to the Lincoln than any of their other arms. The creatures before him gripped bottles stuffed with rags into their tops. The rags served as wicks, and were already lit; they blazed like torches.

One of the creatures to his right threw one of these bottles, and the makeshift bomb arced through the air toward him. There was a flash of flame to his right as the bottle struck the rubble there, and the flammable liquid within ignited into a fireball at the moment of impact. Howard jerked the wheel to his left on instinct, and pressed his foot on what he believed was the brake pedal, but to his dismay turned out to be the accelerator.

The Continental lurched as it picked up speed. Distracted by his stiff and aching leg, and amped on adrenaline, he missed his mark. It was a natural mistake, one responsible for hundreds of fender benders a year back in his home reality. Exhaustion, and its sinister counterpart, highway hypnosis, was also responsible for a good share of more serious accidents as well, the wrap-your-car-around-a-tree or plow-into-something-at-high-speed variety.

Howard knew the moment his foot hit the pedal, as the Continental responded with its considerable horsepower, that this would not be one of the fender benders. Unlike in his home reality, there would be no cursory checking of the damage and subsequent exchange of insurance information; an accident here, any type of accident, could prove fatal.

He could do nothing but hold on to the steering wheel as the Lincoln shot up and over a pile of gravel. The stones acted as a ramp, and sent the automobile straight toward the building beyond in a high arc.

Howard's mind was racing, his heart caught between beats. In a moment, it would all be over; after all he endured, after all the effort, all the punishment to his body, to his mind and spirit, to his very being—all would be for naught. It was a sad, frightening thing, to have lasted so long, to drive so far just to die with the story of his trials, his struggles to remain alive in such a hostile, bizarre world, known to no one. This realization, the certainty no one would ever know his fate, hit him the hardest of all. By the time he was missed, and the investigation into his disappearance started, it would already be too late.

How much time would pass before his parents learned he was missing? Would they even care if he vanished, never to be seen again? Would his father make one of his stern responses, and then fall silent, as was his customary reply to such news?

He was certain his mother would miss him, would pine for his loss with the love a mother has for her child, but only after she was certain he was dead. Her power of denial would outlast anything but positive proof of his demise. She had possessed this ability for as long as Howard could remember, an ability undiminished by time, the power of selective perception. His mother lived in a world that did not allow for the existence of the more unpleasant aspects of life. This was the reason they had never owned another pet after Mister Dibbs pulled his vanishing act, and why she would likely go to her grave refusing to believe her son was dead. _Mom has no clue_ , he and David would say to each other when safely out of their parent's range of hearing, _mom has no clue_.

He knew better now. Mrs. Langford had more of a clue than either he or his brother had ever guessed. She chose to avoid those things, not because she was clueless, but because she knew things Howard and David could not begin to understand as children, or possibly ever. It was a shame he would never be able to tell her that he understood now, never be able to explain the perspective time had given to the pains and difficulties of his childhood.

Now, for the first time, he understood how it had also been difficult for her, how she had suffered in her defense of him, for her love of him. In those days, he spent a considerable amount of time blaming her for her placid acceptance, but he could see now how much she had interceded on his behalf, how much she had shielded him from his father. He owed her a debt of gratitude for this, but it was a debt he would never be allowed to repay; he was going to die without ever being able to tell her.

This understanding of his past flashed through Howard's mind in an instant as the Continental became airborne; he felt the pit of his stomach sink with nauseating swiftness as the automobile raced up the slope and launched itself into space.

He was certain the vehicle would smash nose-first into the wall or flip over, perhaps even pinning him underneath it until the mutants caught up with him. At this speed, a mid-air collision with a wall would kill him, seat belt or no seat belt. It was possible he could even be ejected through the windshield into the wall, to leave nothing behind but a nasty stain.

The approaching wall filled the windshield for what seemed an eternity to Howard, grew larger and larger until he could see the joints in the masonry. Time dilated, and Howard felt sure if the impact did not kill him outright, the shock to his heart would finish the job. Then the stonework was gone, replaced by a dark void that grew to fill his field of vision. Then, time snapped back again, stretched and contracted like a rubber band, and he was descending into darkness.

The Lincoln was lifted a few inches shy of nine feet from the ground when it shot over the ramp of gravel, and the wheels were still more than five feet above street level when it reached the building. The wall he faced was constructed to house large display windows, now long gone. These windows had once flanked a set of revolving doors, also long gone. Now they all were just empty holes, filled with the twilight seeping into the City. The sky above was already beginning to show traces of the glow Howard had first seen from the other side of the mountains.

It was into one of these holes that the Continental flew, to come down hard on the weathered floor beyond. The heavy automobile bounced, and slammed downward a second time. The undercarriage of the vehicle scored grooves into the dirty, worn tiles.

Howard's face slammed into the steering wheel, rebounded back into the headrest, and then slammed into the steering wheel again. There was an audible crunch, and pain flared in his nose as the cartilage broke. His eyes flooded with tears that turned everything into a darkened blur. He lost control of the wheel, and the Lincoln went into a sliding spin. Howard closed his eyes, certain his end was imminent. He heard sounds as the Lincoln struck objects around him, felt vibrations run through the vehicle and the motion as it spun around and around, but it meant almost nothing to him; he was too disoriented by pain.

He managed to find the brake pedal, and the Continental came to a stop. Howard whipped his head around, his eyes squinted as blood sprayed from his nose, trying to make sense of what was happening, slow to realize he had somehow escaped fatal injury. He fought to clear his vision, convinced his worst fears would be confirmed when he did so. He would regain his sight just in time to see the last of his lifeblood jet from whatever wound the crash had inflicted on him, as yet unfelt in the heat of the moment.

He tried to rub his eyes, but his face screamed with pain, and he was forced to blink them away instead; every touch set his face on fire. The first thing he saw, as his vision cleared, was the fresh blood covering the front of his shirt, the top of his slacks, his hands. He was certain he had suffered some serious injury. He would look into the mirror and see a shard of glass sticking from his throat, or some ragged gash gushing blood. If not mortal, the wounds would leave him forever disfigured, a barely recognizable hulk of scarred flesh, and only if he could escape the mutants.

A glance into the mirror revealed no wounds, however, only a bleeding nose, and the beginnings of bruising around his eyes. A tentative touch was all it took to confirm the extent of his injury, but brought fresh tears to his eyes. He could feel the blood as it ran from his nostrils, could taste it as it mingled from the sweat on his face and ran into his mouth.

"Crabt!" Fresh pain flared in his face with the effort of this exclamation; the word came out thick and nasal. "Ibbn't dat thum shibt. Nowb by pucking dobz ib brokeb." Fine droplets of spittle, tinted pink with blood, flew from his mouth in a fine spray. He brought his hands back to his aching face; he knew it would be painful, but he did it anyway, helpless to resist the urge. Under his fingers, his nose felt like a potato, swollen and wrinkled.

He groaned. He could feel the pressure as it began to build under the swollen area, to spread from his nose into his nasal cavity, and into the area under his eyes and in his cheeks. His eyes flooded with tears again, and he feared they would swell shut, rendering him blind.

Without pausing to consider the consequences, Howard gripped his swollen and dripping nose with his right hand, closed his left hand around the back of his right, and pulled hard away from his face. There was a crunching sound, one very similar to that made when he cracked his knuckles, and a lightning bolt of pain blasted through his senses, sudden and excruciating. He uttered a high, bleating scream, and collapsed back into the seat. The pressure in his sinuses and under his eyes lessened, the lightning bolt fading into a low, throbbing ache.

Howard tilted his head back against the headrest, breathed in short, heavy puffs through his mouth. He wiped the tears from his eyes, and looked around. His vision was still blurry, but the world no longer resembled a Dali painting. Still dazed, he attempted to get his bearings, amazed to still be alive. He palmed away more of the mess on his face, then pulled his undershirt up to wipe more of the snot and blood from his cheeks and chin.

The Lincoln rested against the far wall of some type of showroom, which in turn was part of a large, covered mall. The large row of windows, the opening through which he had entered, was now to his right. The Continental had slid into a pile of boxes, trash, and tarnished, empty clothing displays. He looked out over the long hood, and saw the dark hole of another open area from across a wide, tiled walkway, where beams of fading light slanted in a crisscross pattern through shattered skylights.

He knew he had to move; there was no time to lose. He fought to clear the haze from his brain. He only had ten minutes to clear the City, and the seconds were ticking away, turning into minutes, each passing moment drew him closer to the fate forecast in his dream, a fate he was determined with all his will not to suffer. He had to find a way back, find an exit from the building and around the barricade. Time was running out.

Noise filled the air, the anguished, angry cries of monsters, frustrated at his apparent escape. Already he could see their slouched, crippled shapes as they drew closer to the window. They would be on him soon.

"DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE, YOU PIECES OF SHIT! GET HIM! HE'S RIGHT IN THERE!"

The voice of his Mystery Caller boomed through the air outside the building, as if broadcast from loudspeakers; it bounced among the streets and alleys, echoing from the walls of buildings. Howard jumped in his seat. He clutched his hand over his heart in reflex, half-expecting pain to lance through his chest like a hot dagger.

"GET HIM! DRAG THAT FUCKER OUT INTO THE STREET AND KILL HIM! DO IT BEFORE I LOSE MY TEMPER AND NUKE YOUR SORRY ASSES INTO OBLIVION!"

The effect on the creatures outside was immediate; at the sound of the Voice, they became visibly agitated; hoots and screams broke the air, and the shapes outside the window began to move faster. A moment later, a group of them charged into the ruined mall, while another group started to climb through the opening into which the Continental had flown.

The Voice grew even louder, shrieked with a rage that bordered on hysteria. "DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY, YOU SORRY FUCKS! TAKE HIM! TAKE HIM BEFORE I CREMATE ALL YOUR SORRY ASSES!"

Howard's senses were coming back to him. The Lincoln's engine was still running; the impact had knocked the transmission out of gear, but by some miracle, the vehicle seemed otherwise unharmed. He grabbed the steering wheel and brought his foot to the accelerator, his other injuries forgotten. He shifted the gearshift lever into Drive, and the Continental pulled away from the wall of debris; boxes and other detritus fell in a heap as the vehicle shot forward into the mall's main thoroughfare. The wheels squealed on the dirty tiles, and the sound echoed loud in the large, empty spaces.

He spun the wheel to the left, and began to follow the wide, enclosed avenue that connected the smaller shops that lined either side. In his own world, the avenue would be filled with strolling shoppers as they gazed in windows and milled in and out of the different stores, their arms full of the day's purchases. There were no shoppers here, however, and Howard was in no danger of striking innocent pedestrians as the rear end swerved across the wide thoroughfare. As he fought to correct the Lincoln's course, Howard heard a cry from behind him, and knew his pursuers had entered the building.

He spun the wheel again, correcting the skid, and the Continental shot forward once more. He heard a sharp retort behind him, and a splash of flame erupted from the rear fender as a thrown Molotov cocktail found its mark and exploded. A short glance over his shoulder confirmed the back corner of the Lincoln was aflame. There was no way to tell the extent of the damage, and he was helpless to put out the flames; the mutants were right behind him. He could only drive like hell, and pray they went out on their own before they ignited the fuel tank or set fire to the tires.

Howard put his foot to the pedal again, and the Continental sped through the main concourse of the mall. He drove as fast as he dared on the cracked and weathered tiles as he searched for any possible route back to the outside, preferably to a side street. With any luck, it might even put him around the barricade.

Shops shot by on either side of him; empty storefronts glared with shattered eyes at the Lincoln as it sped by them, a trespasser in a space never meant for wheeled traffic. Howard caught glimpses of blackened mannequins, frozen in postures of torture, their faces half-melted in expressions of agony. Empty counters littered with debris passed by on either side. Dilapidated displays and empty racks lay scattered about in empty, nameless stores, and in the avenue between them. Again, he was forced to drive in a slalom-like course as he avoided the strewn debris, and skirted the crumbling kiosks and the remains of sales carts. Blood continued to dribble down his face, unnoticed, as he drove, his expression one of utter pain and desperation.

Flames continued to burn on the back end of the Lincoln. The burning liquid spread out from the tail in rippling, yellow sheets to bubble the paint from the clawed and dented metal. There was nothing to be done about it; he had to keep moving. At least the Voice had ceased its lunatic shouting, and for that he was grateful. He found it hard enough to think without having to endure its ranting screams.

_Did I create this?_ _Did I bring the calamity to this place? Am I responsible for the pain of all those sorry creatures now howling for my blood?_

He looked from left to right, searching for anything that resembled a route to freedom. His questions were pointless; it gained him nothing to ponder how the City and its residents came to their present state. The only thing that mattered was escape. The minutes were ticking by, and he had no time to lose.

As he scanned the thoroughfare, and the vacant holes of empty, blasted shops, he caught movement from the rear view mirror. He turned to look over his shoulder, and saw a crowd of mutants had gained the concourse. Some ran, while others loped, limped, and crawled along, their movements full of fierce determination and deadly intent. One brief glimpse was enough for him to see most carried weapons.

In the restricted space, he could not drive as fast as his pursuers could run. In order to keep a lead on the mob of mutants, it would take every last bit of his driving skill. If he made a single mistake, if he hit a dead end, then it would be over for him. He had to keep his resolve strong if he wanted to live through the next few minutes.

Ahead and to the left, Howard spotted a wider opening. As he drew closer, he could see the causeway branched off in an intersection. His instincts told him it might lead back in the direction he needed to go, parallel to the highway. He spun the wheel left to avoid the weed-choked fountain in the center of the intersection, and brought the Lincoln around the corner.

Here were more empty storefronts. The interior of the mall was infested with strange looking weeds and plants; vines crept along the walls and ceiling, cancerous-looking ivy that intertwined across storefronts and skylights and sent tendrils across the center thoroughfare. The Lincoln's tires made a staccato thumping noise as it ran over the thick, fibrous strands. The scene made him feel like he was a character in one of the many science fiction movies he had watched as a child, _'Logan's Run'_ , maybe or perhaps even closer, Charlton Heston in _'The Omega Man'_.

As a boy, Howard liked to use these and other movies as a basis for make-believe games, as children often do, but while his peers would play games based on more popular titles, such as _'Star Wars'_ , Howard's daydreams were based on films such as _'Planet of the Apes'_ , _'The Day the Earth Stood Still'_ , ' _2001_ ', and ' _Aliens_ '. The heroes in these movies stuck it out until the end, and on those rare occasions when they did not win, they went down fighting. More, they stood for a cause; those leading actors of the silver screen were noble, and it was that quality, above all else, that defined a hero.

The movies made it look easy, but Howard felt nothing like a hero now; he was hungry, more tired than he had ever been, and in a great deal of pain. Worse, he felt far from noble. As much as he would like to convince himself otherwise, it was a quality missing from his life, from his spiritual and psychological makeup. If he died here, it would be without honor. It would be meaningless, as meaningless as all his wealth at this very moment. He may have been successful beyond many men's dreams, may have been a genius in his field, but he was not a hero, and he never would be.

The vines were thicker here, and transformed the concourse into a leafy green tunnel around him. Small creatures scurried along the vines as they fled the loud, rumbling vehicle. Most were the size of mice, but some were much larger. To Howard's left, a rat the size of a small terrier perched on its hind legs on a high-running vine, watching him pass with three black, glittering eyes. The sight of it made a shiver run down his spine.

There was another flash of movement to his left, something much bigger than a rat. With a piercing scream, another Moorlock appeared from one of the darkened storefronts. The shaggy creature charged the vehicle and sprang, its fur rippling, to land on the rear of the Lincoln like a lion bringing down a zebra, spread-eagled on the trunk lid, careless of the flames still flickering from the fender.

Howard whipped his head to the side, unsure of what was happening, just in time to see the creature draw back a great, gnarled fist, and punch through the rear windshield. Shattered safety glass sprayed into the Lincoln's interior. Howard felt bits of it strike his face, and he turned his head back again, his eyes closed against the flying shards to avoid becoming blinded. Opening them to look forward, he turned the wheel hard to the right, then back to the left again, hoping he could throw the monster from its perch before it could do more damage. The sound of breaking glass came from behind him again as the Moorlock hammered and tore at the remainder of the glass, sending more shards onto the Lincoln's rear seat.

He repeated the maneuver, turning left and right at random, winding a sharp, weaving course through the mall concourse as he tried to dislodge the thing that clung like a tick to the Continental's rear. The creature grunted and snarled at every turn, but his attempts failed to remove the shaggy parasite. As he turned the wheel harder and picked up speed, his desperation increased with every arc and curve.

He could smell the creature now, an odor like burning tires mingled with rot streamed into the vehicle. He turned his head, and stared straight into the Neanderthal visage of the Moorlock, who had forced its bulky upper torso through the hole once occupied by the rear windshield.

Dark, liquid eyes stared at him from beneath craggy brows set in a ridge of bone, visible from within deep pools of shadow. These fierce and hungry orbs were set above a wide, bleeding gash of a mouth filled with rotting fangs. The creature's countenance was framed in lice-infested hair; Howard could see things crawling among the tangled and matted strands, on its skin, in its mouth.

The monster was less then two feet away; the smell of it crashed into him, a foul miasma that made him gag in reflex. His stomach knotted, and he fought the need to vomit. The creature reached for him with a blunt arm livid with sores, its face twisted with rage as it roared at him. Howard screamed and pulled his head back and away, did his best to avoid the creature while keeping control of the wheel. He kept his head tucked down, peering over the top of the dashboard, his face froze with shock. The concourse had come to an end; there was nowhere to go.

The thoroughfare ended in a doublewide storefront, the empty openings separated by a wide, ivy-encrusted column, and covered by rolling gates of metallic mesh, the type used to lock the stores when closed. The Continental was thirty feet away from the openings, and was approaching fast, much too fast for Howard to avoid. To make matters worse, the vehicle was not headed toward the gates, but toward the column dividing them.

Howard screamed again, and spun the wheel without thinking, his foot on the brake. There was a stomach-turning wrench, and then the Lincoln was spinning, the tires squealing. The world was moving through his vision too fast to see. The Continental struck one of the gratings that covered the entrance to the store on its passenger side, ripped the flexible metal gate from its moorings, and continued to spin as it cut a swath through the interior of the store beyond. Rotted display booths exploded into showers of debris. The grating was flung away, back toward the mall side of the store, before the vehicle came to rest in a sea of trash and broken vines, surrounded by a cloud of dust.

Howard choked on the fumes, fighting to regain his breath. He looked around, bewildered and confused, his sense of direction thrown into chaos. Remembering the Moorlock, he turned to look toward the rear seat, but the area behind him was empty. He glanced around, worried, but saw nothing moving. He looked back at his hands, his legs, checked what he could see of his face in the rear view mirror. All were as they had been before the crash; he had come through the collision without additional injury. A quick check of the dashboard showed nothing out of order. The engine still purred under the hood, unaffected by its recent brush with oblivion.

Howard wondered where the creature had gone. Almost as if in response, a growl came from directly in front of the Lincoln. Through the dust, a monstrous, shadowy form moved with slow, jerking movements as the creature gained its feet. Even through the dust, Howard could see the look of hatred and evil intent in the monster's eyes. It was a look he remembered well, one he had seen on the faces of more school bullies than he could count, a look he had come to hate with a deep, consuming passion. It was an expression that was synonymous with all the pain of his childhood, of his early working life, a look that on more than one occasion had caused him to snap.

"Not today, asshole," Howard said, and stomped on the accelerator.

The Continental lurched forward to strike the monster just below the breastbone with a loud thump. It gave a gurgling scream as its lower body was pulled under the vehicle. Black fluid shot from its mouth to splash the hood and windshield. It held on to the Lincoln's front end, screaming, for several moments as Howard drove through the store's interior, before the monster was pulled all the way under. The Continental gave a wild lurch, and the screaming stopped.

As the creature disappeared, Howard felt a surge of triumph, one that approached elation. A giggle escaped his chest, and he felt a spike of pain in his face. He giggled again, despite the pain, as the Continental burst through the wide, double doors at the end of the store, buckled the empty frames and sent them spinning off to the side as the vehicle shot through the opening. He chuckled as the Lincoln bounced its way down the wide steps beyond, and almost choked in the process from being shaken about by the motion. When the booming voice of his Mystery Caller pierced the air with an incoherent roar of loss and rage, he laughed even harder.

As the Continental finished its awkward, jarring descent of the steps, Howard threw the wheel to the left, and the wheels on the passenger side lifted from the ground. The tires touched down a brief moment later, and fresh pain jolted through him at the impact. He was in luck, the steps ended at an unblocked side street that led straight back to intersect with the highway. He brought his foot down on the accelerator again, and as the end of the block grew nearer, his anxiety increased; another ambush was a real possibility, and the fear of such an event gnawed upon his nerves.

Then, the end of the block was moving past him, and he shot into the double lanes at almost thirty miles an hour. Howard turned the wheel in a suicide spin and hit the brakes to send the Continental into a sliding turn. He corrected his course, and the vehicle lunged forward again down the center of the lanes with an accuracy to rival the best Hollywood stunt drivers. Howard felt no sense of accomplishment at this act; he was consumed by his need to escape. Panic pushed rational thought from his mind, but his reactions, honed by his many hours on the road, did not desert him; they allowed his body to move with an independent will, allowed him to keep the Lincoln on the road, and pointed in the proper direction.

The highway beyond the barricade proved to be mostly clear of debris, which was fortunate for Howard; at his current speed, another encounter with a barricade, large rock, even an oil spill, could prove fatal. He brought the Lincoln up to fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour; the buildings on either side of the roadway were reduced to a grainy blur.

In his mind's eye, a timer was ticking down, a timer whose numbers he could not see but could only guess, ticking from ten minutes down to zero. He did not know the precise moment when the timer began ticking; he just knew it was there, hanging over him, counting down to his fate. If he did not clear the City by the time the numbers reached zero, the unseen numbers would change; they would turn red, and begin to count upwards once more.

There was no physical timer of course; it was only a figment of his imagination, but the image was an accurate representation of his plight. Once he passed the zero mark, there would be no turning back; he would have to accept whatever penalty the land gave him. Howard did not know what form that punishment would take, but in the end it would not matter; the punishment for overstaying his welcome would be painful, messy, and fatal.

When the numbers on the imaginary clock turned red, he would suffer a fate worse than mere death. He would become one of them, one of the mutants, his body twisted and warped as his flesh rotted and became infested with large, running sores. He would waste away until he became just another lesion-covered monstrosity, and then he would die.

It could already be too late, and it was this fear that burned rationality from Howard's mind. His thoughts fled like evil spirits before the exorcising power of that emotion, and were slow to return as he drove toward the place where the highway drew to a point at the foot of the mountain. His feet and hands seemed to move on their own accord, driven by pure instinct and his many years behind the wheel.

The sun had passed behind the mountains, and the City was cast in twilight. The sky above the metropolis had already begun to take on its familiar, unworldly glow. How much time had passed? How many minutes had been wasted on his escape from the mutants? The city's inhabitants had come very close to making his visit permanent, and with no way to tell time, he had no idea how much time their efforts had cost him. That delay could still cost him, he knew.

The moments dragged on. Howard's normal mental dialogue had long fallen mute. Mental static filled the channel between his ears, until the mountains, and the point where the highway met them, became visibly closer. Ahead, the City's buildings lost their grip upon the asphalt. At the sight of this demarcation, reason began to make its way back into Howard's conscious mind, along with a small spark that might have been hope.

He looked toward the base of the mountains and tried to prepare himself for whatever might be waiting to further delay his exit from the valley. At first, he was baffled; he saw nothing. He was certain he should be able to see the highway as it wound its way up the far side of the valley, but he could see nothing of the sort. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had become a dry wasteland.

The buildings dropped away behind him, but he knew this meant little; there could be more mutants lying in wait for him ahead. He was not safe yet, and would only be free of the City's spell when he entered the mountains, perhaps not even then. From his current vantage point, Howard could not see a route into the peaks; the highway seemed to end at the base of the range. Panic began to rise within him again, pushing his mind into chaos.

Then he saw it. As the Continental passed into the shadow of the mountains, Howard saw the reason for the apparent end of the highway. The road did not climb the mountains at all; it went through them.

At the point where the highway met the mountain range, the darker shadow of a tunnel mouth arced over the asphalt. Howard felt relief upon seeing this, but the voice of his instinct spoke from the dark corners of his mind where it had been hiding, reminded him that things lived in the dark, horrible things that concealed themselves from the light. Howard shuddered. Something waited for him there; he could feel it, an instinct that had yet to be proven wrong.

He struggled to bury his fear, and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator pedal. The mouth of the tunnel grew larger, beckoning him to its dark interior. Howard raced to accept it, his face a mask of determination overlaid with terror. There was no turning back, no running away. There was nothing but the highway, leading him onward, as there had been since the start of his nightmare ride.

As the darkened maw of the tunnel grew closer, Howard felt his fear drain away. All feeling, all his hopes and dreams, vanished to be replaced by a cold sense of calm.

This was the only blip on his emotional radar as he made his final approach to the tunnel mouth. With all his other options stripped away, he was free from guilt, from self-recrimination, free from any and all responsibility except to survive. He meant to live, despite whatever the forces of this world threw at him. He might perish in the attempt—it was all too possible he had already spent too much time in the City, and would die of radiation poisoning, or meet his end somewhere in the tunnel—but he would not go easily. He meant to live, and would do anything to ensure his continued survival.

Anything.

The Continental crossed into the tunnel, and was swallowed by darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The gaping entrance to the tunnel swallowed the highway, seemed to swallow light itself; the asphalt vanished into a darkness that was impervious to the rays of the sun. The sight of the tunnel gave him a heavy sense of trepidation, but after his initial dismay, he realized the tunnel was likely the safest refuge for a person attempting to escape radiation. After all, that is where all the world's political bigwigs planned to be when the Big One came down, was it not? That was where all the world's governments built their shelters, so maybe going under the mountains was not such a bad idea.

It was both logical and sound to think this, but his mind was determined not to let him off that easily.

_What if the tunnel is blocked?_ _What if the mutants had set a trap inside the tunnel? What if they staged another ambush?_

The tunnel was a perfect place to set a trap, and would be the first place the inhabitants of a city would flee in the event of a nuclear event or other attack. If anything happened in the tunnel, it would be almost impossible to escape as he had before.

"Stop it," he snarled at himself. "Don't waste time with that defeatist bullshit. You know better, so don't even start. That kind of talk is for losers, and won't help a goddamned bit. You've managed to stay alive this long, and that is what really matters. So just suck it up, keep your head together, and stop talking to yourself."

Howard's voices, both internal and external, went silent as the Lincoln shot into the darkness of the tunnel. It would be better to concentrate on his past victories, rather than speculate on possible future failures. The former was positive; the latter could do nothing for him but cloud his mind, possibly even distract him when his focus was needed the most. It was not as if he did not have enough reasons to be positive; he was lucky just to be alive. He had survived the Thing with the Giant Eyes, had escaped the Great Desert, an attack by mutated Thylacines, and the shape-changing blobs of Splitsville. He had managed to thwart his Mystery Caller more than once, and had dodged the ambush set for him during his mad dash through the City. He had been extremely fortunate, and on more than one occasion.

_Maybe it wasn't luck_. _Maybe none of it has been as simple as good fortune. Maybe it was something else_.

This was not a pleasant thought; it suggested things he was not prepared to think about, and as he always did when his mind entered such territory, Howard attempted to turn it to other considerations. There were more important matters requiring his attention, such as surviving the next leg of his journey. Besides, if there was some other mechanism at work, it may have worked to his advantage, and if so, there was no reason to assume it would not continue to work.

This was not an entirely unreasonable assumption, nor was it unreasonable to believe that if he had survived this long he might just survive long enough to find his way back home. Perhaps the answer would be no farther away than the other side of the mountain range, waiting for him at the end of the tunnel, some sort of gateway perhaps. Or better yet, maybe the tunnel itself was the way home. It was possible that when he came out the other side, he would find himself transported back to his own world. It would not be any stranger than anything else he had experienced.

