 
# Sand

Book Three of the Campground Series

A Novel by JD Jones

Copyright 2013 by JD Jones

Smashwords Edition

License Notes:

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold in any form or transferred, even if no compensation is given. If you would like to share this e-book, please purchase additional copies for other recipients. If you are reading this e-book and it was not purchased by you or for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the rights and hard work of the author.

All characters, events and places in this novel are fictitious. This is purely a work of fiction, and as such, any resemblance to actual living persons or real places is unintentional.

Other books in the Campground Series by JD Jones

Mist

Dark

Also read the short story, My Last Testament.
Chapter One

Lucius Salvatore walked aimlessly across the dew wet grass of the park. It was dark and quiet at night and there was no one there to tell him to keep off. He hated cops. Always warning him. Always bothering him. Always hindering him. But they were not there at night. They would not come here at night. At night they stayed far away. No one came here at night.

Only Lucius ventured here at night, now. Once there were several who came. But they were all gone. They had done bad things. They had hurt people. No more. It was quiet now. Happy now. Just Lucius and the sand.

Moonlight slashing through the trees glinted off the bottle he carried alongside his body. He kept his hands down by habit. No one could see him carry the bottle, but habit had made him cautious long ago. Even now, when caution was no longer called for. With an upward tilt of his head he smiled into the moonlight as he slipped out from under the trees and let the fullness of the moon beams play across his face. He could feel the light. Soft, loving. A gentle caress of nature's own nighttime protector. Always vigilant. Always watchful. Especially for him.

Lucius did not hurry. Time was not a factor. He had all the time he wanted once the moonlight filled the night. Lifting his arms he whirled around, letting his body drink of the gentle energy of the light surrounding him. It was luxurious, radiant, even warm. He reveled in it. He drank of it as surely as he had been drinking of his bottle earlier. Earlier, when he had to wait for darkness. Earlier, when things were not as good as they were now.

But now all was right. Once again balance was restored. The balance that came with night and the true light it brought. Moonlight. The true light. The only light by which he could see the sand. And it was the sand that was important. The sand of time. Truth was in the sand. Life was in the sand. Destiny was in the sand.

Many had laughed when he told them of his discovery. Many had mocked him openly. They did not understand. What he found did not fit into their nicely ordered world. They refused to see. They shunned him for trying to make them see. So well trained academically but, so blind to real knowledge. He had showed them. They had ignored him. Now they were them and he was himself.

Lucius swirled across the damp grass in a pattern of loops and whirls, dancing himself into the middle of the largest lawn in the park. It was known as the Ocean's Lawn to most but the Place of the Sand to him. There he could see the sand. He could hear it. He could commune with it. He could become one with it.

One could actually see the ocean from the lawn. Some well meaning politician, or well meaning citizen of high rank, had once thought the view was what was important. They had missed the sand, though. It was everywhere. Even where the grass grew thick, the sand waited underneath. Sure, this was ocean front. Tourists came to visit because of the ocean. But what good is an ocean without any sand? Without sand there is no beaches. No beaches. No tourists. Just ask those rocky beach owners in Maine. How many people spread their blanket out on those rocky shores? No, it wasn't the ocean. It was the sand.

As soon as he reached the center of the lawn, he stopped his dancing pirouettes. His eyes took on a somber gleam and his smile became more of a lustful leer. Forgotten was the bottle he had dropped somewhere in his ecstatic revolutions. Forgotten was the day he had. Everything meant nothing now. All was fresh and new. There was only the sand. And it came.

It started as sparkling particles dancing around him in the moonlight. Then it grew to a luminescent cloud swirling first around his feet, eventually rising up and slowly circling his body, at times obscuring his form behind the density of the individual particles.

Inside Lucius could hear the voices. He could sense the presence of them all. He knew they could sense him as well. Ever so gently he began to turn with the cloud of sand. One step at a time. Then two. Eventually, he matched the speed of the cloud surrounding him. Eventually he became one with the movement, with the sound, with the sand.

Electric. That was how he had tried to explain it to others once. They had laughed but they had never felt it. Like being with someone you loved, it lifted you up somehow. It energized him. It energized him now. The slow drain of his day was washing away inside the cloud of whirling particles. All that the world had taken away from him was being given back. The Sand replenished. The Sand made it good again.

Opening his mouth Lucius allowed several grains of the sand to enter in. He tasted of them and loved them as they made their way inside him. He released himself to them and gave them complete control. That was where the energy came from. The Sand had it. The Sand shared it with him when he shared himself with the Sand.