_That kind of hope can be a trap_ , the fearful voice in his head, one that sounded very much like his father, retorted. _It's going to take more than wishful thinking to get yourself home, and you know it. Don't forget, you have no idea how long you were exposed to the City. You could be dying right now and not even know it._

This prospect was almost as dark as the lightless interior if the tunnel, even more so because it was true. He would have to pay attention now, as much to his internal environment as to his external one, a fact made necessary since his heart attack. He needed to keep his guard up, be mindful for any symptoms of radiation sickness. His earlier dream was either so much garbage, or it was a message, a clue of some kind. He had been exposed to radiation, or he had not; in the end, it was just that black and white. He did not know enough about radiation sickness to give him any confidence in spotting the more subtle signs of exposure, but he had seen enough films, and read enough books to know the more dramatic effects: hair loss, lesions, blindness, blackened skin that peeled from his bones, the long, painful spiral into oblivion. He shuddered. He could not think of a nastier way to die.

If he had not been exposed, then there was nothing to worry about, at least when it came to dying of radiation poisoning. The alternative scenario was more complicated. He did not know enough about the subject to know all the symptoms, much less what to do in the way of treatment of such a condition.

_Well, if your hair starts to fall out, and your skin turns black, you'll know,_ the fearful voice in his mind said.

"I have such a cheery outlook," Howard said as he stared into the unwavering dark beyond the reach of the Lincoln's headlights. "I think it's time you shut up for awhile."

Flashes of light bounced from the tunnel walls, danced and ran in rivulets along its irregular surface. The walls appeared smooth, almost melted. In some places, the tunnel widened, and Howard was afforded quick glimpses of rougher, more natural stone. These wider spaces appeared at random out of the dark, and whenever he passed one, he became anxious at the possibility of another ambush. No attack came, however; he was alone in the tunnel, at least for the moment.

The highway remained straight and level for some time before it began to curve to the left. The grade increased. The highway turned more often, curved left and right at random intervals, before the grade leveled out once more. The tunnel walls lost their artificial smoothness, and became more natural looking. Howard's anxiety increased, but still he saw nothing threatening; the tunnel remained devoid of all life. There were no signs of the city dwellers in the tunnel; there was no debris, nothing to block the road, no signs of habitation. These were positive things, and Howard took solace in them.

The painted lines on the asphalt glowed softly in the glow from the headlights, appearing out of the darkness to pass under the Lincoln's nose. Howard thumbed the button for the driver's side window. The glass slid down, and a gratifying rush of cool air streamed over his skin. He leaned his head out the window, and took long, deep breaths, thankful that he was still able to enjoy the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide. With his smashed and swollen nose, the air smelled coppery and thick, but it was cool, and he reveled in the sensation of it passing through his lungs.

He pushed more buttons, adjusted the seat in order to change position, and give relief to his cramped and aching muscles. He stretched out and flexed his limbs, a routine he performed with increasing regularity. The cramps in his legs eased a bit, and he sighed, grateful for even this small respite.

_Whole bottom of my face looks like a scab_.

He picked at the dried blood on his chin with a grimace. _I look like an extra in a George Romero zombie movie_.

Howard frowned; his attempt at humor reminded him of the mutants back in the City, and of the cuttlefish-creature's tentacle, how it ripped from its shoulder as he sped away from it.

He reflected on his flight through the ruins, and found he did not hate the mutants as he did the blob-like inhabitants of Splitsville. The mutants were more prey than predator; they were the twisted survivors of whatever terrible event had destroyed the City, slowly dying with the passage of time. They symbolized all the tormented souls victimized by the hellish world passing by his windows. They might represent all that was wrong with this place, but he did not think they were inherently evil. He felt a vague sadness for them, could disagree with their motives, and fear their rage, their hunger, but he could not hate them. He tried to push them from his mind, but the memory of the cuttlefish-creature, its dismembered tentacle twitching on the glass, returned to haunt him.

As time passed, Howard started to feel claustrophobic; the darkness closed around him, became a tangible, palpable thing. He looked around more often as his anxiety mounted, convinced the walls of the tunnel were closing in, but the highway remained as wide as ever, fixed and immutable in the darkness. His throat threatened to close, made his breath hitch in his chest. He rolled down the front windows as far as they would go. The incoming surge of cool air pushed away the sensation of confinement, and did much to alleviate his other symptoms; his chest relaxed, and breathing became easier.

_One more crisis has been averted_ , _o_ _ne less problem to solve. If my life weren't at stake, in a world that can't exist, it would be just another day on the job._

Somewhere beyond of the reach of the Lincoln's headlights, the darkness was beginning to fade. Howard thought he was imagining this at first, but within a short time the fading dark was replaced by a glow about a quarter mile ahead of him. At that distance, the tunnel began to turn in a long arc, and the light became bright enough that he could see the tunnel walls without the aid of the headlights.

For a moment, his hopes began to rise. Perhaps his trip under the mountains was almost over. Perhaps, just perhaps, he would emerge from the dark, cloying space of the tunnel to discover he was back in his own world. He could not help but hope this would be the object of his quest, some doorway back to his reality. It was a wild hope, a dangerous hope, but he was helpless not to hold onto it; hope was all he had left. Even as the Continental drew closer to the source of the light, even as the logical part of his mind saw the wrongness of the light, he tried to hold on to that belief.

Rather than the steady glow of the sun, the light ahead pulsed and quivered in a random, uneven fashion that made the knot in Howard's stomach gain a few pounds. He did not know how long he had been in the tunnel, but the sun had been setting over the range as he entered; it would be certain to have set by now. His earlier doubts about the tunnel resurfaced. As he watched the light flicker and fade, flicker and fade, in a color born not by the sun, but by something else, the last strands of his former hope began to part, and then it was gone, swallowed by the dull, throbbing darkness of his pain.

Light danced over the walls of the tunnel now, running rivulets of fire ran along the walls to vanish into points unknown. The air temperature was rising; the wave of air that flowed into the Lincoln grew noticeably warmer against his skin. In place of his former hope, a vague dread began to take shape. He took his foot from the gas pedal, and the Continental began to decelerate. There was something familiar about that glow, and though he felt he should know its significance, he could not quite make the connection. The harder he tried, the more it eluded him; he was missing something vital here, and this frustrated him.

Then, the Lincoln completed the turn. The tunnel straightened, and everything became clear.

Beyond the bend, the tunnel opened into a vast, natural cavern. From the ceiling far above, stalactites the size of church steeples hung suspended like the daggers of a god. The highway wove its way among jagged rock formations that ran beside the edge of an expansive chasm. The stone shone as if wet, glowed with a soft, orange light that flashed and flickered from far below, where a river of magma flowed, hot and bright, as it wound its way through the heart of the mountain.

"Well, this is unexpected," he said. "Exit _'the Omega Man'_ , and enter _'Journey to the Center of the Earth'_. All your favorites, all afternoon, on Highway Hypnosis Theater!"

His attempt at humor backfired again; rather than bolster his spirits, it added weight to his worries. Considering his theories about the possible nature of this world, this statement could turn out to be truer than he imagined. Did it really possess the ability to mold itself from his memories and fears? It certainly seemed that way, based on his experiences so far, and if that continued to be true, things might not bode well for him.

A picture flashed through his mind of a television screen, upon which a group of scientists-turned-adventurers, led by James Mason, fended off giant, subterranean lizards far beneath the surface, in the 1959 version of the classic Jules Verne novel.

He would just have to hope he was wrong about that.

The memories of those sci-fi and horror films he watched as a child brought with them the feelings he felt when he first saw them, so clear did they come to him. Those feelings had been common in his childhood, when he would spend Saturday nights huddled in his blanket to watch the late night sci-fi movie special on Channel Five, his eyes wide, a flashlight in hand to ward off any monsters that might wander into his bedroom. The television drew him in week after week to hold him captive. He would sit in front of the screen, enthralled, his emotions a mixture of fear, anticipation, and curiosity. Now, it was the late night movie special all over again, and he was the star. There was no script, and no guarantee of a happy ending.

_Passengers looking on the right side of the vehicle will see the Land of Holy Freaking Shit_. _Those looking out the left side will have a wonderful view of the underside of a volcano_ , _or, as we like to call it, the Scenic Route, so have those cameras ready!_

The thought of volcanoes triggered something in his mind, and after a moment, the realization came to him that where there were volcanoes, there was also a high likelihood of poison gas. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but if the atmosphere in the tunnel was toxic, there was little he could do about it. It would do him no good to stress over something he could not control. After the episode with his heart, such stress had become an even more serious threat, and he was again surprised the stabbing pain in his chest had not returned.

He was determined to keep it that way.

"Do you really think so?" asked a voice from the passenger seat. Howard looked over, and the crew-cut outline of his father was just visible in the dim glow that permeated the Lincoln's interior. "Do you really think you can do that? You like to think you've got it all together, but to me it just sounds like a lot of hot air."

"Oh, great," Howard said, "another episode of Hallucination Theater. That's all I need right now. I said it before, and I'll say it again; I need a vacation."

"Always ready to run away," his father said. "Same old Howard. You've always been more talk than action. Deep down, you're still a coward."

"If that's true, it wouldn't say much about your skills as a parent, now would it?" Howard replied.

"Always with the smart mouth," the illusion of his father said. "You never knew how to respect your elders."

"I gave you the exact amount of respect you gave me," Howard said, bristling. "You earn respect, you don't get it from terrorizing your children, or from insulting them and holding them down."

"You needed discipline," his father countered. "You always had your head in the clouds. Someone needed to bring you back to earth."

"Oh, you did a great job of that," Howard said, not taking his eyes from the highway that unwound before him. "You always had me thinking I was a disappointment, that everything was my fault. I could never measure up, could never be good enough for dear old dad, no sir."

"You were a disappointment," the elder Langford said from beside him. "As a son and as a man. You were always a coward."

"Better than being a bully," Howard shot back. "Something you wouldn't understand."

"You should watch your mouth, boy," the impossible figure said from the passenger seat. "I served my country, and put my life on the line in a god-forsaken country every day. I sacrificed for my family, which is more than I can say for you."

"This is ridiculous," Howard said, exasperated. "First, there hasn't been a real threat to the country since World War II, other than a financial one to the military industrial complex, so don't come off like some type of martyr. Just because you were stupid enough to bend over for anyone in a uniform, doesn't mean anyone else should. Second, I sacrificed more than you'll ever know, every day, growing up with you. I couldn't have friends, was never allowed to feel good about myself, all because you needed to make yourself feel like a big man. I could have taken you when I was seventeen, but then I would've been the bad guy, and rather than play into that little trap, I left. Third, I'm done arguing with a figment of my imagination, so I'm going to do what I should have done years ago."

To complete his statement, Howard swept his right hand back in a fist, which struck nothing but the headrest of the passenger seat; the image of his father had vaporized, vanished into the glowing semi-dark.

"Now who's running away," Howard said. Although his sarcasm was genuine, it brought him no comfort. He did not know which was worse, the fact he was hallucinating, or his casual acceptance of behavior certain to land him on a psychiatrist's couch, or in a mental institution.

All things being equal, this outcome would be certain, but things were no longer equal. Every rule that applied to his former life had been left behind in a saner world, every rule but one: survival. He would not judge himself by the rules he left behind, would not allow judgment by anything other than the rule of self-preservation. Everything else would have to wait until later, if indeed there was a later.

The tightness of the highway's twists and turns among the various stalagmites and other rock formations made it impossible for the Lincoln to gain more than fifteen to twenty miles an hour, and then for only brief periods. His body ached with the effort it took to guide the Continental among them. The air was growing warmer, and Howard was having more and more difficulty keeping his focus on the road.

As the highway descended, it grew heavier in his lungs, until the effort required to breathe caused him to perspire. He stopped long enough to strip off his undershirt, wipe his face with it, and toss it onto the passenger seat before he drove on. It did little to relieve the heat. With the rear window gone, and the air conditioner no longer functioning, Howard had no way to regulate the temperature inside the vehicle. The crosscurrent of warm air provided little to no relief. It neither dried the sweat from his skin, nor eased the labor of his lungs.

The air temperature continued to increase. It felt like Howard was breathing through a wet paper bag. He palmed the sweat from his brow, rubbed his fingers together, felt the moisture between them. He looked out toward the crevasse, where the rising heat made the air ripple and shimmer, and wondered how long he would be able to endure the heat. His eyes burned, his body and limbs ached, and his stomach felt like it had caved in upon itself. His butt had become so chafed it felt as if he was sitting on a hot plate. The entire lower half of his face was swollen, and any movement caused his head to throb. He was about as uncomfortable as a human being could get and still remain sane.

Perhaps he had already been pushed beyond the point of no return. Howard looked out into the dark, his eyes smoldering. He wondered how much more he would be forced to endure. He had suffered so much already; how much longer could he tolerate the strain before he simply gave in?

"Never," he croaked. "Never give in. Never surrender. I'm Howard Langford, and I will never quit."

With a breaking voice, Howard began first to sob, then to cry. The tears ran down his hot, swollen cheeks to drip onto the skin of his bare chest. The barriers he had built around his emotions could no longer contain them, and as they gave way, all his pent up feelings came pouring out of him; they built in intensity until they became a flood.

Unable to cope with the deluge, he broke out in great, wracking sobs. His breath hitched in his chest as he gave vent to his pain in the only way he knew. He punctuated his torrent of tears, with angry accusations against all those who had caused him pain, all those who had conspired to bring him to this moment, from his parents, who had never let him forget how much they did not believe in him, to God himself, for creating such a world as the one in which he now suffered. He spat his long-buried bitterness into the dark in bursts, separated by ragged gasps for breath.

It went on this way, periods of hot resentment, countered by pleadings to that same selfish God for mercy. Volumes of self-pity poured from lips chapped and cracked by the heat, followed by another diatribe on the unfairness of his plight. The pattern of ranting and pleading repeated as he followed the highway on its implacable course, his hands clamped on the steering wheel. At times, he would lose track of what he was saying, and would repeat sentences, or change topic at random. In the rear view mirror, a madman's face writhed and contorted; the flickering orange light transforming it into an eerie, glowing mask, the face of a man possessed.

Howard had lost his perception of time, had no clue as to how long the emotional flood lasted, how long he cursed and begged, raged and despaired. He was as unaware of the extremes in his speech as he was the passage of time, until it ebbed away, leaving him silent, as drained of feeling as the boy, Kevin, had been drained of life, back in the horrible town of Splitsville. All the while, the Continental continued to wind its way along the side of the crevasse as it snaked its way through stone arches and around grand pillars, as if on autopilot.

It was later, during the silence that followed his outburst, when Howard's awareness began to return to him. Drained of emotion, his logical mind was able to reassert its hold upon his mind, and direct his focus back to the matter of survival. He began to pay more attention to his surroundings, suspicious of the towering rock formations. They could easily be used to conceal a trap, or to launch an ambush.

He needed to stay sharp; just because he had escaped the City, did not mean he was out of danger. There could be any manner of hidden dangers within the expanse of the cavern, and within the tight turns and sharp curves of the highway's underground passage, he would be easy prey. He knew he could not afford to give into fear, or allow his emotions to gain control in such a fashion again.

He had reached the low point along the side of the crevasse. Several hundred feet below him on his right side, a river of magma flowed in a wide, glowing band; it churned and gurgled with molten rock. Ahead of him, the two lanes of asphalt began a slow incline to wind its way between towers of stone, and ancient, frozen lava floes. He realized he had traveled almost halfway down the side of the canyon without any memory of doing so, his attention lost in the tide of emotion.

Around him, crystalline-looking spiders the size of kittens, nearly transparent in the light, scampered among the contorted rock formations. Seeing them raised gooseflesh on his skin. Despite the heat blasting through the Lincoln's interior in a constant wave, a cold dread overtook Howard, and he shivered.

He glanced about the darkened interior of the Lincoln, searching for the bottle of precious water he collected in what seemed an age ago, in the hope the liquid would wash away both his thirst and his unease, but he then remembered the container had disappeared some time earlier, dislodged from its resting place to disappear somewhere under the seats. He considered stopping to search for it, but the heat was too great. His best course of action would be to try and complete this latest leg of his journey as quickly as possible. While the cavern may have offered protection from the radiation above, the stifling heat presented its own share of danger; he would not be able to withstand its effects for long.

_It could be worse. If it weren't for the tunnel, you would be dead for sure_.

Part of him, however, knew it might very well be worse. He had a growing suspicion he had not made it away from the City unscathed. This impression had been lingering in the back of his mind for some time, the feeling there was something more serious behind his discomfort than could be explained by heat or exposure alone.

A slow throb had developed in his head during his ranting, different from any headache he had ever experienced before, one that was rapidly growing in severity to the point where his entire scalp pulsed over his skull. His skin felt irritated, as if it were sunburned, and where his flesh was exposed to the rushing currents of heated air, it was much worse; the burning sensation combined with an awful itch, strong enough to make his eyes water. He was reduced to bouts of frantic scratching on his arms and face, his neck and chest, even his scalp, but this did nothing but make it worse. Before long, these areas began to sting from the sweat running down his body. He tried to resist the urge to scratch, but the sensation was maddening; he would be granted a moment's reprieve, the itch would turn into a burn, and the process would repeat.

All the while, Howard stared at the highway as it twisted, descended, leveled, and finally began to climb again along the side of the crevasse; he drove with gritted teeth, and focused what remained of his will on the road ahead.

Despite his best efforts to concentrate on the highway, the time came when he could not bear the discomfort any longer. He felt as if his sanity was about to break. He brought the Continental to a stop, turned on the interior light, and began to root through the various cases.

_Please_ , _let there be something in here that can help_. _Please let there be something, anything_.

He located the larger first aid kit, and pulled it to his side. The pounding in his head made it difficult for him to even open the case; he fumbled with it, his anger and frustration building as he tried and failed, until he was in a near rage. At last, he succeeded, and the contents spilled into his lap. He tossed the nylon case aside, and began to search through the remaining items, barely taking the time to read the packages as he sorted through them.

In his haste, he almost tossed aside the very item he was looking for: the tube of hydrocortisone cream. He had used a good amount of it on his previous wounds, but upon inspection, there appeared to be enough left to give him at least partial relief on the most serious of the affected areas.

It took him two attempts to take off the cap. On the first attempt, his fingers slipped off, and he needed to wipe the sweat from them with his undershirt before he could continue. As he tossed the shirt aside, he noticed there were tiny blisters covering the skin on the backs of his hands. Looking closer, he could see they were everywhere, patches of miniscule vesicles similar to poison ivy. They covered his fingers, the backs of his hands, his arms, and even his chest. They had broken open where he had scratched, leaving crusted areas of discolored flesh. Alarmed, he inspected himself more closely, and found they even covered portions of his neck and lower jaw.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, "This can't be good."

Howard took the tube, and carefully began to squeeze it flat from the far end. He took care to keep from dropping the tube, and wiped the solution on the worst of the blistered areas. He had an anxious moment as he waited to see if the cream would make his blistered skin feel better, or if it would burn the places where he had scratched it raw, but his worries proved groundless; the ointment cooled his abraded flesh without irritation.

He spread the lotion as sparingly as possible, and covered the most serious of the blisters first. It was difficult to apply; even the slightest contact was enough to break open the tiny vesicles, and small shreds of torn skin soon covered his fingers. It was all he could do to hold down his gorge as he worked to complete his task, and he had to pause every few minutes to wipe the bits of peeled flesh onto his undershirt.

He continued this way until he had used the remainder of the lotion, and then tossed the empty tube onto the floor. He retrieved the case, replaced the items he had dumped onto his lap, pausing only to crunch three aspirin tablets before he closed the flaps and pockets, and returned the kit to its place on the passenger seat. He knew he would likely need to use it again.

The lotion did not completely relieve the itching, and did nothing to combat his fear of radiation exposure, but it did help him maintain his sanity, and brought his discomfort down to a manageable level. The blisters and their possible cause continued to weigh on his mind; he attempted to explain them away as nothing more serious than a heat rash, but try as he might, his darker suspicions would not be assuaged.

As the highway wound its way up the side of the crevasse, he hoped his condition might improve once he escaped the heat, but this was not the case; though the temperature cooled as he gained altitude, the itch and blisters continued to spread. With each passing mile, it took more and more effort to keep the Lincoln from plunging off the side, where hundreds of feet below, the river of magma muttered in its thick, guttural tongue.

As he progressed along the wall of ancient lava, blind albino cave crickets the size of Pit Bulls scattered from the glare of the Lincoln's headlights, but Howard barely registered their presence. A great wave of exhaustion swept over him, and his stomach began to cramp in jagged flashes of pain until he could no longer sit straight; he sat hunched over the steering wheel like an old woman, his head held just high enough for him to see over the steering wheel.

"You weren't fast enough," his father's voice said from beside him. "You weren't fast enough, and now you're going to have to pay the price."

"Shut up," Howard said without turning his head. He had neither the time nor the patience for his hallucinatory companion.

The illusory figure sitting to his right was immune to any such denunciation. "You know it, don't you?" it asked. "You've known the whole time, haven't you?"

"Go fuck yourself," Howard replied. He tried to will the hallucination back into nonexistence, but as the pain in his head grew, it became more and more difficult for him to concentrate, much less dispel the taunting phantasm sitting beside him.

"You should have paid attention to the dream," the elder Langford said, his voice so clear and distinct it sounded as if it were emanating from another living being rather than from his own imagination. "The city was irradiated. You became exposed the moment you entered the valley."

"NO!" Howard said, his voice little more than a rasp.

"You're feeling the beginning symptoms of radiation sickness. It is only going to get worse from here. It won't be long before your flesh peels from your bones, and your organs shut down one by one."

Panic swelled in Howard's breast, a dark wall of fear that threatened his fragile hold upon his sanity. He felt as if he was falling into a bottomless well, was tumbling blind into the dark, without the strength or the will to resist plummeting headlong into the black forever.

"You're going to die here, you know," the phantasm of his father said. "You are going to meet your end as far from home as a man can get, where no one can help you, in a place that shouldn't even exist. The rest of the world will go on, but you will fade into the black. It will be as if you never existed at all."

"SHUT...THE FUCK...UP!" Howard shouted. The force of his protest caused what he thought at first to be spit to fly from his mouth, but upon wiping it away with the heel of his hand, he discovered it to be blood instead. He could taste it now, salty and thick on his tongue. He stared at it for a second, before he placed his hand back on the steering wheel.

"I'm going to make it back," he said, refusing to acknowledge the blood, "and when I do, the sky will be blue again, and all the dogs will have to be on a leash. I can do it. I just need to hold on a little longer."

The words sounded hollow to him, however, with no more weight or conviction than a specter had substance. He wanted to believe he could still make it home, wanted to believe he would live to see the yellow sun of his own world again, but that belief became steadily paler as he continued to climb and his condition worsened. His blisters continued to spread; his skin continued to suppurate and to split open. The flesh in these areas began to change color; they appeared darker, bruised like over-ripe fruit.

He drove in stony denial, concentrated on the act of driving with such intensity that it precluded all else. He ignored the blisters, refused to even look at his reflection. He chewed aspirin on occasion, not tasting them, without taking his eyes from the road. The effort it took to keep the vehicle on the twisting lanes proved to be too much for him; the sound of squealing tires, loud in the warm, sluggish air, rewarded any and every mistake of judgment as he struggled with the tight turns and sharp curves. There was no more visits from his father, or any other hallucinations; he was alone again.

Before long, his breath began to gurgle in his chest, until it became a bubbly rasp from deep within his lungs. He could feel the fluid building there, and it was not long after that he began to get short of breath. His body trembled with effort as his afflicted lungs tried to keep pace with his need for oxygen. Every so often, he would break into fits of coughing, and bring up large chunks of phlegm, which he spat out the window. He wiped his mouth repeatedly on his undershirt, until his lips became chapped and raw.

His thoughts became vague, disconnected; they flitted through his mind like fireflies in the dark, glowing brightly in random patterns for a brief moment, only to die out again as he followed the twisting band of asphalt. He would realize how thirsty he was, only to forget again just as quickly. There was water in the car somewhere. He had drunk the last of his liquids, but he had found more, hadn't he? He ran his tongue over his chapped lips. Yes, he had found more water in the desert, and the bottle was still in the car somewhere.

He tried the air conditioner, pushed the buttons until he remembered it had died sometime earlier. He forced his attention back to the asphalt; only the road mattered. The highway led to where he needed to go, would lead him back to his own world somehow, and he had to keep on the road, follow it until the end. The only thing that mattered to him was getting back home. He was thirsty. There was water in the car somewhere.

Through this random jumble, one fact remained constant in his mind: time was running out.

Howard stared at the asphalt with runny eyes while random memories played in his head. Images both recent and from the distant past jumbled together on the backdrop of his mind, as if they were happening in the present. He remembered his father, telling him how he was wasting his life on daydreams, remembered how he lectured him on the importance of hard work, of living in the real world. He recalled him saying that if he wanted to make something of his life, he better get a real job, because the unemployment lines and soup kitchens were full of dreamers.

"Yes, daddy," Howard whispered, his voice distorted by his clogged and broken nose. "I understand now."

The highway continued to rise, and his memories continued to play out of sequence; they flashed through his mind like restless spirits, only to vanish as quickly as they formed. He remembered the woman with the pointed glasses, recalled the time she had taken away his tub of modeling clay after he had struggled so hard to hold onto it, after another boy tried to take it from him, and scolded him for being selfish; boys his size should not treat others in such a fashion.

"Selfish, yes," Howard whispered into the flickering glow of the cavern. "I'm sorry."

The memory of his second grade teacher ran through his mind, as clear and vibrant as the day it happened. She was telling him that he should spend more time playing outside, that perhaps he would be in better health if he spent more time exercising and less time with his books.

"Yes ma'am," he whispered, his voice tired and bubbly with phlegm.

Then, it was third grade, when a group of fifth grade boys grabbed his jacket from him, in order to throw it to each other in a game of Keep Away, while joking they needed a new tent.

"No, please," he begged of the ghosts in his head, "please give it back."

A horde of faces, so many of them he lost count. All the old names he had been called in those bygone days came back to him in a flood: _Lard-boy, Gargantua, Kid Kong, Sasquatch_ , and more. All the belittling words, the condescending tones and judgmental looks, all the girls that had looked at him with distaste and pity, they all came back to him in a rush. How his parents had looked at him like he was a stranger. How he had been treated like he was some type of insect by the car salesman. He had never done enough, could never do enough, to please them. Worse, he could never _be_ enough. The simple truth was that in the end, he just did not have what it took. He deserved to be called those names, deserved all the derision and ridicule heaped upon him, and more.

"Stop," he sobbed. "Go away." He was helpless to fight the tide of emotion flowing over him, could do nothing to resist the currents of his memory. His cries were lost in the hiss of flowing magma, the groaning of great masses of stone as they pressed against one another.

Ahead, the highway climbed a steep grade, then turned to cross the crevasse by means of a thin, curving arch of lava hundreds of feet long, but only as wide as the highway. There were no guardrails, nothing to prevent the Lincoln from plunging over the side and into the glowing ribbon of molten rock that flowed hundreds of feet below. Far above the arch, wheeling in the undulating gloom, bats the size of chimpanzees banked and dived as they flew in cavorting patterns. Some swooped low enough to pass the Continental before veering away, some so close Howard could see the vehicle reflected in their eyes.

As he crossed the span, the air became hotter, more acrid. Each breath he drew seared his lungs. Howard kept the Lincoln in the center of the asphalt, his eyes on the centerline. He dared not look away; he was severely acrophobic, and the idea of being so high, without any protective railings or walls, was enough to make him feel dizzy.

Beyond the arch of the bridge, the highway curved up and away to the left to follow the wall of the crevasse before it made a sharp turn into another cave, perpendicular to the cavern. The light from the molten river soon became a shrinking disk of orange, and its glare faded as he drove deeper into the tunnel. The stone of the tunnel walls reflected the glow of the Lincoln's headlights in dancing rivulets that made them appear as if they were living things. Howard saw this, but it barely registered; it took all his strength, all his focus, to keep the Continental moving forward and air moving in and out of his lungs.

Howard's condition was deteriorating. Thick fluid ran from his arms and chest, from skin turned black and cracked in angry red lines, as if burned. The lymph nodes in his neck and under his arms were inflamed now, swollen and painful to the touch. The phlegm in his lungs was thicker now, and he spat dark clots of it out the window with increasing frequency.

Darkness threatened to close in, but he continued to resist; he held onto the remaining vestiges of his consciousness with dogged determination as he rode waves of nausea and searing pain. His stomach twisted in his guts, and before he could even turn his head, a thin stream of bile and blood vomited from his mouth onto the steering wheel and over his lap. He blinked at it, and then stared back at the twin lanes of asphalt. The smell was acrid, despite his swollen nose.

Some long minutes later, he wiped his chin with the palm of his hand. He was moving in slow motion now, like the dreams that had plagued him since he was a boy. In those dreams, an unseen monster would chase him, forcing him to run, and the more he tried, the slower he became, all the while knowing with dread certainty the monster was right behind him, drawing closer every second, ready to devour him.

Now, that dream had become a reality; the monster chasing him was his own death, and it was gaining on him, as surely as the unseen beasts of his nightmares. That monster was very close now; he could almost hear it, dark and lumbering, as it came to claim him.

The Continental swerved, struck the wall of the tunnel, and swerved back to strike the other side. There was the shriek of grinding metal, and sparks flew in an angry shower as the passenger side fender peeled back from the front end. The travel case and first aid were propelled once again into the sea of refuse on the floorboard. New cracks appeared on the windshield. The Lincoln swerved away, wobbled for close to a hundred yards, and struck the tunnel wall a third time. More sparks flew. The cry of tortured metal echoed through the cave, an agonized squeal, as if the vehicle felt every wound being inflicted upon it. The shattered side of the windshield collapsed, sending chunks of glass showering down into the vehicle's interior.

With tremendous effort, Howard willed his hands to pull the steering wheel to the left, and steer the Lincoln away from the wall of the tunnel. His foot slipped from the accelerator, and the heavy vehicle drifted to a stop. With a shaking hand, he pulled the gearshift lever into Park. He dropped his hand to the ignition, and after a moment, shut off the engine for what he knew would be the last time. This simple movement drained him of his remaining strength. With the turning of the key, his hands fell to his lap, and his head slumped forward to rest on the steering wheel.

He was beaten.

There was no use denying it any longer; he could not go any farther. The game was over. He had lost, at the end, lost when he was so close to finding his way back, after facing so many obstacles.

Why?

Howard did not know if he were speaking aloud, or only in his mind. He did not expect any answers to his question, or any last minute revelations; he was merely crying out, the pleas of a condemned man as the hour of judgment came upon him.

Why me?

He thought he would cry, but could not. He always believed, deep down, that he would fight, would kick and scream with all his might for any chance to keep living, would do anything and everything that would give him a chance at even one more day of life. But now that the moment had arrived, now that he was living his last minutes in this world or any other, he could not; there was just no fight left in him. He now knew he would slip away into the dark, never to return. In the end, there was only darkness. There would be no answers, no revelations, and no judgments on his soul.

As it turned out, he was wrong. He did get an answer.

"Ah, I see you have finally overstayed your welcome," the voice of the Mysterious Caller said. Howard did not know whether the voice came from outside, or from in his own head. Each syllable sent another bolt of pain shooting through his body, brought another bright wire arcing behind his lids to light his personal darkness like flashes of lightning. "And, since you are finally doing me the pleasure of dying, I feel at last I can answer your question for you."

Howard groaned, but did nothing to answer the Voice, did not even attempt to raise his head. His world was nothing but darkness, darkness and pain and nausea. Soon now, all the pain would vanish, and only the darkness would remain, extending forever, for all eternity. Soon, even the voice would disappear, and he would finally be able to rest.

"It's simple, really, when you get down to it," the Voice said, every word dripping with venom. "The answer to your question, little man, is imagination, the same reason any of you pathetic animals are brought here. Imagination —such a wonderful thing. Now, as you die, I will drink in all that you were, until there is nothing left to take. I hope you enjoyed the ride, little man, because I most certainly have."

Howard could feel the world slipping away. His body began to slump, and he fell away from the steering column, helpless to stop himself from falling. He lacked the strength to move. He did not feel the leather of the seat strike his face, or the slivers of glass as they cut into his cheek and temple; he was only aware of the sensation of falling, of tumbling into darkness, and the mocking laughter of the Voice, following him as he fell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As he fell onto the seat, Howard knew he was on the verge of death; he would fall into darkness, and at long last his suffering would be over. He was afraid, more afraid than he had ever been, but it would mean an end to the pain. In oblivion, there would at least be peace.

But he was wrong, and there was no peace.

Although it was true he was on Death's doorstep, the final curtain refused to part for Howard Langford. His body was ravaged with sores and burning with fever, his body so wracked with pain it caused his body to draw up into a fetal position on the wide leather seat, but some part of him refused to die. He remembered his gasps for breath after he struck the upholstery, how the bare movement from the expansion of his lungs caused the blistered, tortured flesh of his chest to crack and ooze, remembered the dark laughter of the alien Voice, and then everything had gone mercifully dark.

But the darkness was all too brief. Light poured into his eyes from behind closed lids, make him squint. Howard sat up, rubbed his eyes, wondering in a dazed way what on earth could have possibly caused him to dream such a strange dream. Then he looked around, and the truth became clear.

_I haven't awoken from a dream_ — _I've awoken into one._

He was sitting in the middle of what had been his home street in Sander's Cove, Maryland, lined with the familiar suburban homes of his childhood.

_It's not over yet._ _I've fallen out of one nightmare, and into another. I must have passed out, and now I'm dreaming again, a dream within a dream._

This realization did nothing to improve his situation, and further reflection on the subject only made him dizzy. He took a deep breath, and was surprised to find the fluid had disappeared from his lungs; was even more surprised to be breathing at all.

Maybe I'm not really breathing at all. Maybe it's just part of the dream. It's possible this is all just an illusion, made possible by my perception of time becoming distorted.

This possibility made him feel even worse. He glanced down at his hands, which were now free of blisters and the deep running sores he suffered as a result of his passage through the city. It was not real, of course, and he knew this dream was a trap.

Somehow, the land, or the alien presence, his Mystery Caller, or both, was twisting his dreams, but that was not important right now; what mattered was the pain was gone. He could move and breathe again, and he was thankful, even if it were nothing but an illusion. Even if what he was experiencing was just a pain-induced hallucination, it was a chance to act, to think without distraction. He planned to make use of it.

Howard stood and surveyed his surroundings. He turned around, trying to make sense of things. At first glance, he appeared to be standing in the neighborhood he remembered from his youth, but closer inspection revealed it was not. The houses he remembered from his youth appeared as if they had suffered some sort of catastrophic blight. The yards were overrun with weeds, bushes, and mutant ivy; the houses looked dilapidated, abandoned. Overhead, the sky was dark and yellow, the sky of an alien land, just as he had last seen it before he entered the tunnel. Everything was dark ruin and silence.

He was standing in the center of the street, directly in front of his childhood home. This did not surprise him; he did not know if he was even capable of surprise any more, after all he had experienced. He ran his tongue along his teeth, and then stopped as it encountered the hole once occupied by his bicuspid. Anger rose in him then, sudden and explosive, and before he knew what he was doing, he was yelling at the top of his lungs, shattered the stillness.

"I'M SICK AND TIRED OF THESE GAMES!" he shouted into the empty street. "WHY DON'T YOU END THIS, AND GET IT OVER WITH ONCE AND FOR ALL, YOU COWARD! SHOW YOURSELF, YOU NUTLESS FREAK! LET'S DANCE!"

The ruined houses replied with nothing but silence. Large, fan-shaped leaves waved frantically, though Howard could feel no breeze. He looked from house to house, from vacant window to empty doorway, while rage continued to burn inside him. He had been ready to give up, ready to lay down and die. The pain had won, and he had been ready to surrender to it, if only it would go away.

"But no-o-o-o," he said aloud, as he turned back to face the ruin of his former home. "You couldn't be satisfied with that, could you? You had to go and stretch things out, milk my misery for all it's worth."

He spoke to the town itself, as if the emptiness around him were conscious and aware of his every word. "You just had to drag me through more shit, didn't you? Had to fuck with me just a little bit more before I died. Well, no one fucks with Howard Langford and gets away with it. I don't care if it is real, or all just a dream, I am going to FIGHT YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU COCK-KNOCKING SON OF A BITCH?! YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE ME KICKING AND SCREAMING, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"

There was no echo from the buildings around him; the landscape devoured his voice, swallowed it whole. There was no sound at all, save for his own voice.

The fence in front of his childhood home, a chain link barrier his father had installed to keep the neighborhood dogs from defecating on his lawn, was now a rusted ruin, covered in ivy and weeds. Howard walked up to the fence, paused for a moment, and then kicked the gate with his foot. The gate disintegrated in a spray of rust on impact.

Waist-high grass brushed his legs as he walked up the flagstone path that led to the front door. Weeds had grown to replace the mortar between the stones, some as high as his thighs. He mounted the crumbling brick steps, and after a tentative moment, stepped onto the remains of the porch that ran across two-thirds of the front of the house.

The wood of the porch was warped, and creaked with every step he took, but held his weight. He paused for a moment, gathering his courage, and his wits. His newfound strength, fueled by his anger, still flowed hot within him, and his limbs trembled with adrenaline. He steadied his nerves as he examined the front of the house, and tried to prepare for whatever horrors might lie within.

The front door was still intact, and though it appeared worn, it was otherwise as he remembered. Howard reached out to grasp the tarnished knob, and hesitated, his mind overcome with memories. So much of what he had grown up to be had been formed in the years when he had lived behind a door identical to this one, in another time, on another world.

There had always been distance between him and his parents, a distance that widened as he grew older, until it was a gulf neither side was willing to cross. He had always felt estranged from his father to some degree as a child, but the day it became a tangible part of his life came only six weeks after the incident with the Gander's trampoline.

Howard had steered clear of his new acquaintances after he fell through the bed of the tramp, in order to avoid the embarrassment he felt whenever he saw them. It was difficult enough dealing with the teasing, name-calling, and general bullying he faced on a daily basis, without the trampoline incident adding fuel to the fire. So, he had stayed away from them, and his other schoolmates, as much as possible, and instead used his free time to escape into books.

He buried himself in reading; from classic fiction, to sci-fi, epic fantasy, and horror; he devoured them all with abandon, anything to take his mind away from the real world. He would borrow four at a time from the public library, the limit allowed by his local branch, and would return them within days for another batch. He would read for hours at a stretch in his room, sitting outside with his back against a tree, under the covers after lights out with a flashlight, completely absorbed by his latest literary adventure.

The books became his true friends, and in those stories, he discovered a new passion; he wanted more than anything to be able to lead someone else on the kind of journeys he had taken within their pages, and had dreamed of becoming a writer.

This desire burned bright within him, as it has a way of doing in the young, and for two weeks, Howard had put his books aside, and used his free time to write a story of his own. After some consideration, he decided to try his hand at a science-fiction story, his favorite genre. He knew it would be hard at first, but he had the confidence of youth, and was sure he could accomplish his goal.

The first few nights of his new enterprise was spent just sitting and staring at the sheet of blank paper as he tried to come up with an idea. He would begin, only to cross out what he had written, and then start again. Inspirations came and went; some ideas were discarded right away, others after brief attempts to develop them into a plot. After several false starts, he found a storyline he liked enough to finish.

When the weekend came, Howard spent it writing. He wrote the entire story in longhand, crossed out any mistakes or parts he did not like, and when he was finished, he copied the entire story over again, a process that took another two nights. He did not mind the time it took; it made him feel good just to write, to put words to paper, to be doing something he liked to do. When he finished, he was proud of the result. Completed, the story spanned eight full pages, both front and back. It was by far the longest thing he had ever written. For the first time in his life, Howard believed he had accomplished something his parents could be proud of as well.

He was wrong.

The next evening, after his finished his homework and the dishes were put away, Howard announced to his parents that he wanted to read his story to them. His father glanced up from his newspaper, an unreadable expression on his face. "What is it, Howard?" he asked.

It was odd, hearing his full name coming from his father. No matter how his father addressed him, it somehow always seemed to come out sounding like he just stepped in something unpleasant, like dog crap, perhaps.

Howard worked hard to keep his voice from trembling as he replied, "It's a story. I'd like to be a writer one day, so I wrote a story."

"Well, isn't that nice, Carl?" his mother said, as she crossed the room to sit next to her husband. "Well Howie, don't keep us in suspense. Go ahead and read it to us." She turned to his father. "We'd love to hear it, wouldn't we, dear?"

Carl Langford looked from his wife, to Howard, and then back to his wife again. An unpleasant look flickered across his face for a moment before he said, "by all means, Howard. Read it."

Reassured a bit by his mother's enthusiasm, if not his father's, Howard turned his attention back to the sheets of notebook paper he held.

"I call this story 'Soldiers From the End of Time'," he said. "It's a story about the end of the world."

Howard went on to read his story in his best narrator's voice, and took care not to trip over his words, especially during any of the cool battle scenes. His story took place in a future time, when the dead were transformed into cybernetic soldiers to fight for the living. In his story, one such machine came to remember its former life, and took revenge upon its masters.

Once he began reading, his nervousness disappeared, and it took Howard some effort to contain his excitement. When he recalled the telling of this story years later, he realized it must have sounded awful by adult standards, full of plot holes and other errors born of a young perspective, but it had been his, and who knew what his life could have been like if only he had continued to pursue his desire for writing. How different would his life have been, if only his creative impulses had been nurtured?

Perhaps, if he had chosen to read his story to his brother David first, instead of his parents, events would have taken a different course, but he had worked hard on this project, and his desire to share it with his parents, his desire for approval, overshadowed his instincts. He wanted more than anything for them to like it, to like _him_. He wanted them to admire something, anything, that he did, something that merited more than a casual glance and a shallow 'that's nice'. He did not expect outward praise, but he had hoped for a positive reaction.

In this, he had been mistaken.

When he had finished reading his story, he looked up at his parents, and his half-expectant smile faded almost at once. His mother's expression was one of discomfort as she looked from her son, to her husband.

"That was very...different, Howard," she said, her voice strained. "I think it is...nice. I just did not expect it to be so...violent." She looked at her husband again. "That was surprising, wasn't it dear?"

"I don't think violence is the problem," his father said, who, unlike his mother, continued to look straight at him when he spoke, "I think the real problem is, children today think they can keep their heads in the clouds, and still expect to make something out of themselves."

The derision in his tone was palpable to Howard, a living force that streamed off the elder Langford in waves.

"You say you want to be a writer," his father continued, "probably fancy yourself as a famous author or whatnot, but I can tell you now, boy, the unemployment lines are full of dreamers. Do you know who pays for those dreamer's welfare checks? Do you know who pays for those with their heads in the clouds, only to find they are expected to work in the real world?"

Howard was not given time to reply; his father continued to speak before his son even had time to wonder if the question was directed at him, or posed so his father could hear himself speak.

"Me, that's who, along with every other hard working American. I know that sounds rough, boy, but that is the way the world is, and the sooner you know, the sooner you can be ready for it."

The elder Langford eyed his son with a stony stare. "You understand that, don't you boy?"

Howard felt as if he had been hit between the eyes with a hammer. "Y-yes. Yes sir," he stammered. He did not know what he had done to deserve such a lecture; he only knew he wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. "I understand," he said.

"I hope you do, son," his father said, his voice taking on that just-stepped-in-dog-crap tone again. "It's a tough world out there, and I'll be damned if I'm going to raise any soft, sissy-assed Liberals in my house."

"But dear, he's only a boy—," his mother began.

"Shut it, Gloria," his father spat at his mother. "This boy needs to have his eyes opened. This world has been going to hell in a hand basket since the sixties, thanks to those damn hippies. Bunch of damn slackers and communists, is what they are, and I'll be damned if I'll allow any of my children grow up to be another dreamer, with his head in the clouds and his ass on welfare."

Howard realized two things at that moment. The first, was that nothing he ever did, nothing he ever accomplished, would be enough to please his asshole of a father, and the second was that for the rest of his life, he would vote Democrat.

The lecture continued this way for some time. Howard finally managed to slink away, after his father was certain his message had been understood. He went back to his room and lied on his bed, did his best not to cry. It would not serve him to let his father see him in tears; it would be interpreted as a sign of weakness, and the lectures would start all over again.

After awhile, his brother David slipped into his room, and came over to sit on Howard's bed.

"Well, that was a bummer," David said. "I don't know what that was all about."

"I don't know either," Howard replied, even though in his heart, he felt he did.

"Well, I just wanted to let you know I thought your story was cool," his brother said. "Don't let them get you down."

"I'll try," Howard said, and forced something that was close to a smile. "It's okay."

It was not okay, not really, not by a long shot, but knowing his brother cared enough to attempt to console him made him feel a little better.

"Thanks," he said.

"No probs, bro," David replied. "I think dad is a little flaky sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

They both laughed. David smiled. "Are you up for a game of Battleship?"

"Sure, I guess so," Howard said.

"Okay then," David replied, smiling. "You set up the game, and I'll get us some cookies and chocolate milk."

Later that night, Howard woke from sleep with the urgent need to relieve his bladder. He got out of bed, and padded down the hall to the bathroom. He took care to be as quiet as possible. As he turned the corner, his mind still fuzzy with sleep, he heard voices nearby.

After a moment, the cobwebs in his head cleared, and he realized the door to his parent's bedroom stood open a crack; the voices were those of his mother and father. He supposed they were talking about whatever it was grownups talked about when they were alone and the day was done, and thought nothing more about it as he completed his mission, and began to walk back to this room.

As Howard passed his parent's door, he could see the light from the television beyond glaring around the edges. He heard his name, and realized they were talking about him. He paused, wondering what to do. He felt both guilty and excited at his eavesdropping; knowing they believed their children to be asleep.

He listened for a moment, but the feeling of guilt began to weigh heavy in his mind, and he decided it would not be good for him to be caught listening outside their door. He was preparing to move on, when he heard the tone of his father's voice change. Instead of going back to his room, he crept closer, even though he knew he would be punished if caught, but he was a slave to his own curiosity, helpless to do anything but stay and listen to what his parents were saying.

"Christ, Gloria," he heard his father say, "Did you hear that crap Howard read to us this evening?" In the background, Johnny Carson was performing his monologue, but Howard had ears only for the words of his parents. They were talking about him. He froze, and a sensation akin to an electrical shock ran through his body.

"Is that what he's learning in school?" his father asked. "Is that what my hard-earned tax dollars are paying for?"

"Now Carl," he heard his mother say, "just because it isn't something you want him to do, doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Would it kill you to give him a little support? The story was a little grim, but at least he's applying himself."

"Support my ass," his father snapped back. "What he needs to do is get his ass outside and get some exercise, maybe blow some of those sugar plum dreams out of his head. A good military school would do that for him, yes sir, and if I could afford it. That boy would be doing push-ups faster than you can say 'attention'."

"Don't you think that is a little harsh, Carl?" his mother asked. "It was only a story."

"It was an embarrassment, is what it was," his father retorted. The boy should be using his head for something other than stories. I don't think I'm being harsh at all. The military did me right. I grew up knowing the meaning of responsibility. I was taught what it meant to have a work ethic. This is reality, Gloria, and in the real world, you work for what you get, and those that don't, starve. The boy needs to stop daydreaming and start planning for the future. I'm not condemning the boy for trying, but it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and he needs to start being realistic. It'll be a cold day in Hell when I give any son of mine a free ride. When he gets old enough to work, he can start paying his own way."

There was a pause, and in the background, Johnny Carson delivered another punch line. The audience applauded, and his father said, "Seriously, Gloria, you don't see David wasting his time that way. That boy has his head on straight. He'll get somewhere in this world, unlike his younger brother. What a waste."

"But Carl, he tries so hard. I think he just needs some encouragement, is all."

"I don't know, Gloria," his father said. The background voices from the television grew quiet, as if daunted by the elder Langford's presence. "Sometimes I think all he really needs is a good kick in the ass. I don't understand that boy, Gloria. I really don't. Have you looked at him lately? Good God, he weighs almost as much as I do, and he hasn't even hit puberty yet. Can you imagine what he is going to look like in a few years?"

"Now you know he can't help how he looks," his mother replied. "The doctor even said so. We don't need to make him feel bad about his size; he gets enough of that in school. We need to be supportive, and help teach him how to take care of himself."

"That's just it, Glory," his father said, "I don't know if the boy will ever be able to hold his own. I mean, if he was a bully that would be one thing. That I could at least understand, but he's soft; he's a push-over."

"Oh Carl, you don't really mean that. I know you wouldn't want him to be a bully, would you? I feel much better that he is the way he is, a gentle soul. He's a sensitive boy."

"Sensitive? Is that what you call it?" his father spat. "You just better hope that is all it is."

In the darkness of the hallway, Howard felt his heart lurch. He could not believe what he was hearing. He might have been young, but he was far from stupid. He was not as if he did not hear the names he was called, or so naive that he did not understand what they meant.

"What do you mean?" his mother asked.

"You know what I mean," his father snorted. "They say it starts when they're young."

"Oh, that is ridiculous," his mother said. "I know he isn't popular at school, but you know how children are; they pick on anyone they see as different."

"Ridiculous, is it?" his father asked. "Fine. Just don't be surprised if he grows up to be a pansy."

There was more, but Howard did not hear the rest. He slipped back to his room in silence, and laid there in the dark, his skin hot with shame, his eyes filled the tears. At that moment, he felt more alone than he ever had in his brief life. He made a promise then—no, more than that—he made a _pact_ , there in the dark, to make something of his life, to find a place in the world where no one could insult him.

More, he would make everyone who ever doubted him feel stupid for doing so. He did not have any idea how he would accomplish this, but accomplish this he would. He vowed never to forget how he felt at this moment, to never allow anyone to make him feel this ashamed of himself again.

_I'll show them; I'll show them all. Whatever it takes_.

He laid there in the dark, fuming, his eyes fixed on the ceiling _._

Whatever it takes.

So, in the darkness of his room on that October night, Howard tossed away his dream of ever being a writer, and banished it from his mind forever. If the sensitive and creative Howard was the problem, then he would lock that part of himself away, and focus on becoming a new Howard, one that used his head, who understood responsibility, who got the job done. He would not do this to please his father; he knew that would be useless. He would finally put an end to the ridicule, the teasing, and the bullying. It was a childish promise, this pact he made, but he made it with all the strength and conviction his young, wounded heart could muster.

As he drifted off to sleep, he told himself not to dream, and at some point during the night, something changed within him, something both fundamental and profound.

The next morning, Howard crumpled each page from his story, one at a time, and tossed each into the wastebasket. He took the latest batch of books he had borrowed from the library, and placed them in a neat stack on his desk in preparation for their return. Never again would he make the mistake of trying to impress his parents with his writing. Fate had determined that such a path was not for him, and had taken great pains to make him aware of this fact. Every attempt he had made to deny this had blown up in his face, from when Mister Dibbs had pissed on his map, to the disaster with his parents when he read his story.

But no more; he had learned his lesson.

During the next few weeks, Howard concentrated his studies with fierce determination. He would come home, complete his homework, and do his chores. He never had to be reminded to wash the dishes, clean his room, or take out the trash. In fact, he often took David's turn when it came to the housework.

When his chores were done, he would ask if he could go outside, much to the surprise of his mother, who would often praise him for his efforts, much to the obvious chagrin of her husband. Gloria Langford seemed content that her son was getting outside, and did not press him on what he was doing with his time. She only insisted that he play safe, look before crossing the street, and not talk to strangers.

Howard would agree, and then escape before he could be questioned further. He was sure his mother believed he was off playing with his friends, and was careful never to give her any reason to think otherwise. For all his parents knew, he was enjoying the company of schoolmates. They did not know he walked the neighborhood alone, pondering matters of the head and heart. He was not doing anything wrong, he knew, but he did not want to worry his mother, or provide reasons for further lectures by his father.

So he walked, and contemplated his future.

It was on one of these walks that Howard came upon his first computer. At first, he did not recognize it for what it was; he had been walking along, the echoes of his parent's conversation reverberating in his mind, when he saw it, a beige rectangle sitting at the end of the driveway, surrounded by cardboard boxes and stacks of newspapers. He drew closer, and recognized the device from the catalogs his parents received in the mail. The beginning of the new decade had seen a profusion of advances in computer technology; the 486DX processor had been released the year before, Microsoft became the first company to exceed a billion dollars in sales, and new technology start-ups were being formed at a rapid pace.

Despite these developments, however, it was unlikely such a device would ever find its way into the Langford household; Carl Langford considered such things as nothing more than expensive toys. As with most things, Howard's father was intractable in his opinions, and the chances of his admitting his error was about the same as Bigfoot showing up at their door and asking directions to the nearest McDonald's. In a word: none.

It was perhaps for this reason above all others that Howard gave in to his curiosity. He knew the computer was junk, otherwise its owners would not have disposed of it in the first place, but he was attracted to the rectangular case, drawn to it in a way he could neither explain nor deny.

He was overcome with the desire to know what went on inside the metal casing. He had a vague idea, of course, but knew next to nothing beyond what he had gleaned from advertising mediums. There were no video games in the Langford home; his father would never allow his hard-earned salary to be used on such a frivolous purchase, especially considering the fact he believed such devices were responsible for turning children into nothing more than a generation of slackers.

_Sure, it's broken_...b _ut maybe I can fix it_.

This idea ignited something within him, a feeling of potential Howard had never experienced before. He stood there for several minutes, indecisive as to how to react to this sudden feeling of purpose, of destiny. It stood to reason that whoever had put the computer at the end of the driveway had wanted to dispose of it. If he were to take it, he would simply be saving the garbage man the trouble.

He walked over and picked up the discarded computer, an act that took a considerable degree of courage, but also filled him with a feeling of excitement that lasted well after he returned home and placed it with gentle reverence on his desk. His arms trembled with the exertion it took to carry the metal box, but he did not care; he was far too excited. This was something important, something he was meant to find, something for him alone.

_This is it_ , his mind whispered. _This is what you have been waiting for, the key to your future_.

There would come a day when he would consider such a machine to be almost primitive in its design, but at that moment it was a mystery, wrapped in an enameled metal case, a mystery he was determined to solve.

Howard decided to keep his discovery a secret. He would not take any chances on having any more of his dreams shattered by his parents, or anyone else. He would not lie, but he would not make the same mistake he had made with his story. He would not make it easy for them, not this time.

Howard's curiosity quickly grew into an obsession. He read every book he could find on electronics repair, on computer design, on programming. He was surprised with the ease at which he understood the deluge of information he found within their pages. His study of the subject was so intense, his grades in academic subjects, mathematics, science, even history, began to improve as a result.

He taught himself how to use a soldering gun, and whenever he was not immersed in his books, he would perform odd jobs around the neighborhood, cutting grass, raking leaves, shoveling snow, anything he could do to further finance his passion. By the beginning of the following year, he had gathered enough parts to repair the once-broken computer, and turned it into a working system.

By the following summer, Howard was repairing various electronic devices: televisions, radios, and even stereo equipment. He used the income he earned to further his knowledge and skills. He purchased books, tools, and equipment from flea markets, mail order shops, and the local Radio Shack. It would not be very long before he went from repairing machines, to creating his own.

During this time, Howard waited for the inevitable clash with his father, but it never came. He was careful not to give his father anything to use against him. He did more than his share of chores, was getting better grades than he ever had before, showed responsibility and a strong work ethic, but knew the senior Langford too well to think such valid points would hold him in check forever.

He knew better to ever think his father would give him outright praise, but as long as he continued to be careful, he might be able to hold onto his new passion without having it torn down or criticized. He knew the day would come when his father would no longer be able to contain his eternal dislike for his youngest son, but he was determined to be prepared, and when that day did come, he would give his father the surprise of his life.