With the energy came a reason for the energy. There was no sense having energy if he was not going to use it. The Sand had taught him that. And the Sand had much to do. Because he loved the sand, he had much to do. They were kindred spirits now. They were one.

As quickly as the storm of sand had risen it dissipated. Though the cloud was gone he still felt its presence. That was another thing the Sand taught him. When he was energized he was more aware of the presence. Ordinary people could not sense it because they were too tired, too busy, too preoccupied with themselves. Ordinary people spent their day trying to figure new ways to use up their energy with purposeless things. They had no idea of why the energy was wasted on them in the first place. Only he sensed the presence of the Sand. It was how he knew he was alive. The sand had shown him what real living was. What really being alive was.

Pictures played across his mind as he concentrated on the renewing of the presence within himself. The taste of the sand was gone from his mouth but the presence was strong in his mind. He told himself he could feel it. It was that strong.

There was the picture of a man and a woman this time. Both were young. She was pretty. He was tall and looked like a basketball or football star. He was sure she was someone important, too. Sometimes he knew. Sometimes he didn't. It didn't matter to him. All that mattered was the presence. Feeling it and the energy it brought. Being one with it. Everything else was only part of the presence. The presence was everything.

Noticing the park around him once again, Lucius started moving. His walk was not aimless now. He had purpose. That was another thing the Sand had taught him. Life without purpose is worthless. Lucius was not worthless. The sand gave him purpose. Every Thursday night he had purpose. It was Thursday night. He had something he had to do. The Sand had taught him that too. The Sand had so much knowledge. He owed so much to the Sand.

Time now became important. Not because it was important to him but because it was important to others. That importance gave him a window of opportunity. Ordinary people could be expected to do things according to the way they viewed time. Unlike Lucius who was part of the Sand and needed no time, no boundaries, ordinary people used time as a tool of their existence. He pictured a clock and knew the time that he was to meet. Setting his shoulders for the walk ahead he pushed on out of the park and into the night that surrounded the small city.

The Sand had taught him how to move with the night. Like a shadow he slipped from building to building and drew no attention despite the small pockets of people he passed. A clock above a diner showed him how much of the night he had left. 11:25 pm. Like always he had plenty of time. It was the ordinary people who never had enough time. People who filled their time with things just so they could claim to be busy or important or whatever. Not one of them could explain the importance or the purpose of the things that took up their time. Most of them spent a lot of their time complaining about the things they felt they HAD to do. Ordinary people abused time. Tonight some would have even less time. That was why they needed Lucius. He could show them how to get all the time they needed. Like him they could never worry about time again. Instead of fighting time by trying to steal large quantities of it they could become one with it and lose themselves in it. It was part of his purpose.

Lucius walked on. No one saw him. No one remembered him. He moved with the sand of time. They moved with the time of their own schedules. Two very different places. He smiled at them as he passed but they saw only their own destinies. They lived in their time with all their friends. He lived in sand time with all the sand. The presence spoke to him even if they would not.

The Sand Man was coming.

John Allen Corwin woke in a sweat. Since the death of his young wife, the nightmares had come every night. He dreaded the night. Sometimes it was a creature out of the darkness. Sometimes it was him holding her tightly. Other times, he remembered running a race and losing. But always the ending was the same. In a fog of dark mist, Kathy slipped silently away from him. Her arms outstretched, like she was trying to hold onto him. Her mouth was open like she was screaming, but nothing was coming out. He always cried out to her. He always reached for her. He never got to her. She always disappeared into the depths of the darkness that consumed her. He missed his wife, hated the world and all that was spiritual. Mostly, he dreaded the night.

As he sat up in the darkness trying to regain his sense of composure, he let his hatred burn. If it did not burn, it would explode. Somehow he knew that without thinking about it too hard. He needed an outlet. Someone or something he could vent all his anger on. Nothing presented itself. So, he let it fume inside him. If he couldn't find a real target, he would hate everything.

Everything he had ever been taught told him to let it go. Forgive and forget. Move on. Find his way out of the dark place he was in. But he could not move on. The darkness would not let go of him. He could never let go. Or maybe, rather, would never let go. That was how he felt now. Hatred. Anger. Holding on. Barely.

He could not let go. Letting go meant letting go of Kathy. He would never let go of her. She was what made him whole. He feared that by letting her go, he would lose a part of himself, somehow. That was his life now. Fear. Fear of the night. Fear of the day. Fear of meeting happy people. Fear of never being happy again. It was easier to hate. Easier than the alternative. Letting go.

Laying back down, he tried to close his eyes. But they were wide, staring into the blackness that was his small bedroom in the camper. It was winter time so the campground was mostly empty, quiet. He had considered what was going to happen if the tourist season arrived and he was still in this funk. So far the only answer he had given himself was to tell them all, "To Hell With You!"