The Old Howard had been a dreamer, one who foolishly believed he could share his dreams with others. Things were different now; he was different, and the New Howard would not make the same mistake. He had stopped being the Old Howard on the night he had overheard his parent's conversation, frozen outside their room while the Tonight Show blared from behind their door. Over twenty years later, he could still remember every word. Something deep inside him had changed on that long-ago night; he had felt it happen.

Out with the Old Howard, and in with the New.

When all was said and done, this New Howard found a way to keep his hobby, and made it his own. The determination to learn all he could about this new realm of knowledge, this world that was so different from anything his parents had ever known or could understand, gave him strength. It offered a refuge during that difficult and often embarrassing passage through puberty, helped shield him from the continuing taunts of his classmates, and provided a bulwark for his self-esteem.

Throughout this time, his mother sometimes suggested he find time to play with other children, or some activity that would get him out of his room. Howard responded by joining various clubs after school: the math club, the science club, and later, in high school, the computer club. These allowed him some much-needed social contact, and served to keep his parents off his back. In those groups, he felt marginally accepted, perhaps for the first time in his life. They were still called names, like nerd, geek, and worse, but he was not alone; he had at last found a group to which he could belong.

Howard curled his mouth into a tight, bitter smile as he stood before the dream-replica of his childhood home, a smile born of loss and long hours with nothing but circuit boards, capacitors, and other electronic components as his only companions.

_You're having flashbacks in a dream_. _How messed up is that?_

But dreams were more than just dreams in this place, and as he grasped the knob to the front door and turned it, the truth of this was driven home. He felt where the finish had worn from the metal, could feel the tarnished coolness of it in his grip. He felt his clothing tug at his skin as he moved, smelled an odor like burning cedar, as he always had in autumn, back when he lived in the real world version of this very house. No, this was much more than a dream, and as Howard pushed open the door, all the old feelings of resentment and pain and rage rose in him, as if it all had happened yesterday, as if it were all still happening today.

Beyond the door, the interior of the house appeared for a moment just as it had in his youth, free of the devastation affecting the rest of the houses around him. The foyer was immaculate, the walls lined with the blue patterned wallpaper of which his mother had been so fond. The staircase of dark wood that wound up to his and David's old room was just as he remembered, as were the collections of small porcelain figurines, set in a wooden knick-knack shelf. The family photographs still hung on the walls, exactly as they had in his childhood.

To the right was the living room, furnished in his mother's idea of home decor; cheap decorations on the walls passing for art, the furniture bland but comfortable. Between the living room and the foyer, a short hall led to the kitchen, where sunlight lit the room beyond.

At the end of this hall stood a figure, recognizable even though it was almost lost in shadow. There in the gloom, silhouetted against the light from the kitchen, was the unmistakable form of his father.

Howard froze.

"It's about time you showed up," the figure said.

Around him, the room, hall, and the rest of the house's interior began to change. Patches of spongy white mold appeared, and grew with astonishing rapidity, as did large expanses of glistening, black mildew, which raced across the once immaculate wallpaper. The picture frames on the wall blackened, the photographs contained within them curled and bubbled, as if exposed to flame. The hardwood floor of the foyer began to warp, the boards twisted and buckled.

In the cubbyholes of the knick-knack shelves, the porcelain figurines came to life; they contorted and screamed in a multitude of miniature voices before they shattered in a spray of ceramic fragments. The drapes in the living room disintegrated before his eyes, as if caught by a time-lapse documentary. Howard wanted to run then, wanted to flee the house and the memories it contained, run from the growing horror before him as fast as he could, but he was held there, transfixed by the sight of the house as it decayed around him.

"You're too late," the figure in the hall said. It took a shuffling step forward. "You're too late, and now it is taking your dreams." It took another step, its feet dragged across the warped and twisted floor.

"You let it steal your dreams, and now it has come for us." It took another step. "Now it's in our world, Howard, and it's all your fault."

_But it's not my fault_ , Howard wanted to say, wanted to scream at the thing that resembled his father, but was something much worse _. It's not my fault; I didn't ask to come here_. But he could not speak, could do nothing but watch the dark, shuffling figure as it approached with dreadful surety.

The figure of Carl Langford stepped from the shadows. He looked as he had for the better part of Howard's life, stern gray eyes set in an impassive visage, topped by graying hair he kept in a perpetual buzz cut. The elder Langford was dressed in a conservative style, as was his custom; he wore a dark gray suit, white shirt, and dark tie, but there the similarities ended. His shoes, normally meticulously shined and polished, were caked in mold and grime. The legs of the figure were strangely bent, as if the bones had been broken, and then improperly set.

As Howard watched, the mold grew on the figure's clothes as it had on the walls; the shirt turned black with mildew, the gray cloth of the suit churned with growth.

The thing that looked so much like the father of his childhood raised its arms, and the exposed skin on its hands began to blacken and peel away. With incredible swiftness, the skin of his face and neck began to rot, its hair falling out in clumps, the flesh of its cheeks burned away to reveal blackened teeth set in moldy gums. The gray eyes that looked upon him with disapproval for so many years burst, and dark fluid sprayed from the sockets.

"Look at what it has done to us," it croaked.

Howard moved backward, away from the rotting thing before him without thinking, his brain awash in fear. He staggered across the short porch, and before he could even register what was happening, he was tumbling backward through space.

He came down flat on his back on the flagstone walk, and his head smacked back into the stone with painful force. He felt his body go numb with the impact. The world began to go dark, and Howard felt certain he had reached the end.

The world swam, and began to turn black

Dying. It's really happening. I'm dying.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

But again, Howard was mistaken. Waves of sensation came crashing back into him as he awoke some time later. His skin burned, the leather under him was covered in sweat, his ears filled with the sound of his own tortured breathing.

He was back in the Continental.

His body was wasting away, dying from exposure to this strange and terrible place. One crusted eye opened upon a blurred close-up of the mottled, tortured flesh of his arm. The flesh appeared as if it had been cooked. The air was thick with the smell of his own sickness and waste. He laid in agony for hours, too weak to move, yet fully lucid, his nervous system carried every nuance of his torment to his brain. Now he was truly in Hell; each moment took light years to pass into the next, and time stretched his suffering into eternity.

Howard's mind floated in a sea of dreams. Sometimes it rose near the surface, other times it plummeted into its depths. Once, near the surface of consciousness, the parts of his mind that were still capable of reason registered the air had become cooler, and grasped intuitively that the scarlet sun had set again.

Then he spun down into the dark once more.

As Howard Langford sank into his final coma, and his vital organs hovered on the brink of collapse, he drifted once more into dream.

He was running. That was all he knew; there had been darkness, and now he was running, fleeing through ruins of what had once been a suburban neighborhood. Burned-out husks of what had been custom homes, and blasted and broken ruins were silhouetted against the darkening sky. The area looked eerily familiar, and with a shock, Howard realized he was running through the remains of his own housing development. He stopped, tried to give his mind time to catch up.

Dream lag. What a concept. I'm suffering from dream lag.

Howard looked around, wondered how this came to be, and then saw the sun setting slowly on the horizon. It was the color of blood.

His skin began to itch, then began to burn. He held his hands before his face, and was horrified to see his skin bulged with small, hard lumps. He tore his shirt open to reveal more of the lumps on his chest and ample stomach, and as he watched, his eyes wide with disbelief, the lumps spread, growing rapidly across the surface, the skin stretched tight. It split open to reveal glistening white tendrils that sprouted like seedlings from his flesh. He could feel them moving, growing inside him.

"No!" he said. His voice rose into a shout. "No, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO!"

Howard screamed. Reason gave way to chaos and fear. He dropped to his knees, and then fell over to stare at the sky. He could feel the filaments growing downward into the ground, where they branched like roots into the soil.

A cool, relaxed feeling spread through his body. His essence was draining away, to become part of the land. He wanted, more than anything, to wake up, but he knew that he would not; he was dying, and his brain was translating that experience into symbols within his dream, a dream that would end only when the last of his will and his life siphoned away.

"Look at you now," a voice said from somewhere, a voice that was familiar to him. "You are allowing it to steal your dreams forever. Soon it will be strong enough to swallow whole worlds, and it will come to take all the dreams from your world as well."

Howard listened, but did not bother to even open his eyes. The voice was familiar, a fact that should hold some meaning to him, but he was draining away; the darkness was coming for him at last, and he would finally be able to rest.

"Wake up, Howard," the voice commanded. "I'm talking to you."

Howard found he could still move his eyes, and opened them. The owner of the voice was moving toward him, and as he stepped into view, he found he was still capable of surprise as well.

The face of a twelve-year-old Howard Langford stared down at him.

"That's better," the younger version of himself said. "Now, I finally have your undivided attention."

"What are you?" Howard asked. His body was numb now, and his voice sounded disconnected from body.

"Come on," the boy replied, "you're smarter than that. We both know the answer, but if it will make you feel better to hear it, then I will tell you. I am you, Howard. I am the part of you that you locked away, so many years ago. You used to talk to me all the time, but you haven't in a long while." The boy paused, then added, "I'm the part of you the adversary really wants, and now, I'm the only one who can help you."

"I don't understand." It was all he could say. It was becoming harder to concentrate; part of him just wanted to drift away, to sleep forever. Another part of him, however, the darker, instinctual part, refused to let it end, and continued to fight. That part of him pulled him back, forced him to keep his eyes open, to focus his remaining will on his more youthful reflection.

"Of course you don't," the younger Howard said. The boy hunched down to get a better look at him, examined him as if he were a previously undiscovered species of fungi. "You've been so busy running, so good at shutting me away, the only way I could ever connect with you was through your dreams, or when you were so tired, the barriers you constructed around yourself weakened enough to let me in. If you hadn't been near the end of your rope back in the desert, you would have pushed me out of your dreams without hesitation. You're really quite strong when you want to be; you just don't know it."

The boy's words sent a gleam of understanding through the clouds that surrounded his mind. "Then it was you that helped me before," he said. "Only you looked like David then."

"You are starting to see the light," the boy replied. A grave expression took hold of his features. "It was the only way you would allow yourself to see me. But it wasn't just a dream, any more than this is just a dream, Howard. The town, this street, everything around you is the landscape of your memories. Every city you have ever visited, every restaurant where you've eaten, every hotel you slept in, can be found here. This is your refuge, Howard, constructed from the memories of your past."

The boy closed his eyes, and lifted his head, as if listening to some faraway sound. He held this pose for almost a minute before he opened them, and looked into Howard's own. "It is very close now," he said. "Can you feel it? It's all around us."

"Yes," the older Howard answered. He could feel it. It spread all around him, like a cancer, a dark malignancy that was growing in his mind. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a sharp, cracking sound, and the low rumble of falling stone. Tremendous footsteps thundered and crashed in the distance.

"Our Adversary, the entity you refer to as the Mystery Caller, has begun to absorb your memories, Howard, and worse, it has begun to absorb you, which means it will eventually absorb me. This entire place, this entire dimension, has had a connection with your mind since you first entered it, Howard, and that connection is now very strong."

The boy leaned closer, and whispered in his ear. "If you don't break that connection soon, your mind will become food for that entity. But to do that, you need to know the truth. More, you need to be able to accept it. Close your eyes, Howard, let go of your fear, and concentrate. The connection goes both ways, and if you follow that connection, you will learn the truth. You have to do it now, while you still have strength left, or you won't be able to pull away from it again."

Howard felt his eyes closing. He was again conscious of the tendrils that sprouted from his flesh, branching through the soil, felt the reciprocity with the land tug at him again, felt it pulling at his will. He felt his mind, his consciousness, being drawn down through the tendrils, through dark crevices and lightless warrens, until he entered a faraway cavern, where the thing he called the Mystery Caller, the Adversary, dwelled.

In his mind's eye, he saw it: a great, swirling darkness, a living personification of evil, shapeless yet alive and full of malice. He felt pulled toward that huge, ever-changing mass, felt himself fuse with its essence, become one with it. In that moment, a torrent of images and emotions rushed through him. His personality was wiped away, and for a brief instant, he became something else, something ancient and alien. He knew he would go mad then, go mad and perhaps die, but the connection was ending; his consciousness was pulling back once more, the bond broken.

Howard was now on the ground again, looking up at his doppelganger.

"You saw it, didn't you?" the younger Howard asked.

Howard did not answer; he knew it would be pointless.

"Then you know the truth."

"Yes," Howard replied. His mind was reeling; he felt as if the world was tilting over.

"You had most of it figured out already, or, should I say, I managed to get through enough for you to get most of it, but you just couldn't accept it. If you had, you may have understood everything much sooner, and perhaps found your way home before being brought to this."

There was the sound of falling stone in the distance, closer this time.

"A world, a dimension, that reacts to dreams, shaped and reshaped, even sustained by them," Howard said. He did not look at the boy, was not aware he was even speaking; images and emotions that had not been his own still ran through his brain.

"It's probably very much more complicated than that, of course, but yes," the child-shade replied. "Part of a completely different set of natural laws than in our universe, but still part of a natural order, even if it's an order that we don't, or can't, understand. Minds wander here in dreams, restoring and revitalizing the land, and then depart again. Through time, though, that natural order began to change. Creatures came to this world, or were created within it, and flourished here. And at some point, the being you call the Adversary came to this place, and became a part of it."

Howard had seen all of this through the eyes of that dark intelligence. He had not been connected long enough to see everything; he doubted his sanity could have withstood the onslaught if it had, but he had seen enough to tell him it was all true. The Adversary had not been indigenous to this world, perhaps even to this universe, but it had discovered a secret, one that had allowed it to survive the death of its physical body to become part of the land itself. It grew and fed, altered its structure as it grew in strength. As it grew, so did its craving for power, for more dreams on which to feed, until it grew strong enough to reach across worlds in order to satisfy its never-ending hunger.

"You understand now, don't you?" the younger boy asked. "You understand the secret, and more, you understand that it is afraid of you, of us."

"Yes," Howard whispered. He had seen this, too, in the moment when he became immersed in the dark malignancy that hid somewhere deep below the surface of this world, seen that and much more. He had come to see this world as the living corruption he had touched with his mind saw it, had come to know the secrets that it knew. He knew these things in the way that he knew his own private and sometimes unpleasant personal habits, tucked away in the recesses of his being. He knew that the black, nameless life force, the one that was even now attempting to invade his mind and feed on his dreams as his body slowly sank towards death, was deeply, deeply afraid.

The one it had brought here to die had escaped, and had even managed to hurt it. He, Howard, the one who had fallen, or been pulled, into this strange and terrible place, had been driven to the limits of his physical endurance, yet somehow, he had managed to escape the storm, the dangers of Splitsville, of the desert, and even the trap laid for him in the City. The entity did not know how the human had managed this, and that was the source of its fear, for it meant the human may have gleaned the truth, and if that was so, it had good reason to fear him.

"The highway," Howard began, "the road, it was built by..."

"Imagination, coupled with the power of belief," the younger Howard finished. "Your belief. It was formed by the unconscious need of the human mind to strive forward, to hope. That is the secret the Adversary is afraid you discovered. It is one of the reasons it kept after you. It has been draining you since your arrival, its hold on you growing all the time. It kept you distracted, so you would not realize what you had managed to do. It was never luck that kept you alive. Somehow, you and I managed to change the verdict. We managed to escape the pack when it attacked. Then, we managed to live through the storm, when it was certain we would die. And we sure managed to surprise those assholes back in that little suck-hole of a town, didn't we? Not to mention what happened at the toll booth, when the thing that pulled your tooth ended up dying in its own mess."

"The water," Howard said, "back in the desert, there was more water than should ever have been there." Again, there was the feeling of sudden understanding, the sense that he had seen the man behind the curtain. "The water in the condenser."

"Exactly," the boy said. "You were in the middle of a wasteland. At best, you should have gotten maybe a few mouthfuls, and then only if you were lucky. But somehow, you woke up with a full bottle. Doesn't that beat all? Seems you beat the odds there, too. That didn't happen by accident, nor was it natural, not for the area you were in; that desert was dry as a bone."

He paused for a moment, and in the distance, there was a sound like thunder as another building, this one much closer to where he lay, crumbled to the ground with a roar. He felt the ground under him vibrate with the concussion.

"Those things happened because you needed them to," the boy said. He looked at Howard, an intense expression on his face. His eyes gleamed. "When you were in the desert, you needed a way to survive, something to help sustain you long enough to find a way home. You went to sleep dreaming of just such a thing."

Howard's eyes were wide. His mouth worked, but was unable to form words. The sense of enlightenment had become a wave of understanding that threatened to overwhelm him. He remembered how he fell asleep in the desert, how he wished for a miracle cure for his suffering. He remembered how energized he felt after he drank the water he had collected, how it had calmed and soothed him after his heart attack, how it made him feel...powerful.

"Ah," the boy said as he read the expression on his face, "I see you are starting to get the picture. You went to sleep dreaming of a miracle, and a miracle is exactly what you got. You woke up to a bottle of pure mental energy, distilled by the well of your imagination."
"But I don't know where it is now; I lost it," Howard said. It was different now; his mind was spinning, while all around him the darkness that was the Adversary grew closer. He could feel it now; it was beginning to feed into the tendrils that held him to the land. It was draining his will.

"No," the younger Howard said, "you were just so distracted, you misplaced it." The boy reached out of his view, and then drew his arm back to reveal a familiar plastic container. "Good thing I remembered where it was," he said. He held it up so Howard could see the liquid inside. "See, there's plenty of it left, and a little of this stuff goes a long way."

"But drinking the water is only half of it," the boy said, as he twisted the cap off the bottle. "The other half is the harder part, Howard, because you have to believe."

The boy brought the top of the bottle down to touch his lips. "You have to believe the way you did when you were young, the way you did when you were me, when the world was anything you imagined it to be. You used to be able to do that. It is the only way to survive here, the only way you will have a chance to get home again."

The world was fading. Darkness claimed his vision, rushed up through the filaments erupting from his body to fill his mind. Then, there was the sensation of water flowing over his lips, and suddenly it was as if pure, white light were filling his mouth, his throat. It spread through his tissues, burned away the darkness. Howard felt his mind clear, felt the cancerous entity as it pulled away from him in pain and surprise, felt it as it withdrew its connection to him.

As it did, he felt the tendrils shrink and diminish. From his position on the ground, he watched as those within the range of his vision began first to wither, then to crystallize. There was a crackling sound as they began to fall from his flesh like leaves dislodged from their tenuous hold upon their parent tree by an autumn breeze.

"That's it," the younger Howard said. "See, you still have it in you, after all this time, that power to believe. That is why the Adversary wanted you, and that is why we're going to beat it in the end. You won't have much time, though. It will do its best to stop you before you can escape its influence. Remember what I said."

Howard almost did not hear; light was filling his body, flowing through his veins, illuminating his mind. It felt as if electricity were coursing through his body, a blaze of raw power. He found he could move again, and turned toward the boy. Light was beginning to fill the air all around them, the individual colors draining away to be replaced by a gleaming brilliance, the same brilliance that burned within him. He could feel his present reality starting to fade; his mind was pulling away.

The dream was ending.

Yet there was still one thing he needed to know, one question that remained unanswered. It was a question he knew he had to resolve, one he had read in the eyes of his former self. As the world brightened around him and began to fade, he pulled himself back, forced his mind to hold on for one final moment, so he could give that question a voice.

"Why?" he asked. "You said I locked you away, that I always ran from you, from that part of myself, yet you helped me. Why?"

"That's a silly question," the boy answered, smiling. "I am you, and I want to live, just as you do. I want to grow up. Also, because you did lock me away, you kept me safe, made it harder for the Adversary to get to me, to us, and for that, I owe you one. Even if you do piss me off from time to time." He smiled again, a grim smile that Howard could barely see in that brilliant, background glow. "I want to grow up," he said again, his voice coming from far away now. "Things are going to change. When you get back, things are going to be very different."

Howard wanted to ask what this meant, but it was too late; the land faded away, and the younger boy was gone.

White fire filled the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Howard felt as if he was falling, and then pain flooded his nervous system. He groaned, opened one crusted eye, and blinked the image into focus. The blur of color solidified, took form to display the remains of his shattered windshield. He was back in the Continental, lying half-curled in the long bench seat. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something that moved at the edge of his vision. It took him a moment to realize it was his own hand, red and swollen, the skin nearly gangrenous. His fingers twitched in time with his heartbeat. He willed it to stop, and after a moment, it did.

_How long have I been lying here?_ _Why am I not dead?_

He remembered he had been near the end when he had finally fallen unconscious; radiation sickness had decimated his body. He had been dehydrated, his skin blistered, almost falling from his bones, his lungs filled with phlegm. He had barely retained the presence of mind to put the old girl into Park and turn off the ignition. Afterwards, he had begun to slip away, and had experienced that crazy dream.

Now he was awake again, and although he was still in considerable pain, it was nothing compared to the agony he had experienced prior to his collapse. His lungs felt clearer now, and he could breathe much easier. He felt nauseous, but it soon faded, along with the pain from his blistered and ravaged flesh.

After a while, he felt he could survive if he sat up. Howard struggled to move, winced at the stiffness in his joints. The air was sharp in his nose, and he knew he had soiled himself while he was unconscious. His skin was almost pasted to the leather by a thick crust of dried bile, the leather upholstery forever ruined. He did not care. All that mattered now was that somehow, he might still have a fighting chance; as impossible as it seemed, he might still make it back home.

As he began to battle his cramped and aching muscles in an effort to raise his body, he felt something shift from where it had been sitting on the seat between his arm and chest, just before it fell against the side of his face. The object was solid, but did not strike him hard enough to cause him pain, merely a moment of surprise. He knew the object in question had not been on the seat when he had fallen over; almost everything on the seat had been tossed onto the floorboards much earlier. Then, as understanding settled in, surprise turned to wonder.

It was the plastic bottle he had filled in the desert.

Howard groped for the bottle, and almost dropped it. He tried again, and managed to hold onto it on the second try. He pulled the container up to where he could look at it. The plastic bottle was as he had last seen it, sealed with a bright blue plastic cap that announced he might be a winner in white, silk-screened letters, part of a marketing scheme common to many types of commercially produced drinks.

_Yes._ _I might still be a winner yet._

He had drunk from the container only sparingly, and then had somehow lost track of it. He remembered taking care to make sure the bottle was properly closed; he had known that water would be a most precious commodity in this realm, a theory proven correct with time.

Howard recalled that even though the solar still had worked far beyond his expectations back in the desert, he had still worried that the water collected in it might be tainted. He had only drank from the bottle as a last resort, when all his other liquids had been depleted, and he had no other choice but drink the water, or die.

Then, he remembered the rest, how he had drank from the bottle after his heart attack, how the freshness of the liquid had refreshed him, the surprise he had felt at how it had tasted fresher, purer, than anything he had ever tasted, as if light were pouring into his cells. He had attributed this to his near-brush with death, or perhaps the state of semi-delirium he had suffered from since his entry into the land of nightmare, just another facet of a long, strange dream.

But dreams had power here, didn't they? Everything he had experienced here had shown him this was the truth. The memory of his younger self replayed in his mind, images from a dream within a dream.

It was that taste of clarity, of pure, white light, that still lingered on his tongue; the flavor spread through the tissues of his mouth, soothed them as it had in his dream. Somehow, he had managed to drink almost half the bottle while unconscious. It was ridiculous, of course, since he had not the slightest clue where the bottle had been when he collapsed, but somehow, he had still managed to retrieve it. He had managed not only to find the bottle, but had also removed the cap, and drank from it, an act that went against common sense and logic.

Unless, somehow, it had been given to him.

Howard turned this possibility over in his mind, and discovered he did not like thinking about it all. By all rights, he should have been dead, or at the very least, just on the near side of dead, not lying on a bile-encrusted seat, pondering the strength and meaning of dreams. He felt if he tried to look at it all, he would go mad. Thylacines the size of lions, floating jellyfish and lycanthropic toll-takers; any of these were enough to send his mind spinning.

Dreams that were somehow more than dreams, an entire world, a dimension, that was shaped by imagination, where voices spoke through radios, and unimaginable creatures prowled the darkness. He considered the dark intelligence his mind had touched only briefly, yet had threatened to steal his sanity. If he looked at it all, or attempted to examine any part of it for too long, he would become lost in it.

It was all just too weird.

Somewhere inside him, his twelve-year-old self spoke.

_You have to learn to believe_ , the young Howard said. _You have to believe the way you did when you were young, when the world was anything you imagined it to be. You used to be able to do that once upon a time. It is the only way to survive here, the only way you will have a chance to get home again_.

It was his only chance, his only hope.

Howard wondered if that were possible. He had spent the majority of his life keeping that part of himself locked away, until he believed it no longer existed at all. The dreams had changed all that.

He pulled his head and shoulders up, and tilted the bottle toward his face, allowed the water inside to trickle into his mouth.

_Believe_. _I have to believe_.

Even in the half-light of the cave, he could see small sparkles of light spinning in the bottle as he raised the container to his lips.

Pure energy—distilled from your imagination.

Believe.

He drank, and marveled that the water was as cold as if it had just been drawn from a deep, wooded spring, rather than the sandy wasteland of a desert several days before. The water was so cold, his teeth sang with it. The tortured flesh of his throat joined in harmony as the fluid washed over each individual cell, obliterated his thirst in its clear, icy purity. His hunger dissipated into a soft, warm glow in the pit of his stomach, and the glow brought with it an incredible sense of calm and wellbeing that replaced his pain and fatigue with a feeling of strength and focus. His entire body filled with a bright, clear light, his suffering burned away in the gleaming radiance that emanated from deep within his being.

This sensation grew within him, reached out through his limbs, spread from his bones outward to his skin. In the dim light, Howard watched as the open sores that covered his arms began to heal before his eyes; the ragged flesh closed, the blisters faded, as if he were watching a film being run in reverse. He stared in astonishment as flakes of dead skin, the remains of cracked and peeled flesh, drifted from his arms like snow to land to land on the seat, and across the legs of his soiled trousers. The soreness in his ankle, the ache in his jaw from the tooth that had been pulled from his mouth at the tollbooth, the pains from all the wounds and suffering he had endured here, all vanished within that glow.

Pure energy.

Howard could feel that energy now; it crackled through his body and within his mind like inner lightning, filling him with power. He was acutely aware of his body healing, of the bones knitting in his ankle, the skin growing over the horrific burns that covered his body, the remainder of the radiation mysteriously draining away as his tissues began to rebuild.

He felt every hair that sprouted from his skin, every crack and blister as they closed. He was aware of every whorl and ridge of his fingerprints, felt the individual pumping motions of his heart, was even conscious of the bacteria that lived in his intestines, the mites that lived on his eyelashes. He could feel the extent of the damage to his organs caused by the radiation, knew how intimately he had embraced death, how close his body had come to shutting down.

His awareness was increasing to a degree he had never experienced before, a plateau of personal knowledge he never believed possible until that moment. He felt his cells rejuvenate as the power of the water coursed through them. He closed his eyes and moaned softly, unaware of the sound.

_Believe_.

He lifted the bottle to his mouth, and drank again.

The awareness within him continued to expand, and as Howard filled his mouth with that crystalline radiance, allowed it to spill down his throat once more, it exploded in a rush, grew beyond his body to encompass everything around him, even the land itself. He felt the dark stone of the mountains that pressed down around him, felt the way the cave wound its way within their rocky core. He felt the heat of the magma as it flowed deep within the mountain's heart, was aware of where the cave exited the range, and of the highway stretching out into the grasslands beyond.

He could sense the wind as it caressed the stony soil of the mountainside, felt it as it rustled through the grass of the fields that lay at their base, and through the fur of the giant Thylacines that waited for him in a great pack at the tunnel's exit. He felt the heat of their yellow and black bodies as they glowed in the light of the crimson sun.

The pack was enormous. He could see them in his mind's eye; their bodies undulating in a great mass as they prowled about, anxious for the hunt to begin. They had been called here, he knew, summoned by the same dark entity that had pursued him since his entry into this strange realm, the same malevolent force that had drawn him here. He felt that force even now, on the fringes of his new awareness, far away, confused and angry that its prey had managed to elude it once again, when so many others had failed.

At the touch of that dark presence, Howard pulled away, forced his new perceptions to draw back into himself. He reacted on instinct, pulling his hand back as if from a flame, fearing his Adversary would sense him. In that brief moment of contact, he was given another glimpse into the mind of the entity itself, and though it lasted but an instant, he saw much, more than enough to know it would find him soon.

He had to act. Now.

Howard pulled away from the leather of the seat, and through the glow that permeated his tissues, felt the muscles in his calves and thighs creak with the effort. The amazing power of the water had healed the damage to his body, but his muscles were still stiff. With the container of the marvelous liquid tucked between his knees, he retrieved the plastic cap from the seat and twisted it onto its neck. The small container had saved his life, and there was no way to be certain he would not need such assistance again. He felt it would be best to keep it close at hand; he could not afford to lose it a second time.

With the bottle properly sealed, he wedged the container into the space where the backrest and the seat cushions met, checked to make sure the bottle was held fast, and moved on to the matter of the windshield. In his collision with the cave walls, what remained of the glass had become nothing more than a web of cracks. A large section of it had fallen into the vehicle, and came to rest in chunks among the trash on the floorboards. Some of it had scattered in small bits and pieces on the seat, the dashboard, even the armrests on the door panels. What remained was held in place by the thin sheet of plastic that ran through its core. It served no purpose now, and would likely pose a hazard should he attempt to drive; a stiff wind, or any solid impact, even a heavy bump, would send glass flying into his face. Better to dispose of what was left than to take any chances.

Before performing this task, Howard took time to knead his calf and thigh muscles. The feeling of pins and needles was distant and lost within the slowly fading radiance that filled him. When the last of the sensation had left his muscles, he pulled his travel case up from where it had come to rest on the passenger side floorboard, folded the halves of the case closed, and secured the latches. He gripped the case with both hands, and swung it onto what was left of the Continental's windshield.

At first impact, a large section of the glass broke free with a crunch and folded back upon itself. He drew the case back again, and aimed farther to his left. On the second strike, the glass gave way entirely; the remainder of the windshield tore free, and slid along the long hood before it fell off to the side with a crash. The sounds were loud as they echoed along the walls of the cave.

As he pulled the case back to its former place on the seat, a feeling of nervous excitement rushed through him; he knew it was the reaction of the Thylacine pack to the sound. They had heard the echoes, and knew their prey was near. He felt the change in their emotions with his new senses, amplified by the energy contained within the water. The touch of his new ability upon their feral consciousness disturbed and repulsed him, even more than the discovery he had soiled his underwear during the course of his coma, but these were not important; there were more serious matters to attend to at present.

He had to get moving. In his contact with the entity he had come to know as the Adversary, he had seen a depth of malevolence and cunning he never imagined possible. It was searching for him, and it would not stop until it found him.

With the windshield removed, and his view ahead of the Lincoln now clear, Howard placed his foot on the accelerator and turned the key to the start position.

Nothing happened.

Howard turned the key back, then turned it forward once more. Again, there was nothing, no sound of the starter motor turning, no click of relays—nothing.

Pulled from the jaws of death, only to be stranded by a dead battery.

Even with the aid of the strange water that coursed through his system, he could not possibly survive for long without a means of transportation.

Howard turned the key back to the accessory position, tried the dashboard lights, and the instruments there glowed with soft light. He experimented with the controls set in the in driver's side armrest. The Continental had come with every electrical convenience of the day, from electric mirrors, to electric door locks and seat controls. These functioned perfectly, and proved the battery was indeed working. The battery gauge did not flutter as he tested these. The problem, therefore, was not the battery; it had to be something else.

He was about to turn off the ignition when he noticed the gear indicator was not in its proper position, over the 'P' on the indicator strip, as would be when the vehicle was in gear. He pulled the gearshift lever forward, and then down until the needle sat over the Neutral position, then slid the lever back into Park. He turned the key again, and was relieved to hear the starter motor begin to turn over. Then, almost as quickly, his relief died away as the motor continued to turn, but refused to start.

Howard looked at the fuel gauge, and his fears were confirmed; the needle stood on the empty mark.

What was to be done? Gasoline was not something he was likely to find; it was not like he could just pull into a gas station and say 'fill her up'. If he had been able to scavenge fuel from the abandoned automobiles back in the town of Splitsville, then he might not be in his current predicament, but unless he could somehow pull gasoline out of thin air, he might have to give up the protection of the Lincoln.

He knew he would never be able to accomplish such a feat, but there might be another answer. His brother David and his wife had given him a wide assortment of automotive accessories through the years: speakers, his travel bag, first aid kit, a hydraulic jack, and a roadside emergency kit. He accepted them all with good grace, and although he never believed he would have use for most of them, kept those items to please them. This was fortunate, for he was now in a place where his Triple-A membership would be of no use, and their gifts had served him in ways they would never have expected, nor believed.

Among those items, as part of his roadside emergency supplies, were flares, jumper cables, a poncho, a hand-crank flashlight, duct tape, a can of liquid rubber under pressure, used to temporarily inflate and repair flat tires, and, most importantly, a container of a concoction known as 'Extra Fuel'. This non-flammable liquid, when added to even a minute amount of gasoline, made a mixture that was the equivalent of a 91-octane automobile fuel. This product could be kept in a hot trunk, without fear of ignition from excess heat, and could be stored for up to ten years. Howard had been presented with this item almost four years ago, and had never had cause to use it until now.

Howard popped the trunk lid from within the Lincoln, looked along both directions of the tunnel, and after being assured he was alone, opened the door and stepped out onto the asphalt. He walked to the rear of the Continental, lifted the lid, and pulled out the red nylon bag given to him by his sibling and his wife for his birthday. He opened the plastic latches, and pulled back the top flap to expose the contents within. He pushed aside a set of jumper cables, a flashlight, and the can of tire sealant, freed the gray plastic container, and placed it to the side. He closed the case, closed the latches, removed the container, and closed the trunk. He removed the gas cap, and twisted off the top to the bottle. The container featured a pull-out funnel; he extended this, inserted the tip into the fuel nozzle, and emptied the contents.

When the bottle was empty, he replaced the gas cap and the top to the container. He started to toss the bottle away, but then reconsidered, and dropped the bottle into the back of the car. Something about the idea of leaving material traces of his passage disturbed him. This brought with it the memory of his cell phone, and he frowned.

The instructions printed on the side of the container warned against using the product on a cold engine, but Howard did not have any choice; he just had to hope for the best. After all, he had got better than five hundred miles per gallon with nothing better then unleaded, so he was confident the Extra Fuel would be more than sufficient to get him past the pack waiting for him at the end of the tunnel. After that, he would just have to take it one step at a time.

Howard pushed down on the back of the Lincoln several times, rocked the vehicle back and forth on its springs. This would help mix the contents of the container with any remaining gasoline in the tank. Satisfied he had accomplished this goal, he walked back to the open door, and slid into his place behind the steering wheel.

_This will work_. _It'll do more than just start the car. This stuff will be like rocket fuel._

This was more than just wishful thinking, more than a mere hope; he knew it to be true, believed it to the core of his being. He could feel it, deep inside. He had made peace with this land, understood it now in a way he never had before. He had seen what he needed to see.

Now, it was time to go home.

He closed the driver's side door, and pulled the seat belt around his mid-section. He stared out of the space where the windshield had been, contemplated how much had changed since he had awakened to find a highway he did not recognize. The mere idea of stepping out of the Lincoln had once terrified him, but now, he gave it no more consideration than crossing the street in his own world. It seemed almost funny now.

Almost.

Howard reached up, and turned the key. The motor began to turn over, and then, as he pressed the accelerator, the engine awoke with a roar, and sent its familiar vibration through the floorboards.

_Yeah, baby_.

The deep-throated purr filled his awakened senses.

You've never let me down. Not even once, after all you've been through.

As grateful as he was to hear the engine start, he knew the damage done to the automobile would have to catch up to her sooner or later. The engine had a strained edge to its normal throaty purr, and the trials she had been forced to suffer had left her wounded. With his new senses, he could tell she was bleeding, slowly leaking vital fluids. She had carried him through things that would have finished a lesser vehicle, and though she had survived, she had been damaged in ways that could not be fixed. Even if he managed to get back to his own world, she would never be the same again.

Howard glanced at the dashboard, and felt a pang of sadness. The temperature and oil pressure lights flickered in time with the engine's revolutions, and the gas gauge stood poised on the empty mark.

"Just a little farther, baby," he said. "Just a little farther. It will all be over soon."

One way or the other, it would be over soon.

He shifted the Continental into Drive, and pulled away from the tunnel wall with a squeal of metal. He discovered the headlights had been rendered useless, likely as a result of his final collisions with the cave walls, but he could see quite well without their aid. The reason for this became clear as he rounded a turn in the tunnel, and was confronted by the sight of a bright circle of light, less than a quarter mile away, that signaled the end of the tunnel.

As he drove closer, Howard could see the highway continued for some distance beyond the circle of light, only to be swallowed by the moving sea of yellow and black that was the Thylacine pack.

Howard brought the Lincoln to a stop and shifted into Park. He watched the great crowd of animals that milled about beyond the exit to the tunnel. The creatures moved in a restless mass as they waited for their prey to appear. He doubted they could see far enough into the cave to spot him, and that was good, because it was important they did not see him until he was ready. He had a surprise for the monsters outside the tunnel, a plan—if it could be called one—that would ensure his escape.

In his final coma, he had dreamed, and in this dream, he had been told the only way to survive was to believe. He now knew the full meaning of that message.

The time had come to test the truth of those words, and the limits of his belief.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Howard unfastened his seat belt, opened the driver's side door, and stepped out onto the highway once again as he kept an eye on the disk of light at the end of the tunnel. When he was certain none of the creatures outside would dare venture into the confines of the cave, he turned back to the Lincoln, reached down to the seat release lever, and pulled the driver's side seat forward. He reached inside the rear seat area, and retrieved his suit jacket.

As his fingers grasped the once immaculate material, he glanced down to see the bloated head of the decapitated Thylacine resting on the rear floorboard. He paused to stare at the gore-covered relic for a moment, before he pulled the jacket from its resting place, and draped it over the grisly remnant of the pack's ambush. Covered in cloth, the head became just a shadowy lump. He reached in with both hands, rolled the head into the tailored fabric, and hefted it from the Lincoln's interior.

With the creature's head cradled in the jacket, he carried it to the front of the Continental, and set the bundle on the hood. The sight of the mangled front end of the vehicle tore at his heart. The interior of the Lincoln may have become less than immaculate during his longer ventures on the road, but he had always taken care to keep his baby in perfect running condition. Now, she looked like she had been discovered sitting in a junkyard.

_It's going to be okay, baby_. W _e're going home soon._

Gone were the distinctive lines of the Lincoln's front end, lost in torn and twisted metal. The chrome grille that covered the radiator was long gone, the bumper bent and twisted in opposite directions. The damage was extensive enough to make Howard wonder how she had managed to continue running. Where the hood ornament, once a talisman of Howard's independence, had been, was a sharp spike of folded steel where the metal had been bent and torn away. Howard stared at this, his eyes narrowed, as he unwrapped the object in the jacket.

Still unable to touch the dead flesh of the creature with his bare hands, Howard gripped the decayed head of the Thylacine through the fabric of the jacket, clutching it by its ears. He looked it in the face for a moment, his expression grim, and then drove the severed head down onto the spike of metal with all his strength.

Howard retrieved his jacket from the hood, stepped back, placed his foot on the remainder of the bumper, and used his weight to rock the Lincoln back and forth. The head did not move; it was held fast onto the front of the car.

"There you go," he said, his voice almost a whisper, "serves your ass right, you furry dirtbag."

The severed head of the Tasmanian tiger grinned back at him in reply from its new resting place, its eyes black holes of malice.

_Now that's one hell of a hood ornament_ ; _or rather, a hood ornament from hell._

He walked back to the driver's side door, and tossed the jacket onto the rear seat, pulled the front seat back to its former position, and slipped into the Lincoln's leather appointed interior. He did not harbor any hope the jacket could be cleaned; even if the stains could be removed, no amount of cleaning could wash away the knowledge it had once held such a nightmarish parcel. He knew he should throw it away; it was nothing more than a rag now, but he refused to leave anything more in this place.

He pulled the door closed, tugged the seat belt into place once again, and shifted the Lincoln into Drive, all without taking his eyes from the new addition to the front end. There was no turning back now. There never had been. It was time to find out if his dreams were truth, or mere delusions. It was time to stop being afraid, and fight back.

Time to live, or die.

Howard took his foot from the brake pedal, and the Continental lurched as it began to move. The circle of light at the end of the tunnel began to grow larger, and the sea of yellow and black that was the Thylacine pack resolved itself into individual animals. There were thousands of them, all waiting for him. They yipped to one another in short, sharp barks and guttural whines as he approached. The pack was aware their prey was drawing nearer, and their excitement grew as he closed the distance between them.

Without the windshield, with no barrier between driver and the outside, the moving air brought the odor of fetid death into Howard's nostrils. Dark and oily, it joined the other smells that washed into the tunnel from the pack outside, a miasma of dirt and feces, of hot breath and barely-contained ferocity.

Howard did not notice this, however; his mind was on other things as he traversed the final length of the tunnel. He did not register the smells, the noises caused by the horde of animals outside the cave. Instead, he concentrated on the feeling of power he felt when he drank the water he collected from the solar still, his focus centered on the front end of the Lincoln, and what lay beyond. The grisly hood ornament pointed like a gun sight toward his target.

_You have to learn to believe_. The words echoed in his mind again, an echo of his dream. _You have to believe the way you did when you were young, when the world was anything you imagined it to be. You have to remember how to do that again. It is the only way to survive here, the only way you will have a chance to get home again._

_The only way home—the only way to survive_.

He focused his mind, and the words faded, to be replaced with a voice that was his own and yet not his own, the voice of the man he was now, but also of the boy he had once been. _I'm a Tasmanian tiger_ , this new voice, so different and yet so familiar, said as he covered the last yards of the tunnel. _I am the biggest and meanest son of a bitch to ever prowl this forsaken world. I've woken hungry and pissed off, and anything that doesn't want to become breakfast better get the hell out of my way._

Howard did more than just think these words. In his mind's eye, he saw himself transformed into one of the great marsupial predators, his body long and lean, with rows of teeth that flashed in the sun, and yellow and black fur that rippled in the wind.

"I am the Alpha Tiger", he whispered, unaware he spoke aloud, "I am death on four legs."

He had moved beyond simple reasoning, beyond mere visualization. He could feel the muscles in his legs as they flexed, could feel the breeze moving his fur in rippling waves. He did not _think_ he was a member of the pack outside—he _was_ one.

Then, the tunnel ended, and the creatures closest to the exit turned to greet the Lincoln as it emerged.

The pack was restless; it had been days since the creatures had been summoned, and still no prey had appeared. Always before, the pack had been rewarded when they had been called, but this time, they had been made to wait, and their patience diminished as their hunger increased.

Their hunger made them bold, but not so bold as to enter the cave, for the tunnel was full of the Black Smell, and those of the pack who ventured too close to the Black Smell were never seen again. Many approached the entrance, however; they paced back and forth, gnashed their teeth and barked challenges into the darkness.

Now, the pack was aware of the noises that emanated from the opening; they knew their prey was near.

As the source of the sound drew closer, a wave of anticipation swept through the pack. Those creatures closest to the tunnel opening crouched into an attack stance, their fangs bared, limbs poised, prepared to spring. The pack readied itself to attack as something came out of the cave, and into the harsh light of the sun.

But what came out of the cave was not prey, but a Great Male, larger than all the Clan Fathers who had led their individual packs to gather for this hunt. Those closest to the tunnel mouth backed away at once, their heads and tails lowered; some even rolled over to present their undersides as the huge male passed. Those farther away began to back away as well, did not dare to look the Great Male in the eye; they knew to do so would be seen as a challenge. Several of the larger Clan Fathers bristled as the larger creature approached, but then it roared, its outcry booming off the cliffs that divided the landscape, and they backed away as well.

_I'll eat every one of you_.

Howard's mind was fully engaged in his fantasy, his eyes focused just beyond the severed Thylacine head on the hood.

_Bow and scrape before me. If any of you shit-lickers so much as look me in the eye, and I will rip out your guts and eat them while you watch_.

He was the nastiest creature alive, and he was on the prowl, looking for prey.

He growled at a larger animal that stood with its hackles raised.

You want some of this? I will tear you up, boy. You better just back the hell up before I chomp on your ass.

The large predator backed away, as did all those near the Continental. They kept their heads down, growled and whined softly as the Great Male glided by; its limbs flowing smoothly over the black ground they loathed to touch. They continued to back away from it as it followed the strip of hard, dark ground that led from the cave into the grasslands beyond, and made no move to challenge its progress. The other predators parted like a yellow and black sea before a marsupial Moses, lining up on either side of the highway, their heads bowed. Their eyes rolled in their sockets, and foam dripped from their tongues as he passed them.

Howard possessed only the barest awareness of the vehicle. He no longer felt his hands on the steering wheel, but instead felt large, clawed paws as they touched down on the hard asphalt. He was no longer surrounded by the Continental's interior, but walked in the open air; he could feel the wind as it rustled through his fur, could smell it as it passed through his muzzle, and filled it with a hundred odors as it entered his lungs. His forked tongue lolled over the double row of teeth, hot saliva dripped from it as he swung his head from side to side. He felt his muscles bunch and coil under his fur as he sauntered, large and lean and ever so mean, along the dark ribbon of highway.

The creatures continued to move away from him, opening a path through their ranks. For almost ten minutes, he passed unopposed through their midst, surrounded on either side for as far as the rolling, craggy landscape allowed. The sheer number of the animals made the group that attacked him earlier look like a litter of pups by comparison. None dared to interfere as Howard, the Great Male, walked among them. The largest of their kind, he snapped and growled, dared any of the lesser animals to get in his way. His intent was clear; he would blood the attacker, and let the frenzy take the rest. There were none that had the strength to face him.

The last of the Thylacines came into view. Beyond the final few ranks, there was nothing but the open road. None of the creatures moved to attack him. The Continental, in the guise of the largest Great Male the creatures had ever seen, moved unscathed through the vast array. The pack milled about, confused, in its wake. Far behind, many of the creatures that had cowered at the Great Male's approach snarled and snapped at others near them in an attempt to regain their place. Teeth flashed, followed by cries of pain.

As Howard cleared the animals, a roar rumbled across the land, and cut into his consciousness.

"NO!" the voice of the Adversary screamed, "HE'S RIGHT THERE, YOU FLEA-INFESTED SHITHOUNDS! RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! STOP HIM! STOP HIM RIGHT NOW! TEAR HIM LIMB FROM LIMB AND FEAST ON HIS ENTRAILS!"

The booming voice broke Howard out of his near-trance, shattered his carefully crafted illusion. The creatures nearest to the Continental began to move in his direction, timidly at first, and then with increasing confidence. Howard stomped the accelerator pedal, and the Lincoln shot away from the pack as the remainder of the creatures mobilized. They barked calls to each other as they ran. Their jaws frothed. The severed head he had affixed to the hood lost its grip to the wind, and spun away to land on the asphalt, where it was pounced upon by several of the huge marsupial predators.

The closest animals held pace with the Lincoln for the first few hundred yards, but then began to lose ground. They fell back, the swarming mass of animals crashed in a yellow and black wave on the side of a hill. The Continental topped the rise, free of the pack, at seventy miles an hour, and by the time it reached the next hill, the speedometer needle was sitting on the far side of ninety.

Beyond the hills, the landscape settled into a great, grassy plain. As the Continental crested the last rise, and Howard's stomach took another sick leap, he caught a glimpse of a dark line that cut across the land in the distance. The line continued as far as he could see in either direction. It was likely a river, fed by springs in the mountains behind him. Where the highway met the line, Howard saw the thin thread of a bridge.

_There it is_ , _the end of the Adversary's range. If I can just make it beyond that line, I'll be beyond its reach._

Howard had discovered much since his arrival. He had learned he was traveling through a land formed by dreams, a land transformed by the power of imagination. This power was great enough to give life to images from his memory, to create a physical incarnation of his childhood map. Since learning this, Howard had suspected this signified the limits of his Adversary's power, a suspicion that had been confirmed during his contact with that dark entity.

He had driven through the last of the points of interest on that long-ago drawing; beyond the City of Mutants, there had only been a series of triangular shapes drawn in brown to signify the mountain range, and the tunnel. There had been little room to draw anything else, so he had colored the paper green from the tunnel to the edge of the paper. If the distances were proportional to the original map, and he believed it was, then the line that crossed the land would be where he would expect to find the paper's edge, and if that were true, it meant he might be near the end of his journey. This last was just supposition, but it gave him hope, and hope was now as valuable a commodity as water, fuel, or oxygen.

Using his newfound senses, he explored the land ahead. He could feel the earth thrum with the vibrations of the Lincoln as it raced along the asphalt. These vibrations faded as they traveled away from the speeding automobile, toward the point where the dark line cut through the grasslands.

As his perception spread out further, revulsion and disgust spread through him. It spread through the land and through his senses like venom. He pulled his senses back as he had in his dream, and his body began to spasm. He felt fouled, as if his body, his very soul, had been submerged in sewage. He knew, even before the thunderclap shattered the air, before the sound of its fury caused the Lincoln to shudder in time with its staccato roar, the dark entity had caught up with him at last.

Green fire lit the sky, followed by the crash of thunder. Howard turned his head, searching for the source, and was shocked, appalled, by what he saw. Dark clouds raced over the mountaintops, spreading like a tumor in the sky behind him. Green lightning lanced from the clouds to stab the earth. Even at this distance, he could see the effects this had on the Thylacines; the great hunting collective was falling apart. Great swaths of animals broke away in random directions. Many of the animals fought amongst themselves in fear. They tore and clawed at each other, panicked by the aerial event.

Howard was both horrified and fascinated by the display, but could not afford to be distracted. He was close now, and his Adversary knew it. In his contact with that dark intelligence, he had learned much. He had learned it was old, old beyond imagining, and had been slowly growing in power. It fed upon the psyches of those unfortunate enough to be caught within its domain. As strong as it was, it was not all-powerful; it had limits, boundaries to its abilities. Like himself, it was capable of feeling anger and frustration, even fear, emotions that were very similar to his own.

He had also learned that it was completely insane.

More clouds, dark purple and black, roiled against the yellow sky, pouring from beyond the mountains to fill the horizon. The sky crackled with green fire as lightning forked from their depths to pierce the hills below. Thunderclaps followed each strike in an unholy din.

The ground under the Lincoln shook with violent convulsions, causing Howard to swerve, and forcing him to reduce his speed. The road continued to vibrate, making it difficult to stay on the highway. Even so, he was compelled to look behind him again; he needed to understand what was happening.

_Earthquake_ — _the bastard is trying to swallow me with an earthquake_.

As he looked back that second time, Howard saw that he was mistaken. What he saw behind him was the last thing he expected, and worse than he could imagine.

Behind him, the mountain range was lost behind a wall of dark, bruised clouds, from which green fire rained down upon the grasslands in hot, jagged arcs. Wherever the lightning fire touched the earth, the ground tore upward, as if struck by a bomb. Great chunks of earth and rock hurtled into the air, along with scores of helpless Thylacines. Debris filled the air in swirling streams, which grew thicker by the moment, as if stirred by tornado winds. They formed great twisted bands of rock, soil, plants, and animals. As these bands rose farther into the air, they coalesced into thicker and thicker strands, where they eventually combined into a central mass, suspended far above the plain. There was a pattern to the flying rubble, a pattern just beyond his ability to recognize.

Howard was on the verge of understanding that pattern when the Continental listed suddenly, and he was forced again to fight the wheel as the passenger side tires left the asphalt. He lowered his speed again, brought the Lincoln to thirty miles an hour as he turned the tires back onto the highway's surface. When he was safely back in the center of the lanes, he risked another glance behind him. The shape made by the flying rubble was plainly visible now, unmistakable despite the distance and the motion of the automobile. The sight of it sent shivers through his body. Ripples of fear and unbelief tore through his being.

What he saw behind him now was a giant humanoid figure, a colossus of stone and earth, more than three hundred feet tall.

As he watched, it began to move toward him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Green lightning danced through the air; illuminating the great earthen Colossus in lurid detail. Crude facial features were outlined in glowing emerald, contrasted by deep shadows. There were recesses where the eyes should be, a cavernous mouth, a boulder of a nose. The features were roughly formed, like a figure in clay sculpted by a young child, but there was nothing childish about its expression; it bore a look of crude but deadly purpose.

The lightning and thunderclaps died away as the figure ambulated across the plain. As each of the figure's blunt, massive feet crashed down, it made a sound louder than any thunder, and the shock of each stride caused the ground to shake.

It was coming after him.

The booming cadence of the earthen giant's footfalls increased in tempo as it moved faster. The shockwaves caused by its steps made the steering wheel vibrate painfully in Howard's hands. He fought to maintain control of the Lincoln; limbs that were palsied and weak from radiation exposure less than hour before now gripped the wheel with newfound strength, another gift bestowed upon him by the water that had both healed him and ended his coma.

Even with his senses and reflexes heightened, he was hard pressed to keep the Lincoln on the asphalt. He could not think; there was no time. He had time only to act. Each step the Colossus took translated into an earthquake, and caused the ground to leap away from under the Continental's tires.

"Damn it!" Howard exclaimed as the highway bucked underneath him. "Damn it! Shit! Son of a bitch!"

He did not hear the words, was not even aware he was saying them; he was focused only on the task of survival. His body was thrown against the seat belt time and time again. The straps bit into his shoulder and gut, made him nauseous. His attention fully engaged, he did not see the Colossus crest the foothills, did not see how it stormed over the shallow swells like an angry Titan. The Lincoln swayed back and forth in response to the steps of its pursuer, crossed over onto the shoulder, then back again. The tires skirted the edge of the asphalt, sometimes leaving the surface of the road altogether.

Thunder boomed, cracking the air, and Howard winced as he felt the air pressure change. He was terrified; he now knew the power against which he faced, and his fear escalated when he realized the crashes of thunder in his ears were words, spoke at a volume beyond what the human ear was meant to withstand.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME?" the voice of the Adversary boomed, the sound so loud it rattled the Lincoln's windows. "YOU THINK YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BEAT ME, LITTLE MAN? I WILL SHOW YOU WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BEATEN! I WILL TEACH YOU THE TRUE MEANING OF DESPAIR!" The voice was raw rage that tore through the air with ear-splitting force. "I WILL STAMP YOU INTO THE GROUND UNTIL YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A STAIN! I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING YOU ARE!"

Howard gripped the wheel, his jaw clenched, and his knuckles white with strain. Behind him, the Colossus continued its pursuit; each of its strides covered scores of yards, its feet slamming into the ground with the force of a bomb with every step.

He understood why his Adversary had chosen not to kill him with an earthquake, for such was within its power, but instead tried to take him in the ways it had, rather than kill him outright. The dark force had always meant to kill him, but a quick death had never been its intent. No, his Adversary wanted him to die while experiencing the greatest fear of his life, for him to die in the most painful, frightening way possible. The entity needed those emotions, wanted to drain him not only of feeling, but also take from him those parts he had kept hidden and locked away. The death of his body was but the final stroke, after it had harvested all it could from his psyche.

No, his Adversary was anything but an indiscriminate killer; it chose it victims with care. It wanted to feed on their emotions as well as their imagination, wanted to drink in their fear, savor every last drop of their terror. This dimension contained many dangerous things, but the land itself, like Mother Nature, was brutally neutral. The land may have been transformed, changed by the power of imagination, but it did not commit murder. It was a sanctuary for dreams, perhaps the source of all dreams in every possible Universe, but it did not deliberately pull victims through dimensional barriers; these were the machinations of a different, darker force. This force had pulled him not only across distance, but had pulled him through planes of existence to feed on his mind, to feast on all the fear that could be found within the rich, fresh imagination of the twelve-year-old boy he had locked within his subconscious.