Rita Paxwood slept warmly in her bed. Her black hair, long and shining across the pillow, cascaded down the edge of the bed. She and her husband, Paul, had been married only seven months. This was one of very few nights they had actually been asleep in their bed before midnight. Each had to get up early for work the next day, not that they had let that stop them before. But the new was wearing off the every night sex and they were becoming more and more comfortable with skipping sex some nights and just cuddling until they fell asleep.

Lucius peeked through window at them and saw that it was dark. Darkness was no hindrance to him, though. It was his friend. He needed it. He sought it out. Every day, he waited for it to come.

The two bodies were motionless. Not as motionless as he planned on making them before he was through. He watched for several minutes making sure they were asleep. He was not a very big man. He needed the surprise and the momentary confusion of waking from a sound sleep to do his work. Approaching them when they could see him coming would not do at all.

Paul laid still so he would not wake Rita. He loved just lying there holding her. In the dark her beautiful features were shadowed but he could remember each characteristic of her face as though the lights were full on. His heart ached as he watched her sleep. No man deserved such a beautiful woman. She was like a gift to the world and he had somehow managed to capture her for himself.

For so long he had dreaded getting married. Not the solitary bachelor thing. It was not even about sharing his life with her, keeping his own space. He had been so convinced that she could do better than him, that he would not marry her. If he married her, he thought he would be bringing her down to his level. She deserved better. He felt that then and still felt that, to some extent, now. It worried him at night. That was when he could lie awake beside her and think about such things. How was he going to bring her everything she needed and deserved? He barely made enough money to afford this small apartment and a run down car. If she had not already had her own car, he could not have afforded to get her one. And what about children? They had talked about wanting a big family. How was he going to afford children? He sighed softly into the air. Like the other nights since he had agreed to marry her, he came up with no new answers. Maybe tomorrow would hold something new.

There was a flicker of shadow across the wall where Paul's eyes rested in the semi darkness. A street light from outside beamed through their bedroom window, so they were never really in the dark. Something had crossed in front of the window and made that shadowy flicker. Paul turned towards the window but there was nothing there. Outside, beyond the window, all was as it always was. He turned back to his thoughts and holding his lover. He still could not believe she had chosen him.

She was beautiful. He was ordinary. She was classy, from a well to do family. He was the son of a drunk who never held a job for more than a month. She had a degree and worked at the hospital. He had most of a degree and had been working at the same tire store as a clerk, slash, manager. He didn't feel lucky. Not for her, at least. He felt like an anchor. She should be going places, meeting people. Not staying here and taking care of him. Not that he allowed her to take care of him. He would not hear of it. They were still working out how they were going to live as man and wife. Every scenario he came up with had her taking care of him as she progressed and prospered at the hospital. That worried him too. His future.

He heard a noise. Maybe glass breaking? Maybe not. Definitely not a normal nighttime noise, though. He unwrapped his arms from Rita and slid gently out of bed so as not to wake her. There it was again. A clicking, tinkling sound. It sounded to Paul like it was coming from the back of the house. He moved into the shadows of the hallway and softly made his way to the back of the house. He slipped into the living room when he heard a noise from the kitchen. A drawer opening. Someone was inside the house.

Paul's adrenaline kicked in. Not fear. Excitement. His nerves all awoke and set themselves to ready. His muscles pulsed with the pounding of his heart. His pupils dilated to allow as much light as possible through. His entire body heard the noise, assessed the potential threat and created a response before he even finished picturing the situation.

Moving to the closet, he reached for his softball bat in the corner. They had still not found a place to put his sports equipment in this small apartment. Rita had needed the closet for her things. His stuff was still piled in the corner outside. The bat felt familiar and comforting in his hands. A thirty four inch, aluminum length of defense weapon now. Quietly he moved back to the hallway.

A few more quiet steps and he was at the doorway to the kitchen. Slowly he leaned his head around the door jamb and peeked inside. It was a small room with no obstacles to hide behind. In a couple seconds, he assessed the situation, realizing the room was empty. No intruder here. Another breath and he saw the broken window at the back door. The small pane of glass just above the handle. Another breath and he saw the drawer that he had heard opening. It was still open. It was the silverware drawer. That puzzled him. There were half a dozen drawers in the kitchen. How had the intruder known which drawer he wanted to look in? What did he want there? Then the biggie. Where was the intruder now?

Paul's eyes widened in realization. Rita! He barely kept himself from calling out her name and alerting the intruder. His movements back down the hallway were not as stealthy as they had been coming this way. Quiet, but not slow any longer. A scared urgency drove Paul forward to protect his wife.