Howard had managed to thwart those plans time and again, had managed not only to escape the dark malignance, but had somehow even managed to hurt it. Now, as the secret to these events were beginning to become clear, as he neared the limit of his Adversary's influence over this dimension, it abandoned its careful planning. Enraged and desperate, it now wanted nothing more than to destroy the meager life form that had caused it so much frustration, regardless of cost.

A glance over his shoulder was enough to convince Howard his speed would not be sufficient to escape. Despite the dangers of driving on the shaking ground, he pressed the accelerator, and the Continental began to gain speed. The Lincoln's engine rattled, and Howard wondered if he was pushing the old girl beyond her limits. Then the transmission shifted into third gear, and the rattle died away to be replaced by the familiar rhythm of the engine's cylinders. This did nothing to relieve his fears, however, for he was only a man, and even with the added strength given to him by the water, a power and clarity of mind he had never before imagined, he was nothing compared to a force that could create such a monstrosity as the one behind him.

Don't be too quick to underestimate yourself. After all, you did manage to survive a storm the size of a continent.

Howard's thoughts were nearly drowned out by the sound of the Colossus as it thundered its way across the plain. Each step the figure took tore loose more earth and rock, which then became absorbed into the mass of the monstrous construct.

It was growing larger.

"YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE!" the voice of the Adversary boomed. "YOU ARE MINE!"

The words made Howard cringe, as much from the volume as the message it delivered. The voice that emanated from the towering mass of earth and stone rumbled across the landscape, though it had no vocal cords with which to speak. Its voice was the will of the entity itself, amplified by the strength of its malevolence, magnified by its sheer power and consuming rage.

As the words thundered in the air to echo across the land, there was a piercing whistle, like steam passing through an enormous teakettle. The sound was familiar to Howard, but it took him a moment to place where he had heard it before. Then, in a flash of memory, he recognized the noise from the war movies that were his father's favorite: the whistle of an approaching missile.

He had time only to think 'incoming', before a heap of earth and stone the size of a greyhound bus dropped out of the sky. As it struck the ground ahead of him, close to the highway, tons of dirt, sod, and rock exploded to send stony shrapnel, blankets of soil, and clouds of dust in every direction. The force of the blast caused him to swerve to the left as the wave of flying debris shattered all the remaining glass on the passenger side, and blew it into the Lincoln's interior. Howard squinted his eyes and turned his head as small objects grazed his face. Streaks of pain raced across his skin. Moments later, as he swerved back onto the asphalt, he felt blood flow from his face, neck and shoulder; his features were traced in the warm, sticky fluid.

The Continental shot out of the cloud of dust, smoke billowing in its wake. Howard spat mud from his mouth as he wiped grime and blood from his face with one hand. He fixed his gaze on the road ahead, toward the point where he had first spotted the thin, silver outline of a bridge. Ahead lie his salvation, his hope, and his only chance at escape.

One look behind him, however, was enough to convince him he would never reach it; the great tower of animated rock and earth continued to grow with every step, and as it grew, the length of its strides increased. Every step shortened the distance between them.

He tried to coax more speed from the Lincoln, but her engine began to knock as soon as he put his foot on the accelerator, and he was forced to ease back on the pedal. The Continental had reached her limit, and could go no faster. At this speed, he knew he would not be able to reach the bridge before the Colossus overtook him.

The air rumbled with the sound of the lumbering Titan as it stormed across the plain, and then his ears were filled with a whistling noise as it heaved another great chunk of rock and soil in his direction. Howard turned his head, looking left and right as he tried to spot the projectile in time to avoid it. His position inside the Lincoln restricted his view, but after a moment, he spied his target. This second projectile was larger than the first, almost the size of a small house, and perhaps it did not reach its target for just that reason. It fell short, some twenty yards behind the Continental. Howard could feel the air pressure change in his ears just before the missile struck the earth with tremendous force.

The steering wheel bucked in his hands, but he kept it steady and did not alter his course. Moments after the impact, smaller chunks of stone and clods of earth and sod rained down around him. Stones rattled from the Continental's dented hide. A rock the size of Howard's fist bounced from the hood.

Howard ignored the shrapnel, and once again extended his senses, his will, outward across the land. He was afraid, deeply afraid, and knew he could ill afford to divert his attention from the road, even for a moment, but he had to know if what he had seen was real. He had to know if his hope rested upon truth, or upon a fantasy conjured by his exhausted mind.

As his awareness flowed away from him once more, he felt the energy of the Adversary's will holding together the tons of earth and stone it had animated, felt the entity's life force through it, all dark menace and madness, tinged with fear and burning with rage. He also felt the bridge, some five miles or so from his current position, and he could tell it did not cross over anything so simple as a mere river, but instead spanned a chasm, a gash in the earth over a mile wide that was, for all practical purposes, bottomless, a jagged wound in the earth.

The highway crossed this gulf upon a thin arc of a bridge, a gossamer ribbon of asphalt and stone. The bridge was far too fragile to support the walking skyscraper of rock growing behind him, and would be certain to collapse under its weight. If he had not crossed the bridge by the time the behemoth reached the span, it would mean a long, unpleasant fall and certain death.

Howard did not pause to dwell on this, but pondered instead on the emotions that emanated from the dark entity he called the Adversary, the feeling of fear, a fear of him, a mere human, Howard Langford. He wondered why such a being would be afraid of something so small, so insignificant, as a mere human being.

Why? Why did it fear him?

Because its power has limits, his mind answered. Because you are getting close to the end of its influence over the land, and it has to stop you. You hurt it, something no one else has ever managed to do, and it cannot allow you to escape. It's afraid because it knows that if you can hurt it, you might be capable of doing much more. You may be able to kill it.

The voice in his head sounded as if it were talking to him, rather than coming from him. It sounded much like his voice, and yet it did not—it sounded younger. Howard had no doubt as to the source of that inner voice, and did not dispute the truth of the words it spoke. He had hurt this entity, a thing capable of bending the laws of this dimension to its will, of summoning massive storms and animating gigantic constructs of earth and rock. He had found a way to hurt it, without even knowing how. If he managed to get away, he would surely come back to destroy it, just as it had tried to destroy him.

An image flashed through his mind, of his younger self, speaking to him in his dream.

The connection goes both ways, his doppelganger had told him, and if you follow that connection, you will learn the truth.

He had followed this advice, and because of this, he had learned much. He believed he had, in fact, discovered the truth of which the younger self spoke, but he now suspected that there was much more, and that within that knowledge lay the answer, the key to defeating the evil force that even now was attempting to end his life. His Adversary had worked to keep him distracted, keep him in fear and in pain, so he would not gain this knowledge, not fully understand, before it could finish him. The dark entity had almost succeeded, might succeed still, but now, in his final moments of need, he understood the full implications of what he had been told.

The connection goes both ways.

A theory was forming in Howard's mind, a theory that if correct, might provide him with a way to fight back, a way to hurt the entity the way he had before, or even to destroy it. The problem was, he could not afford to stop in order to test this theory—if he were to so much as slow down, then the moving tower of earth behind him would be certain to kill him. In order to act upon this new epiphany, he would have to keep moving.

Howard set the cruise control, and felt the accelerator pedal drop away slightly from his foot in response. He brought his seat forward until his arms rested comfortably against his sides and upon the steering wheel, and allowed his body to relax. He could still feel the vibrations caused by the footsteps of the Colossus, but they were fainter now; the speed of the Lincoln had increased his lead upon the animated giant, but it was not a lead that would last. If he were going to act, it would have to be now.

Reaching beside him, Howard drew the bottle from its resting place, twisted off the cap, and gulped the last of the water from the condenser.

White fire filled his veins.

Once again, Howard reached out with his newfound senses, his amplified perception of the world, allowed it to fully engage his mind. His eyes still saw the road, his hands remained on the wheel, made the necessary adjustments to keep the Continental on the highway, but he was barely conscious of this; his focus was far away as his mind's eye flew over the landscape.

He was in the automobile, but part of him was flying, flying up and away from the Lincoln, past the earthen Colossus, past the range of mountains, moving at incredible speed. His consciousness sped away, past the cave, beyond the City of Mutants, beyond the desert, beyond the great sea, now brimming with the huge worms and long, ribbon-shaped fish with mouths like sharks, and to the land beyond. Then, he was diving through air and water and soil, deep into the bedrock, back to the lair of the thing that controlled the abomination behind him—the cavern where the object of his search lay hidden. He saw himself standing there, in that dark, cold space, before the thing he had come to know as the Adversary.

Howard had been pulled into a realm where imagination and dreams were part of the physics that governed the fabric of reality, part of a natural order. Though the properties and laws of this realm were different, and very strange to an outsider such as himself, he knew now that these rules were consistent; the rules were still rules. His Adversary may have used these rules in its favor, perhaps even bent them in order to maintain an advantage over its prey, but it was also at the mercy of those laws.

In his epiphany, after his final flight from the tunnel beneath the mountains, he came to understand the truth of this, and the extent to which it applied not only to him but also to the world and everything in it. Yes, it was lunacy. It was impossible. It was the ravings of a pulp sci-fi writer on some serious drugs, but it was also true.

You have to believe the way you did when you were young, the way you did when you were me, when the world was anything you imagined it to be.

The connection goes both ways.

Howard was behind the wheel, but he was also in the cavern. The part of him that was behind the wheel was little more than a shell, with just enough awareness to keep the Lincoln from veering off the highway. The main part of his consciousness was far away, in a lightless cavern far below the ground, where a dark malevolence dwelled. Though the cavern was lightless, he could see his surroundings with perfect clarity. It mattered little that his physical body was thousands of miles away—it was as if the Howard in the cavern was his real self, and the man in the Continental nothing but a figment of his imagination, a being composed of dream-stuff

His cavern-self held his hand in front of his face. He could see every line in his palm, every loop and whorl of his fingerprints, yet even with even the slightest flicker of will, he could also see the highway as it moved under the Continental's front end, and the approaching bridge, now slightly more than three miles away.

Howard could feel the presence of the Adversary nearby. He began to move through the cavern, winding his way among the stalagmites.

"I know you are here," Howard said.

Something moved among the rocks of the cavern. Howard took another step forward.

"I know what you are," Howard said. "Show yourself."

In the dark expanse of the cavern, a shape began to take form.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Once upon a time, when Howard was younger, in the days before he became known as 'Splits' Langford, before he found solace and solitude in hard drives, networks, microprocessors and electronics design, before the pressures of being a large boy in a smaller, slimmer, crueler world forced him to bury his inner child behind an impenetrable wall of bitterness and cynicism, he loved to dwell in the world of make-believe. He reveled in the vibrancy of imaginary lands, soared on flights of fancy to uncharted heights, and performed wondrous acts of bravery, deeds worthy the most powerful of heroes from his favorite Saturday morning cartoons. In that precious, fleeting time, from when he was three years old, until he entered the nightmarish realm of the public school system, he had played with the intensity and complete suspension of disbelief of which only the young are capable.

In that magic time, when the world was what he wanted it to be, and not what it was, he could be anything he wished, from a daring dinosaur hunter, to an explorer of alien planets, to a fearless super-hero. A towel pinned around his neck became a silken cape, blowing in a supersonic wind. His mother's sun hat would transform into a pith helmet as he explored the sandbox in the back yard and searched for creatures believed to be long extinct. His imagination was his best friend, untainted and unrestrained by reality.

When Howard was five years old, his father had purchased a brand spanking new Kenmore refrigerator. David and Howard had pleaded with their parents to be allowed to keep the box that contained the appliance. Their father was initially reluctant, but Gloria persuaded him to allow the boys to put the box in their room, with the assurance that they would soon grow tired of it, and that it would not cause a mess. The boys promised that when the time came, they would throw away the box without complaint, and hauled the heavy-duty cardboard up to their room.

With the aid of David's steady hands and Howard's Crayola crayons, some scissors and many hours of careful labor, the interior of the carton was transformed into the instrument-laden cockpit of a starship, worthy of battling an entire horde of hostile alien spacecraft. They had kept the box in their room for almost six weeks, until the walls crumpled and the flaps were torn, and they were finally forced to dispose of it at the curb.

Those games were naught but half-remembered memories now, but in that that golden age, Howard could cast aside the real world for the one envisioned in his imagination with ease. The house would fade away to become the concrete jungle of a great metropolis, the swing set in the back yard, with its attached play fort, would transform into a pirate ship. The possibilities were endless.

This Golden Age was not destined to last however; like all things, it too passed. As Howard and his brother got older, their father became less and less tolerant of anything he considered 'non-practical'. Carl Langford had been content to let his boys play as they would while they were both too young to understand the way the world worked, but now that they were both old enough to go to school, they were old enough to know the harsh truth of existence. A person only got what they were willing to work for, and if his children wanted to get ahead in the world, they would need to work hard.

So, shortly after Howard entered first grade, the elder Langford began to discourage any pursuit he considered frivolous. He was not so shortsighted as to forbid his children from creative endeavors; to do so would only encourage them to rebel. No, the means Carl used achieve his desires was far more subtle and insidious. His method was to humiliate them, to shower them with ridicule, make them feel shame and doubt. He embarrassed them whenever either of them made any attempt to waste their time with activities their father deemed unnecessary or wasteful. He manipulated their emotions while expounding on the values of hard work, obedience, and conformity, on how important it was to toe the line, to have discipline, and to be a useful part of society.

It was an effective tool, one that would have far-reaching effects on both his children for the rest of their lives. David quickly learned to escape the feelings of humiliation; he kept his head down, and adopted his father's ideals. Because of his father's influence, David never attempted to learn how to play a musical instrument, or to draw, or paint, or compose a poem. Howard was not so quick to learn however, and though he did his best to follow his brother's example, he could not resist the lure of his creative self. Unlike his older brother, he suffered through his father's disapproval, through the concealed insults and diatribes on being 'realistic' and 'useful', the lectures on the importance of hard work and keeping oneself grounded in the 'real world'. He struggled to retain his individuality, but the seeds were already planted; without realizing it, he had already begun to build the walls around that part of himself he considered most precious.

By the time Howard entered middle school, the wall around his creative self, his inner child, was well established. With each lecture, with each new humiliation, that wall grew thicker, harder to penetrate. The last stones were laid the night he stood outside his parent's bedroom, after he read his story to them, and heard his father's discussion with his mother.

After that night, he never again attempted to write another story, just as he had never again drawn another picture after the incident with Mister Dibbs. This wall was neither extensive enough, nor strong enough to prevent emotional injury, nor would it ever be, but it was strong enough to shelter that part of him from ever having to feel that level of humiliation from his father again. He closed off the most vulnerable part of his psyche, the innocent part, the creative part, and vowed never to allow another person to wound that part of him again.

Howard may have walled off his creative self, but he did not allow it to die. Like any prisoner, it needed to be fed, lest it starve, and though he could not allow that part of himself to be free, he cherished it too much to let it perish. He no longer expressed any outward artistic traits, but that did not mean he could not enjoy the creativity of others. So, while he fed the intellectual part of his being with diagrams, schematics, and technical data, he continued to feed that creative side by devouring books.

In order to preserve this last vestige of his old personality, his last childhood vice, he took care to hide his love of fantasy, of fiction, from his parents. When at home, he read technical manuals, poured over textbooks and diagrams, and worked on furthering his blossoming genius. When at school, however, he spent every free moment devouring the works of Asimov, Clark, Tolkien, and others. In the pages of these books, Howard could escape into the realm of adventure, and was allowed to feed his creative desires with little fear of reprisal from his father. At home, he may have been restricted to a more grounded existence, but during the day, he was free to travel to vast, interstellar empires, explore the mysteries of ancient empires, and wander the lands of Middle-Earth.

Of all the books to be devoured by Howard's rapacious appetite for reading, none affected him more than Madeline L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle In Time'. He had read the book with the belief it was about time travel, just another young adult adventure tale with sci-fi trappings, but rather than be energized and inspired by the story, Howard had come away feeling uneasy and vaguely frightened, something no other story, from '2001: A Space Odyssey', to 'The Martian Chronicles' had managed to do. The book touched him on a level which he was not accustomed, and came back to trouble him for weeks after he finished reading it. The story even invaded his dreams. Images of the antagonist, a great, disembodied brain that controlled the lives of whole populations, had fascinated and repulsed him, until it became the stuff of nightmare.

The dreams eventually faded, along with his love of fiction, but the images and feelings the book instilled stayed with him always. It had been this image, of the all-powerful brain, had played through Howard's mind several times since his entry to this bizarre world, and it was this image he recalled when his Adversary took form in the depths of its cavernous lair.

The Adversary had once been a physical being, born on a world far removed from Howard's own. Like almost all sentient beings, it was capable of attaining the higher state of consciousness known to humans as dreams. On most occasions, this was a temporary state, and the dreaming mind would return to its bodily form with no awareness of the transition from one reality to another. But the Adversary was different. Mortally wounded, desperate beyond measure, it had retreated into the realm of Dream.

In its final hour, it had refused the reality of its own mortality with the full strength of its being, and infused itself into the very fabric of that other dimension. It became part of the land, formless yet aware, and there it thrived. It learned, grew in strength as it drew upon the energy that bound the land to every dreaming mind, until it went mad, consumed by its own hunger for power.

The Adversary became a being of pure imagination, became a living dream. As such, it became a part of the land, and was subject to the rules upon which that land was governed. At any other time, it could become anything it desired, use its power to shape itself into an instrument of fear and death in order to feed on the emotions released by its victim.

But this was not any other time. This time, it was at the mercy of the same laws that served as the source of its power.

It knew its victim was powerful—it was why it chose him, after all—but it had underestimated its opponent, misjudged just how well its prey had adjusted to its new environment, and how much it had learned. This time, the hunter had become the hunted, and there was no escape. When the dream-form of its opponent entered the cavern, it tried to take a form best suited to defeat its enemy, but found itself instead transformed into a shape of its opponent's choosing. No matter how hard it struggled to escape, or to change its form, it was trapped.

"You should have stayed in your hole," Howard said to the Adversary. "You should have left me alone."

His enemy stretched out before him. It covered the floor of the cavern in a quivering, black mass of brain-like tissue. Veins crawled over the thing's corrugated surface; they pulsed and writhed like mesmerized serpents. Wet with mucus, strange, shadowy forms bulged and moved under its skin.

Far away, beyond the mountain range that marked the extent of the entity's influence, the great stone Colossus faltered. The towering elemental hesitated for several moments, and then it strode once more after the fleeing Lincoln. Now more than four hundred feet high, its legs thicker than the largest Redwood, the construct had ceased growing larger, and had instead started to lose cohesion. Boulders and clods of earth the size of pickup trucks fell from its body in a deadly shower of debris as it moved.

Less than three miles now separated the Lincoln from the chasm. Inside the automobile, Howard continued to daydream, barely aware of the thinning distance between him, and the gulf that divided the plain.

Back in the cavern, Howard could see the moisture that glistened from the stone, the shifting bulges of ferruled black flesh of his Adversary. He felt the air pressure change as it pulsed in time with the veins that infested its surface, could smell the dank thickness of the air. The Continental and the outside world had ceased to matter; now there was only this chamber, and the thing it contained. He knelt, and as his fingers closed around the edges of a large slab of stone, he could feel every contour of its surface.

Howard lifted the slab above his head, grunted at the weight of it. The stone was heavier than anything he could have lifted in his own world, but that did not matter, for he was no longer simply Howard Langford, electronics genius and owner of Langford Technologies. He was different now, his body changed by the power of his imagination.

His clothes became tighter as they transformed also, and a silken cape blossomed from the neck of his new uniform. He was once again the hero of his childhood make-believe games. He was a costumed crusader against evil, pitted against his arch-nemesis: the Brain From Beyond Time.

He was Gravity Man.

Howard looked down, and was not surprised to see his body had changed as well. Gone were the flabby muscles, the excess weight that had plagued him since childhood; they had been replaced with the physique typical of the heroes from the comic books of his youth. He rippled with rock-hard muscles. This was fitting, for Gravity Man had powers far beyond the scope of mortal men.

Meanwhile, the Lincoln continued to approach the bridge at eighty-eight feet per second. Inside the vehicle, Howard's body lay limp as a fresh corpse.

As Howard lifted the stone, it began to glow. As Gravity Man, Howard possessed abilities greater than just super-strength. He excited the molecules within the stone, caused it to become super-heated, almost to the melting point.

The mass of brain-like tissue reacted to his transformation, to the heated rock. It began to quiver in agitation. Its surface rippled. Its flesh began to bulge and flow, began to move across the floor of the cavern toward him.

"I hope this really hurts, you son of a bitch. I hope this hurts like hell."

He threw the stone, now white with heat, into the quivering mass. The missile struck the gray-black flesh, and tore into it with an angry hiss to leave a gaping, steaming hole in its wake. Black blood streamed from the wound like hot tar, and an acrid odor, like the bottom of a ripe dumpster on a hot day, singed his nostrils. Chunks of pink-gray tissue, strung with black and blue veins, spat out of the wound with explosive force. The remaining tissue convulsed, and its convoluted surface heaved in waves of agony.

Gravity Man directed his gravity-bending powers to the walls of the cavern, and the surrounding rock trembled violently. Stalactites broke free from the ceiling to rain down upon the Adversary; they skewered the pulsing tissue in scores of places, shredded it into chunks.

An unholy scream filled the air of the cavern, and tremors ripped through the earth as the wounds took their toll. Slabs of stone collapsed from the walls, and he knew it would only be a matter of moments before the cavern collapsed.

It was time to go.

With a flicker of his will, Howard was pulled through the darkness, back across the land, and into the interior of the Lincoln. In an instant, he was changed from comic book hero back into a battered and bruised electronics guru. There was the sensation of falling, and then he was himself again. He jolted in his seat as his consciousness returned, and fought the steering wheel as the Lincoln threatened to swerve out of control. Ahead of him, the chasm yawned less than a quarter mile away.

Howard blinked his vision back into focus, and looked around for the giant earth elemental. He was convinced the Adversary was finished, but he had yet to make it over the bridge, and until he crossed the span, he knew he would not be safe.

The Colossus was right behind him.

During his confrontation with the Adversary, the towering elemental had caught up to the fleeing Continental. With one final step, it closed within striking distance. The Colossus raised its right leg, covering the Lincoln in shadow, with the intent to step on the vehicle and grind it into the pavement like a troublesome insect. Howard put his foot to the accelerator, and the vehicle gained speed as tons of earth and stone came crashing down onto the surface of the highway. The column of rock and earth punched through the asphalt to a depth of ten feet. It sent a cloud of dust and debris into the air, and a shock wave rippled out from the point of impact strong enough to buckle the pavement, and flatten the grass for scores of yards in every direction.

Howard shut his eyes as dust and debris shot through the Lincoln. It peppered the interior with minute stone fragments, and shredded the skin of his back, neck, shoulders and arms. The ground pitched under the automobile, and his heart skipped with each pitch and yaw. For long moments, the Continental bounced on its springs so hard that its tires lost contact with the pavement. Then, the Lincoln regained its hold on the highway. He passed beyond the dust cloud, beyond the cracked and buckled asphalt, and onto the thin arc of the bridge.

As he blinked dirt and grit from his tearing eyes, Howard risked a glance behind him, toward the Colossus. The elemental no longer pursued him, had stopped where it had tried to stamp the Lincoln into the ground, but this did nothing to calm his fears. No, what he saw taking place behind him only increased his trepidation, and heightened his anxiety.

Behind him, the ambulatory tower of stone was beginning to disintegrate. Thousands of tons of rubble broke away from the main body of the giant to crash upon the plain in a series of ground shaking detonations. Instead of a sense of accomplishment or victory, however, the tight ball of anxiety in the pit of Howard's stomach tightened as the giant golem pressed its rough-hewn hands against its head, and ripped it from its shoulders.

Howard turned his attention back to the thin ribbon of asphalt that stretched across the gulf. He did not have to watch the Colossus to understand its intent. It meant to use its head as a missile. The Adversary knew it was finished, but it meant to take its enemy with it into the dark.

A moment later, his theory was confirmed as a loud whistling noise—the sound of a doomsday projectile—filled the air. Howard pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor in order to draw as much speed as he could from the Lincoln's engine, but the eight-cylinder power plant coughed and sputtered, threatening to shut down. Howard had no choice but to ease off the pedal.

This is not good.

He focused on the far side of the chasm, concentrated on keeping the Lincoln between the lanes. There were no guard rails, no concrete divider between the edges of the highway and empty space. Were the vehicle to leave the asphalt here, it would be a long way down.

Look straight ahead. Whatever you do, don't look over the side.

The edge of the chasm grew closer, and the sound of the incoming projectile became louder. Howard knew the projectile did not need to hit his baby to be effective; all it needed to do was strike the bridge, and he would fall to his doom. He needed to get across the bridge before it impacted.

There was only half a mile to go. At his current speed, Howard knew he would never make it. Any second now, the last parting gift of the Adversary would strike the ribbon of asphalt, and all would be lost.

No sooner than Howard had articulated this fear, the head of the Colossus found its target. Over sixty tons of stone slammed into the pavement behind him. Plumes of soil streamed from its surface like a dark comet. The rocky projectile punched through the highway and the gossamer supports below as if they were composed of tissue paper. Chunks of stone and fragments of pavement shot by on both sides of the Lincoln, and the bridge itself seemed to disappear from under its wheels for a long moment, before it rose again to meet the vehicle's underside in a frame-straining embrace. A hail of rocks and dust rained down upon the vehicle as it sped forward, rattling from its dented, dusty surface.

Behind the Continental, long sections of pavement cracked, split, and fell away into the mists that filled the chasm. Only the far side of the bridge remained intact. The remaining supports began to crumble as well; the pavement twisted, tried to slide out from under the Lincoln's wheels. Howard fought to keep the automobile on the bridge as adrenaline poured into his bloodstream.

As the last portion of the bridge started to give way, the pavement formed an ever-increasing incline. At the far end of the span, the asphalt began to pull away from the wall of the chasm. The pavement split across its width, a jagged gash that widened into a rift as the last section of the viaduct, nearly a quarter mile in length, broke away. The section of highway fell away at a thirty-degree angle as the Continental sped along the last half of its length, an insect that had yet to realize the stalk upon which it crawled had been cut down.

He was falling.

Howard's gut tried to leap into his mouth as he brought the full force of his newfound energy to bear on the Lincoln, on the entire section of bridge beneath him. He willed the engine to stay smooth and steady as he pressed the accelerator to the floor, sought to wring every last ounce of power from the big block V-8.

Fly, baby. Fly us to freedom.

The Continental rocketed along the last few hundred feet of incline, and launched itself into empty space.

As the tires left the pavement, Howard was reminded of the great storm, of how the Lincoln had touched down after being swept up into a line of advancing tornado winds. He had once believed the Adversary had intervened to delay his fate, had prevented his death for some twisted purpose, but he now knew this was not true. It was he, Howard, who had brought the vehicle back to the ground, brought it safely to earth by tapping into the energy of his imagination, a mental reflex retained from his childhood. He had already lived through the impossible, and he had every intention to continue to live now.

The space once occupied by the windshield framed nothing but yellow-tinted sky. Howard's body was pressed deep into the leather as the vehicle shot upward, and then became almost weightless as it began to descend once again. Then, the wheels touched down, and the seat belts bit into his flesh as his stomach tried to sink into his feet. The Continental came down, lifted, and came down again. Howard held the steering wheel in a death-grip as he watched the world come into view, vanish, and then reappear in a jumbled set of images that jumped and danced in a way that hurt his eyes. He stepped on the brake pedal, and the Lincoln came to a squealing stop, spinning across the lanes to come to a stop perpendicular to the highway. The front tires stopped just short of the asphalt's edge.

Howard sat stock-still as he gazed out the driver's side window toward the chasm. On the far side, dust still settled around the ruined remains of the Colossus, now nothing more than a pile of broken rock and rubble. Of the bridge, very little remained; the rest of the span had been swallowed by the mist that filled the depths of the valley. After a time, the realization that he had survived sank in, and he opened the door in order to spew a thin stream of bile onto the asphalt. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and settled back against the seat. He was overcome not by a sense of victory or accomplishment, but by a relief so great it made him weep.

He made no attempt to wipe away the tears.

After a time—he did not know how long—he wiped his nose on his ruined shirt, cleared his eyes, and placed his hands once again upon the steering wheel. He corrected the Lincoln's course, and headed away from the gulf in the plain, toward the slowly setting sun. He had only one desire: to put the chasm, the ruins of the Colossus, and the realm of the Adversary behind him, once and for all.

Free. I'm finally free.

He may have defeated the Adversary, but he was still not free of the land. He had survived every attack, overcome every obstacle, passed every test, but he had yet to complete whatever rite of passage, or discover the portal that would return him to his own world. Once beyond the bridge, he had hoped to find some dramatic feature, some final destination that would transport him back home, but instead all he saw was the same black band of asphalt that stretched across sparsely wooded rolling hills.

There was nothing threatening here; he saw nothing moving, hostile or otherwise, after leaving the bridge, but his anxiety remained. If there was a way back to his own world, he would need to find it soon; the emergency fuel from the kit in the trunk had not even been enough to raise the needle of the gas gauge above the empty mark, and he had already driven much farther than the distance advertised on the bottle.

The Lincoln was not the only thing running low on fuel; the dream-water had pulled him back from the brink of death, had amplified his senses and given him the strength he needed to defeat the Adversary, but the effects would not last forever. Even now, that power was fading, leaving him in need of rest and nourishment. He wondered if he had the ability to use the land to conjure some solid sustenance, and if so, if he had the strength of will to do so. Even now, a wave of exhaustion began to overtake him, threatening to overwhelm his consciousness like a tsunami.

The dream-water had done wondrous things, had sustained him beyond anything he considered possible, but that energy had come with a price; he had burned calories at a fantastic rate, as if he had consumed a diet comprised solely of amphetamines. Now, as the effects of the water began to dissipate, a great, gray sea of weariness washed over his mind and his body. The combined toll of his hunger, the radiation from the city, and the coma he had suffered as a result, had robbed his body of many pounds. His belly lacked its formal rotundity; the skin hung in flabby folds from his mid-section. Even his arms showed the effects of rapid and severe weight loss. His body had no energy reserves upon which to draw upon; even now, his eyelids were beginning to droop. If he did not find an answer soon, he would be forced to stop and take what refuge he could, or attempt to find sustenance.

He had little confidence he would find either.

A memory flashed, unbidden, through his mind, of his High School Driver's Ed teacher, Mr. Starcher, as he warned his class against the dangers of using amphetamines or other aids to ward off sleep while behind the wheel. These substances were unpredictable, he had said, and their effects could wear off without warning, increasing the risk of a serious and likely fatal accident.

Howard pushed the memory away. He did not care to think of such things. He only wished to be back home, to return to the familiar routines that comprised his life. He wished he had more of the miraculous water he had conjured in the desert, but this desire slipped away, became lost in the background drone of the Lincoln's tires as they put more distance between him and the chasm. He rubbed at his eyes, and tried to clear the cobwebs forming in his mind.

Outside his window, rolling hills passed by, covered with ankle-high greenery. The land was almost featureless; there were no trees, no signs of wildlife. It was if the land itself were unfinished, incomplete.

As time passed, it became more difficult to think clearly. The world was starting to blur, and though he fought against it with all his remaining will, he could not ward off the curtain of darkness that fell over his consciousness.

For the second time in his life, Howard Langford fell asleep behind the wheel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Joseph Pfefferkorn's morning patrol had been a busy one; although he had only been on duty a few hours, he had already managed to serve half a dozen citations. Minor infractions, to be sure, and none deserving of the fines levied against them, but work was work, and it sure as hell was better than the more unpleasant aspects of his job.

One of his first tasks of the day had been to direct traffic while waiting for Animal Control, after he came across a fresh deer carcass in the road. Something large had hit the deer, possibly a tractor-trailer; there were no skid marks on the pavement, no broken glass or other signs of damage having befallen the striking vehicle, but the damage done to the animal was extensive. It took Animal Control almost an hour and a half to clean up the mess, while he diverted winter tourists into the breakdown lane. It was times like this that he hated being given this particular patrol, but it could always be worse; he could be stuck in some ghetto, where the chances of being struck by a random bullet increased every day, rather than on a peaceful country road, where the worst thing he was likely to encounter was a speeding tourist, or a dead deer.

He came upon the abandoned vehicle shortly after ten o'clock in the morning. It was just one more thing to deal with in what was turning out to be a busy day, just another chapter in the life of Joseph Pfefferkorn, State Trooper, Keeper of the Peace and Protector of the People.

Right.

He pulled the police cruiser onto the shoulder opposite the empty automobile, and activated his warning flashers. Alternating beams of red and blue broke the chilly morning air as he called in his location, and exited his cruiser. Across from him, left to rust by the side of the road, was a dilapidated mammoth of an automobile that dwarfed his own. The vehicle was severely damaged, most likely vandalized after being stolen and driven to death, from the look of it. All the windows had been smashed out, and the exterior appeared as if it had been beaten with sledgehammers. This was typical for many stolen vehicles, most of which were taken by teenaged hoodlums, and then stripped and vandalized when it no longer suited their purpose.

Yes, this was turning out to be a busy morning—a little too busy for Officer Pfefferkorn's liking.

As he approached the vehicle, he saw the front license plate was missing. If the rear plate was missing as well, as he suspected it might be, they would need to get the VIN, or vehicle identification number, in order to find out the name of the registered owner. This information was necessary not only to notify the owner in the event of a theft, but also to see if the automobile had been used in any reported crimes.

Officer Pfefferkorn pressed the transmit button on the radio microphone pinned to the collar of his uniform, and told the dispatcher to send a tow truck. As he walked toward the vehicle, he was overcome by a sense of unease that he could not explain. Something about the scene was not quite right, but he could not put his finger on what disturbed him. His looked around, his instincts aroused. As a cop, it paid to be careful; there were too many in his profession who owed their lives to a gut feeling for him not to pay attention to his instincts.

His first consideration was perhaps some gang-bangers had junked the automobile just before he arrived, and perhaps even now prepared to shoot at him from the trees, but that was ridiculous; what would gang-bangers be doing this far out in the country? It was nowhere near their natural element. Still, the world was becoming a crazier place by the day, and it would be prudent to keep his guard up.

As Trooper Pfefferkorn approached the vehicle, an older model Lincoln Continental, he saw that it had come to rest against the posts of one of the many road signs that were frequent landmarks on his patrol route. There were no skid marks anywhere near the vehicle, no sign it had been moving at any great speed, or had lost control when it came to a stop. This was not particularly odd in itself, and only went to further his theory it had not been an accident that had brought the vehicle to its present location. What was odd, however, was the obvious lack of broken glass around the automobile. This was curious, because if it had been vandalized at the scene, one would expect to find some type of litter or debris. This struck the Officer as rather peculiar.

He drew closer to the ruined automobile, and the feeling of wrongness that gripped him intensified. He tried to shake the feeling, concentrate on the task before him, but it refused to leave him, a suspicion that things were not quite right.

He approached the battered Lincoln, preparing for the worst, but hoping the vehicle had simply been abandoned.

It could be worse; it could be a body, or an accident scene.

Trooper Pfefferkorn was overcome by a memory, so strong and clear, that it caused him to stop short and stare at the derelict, as images played unbidden through his mind. Two years earlier, while on a similar patrol, he had come upon a horrific scene: a two-car collision between a minivan and a sedan not unlike the ruined hulk sitting by the side of the road.

The first on the scene, he had made a hurried call for emergency units and backup before he ran to the twisted, smoking wrecks to do whatever he could for the victims until the paramedics arrived. He had been on the force for six years, and had responded to more than his share of accidents, but this particular collision would be an experience he would never forget, and provide him with many sleepless nights to come.

Two of the four people in the minivan were already dead by the time Trooper Pfefferkorn arrived. Their vehicle was equipped with airbags, but they had not been designed to protect against a head on collision at such a speed. The position of the wreck suggested it had flipped end over end after striking the other automobile, before coming to rest on its side. The male driver had suffered a broken neck, multiple lacerations, and severe impact trauma. The female passenger had been decapitated. Both appeared to have been killed upon impact.

The other vehicle, what was left of it, was empty; the driver had either left the scene, or, more likely, been ejected through the windshield because they had failed to use their seatbelt. A quick scan of the vicinity failed to show a body, or any other victims, so he moved to assist the survivors.

There were two passengers still alive in the minivan, a boy of about twelve, and a girl who appeared to be slightly older. Both were barely conscious. Trooper Pfefferkorn would have preferred to follow protocol, and wait for the emergency rescue crew to move the victims, but the minivan's fuel tank had ruptured; if the gasoline came into contact with the still-steaming engine, things would get worse for the trapped children very quickly.

He went to the shattered sunroof, and looked inside. "Can you hear me? Are you injured?"

Inside the minivan, one of the children groaned, but whether it was in response to the question, or to pain, he could not tell. The smell of gasoline was getting stronger; he would need to act fast, before the fuel ignited.

There was not much time. He ran back to his cruiser, and returned with his raincoat bundled under his arm. He used his baton to remove the shards of glass that remained along the edges of shattered sunroof, placed the raincoat over the lower edge of the frame, and kneeled into the opening.

"It's going to be okay," he assured the children. "The rescue units are already on their way."

He was very concerned, but he did his best not to let it show in his voice; he kept his tone calm and reassuring, authoritative. Far in the distance, he could hear the warble of an ambulance siren. That was good, but it did little to ease his worries; the smell of gasoline was getting stronger by the second.

The girl had been sitting on the passenger side, the boy next to her. The minivan had come to rest on the driver's side. The boy was pinned in place by the limp form of the girl, who hung from her seatbelt, and was bleeding from dozens of small cuts. Her hair and clothing gleamed with pieces of shattered glass. He knew the children might have suffered internal injuries, but he could not risk leaving them in the van.

"Miss, we need to get you out of the van. Can you move?"

The girl did not reply. He maneuvered his body further into the opening, while taking care not to cut himself on the glass. He attempted to unlatch the girl's seatbelt, but could not reach the latching mechanism; the strap had become tangled in the girl's jacket. As he struggled with the strap, the girl stirred.

"Mom?" she mumbled, her voice thick, "Where are you?"

Trooper Pfefferkorn reached into his pocket, brought out a folded lock blade knife, and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist.

"It's okay, honey," he said, as he cut through the shoulder strap. "We'll get your mom out in a minute. You just hold on."

The part about getting her mother out was a lie, of course; parts of mom would need to be scraped up with a spatula, but he needed to keep the girl calm.

"What's your name?"

"M-M-Melanie," she replied. "My name is Melanie. My friends call me Mel."

"Melanie, we need to get you out of the van, okay? Can you move your arms?"

"I think so," she said. Her voice was dreamy, as if she were talking in her sleep. "Y-Yes."

He found the strap holding her waist, and carefully slid the lock blade under it. "Are you hurt?"

"Stings," she replied in her sleepy monotone. "Head stings."

"Okay," Trooper Pfefferkorn said as he sawed at the strap. "I'm going to lift you out now. I need you to just lay still, and hold onto me, okay?"

The girl became more animated, and started to struggle against him. "Where's my mom?" she asked. "Billy? Where's Billy? Where's my brother?"

"It's going to be okay," he said as the strap parted. "Right now though, I need you to help me so I can get you out."

He flipped the lock blade closed, and slipped it back into his pocket. "I need to put my other arm under you, okay? Just lie still, and we'll have you out in a jiffy."

Melanie relaxed slightly, and gave a weak nod. "Okay," she said.

Joe Pfefferkorn braced his legs, slipped his hand under the girl's knees, and lifted her from the seat. Fortunately for him, the girl was slight, and he was able to maneuver his way out of the opening without injury.

He stood with the girl in his arms, and turned toward his cruiser. Somewhere behind the van, he heard a noise, and knew the leaking fuel had ignited. He carried the girl to his cruiser, moving as fast as he dared, and opened the rear door.

The girl stirred in his arms. "It happened so fast," she said. "It came out of nowhere." She pressed her face into his chest. "We couldn't get out of the way."

The sirens were getting closer. There was a flash, and flames ran across the pavement, engulfed the other car.

"I'm going to lay you down on the seat now,' he told the girl. "You'll be safe there. Just lie still. The ambulance will be here in just a few minutes."

He leaned forward, and laid the trembling girl on the back seat. She moaned softly as he placed her in the cruiser, and as he drew back, she grabbed his arm, her eyes wide and gleaming. He would remember the look on her face for years to come; it was an image that would come back to haunt him at odd moments, and cause him many restless nights.

"You don't understand," Melanie, known as Mel by her friends, said. "The car...it just appeared in the road. It just appeared, out of nowhere—." Then, in a flat, dead voice, she added, "we never had a chance."

"You just lay still," he said to the girl as he gently pulled away from her. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go get your brother now."

He started to turn toward the minivan, and then the girl said something that caused his blood to go cold.

"Please hurry," she said. "He needs his oxygen."

"What?"

"Oxygen," the girl said. Her voice weakened as she began to slip into shock. "He's sick. Needs his oxygen."

Trooper Pfefferkorn whipped around, and saw that flames had surrounded the minivan. Through the shattered back window, he could barely see the remains of a folded wheelchair and the nozzle of a portable oxygen tank. He sprang into a run, his eyes on the boy still trapped inside.

Melanie screamed from behind him, and everything from that point onward seemed to happen in slow motion, like the dreams that would often wake him from sleep, a dream in which he was being chased down the road in his cruiser, pursued by some nameless thing with eyes like headlights.

He began to run toward the wrecked minivan, his mind focused on getting the other child out of harm's way, as the larger of the two vehicles vanished in a ball of orange fire. A large, hot hand pushed him backward, lifting him off the ground to strike the side of his cruiser hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. His head snapped back, hit the edge of the cruiser's roof, and he fell to the ground, stunned. He spiraled into darkness, followed by the girl's screams.

Three people were listed as having died in the minivan. Trooper Pfefferkorn received a commendation for his efforts, but this did nothing to ease his conscience. He felt he had failed, and an innocent life had been lost as a result. This was something he found hard to live with, and the guilt he felt would return to plague him in the months and years to come. It came back to haunt him now, as he looked at the derelict Lincoln by the side of the road. The tragedy had received the standard amount of media attention, but there had been one fact that had almost been overlooked by the press, a fact that kept him up at night, uncertain and afraid.

The body of the other driver had never been found.

The car that had collided with the minivan had been registered to one Charles Sharpiet, of Des Moines, Iowa. The accident had been severe, and the resulting fireball, caused by the ignited gasoline and the explosion of the oxygen tanks in the minivan, had made identification of the bodies difficult. Even so, there should have been remains of the other driver, but none were ever found. The Trooper had seen no one in the other vehicle, and though the surrounding area had been thoroughly searched, the effort had proven fruitless. As far as Joseph Pfefferkorn knew, Mr. Sharpiet had never been heard of again.

It just appeared there. We never had a chance.

The words of the girl came back to him as he approached the abandoned Continental, filling him with a sense of unease that bordered on paranoia.

No need to get loopy. It's just a junker, probably left by some asshole kids.

The memories and the feeling of unease refused to leave him, however, and grew stronger as he drew closer to the abandoned vehicle. Something just did not seem right. The lack of broken glass around the Lincoln continued to bother him. The automobile was in terrible shape; every metal surface was battered, the vinyl top was shredded, and parts of it even looked burned. Even in a rural area such as this, the automobile could not have been driven far without gaining the attention of the police. The rims on the wheels were custom, and very expensive, by the looks of them, yet they had not been stripped— something he would not expect if it had been stolen.

If the car was stolen, why would they take the time to beat the car all to hell, but not take the time to remove the rims? Lawbreakers, in Joseph Pfefferkorn's experience, tended not to be the brightest pennies in the barrel, but this seemed stupid, even by that standard.

Kids. It had to be some kids, out for a joyride.

But why had it been left here, of all places? Why would anyone bring an automobile this far out in the boonies just to abandon it? Again, something about the whole situation just did not sit right with the officer.

He contemplated these things as he drew closer to the demolished Continental, tried to shake the memories it instilled in him, of that morning two years ago, as he inspected the damage done to the vehicle. There were several rust-colored stains along the side of the Lincoln that was neither rust nor paint, but looked instead to be dried blood.

He paused, allowed his gaze to move from the torn, wrinkled metal of the fenders, to the blackened, burned roof, to the similar burned-looking area on the trunk lid.

What the hell is this?

As in reply, there came a moan from inside the ruined vehicle.

One look into the Lincoln's interior, and Trooper Pfefferkorn was on his radio; he needed an ambulance, and he needed it now. When the acknowledgement came, he barely heard it; all he could hear was the moans from the car, and the voice from the girl two years ago as she whispered in his mind.

It came from nowhere. We never had a chance.

Inside the Continental, the Trooper could see a male figure lying across the front seat. He looked to be as battered as the vehicle he occupied. He was shirtless, and the rest of his clothes were torn and dirty. His ripped t-shirt lay on the seat and was covered in dried blood. His trousers were stained with excrement. His skin, what the Trooper could see of it, was mottled and bruised. His face was puffy, distorted, and also crusted with blood. It looked as if the man had recently suffered a severe beating.

Poor bastard.

He grimaced at the sight of the man in the seat.

Even if he recovers, he'll probably never look the same.

The trooper hoped he was wrong. He brought his head down level with the window. The smell that emanated from inside the wreck was intense, a miasma of vomit, feces, urine, and the unmistakable odor of rotting flesh. It was the smell of death, and he had to fight to keep his gorge from rising, lest he vomit as well.

Inside the Lincoln, the man's eyelids fluttered.

"Sir? There's an ambulance on the way," Trooper Pfefferkorn said. "Everything is going to be okay."

The effects of his words on the man in the Lincoln were as dramatic as they were unexpected. Upon hearing the Trooper's voice, the man screamed; his eyes flew open, and his limbs flailed as he clawed his way to the far side of the battered vehicle's interior.

"You'll never take me!" the man shrieked. "Never! I know how to fight you now, and you'll never take me! Never!"

Now it was Trooper Pfefferkorn's turn to react. He stepped back from the automobile, and his hand dropped to the holster at his side. He did not draw his weapon, but merely rested his hand on the butt of his service pistol. He did not think the man posed any real threat, but it paid to be careful; the man in the car was clearly disoriented, possibly even delusional.

"Hold on now," he said. "No one is going to try and hurt you, sir. I've called an ambulance, and they'll be here in just a few minutes. There's no reason to get excited. Just stay calm, and everything will be fine. I'm just trying to help you, okay?"

The man in the Lincoln appeared uncertain. His eyes were wild, and darted frantically from side to side. He looked about to start shouting again, when the radio clipped to the Trooper's uniform gave a short burst of static. The man started visibly at the sound, and tried to draw his body tighter against the passenger side door, almost as if attempting to meld with it.

"Unit two-one-four," said a disembodied voice from the small speaker. "ETA for medical is approximately twelve minutes."

He keyed the microphone. "Roger that," he replied.

He hoped he could keep the man calm. The other had obviously either suffered some type of head injury, or was mentally unstable. Either way, he would need to tread carefully.

"Sir, can you tell me your name?" he asked.

"Langford," replied the man in the vehicle. "Howard Langford."

The name sounded familiar to the officer, but he could not remember where he had heard it before.

"Mister Langford, there is an ambulance coming. You're going to be okay. Do you remember what happened to you?"

The man in the car spoke then, but not in response to the Trooper's question. "Can it really be over?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "Is it finally over?"

"Yes, sir," the Trooper said. "Everything is going to be alright now. An ambulance is on the way. They'll take good care of you."

The man in the car did not seem as if he was paying attention to the officer's words. He was staring at a point past the officer's shoulder.

"It's all real," he whispered.

The Trooper followed the man's gaze, in an effort to see what had captured the other man's attention, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Far above them, a jetliner laid contrails between the clouds. A squirrel ran along the power lines above the other side of the road. There was nothing arresting about their surroundings; everything looked completely normal to the Trooper. He chalked up the man's strange behavior as a natural reaction to whatever tragedy had befallen him.

He watched the man's reactions carefully as he said, "It's very real, Mr. Langford. You have suffered an accident. You need to relax, and try not to move too much until the ambulance arrives."

"Where am I?"

Joseph Pfefferkorn was again struck by a sense of familiarity, a feeling he had seen him before. This did nothing to calm his growing apprehension; there was something strange here, something wrong, and he did not like it. The fear and potential for hostility seemed to have left the other man, however, and that was a good sign. Even so, the officer felt it would prudent to keep his guard up.

"What state am I in?"

"Sir?" the Trooper asked. He was unsure of the meaning behind the other's question. He wondered if the man in the Lincoln was mentally unbalanced.

"Where am I?" What state am I in? You're really here, right? This isn't part of the dreamland, so where am I?"

Paranoid. He might be a beer short of a six-pack. Best keep him talking until the EMT's can get here. They'll know how to handle him.

"Yes sir," the Trooper replied, his voice calm. "I can assure you I am quite real."

The news seemed to lift a great weight from the injured man's shoulders. He closed his eyes, and gave a great sobbing sigh of relief. His lips moved in what might have been prayer.

"Where am I?" he asked again.

"You are in the great state of New York, sir," Trooper Pfefferkorn replied. He pointed to the sign the battered automobile had come to rest against with his left hand. His right he kept on his belt, near his service revolver.

The wounded man followed the gesture with his eyes to the sign. He sat for a moment, the expression on his face that of someone that was witnessing something strange and marvelous, an unexpected and unasked for miracle.

There was nothing miraculous about the sign to Trooper Pfefferkorn; it was the same sign he passed every day during his patrol. The sign read:

Heart's Desire Rec. Area 8 MI.

HELP KEEP OUR PARKS CLEAN!

The man in the vehicle made a croaking noise, and it took the Trooper a moment to realize the other man was laughing.

"I'm back," the man said. "I'm really back." He looked the officer straight in the eyes. "Son of a bitch," he said, in a voice so full of emotion it was nearly breaking. Tears ran down his face as he said, "I really made it back."

"Yes sir," Trooper Pfefferkorn replied. He did not have the slightest idea of what the man in the Continental was talking about, but he felt that to agree with him was the best course of action to take. Memories of the events of two years ago rose again in his mind, threatened to overtake his mind as it had earlier, but he fought against them, pushed them back into the shadows.

"Everything is going to be okay now," he told the weeping man. "The paramedics will be here in a matter of minutes, and they will take good care of you, I promise."

At this, the wounded man slumped back against the passenger side door, his eyes closed. Trooper Pfefferkorn wondered if the man had even heard him.

"Are you alright, Mr. Langford?" he asked. "Can you tell me what happened to you?"

All the tension had gone out of the wounded man; now, he looked like a man who had survived a terrible ordeal, one who was both amazed and grateful at his continued existence.

"No," the man said without moving. "I don't think I can right now. Maybe later. Right now, I think I'm just going to pass out for a little while."

"Mister Langford, you may have sustained a head injury. If that is the case, you need to stay awake. Help will be here very soon."

He was concerned the man might go into shock, or worse, slip into a coma. It was very possible he had suffered a concussion.

"Don't worry," Howard said. His voice was fading, was now little more than a whisper. "I made it back. I can't die now. It would be too...ironic." His head slumped down until his chin rested on his chest.

The man was unconscious again. Trooper Pfefferkorn moved toward the automobile with the intent of checking the man for vital signs, when he noticed several strands of what appeared to be yellow fur or hair, wedged in the folds of the wrinkled rear fender. He looked at this for a moment before he moved on, made a mental note to examine them later; right now, the priority was to make sure the man in the vehicle was still alive. He went around the automobile, reached through the shattered window, and placed his fingers against the man's neck.

The wounded man did not respond to the Trooper's touch. There was a brief moment during which Joe Pfefferkorn believed he might indeed be touching a corpse, but then he felt a pulse, and with it, a sense of relief; the man was alive, and his pulse steady.

The paramedics appeared a few minutes later. The man in the Lincoln awakened as the sirens approached, and watched the medics with a wary eye as they made their preparations. He offered no resistance as they checked his vital signs, but the guarded look never left his eyes.

"Can you tell me your name, sir?" the EMT, a young woman in her twenties, asked as she took his blood pressure.

"Howard," the man replied, his voice gravelly. "My name is Howard."

More police units arrived. Flares were set, and officers took places along the roadway to direct any traffic around the waiting rescue vehicles. The Trooper stayed close to the medics, and watched as they administered aid to the man in the wrecked automobile. The woman continued her examination while her partner and the driver wheeled the stretcher over to them. She peered into his eyes with the aid of small flashlight, looking over his wounds while she took his blood pressure.

"Can you tell me what happened to you, sir?" she asked.

The man said nothing for a moment, and both the EMT and Trooper Pfefferkorn noticed the shudder that ran through his body.

"I had an accident," he said at last. He winced as the medic checked the freshly healed wound on his scalp, where unbeknownst to them, a Moorlock's axe had almost split his skull. "It was an accident."

The Trooper stood back to allow the medics to do their job, and did not approach the man until after he had been transferred to the gurney.

"Mister Langford," he said, "we will need to get a statement from you as soon as you are able. I or another officer will be in touch with you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," the wounded man replied. "Of course."

Trooper Pfefferkorn was reluctant to let the man go just yet; something about this incident bothered him, and he knew from experience to trust his instincts. He thought of the long, smeared stains along the sides of the Continental, the hairs he had seen in the folds of the metal. There was also the matter of the scorched areas on the roof and trunk. There was something here, some missing detail, which just did not add up. He did not know what those were yet, but he would be sure to find out.

"Mister Langford?" he asked.

The man on the gurney was not looking at him; he was staring past the officer, back toward the derelict Lincoln and the road sign against which it had come to rest. The officer repeated the man's name, and then turned to follow the other's gaze when his question went unanswered.

Something odd happened to Joe Pfefferkorn as he turned to see what had so occupied the other man's attention. For just a second, perhaps even less, he could have sworn the words on the sign behind him had changed to spell a different message. He blinked his eyes, convinced the sun had played a trick on his vision. When he opened them again, the sign once again appeared normal; the reflective letters were back in their proper positions. Still, he felt a bit unnerved, and the feeling of wrongness descended once again upon his heart.

"Yes, officer?" asked the man on the gurney. "Is there anything else?"

It took effort for the officer to keep the feelings of anxiety he had experienced since he first came on the scene from showing in his voice as he spoke with the man on the stretcher.

"Mister Langford," he said, "your vehicle appears to have been involved in a collision. Is there anything you would like to tell me?"

The man on the stretcher looked directly into his eyes, and for a moment, the Trooper believed he was about to be given a revelation, something that would explain not only the feelings that had come over him today, but also explain the events of that cold October evening two years ago, an explanation for the nightmares that haunted him still.

But the officer was in for a disappointment. "I hit a group of deer," the man on the stretcher said simply. "It was a group of deer."

The medic pushed the gurney up through the rear of the ambulance and closed the doors. Trooper Pfefferkorn was left to ponder the man's statement. Langford's explanation had been a simple one, and plausible, considering the area, yet as the ambulance doors closed, and the rescue vehicle began to pull away, he found he could not shake the feeling that Langford had lied to him.

After the ambulance had gone, and while the other officers waited for the wrecker to arrive and remove the derelict vehicle from the scene, he walked back to his cruiser, opened the trunk, removed a few items, and returned to stand by the wrecked Continental. He knelt by the side of the battered vehicle, snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and used a pair of tweezers to pull several of the yellow hairs, bits of flesh still attached to their base, from the crumpled metal of the fender. He placed these in a small Ziploc bag, and pinched it shut with his fingers.

With the strands of hair safely in the bag, he stood up, looked around to make sure he was unnoticed, and stripped off the latex gloves. No one had been looking in his direction; the attention of the other officers had been occupied with directing traffic, and would be until the tow truck arrived to remove the wrecked vehicle from the roadside.

It was not his job to collect evidence; he was a patrolman, not a detective, or a forensics investigator. Those skills would not be needed unless the state planned on charging Langford with a crime, or suspected him of wrongdoing. Trooper Pfefferkorn, however, did not care if the state planned on charging Mr. Langford or not. He wanted to know. He wanted an answer to the guilt that skulked at the edges of his mind, where the cries of a young child in a burning mini-van still echoed. There was the law, and there was truth, and Joseph Pfefferkorn needed to know the truth, even if it meant stepping out of his assigned role, or even bending the law.

He tucked the bag into his pocket, and returned to his cruiser. He tossed the gloves into the trunk, took out a few flares, and replaced those that had burned down before he returned to write up his report. The other officers continued to direct traffic, mainly tourists, around the site as the wrecker arrived to clear away what was left of the Continental.

With this task completed, he returned to his patrol route. He finished the remainder of his shift with nothing more serious than a few speeding tickets, but he found his mind occupied with the events surrounding his discovery of the Lincoln. It was the same the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. He pondered the man's injuries, of how he had behaved, and how the sign had seemed to change when he had turned to look at it. In replaying the moment, in turning the events over in his mind, he became convinced what he had seen was more than simply a trick of the sunlight upon his eyesight. He thought the letters might have changed somehow, even though he knew that was impossible.

It was just as impossible as a driverless car appearing on the road out of nowhere.

He had no explanation for what he had seen, but he was certain Mr. Langford had seen it as well. More, he believed the man knew the greater truth behind these events, could perhaps even make sense of those things he felt were happening all around him, but he could not explain. He was determined to have another opportunity to speak with Mr. Langford, and when he did, he planned to ask him about the sign, and about the strange yellow hairs, as coarse as wire, that he had pulled from the crumpled fender of a vehicle so badly battered it had looked as if it had been driven through a war zone.

Mr. Langford knew the truth, and Joseph Pfefferkorn felt if he too could learn this truth, then perhaps he would find the answers to his nightmares. He felt that he and Mr. Langford shared some type of common bond; they were both part of something, unseen and mysterious, and he would not rest until he knew the secret that connected them.

Sadly, however, he would be denied this opportunity. It turned out that Langford was some type of corporate bigwig, so much so he was considered a celebrity in some circles, one who came armed with a platoon of high-priced attorneys. They had swooped in, with their blue suits and red ties, and swept the whole incident under the rug.

Langford's lawyers had given a statement to the police. They claimed Mr. Langford, a stable and affluent businessman, had been returning from a business trip when his vehicle struck several deer bolting out onto the highway. They stated one of the animals was thrown through the windshield and into the rear seat of Mr. Langford's Continental, where the wounded animal had flailed about, and struck Mr. Langford in the back of the head before escaping the vehicle. The injury he sustained had induced a temporary state of semi-amnesia that had lasted for several days. Mr. Langford came to rest by the side of the road after succumbing to exposure, lost consciousness behind the wheel, and did not reawaken until discovered by the police.

Howard Langford was treated and released without being charged. Indeed, there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, or anything to cast doubt on his story. Trooper Pfefferkorn had the hairs he pulled from the wreck examined by a friend in forensics, who concluded they had come from 'an unidentified animal'. As far as the state of New York was concerned, there was nothing to investigate. No insurance claims were filed; all expenses relating to the accident, including all of Langford's healthcare expenses, were paid out-of-pocket. In the end, Mr. Langford was allowed to go on his way, and the state considered the case closed.

As far as Joseph Pfefferkorn was concerned, however, the matter was far from over. He did not buy Langford's story at all. His instincts told him the man's story was a complete load of crap. It was too convenient for his liking. The man had never been made to answer any questions, like how he managed to drive from Maryland to New York while in a state of amnesia, or how he had driven such a distance without being seen, or why he had never attempted to get assistance, or even been seen anywhere along the route from where the accident occurred, to where he was found.

No, the man's story stank to high heaven, and he was determined to make Mr. Langford answer those questions. He would ask Mr. Langford about a sign whose letters seemed to move, and about what had really happened to him during the time of his disappearance. One day, he would learn the truth, and expose all of Langford's lies. In the meantime, he could wait. He was a patient man. If he had learned anything in his years as a police officer, it was that Fate had a funny way of evening things out.

He was certain that one day, he would get his chance, and when he did, he would be ready to take advantage of the opportunity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Four years had passed since the day Howard had awakened in his own world, and the paramedics had carted him away in the ambulance. Four years since the event that signaled the end of his old life, one that ended in a blur of flashing lights and wailing sirens. After all that time, he was still plagued by nightmares.

In these dreams, he was back in the land of Highway Hypnosis, being chased by an unseen Colossus as he sped toward a bottomless chasm. Only in his nightmares, there was no bridge spanning the rift, no escape route leading back to his own reality. In his dreams, it was always the same; no matter how many times he has dreamed the events before, it was always the same.

In these dreams, he was speeding away from the unseen threat behind him, and did not notice the bridge was missing until it was too late. He desperately tried to stop, to swerve aside, but was powerless to prevent his vehicle from plunging over the side. As the Lincoln's rear wheels cleared the edge of the chasm, and the weight of the engine pulled her nose down, Howard could see the chasm had no bottom; it opened into the infinite blackness of space, and as he realized he would not fall for seconds or minutes or hours, but for all eternity, the vehicle around him dissolved until he was alone, falling through space. It was then that he would begin to scream, and the nightmare would end as he fell back through the darkness into his body.

Howard often wandered through the darkened, empty halls of his research and development complex, his mind brimming with memories. He walked the halls out of habit, a response to the nightmares which left him shaking, his body covered in sweat. The act of walking helped to ease his mind; the familiar hallways and rooms of the buildings reassured him that he was firmly back on his native world, and had not somehow slipped back into a realm where Tasmanian Tigers and radioactive mutants roamed.

Tonight had been another of those nights where he was afraid to go to sleep, afraid he would awaken, sweating in the dark, unsure of where he was, or the reality of his surroundings. The walking helped, but the memories of that terrible ordeal were never far from his mind. Most of the scars on his body had eventually faded; weeks of hospital care and some plastic surgery had healed his physical wounds, but the scars on his psyche went much deeper.

It did not matter that he was in no physical danger; his studies of the nature of dreams after his return had led him to conclude that without the guiding force of the Adversary, only his consciousness traveled to the plane of dreams, but the fear he felt was all too real.

On that day, four years ago, he had lost consciousness again in the ambulance, and with the exception of a brief period of lucidity in the emergency room, did not awaken again for three days. He woke in a strange white room, with tubes dripping vital fluids into his system, and sensors that monitored his life signs. He drifted in and out of reality in the following days, as he regained his strength.

He learned he had been missing from the real world for a total of only four days. During that time, which had been much longer in the land of the Adversary, he had lost over eighty-six pounds from hunger and dehydration. The doctors were puzzled and alarmed at his severe weight loss, until he told them he had been on a diet for nearly a year before his disappearance, a fabrication he felt was necessary in order to protect himself from deeper, and likely dangerous, inquiry. The doctors informed him that his organs showed no permanent damage, but his system had been put under a tremendous strain, and that he was lucky to be alive.

Howard agreed.

He responded well to treatment, and the doctors told him he would make a full recovery. Even in his condition, Howard had to resist the urge to laugh at the doctor's words. Although his body might heal, he would never recover from his experience; the land of Highway Hypnosis had changed him forever.

Upon awakening in his hospital room, Howard was visited by Lester Tanner. The Senior Production Manager had done an excellent job of keeping the lid on his employer's disappearance while they attempted to discover his whereabouts. Tanner was Howard's most trusted employee, and together they made plans on how to handle the media circus that was certain to erupt once his condition was made public, which was inevitable, considering his wealth and position.

The media did descend, of course; the discovery of an amnesia victim in the Adirondack Park Forest Preserve was enough to get the ball rolling, and once the local paper discovered his identity, Howard became national news. It took some careful maneuvering to keep him isolated from the onslaught of cameras and microphones, and to make certain he was portrayed as a fortunate survivor of an unfortunate accident, and not in a way that might prove detrimental to his reputation or the company's bottom line. The public relations people made sure that any damage done to the company was kept to a minimum. They did their job well, and Langford Technologies saw an increase in sales as a result.

Dealing with the police was a different matter, however, one Howard felt deserved delicate handling and careful attention. He decided to give the initial statement to police in person; it would give the appearance he had nothing to hide, and considering the circumstances, the fewer suspicions he raised, the quicker the matter could be put to rest. After that, it was a matter for the lawyers, who would gently insist on protecting their client's privacy.

Howard had plenty of time to refine his story during his recovery, and when the time came, he delivered the story perfectly. The account he delivered to the police was simple: he had been returning from a convention in Las Vegas when he became delayed by traffic on I-95. He took an alternate route to escape the traffic, and became lost. Before he could consult his GPS, a group of deer sprinted out of the woods in front of his car. With no time to brake, he struck several of the animals. One of them was tossed over the hood of his car and through his windshield, to land in the back seat of the Lincoln. As he pulled over to the side of the road to try and remove the animal, it kicked him in the head, splitting his scalp, and rendering him unconscious.

After that, he told police, everything was a blur. He remembered driving, of being afraid, but little else. He remembered driving along a trail or dirt road, of being lost in a forest, but could not be certain of the accuracy of his memories. It was not until his discovery by a patrolling State Trooper that he regained his senses, and his identity.

Howard was proud of his story. It was bulletproof. If he was asked to fill in any details, or asked any questions in relation to his missing time, he could simply reply, "I don't remember, I'm sorry."

He was even prouder of his performance, believed it was worthy of an Academy Award: Best Performance by a Person Experiencing Crazy Shit No One Would Ever Believe. The police took their report, thanked him for his time, and that was the end of it. The doctors at the hospital agreed that though unusual, it was possible for a person to suffer temporary amnesia from a blow to the head.

The official entry on his medical record read 'temporary memory impairment due to impact trauma'. Once he was pronounced physically fit enough to leave the hospital, he was visited once by a psychiatrist, judged mentally competent, and so was allowed to go upon his way. He did not drive, of course; he may have been traumatized, but he wasn't stupid. He rented a Limosine, hired not one, but two professional drivers, and was driven back to his headquarters.

He wandered back to his office suite, where he spent the majority of his free time since he returned from the hospital, four years ago. He crossed the expansive main office suite, and entered the small, but expensively equipped, kitchen via a door that slid into the wall at his approach, like those in the old Star Trek television series. Once inside the kitchen, he went through the motions of making two mocha lattes: one for himself, and one for Larry, the security guard manning the main security checkpoint. As the espresso machine clunked and whined, he let his mind travel back, as he often did, to the events that surrounded his return to the real world.

There had been unanswered questions of course, but his amnesia defense allowed him to deflect any doubts the police may have had. There was nothing to tie him to any crime, and thus, they had no reason to detain him. He paid all the bills for his medical care from his personal account in order to avoid any unpleasant dealings with the insurance companies, and to maintain a distance from anyone curious enough to dig into the events surrounding his supposed accident.

There had been a few instances where a reporter had tried to investigate the incident, but they had not gotten far; Howard had the luxury of being able to afford to hire professionals whose job it was to deter such inquiries. He had also been given news that the trooper who had discovered him on the road had tried to have his vehicle impounded, under the excuse it may have been involved in a hit and run, but his lawyers had taken care of that nicely, and the vehicle had been shipped back to his company warehouse, where it had been sealed away.

He had never repaired the vehicle, had never sat behind her wheel since the day he was found along the edge of the Forever Wild area of Adirondack Park, along Route 28.

Howard sipped foam from his latte, slipped the other cup into an insulated holder, and carried both back the way he had come. He had expected some trouble out of the trooper, Pfefferkorn, had suspected the officer had perhaps seen what he had seen while waiting to be loaded into the ambulance. If that were true, it could mean the officer knew there was something more to Howard's story than what he was telling, and though he had not had any further contact with the officer, it was a loose end, one that made Howard uncomfortable.

"Good morning, Mister Langford." The voice of Larry Sturgis, the head of the nighttime security team, broke him from his reverie. "Another late night, or an early morning?"

He handed the guard the insulated holder with the still-steaming latte, who received it with a grateful smile. "A little bit of both," he said. "How goes the night shift? Anything on the monitors tonight?"

"No sir," Larry replied. "All systems are nominal. Saw some raccoons on one of the exterior monitors about an hour ago. They were trying to get into the recycling bins. Crafty little devils, they are."

"Crafty, and hungry," Howard said.

"Sounds like a job for an exterminator," Larry said.

"They're just looking for food," Howard said. "I'd rather just have some feeders placed out beyond the fence."

"That's very kind of you," Larry said. "Very ecologically conscious."

"Well, I may not look it," Howard replied, "but I know what it's like to be hungry."

"Here's to overcoming adversity," Larry said, and took a sip of his latte.

Howard joined him in the toast. "Indeed," he said.

They drank in silence for a time, and engaged in small talk. Howard asked how the guard's family members were faring, what his opinion was on the Raven's chances for the Super Bowl, what Larry planned on getting his children for Christmas, innocuous conversation that was now a part of his nightly routine. Before his ill-fated trip to Las Vegas, and his side-trip into the land of dreams, Howard had maintained a detachment from those in his employ, but this was no longer the case. These days, he took a more personal interest in everyone who worked for him, from the lowest assembly worker, up the managers of his various departments and subsidiary companies. He took the time to discover who they were, to learn their motivations, their needs. It was a smart business strategy, and he had profited from this practice, but money was not the source of his interest.

He left Larry to his banks of monitors and displays, and headed back to the suite of offices and rooms that comprised his living area since his return. He contemplated the many changes he had made since that moment on the stretcher four years ago, when his older life had ended, and his new life had begun.

The man he was had begun to fade back in that other world, the land of highway hypnosis, and what had been left had been blown clean away as he laid on the gurney by the ambulance, when he had looked back toward the Lincoln. He had been given an epiphany, had enlightenment forced upon him against his will. This had changed him, made him view his life, and all life, in a different light. This New Howard did not suffer from the limitations of its predecessor, yet retained all its former strengths.

The Newer Howard viewed his existence in an entirely new context, and had changed the way he lived as a result. The event at the ambulance had hammered home the truth of his experiences, completed the transformation that began when the Old Howard had looked into the abyss, both physical, and metaphysical, on another world. What he saw as he gazed back on the vehicle that had been the instrument of his salvation had set him free to become more than he had ever been, more than he had ever dreamed of being. It had lit a spark inside him that had increased his net worth a hundred-fold, and helped change his company into an empire.

This transformation had not been without cost. He rarely left his research and development compound in Northern Virginia, due to both the demands placed upon him by his position, and his almost phobic dislike of travel. He had forgone his passion for the open road, and replaced it with time spent in research, in gleaning as much knowledge as could be gained on a variety of subjects, from the nature of dreams, to altered states of consciousness, to string theory and theoretical physics. He had come to have a reputation as something of a recluse, and had become a favorite target of the tabloids, who portrayed him as everything from a raving lunatic, who commanded his empire from a hidden enclave, to a megalomaniac genius bent on conquering the U.S. electronics market. These were of little consequence to Howard; he saw them as scandal sheets, little more than fodder for bored housewives, and paid them no mind.

Shortly after his return, Howard had moved into his office complex, reluctant to undertake the twenty-minute drive from his home. He offered to give the house to his parents, but his father had refused. The elder Langford's pride would not allow him to accept any such offers of generosity from his younger son. David and his wife had moved to California the year before, so Howard kept the house in Potomac, though he never visited the property.

Howard did not consider these changes to be particularly negative. His schedule in the days since his return left about as much time for travel as they did for relationships. He had, in his view, been conditioned to live alone since childhood. He did not consider himself deprived by this; there were far too many things to occupy his time and attention for him to feel lonely, important things that overshadowed such concerns.

It was toward one of those things that Howard now headed.

He moved through his office suite and entered his private library, where he stored all the books, papers, and other research materials he needed both for his various projects, business-related and otherwise. The room was well appointed; shelves lined all four walls, broken only by doors that led to his offices, and to his living quarters. The furniture was comfortable but not lavish; several desks and overstuffed chairs gave him plenty of study space. On each desk, was a built in computer terminal. Like all the rooms and offices in the complex, they were tied into the company mainframe, a device of Howard's own design.

He walked into the room, and headed toward one of the long bookcases that ran from floor to ceiling along the walls. He paused before a section of shelving, and said, "Open the pod bay doors, Hal."

There was a hum, and a section of the bookcase dropped back and slid to the side to reveal a short hallway, which led to a flight of stairs. These in turn led down to another door.

The mainframe's artificial intelligence, while far from being the autonomous thinking machines depicted in the movies, was far in advance of anything possessed by any other company or government on the planet. The true capabilities of the machine were unknown to anyone but its creator, which was only one of the many inspirations he had realized since his return to his native world. The phrase activated the mainframe's voice recognition software, also of Howard's design, and was only one of many security phrases Howard used to safeguard the various secrets held within the walls of Langford Technologies.

At the bottom of the steps was another short corridor, at the end of which stood a door made of polished steel. The doors to the more sensitive parts of the complex all used various security methods to prevent unauthorized entry, from voice, palm print, and eye recognition, to security cards and codes entered by keypad. This door, unlike any of the other doors to be found in the various buildings, used all of them. This made it virtually impossible for anyone without clearance, which in this case applied to everyone on the planet but Howard, from entering this section of the building. This entry, with the exception of a freight elevator with the same level of security, was the only way into Howard's secret inner sanctum and research laboratory.

Howard descended the steps, and walked to the door. He swiped his security card, keyed in his PIN number, pressed his palm against the reader, bent to allow the retinal scanner to read the unique signature contained there, and spoke one of the many key phrases he used to access the different sectors of the complex. These phrases were gleaned from many sources, from his favorite science-fiction films, such as the one he used to open the secret passage leading to the entrance of his inner sanctum, to lines from classical poetry. In this case, it was the latter, from a poem by Edgar Allen Poe.

"All we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream," he said.

The door slid open with barely a sound, and lights warmed into being as he stepped into the chamber beyond.

There were moments when Howard could not help but to miss the open road. The sense of freedom he had felt while behind the wheel was now but a memory, one of the costs of his transformation into the Newer Howard. During these times, he would think of all the benefits of his new life, and eventually, the feeling of loss would fade. He had left the hospital weighing seventy plus pounds less than when he left for his ill-fated trip to Las Vegas. After he returned from the hospital, he had become determined to improve both his diet and his health, and had managed to meet and exceed those goals. He now weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, and looked better than he ever had in his life. While still a big man, he could no longer be considered fat. He maintained a regular exercise schedule, and felt better physically than he ever had in his life. He had a running track built on the grounds of the complex, as well as a state-of-the-art gymnasium.

The trade-off to this lifestyle was that he rarely left the compound, and then only under very specific conditions. On most occasions, he used a professional driver who doubled as a bodyguard, and always used one of two modified vehicles. One was a Lincoln Town car, the other a Navigator Sport Utility vehicle. Both vehicles had been stripped to the frame before being rebuilt with armor plating and bulletproof glass by a custom vehicle security company at a cost exceeding a hundred thousand dollars each. Both were equipped with enough survival gear and rations to outfit an expedition to Everest. Driving would always be a dangerous prospect for him, and he needed to be careful. For a man in his position, preparation was key.

Still, he knew it would not be enough. Everything he knew, everything he owned, all he had become, was only temporary, his return a brief respite. The truth of this had been revealed to him on the road sign, as he laid on a gurney surrounded by paramedics and law enforcement officers.

He stepped into the chamber, finished his latte, and placed the empty cup into a trash receptacle without taking his eyes from the object in the center of the room, the reason for the elaborate security measures employed throughout the complex. The object was the reason the sanctum had been constructed, the result of an idea that had come to him while strapped in the back of the ambulance as it transported him to the hospital.

After the trooper with the strange name had discovered him lying unconscious in the Lincoln, just before the EMT's had placed him in the ambulance, Howard had looked back toward the Continental and the road sign, toward its final resting place after its reentry into his own world. The trooper had asked him something, but his attention had been elsewhere. He had been overwhelmed by the knowledge that his ordeal was finally over; he had made it back, and could perhaps go back to having a normal life. Then the road sign had done its trick, and he knew that nothing would be, or could ever be, the same again.

As his gaze shifted from the Continental to the road sign, the letters on its surface began to move; they swirled and squirmed like a nest of snakes suddenly exposed to the sun, or a predator, only to coalesce into new positions. Howard's mind became blank, and his blood turned to ice as he read the message it formed:

WE WILL MEET AGAIN HOWARD

ONE DAY I WILL COME FOR YOU

COME BACK ANY TIME!

He had just enough time to read the words before the letters swirled again, and the sign reverted to its original state. Howard had looked over to the paramedics to see if they had noticed, but they had not been looking in the right direction. Only the cop, Pfefferkorn, had seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary, but he had not said a word.

The fear had started to set in again, there in the back of the ambulance, and would have overtaken him completely, left him to spend the remainder of his days drooling onto his straight jacket in a sanitarium, were it not for a bright spark of inspiration, a moment where the true worth of living and the temporary nature of life was impressed upon his soul. There, in the back of the speeding rescue vehicle, Howard had completed the transformation he had begun in the alien world of highway hypnosis. In that moment, he found a new purpose, and in doing so, a way to fight back against the fear. There, in the back of the ambulance, he began to formulate a plan for his life, the first in a series of inspirations.

The culmination of those inspirations was before him. If the tabloids only knew what was in this room, they would really have something to write about. An indescribable feeling came over him as he gazed at the fruit of his creative genius.

For a year after his return, Howard concentrated on developing a number of hardware improvements in his gaming and computer divisions. These led to the introduction of a new line of portable computing devices, customized to fit a number of different markets. With the capital generated from the sale of these devices, Howard was able to finance the design and development of the next generation of his virtual reality gaming simulators. These made him a fortune, both from the entertainment market, and from several lucrative military contracts. Capable of recreating almost any type of environment, they were utilized by the military in training troops for the use of the newest line of military vehicles for use in a variety of applications, from field combat to anti-terrorist operations. These developments, however, were merely means to an end, stepping stones toward a greater goal.

Sitting in the center of the room, illuminated by soft lighting placed about the room's circumference, was a vehicle that resembled a futuristic Bradley Combat Vehicle.

Fully armored, the vehicle was a one-of-a-kind creation, and boasted a turret-mounted fifty-caliber machine gun and carried more than ten thousand rounds of ammunition. It was this vehicle, and the enhanced simulation network supporting it, that had been the driving force of his life since that moment of inspiration in the back of the ambulance. It was a well-kept secret, and while a stripped-down variant was part of his amusement park simulation rides, no one else was aware of this functional prototype. The vehicle's six all-terrain tires were nearly impossible to puncture, and the cargo compartment carried enough equipment, weapons, and provisions for a dozen people to survive in a hostile environment for fifteen days.

These features were impressive, but paled in comparison to the structure mounted on top of the vehicle, approximately two-thirds of the way from the front end. Mounted in an armored turret was a large assembly of polished metal that looked like a prop from a science-fiction film.

On the simulation rides in the amusement parks and specialized arcades, these emitted a weak laser signal that was tied to the computer software as part of the simulated adventure. This version, however, was much more, and was in fact a powerful carbon dioxide laser, capable of delivering a hundred megawatt beam for a full sixty seconds before it needed to be recharged. It was a weapon that would have both the Department of Defense and other agencies knocking at his door were they to know of its existence. His contracts with the military had given him some degree of inside knowledge regarding the level of weapons development currently held by those agencies, and he knew with some certainty that his design was far ahead of currently available technology.

Howard walked alongside the Bradley-clone, and ran his hand along its side. The smooth texture of the metal under his fingers calmed him, gave him a sense of confidence and satisfaction. He had used his military contacts to obtain the technical details of the Bradley, and other contacts, both above and below the table, for the ballistic ordnance it carried. He was sure possession of the latter would get him in serious legal trouble, but he was not worried; it was doubtful anyone would ever learn of his project.

Regardless of the risk, the end would justify the means. After all, more than just his dreams were at stake. He had been plagued by nightmares since that day four years ago, when the Adversary had left him a parting message. Here, in this room, Howard knew he had the means by which he could rid himself of the nightmares forever. He knew one day he would have to return to that other world, had been forced to live with that knowledge since that day in the ambulance. Now, he possessed the means by which he could survive in that hostile, alien world. All he lacked was a means to enter the world on his own terms, a project that occupied almost all of his waking moments.

To this day, he was uncertain how he had made it back. He had theories, of course, formulated over the course of many sleepless nights. He knew his inner self, the part of his being he had locked away since childhood, had been instrumental in keeping him alive in that alternate dimension, both on a conscious and subconscious level, but he did not know how it had worked to bring him home. For years, he had been forced to be content with simply being alive, but he knew the day was coming when he would have to face the force that had torn him from his world, the thing that had tried to drain him of his life force, once again, and end things once and for all.

This time, he would be ready.

Howard had spent years of his life and many millions of dollars in preparation for the confrontation that was sure to come, and when the time came, he would not run; this time, he would fight.

He would not wait for the Adversary to come to him. Soon, when he was ready, he would go to it.

It was true he had changed. He had become, in many ways, a kinder, gentler person. His eyes had been opened to the grand but temporary beauty that was life, had been made to see things and ponder questions that had pushed his sanity to the limit, but one part of him had not changed; underneath it all, under the sometimes too soft flesh, was a core of steel, and a hatred of injustice, of those who sought to victimize the innocent or the weak. When confronted by those things, that steely part of him would fight back, and fight to win.

Very soon now, the time would come when he would have to return to that nightmarish world. He was determined to finish what the Adversary had started, and when he did, there would be hell to pay.

Soon.

INTERMISSION

### Author's Note

I have taken a few creative liberties with places and animals depict-ed in this story. To the best of my knowledge, there is no Heart's Desire recreational area in the Adirondack Park area.

The Thylacines featured in this novel are a work of fiction, and are based, very loosely, on Thylacinus Protens, or Powerful Thylacine, which flourished in the late Miocene period, approximately 8 million years ago, and Thylacinus Cynocephalus, better known as the Tasmanian wolf, or Tasmanian tiger.

Thylacinus Protens was among the largest carnivorous animals to live in Australia, only surpassed in size by the Pleistocene Marsupial Lion. It went extinct before the arrival of man.

Thylacinus Cynocephalus was driven from Australia by the arrival of the dingo, and later hunted to extinction on Tasmania by man after its territory was turned into farmland. These animals were considered to be a threat by farmers, and a bounty was placed on them, even though little evidence for such threat was ever shown.

Although I portrayed these animals as being dangerous, this is pure fabrication; these animals had a shy temperament, and it is extremely unlikely they would ever pose any threat to man. They did poorly in captivity, and preferred to avoid human contact whenever possible. I found the story of these animals compelling, and their appearance beautiful and striking. It is for these reasons that I have included them in this story.

Although the last captive specimen of the Tasmanian tiger died in Hobart Zoo on September 7, 1936, there has been evidence that a small population of these beautiful animals may still exist. I can only hope this is so, and that if they are ever proven to still survive, that they will be more appreciated, and allowed to flourish without interference by man.

– Michael Vain

December 14, 2015

About the Author

Michael Vain was born in Elkridge, Maryland, and spent his childhood in an 18th century colonial home. This environment greatly influenced his art and writing, and provided the perfect atmosphere for him to explore the darker avenues of his imagination.

Michael began his creative career as a visual artist, and has been drawing and painting since he was old enough to hold a brush. Today, he continues to create illustrations and works of functional art.

Highway Hypnosis is his first novel-length work.

He currently resides with his wife in Virginia.

Connecting with Michael Vain

For more about the author, visit his website at: <http://www.michaelvain.net/>

Follow Michael on Twitter: <http://www.twitter.com/knightofshadows>

To see his works of functional art, visit <http://www.reincarnations.com/>

Other Works by Michael Vain

The Minstrel (novella)