With softball bat raised in readiness, he entered the bedroom at the front of the house and saw a shadow against the wall immediately. The shadow distracted him from the actual body that made the shadow, giving the intruder precious seconds to react to the surprise attack. The result was that Paul's swing landed against the intruder's side instead of on his head as planned.

Paul was not a super athlete but he was a big, young man in pretty good shape. Knowing his first swing missed, he did not rail back for a second. Instead, he lunged forward letting his body knock the intruder away from the bed, where Rita now came awake at the disturbance. Paul saw her move back across the bed in fear, not fully realizing what was going on. He heard her short scream of surprise to find two people scuffling beside her bed.

The intruder tried to move sideways, as to attack Rita and Paul moved to block. His bat was ready for a second swing and he drove through the ball as his old baseball coach had always taught him. The blow caught the intruder in the shoulder and drove him across the room with the cracking of some bone, satisfying Paul's sense of athleticism somewhat. By the way the intruder grabbed at the upper part of his left arm, Paul assumed he had broken the bone there. He planned on breaking the man's head as soon as opportunity presented itself.

Then the light from the street flashed off something metallic in the man's right hand. Paul quickly assessed it was a knife. Possibly one of the steak knives from the drawer that was open in the kitchen. Again he wondered how the intruder knew which drawer to look in. He also thought how much he disliked those ugly knives when Rita's parents had given them to them. It was a strange, random thought that flowed easily with all the other thoughts running through his head now. Like the way the man was focusing on Rita. Why was he still focusing on her when he was facing a husband with a bat? What was the guy doing in their house at all? It was not like they had anything worth stealing. Was this guy on drugs? Was he crazy? Was he a rapist and not interested in stealing?

Didn't matter. The intruder lunged for Rita. She was curled up in a defensive ball at the headboard of the bed. Paul let him take one step and then attacked again with an overhanded chop trying to sever the relationship between the knife and the man's hand. He didn't care which he caught. The intruder made a quick feint forward and then pulled his arm back, side stepping the powerful swing of the bat. The effort pulled Paul off balance. He had planned on the contact helping him maintain balance. The lack of contact drew him further forward than he wanted to go, placing him directly in the path of the intruder's advance, with his back exposed.

It felt like fire and ice driving through him all at the same time. A tearing, burning sensation that opened up his lower back, quickly freezing into an icy state of unbelief as the intruder's movement drove the knife into Paul's back. Knowing he had been severely cut, Paul jerked away from the attacker doing more damage to flesh and muscle as the attacker held firmly onto the knife.

Didn't matter. Paul would have to be dead three days before that intruder was going to get to Rita. He steeled himself against the pain and set his feet for another attack of his own. His lunge and cover up at the pain in his back had put him out of position to be between the intruder and Rita. He now adjusted that situation and came once again squarely between the intruder and his wife.

If the intruder was surprised at Paul's resilience, he didn't show it. His stance said he planned on finishing this deadly attack and nothing was going to stop him. Paul could not see the man's face clearly enough to define any features, but he swore he saw the flash of a smile. That unnerved him. The verdict was now crazy. Only a crazy man attacked others and smiled while he was doing it.

Logic was out. Crazy people had their own logic. Maybe this guy thought they were some danger to the world or to his family or to himself. Whatever it was, this intruder had designated them as the problem. That was the only logic that prevailed right now. Paul assessed his situation and knew that he had to end this quickly. He was cut badly. If this went on too long, he was not sure he'd be around to end it. So, the answer was clear for Paul. No more fooling around. The next blow would be to kill. There was neither time nor alternative opportunity. Kill or be killed. Protect Rita or let her die at the hands of this madman. The choice was easy for Paul. He would have killed his best friend if he tried to harm Rita. Killing this crazy intruder was not even a moral choice. It was just the good choice.

The intruder feinted left, towards the window. Paul bit for it and found his arm slashed hurriedly as the crazy guy jerked back towards the center of the room and Rita. The cut tore deeply into Paul's arm. Blood was flowing and dripping onto the carpet beneath him. He had no mind for such things. The intruder was moving towards Rita again. Swinging from where he was, Paul just could reach the back of the man now slipping between his wife and himself. The blow swung the man sideways, away from Rita and causing his knife thrust to go into the pillow beside her. She screamed and drew back to the other side of the bed as Paul's body crashed down on the man crushing him into the mattress and pinning him there.

Paul dropped the bat and set to punching the man in the face and throat again and again. Twice the man's hand flashed out and drove the knife into Paul's abdomen. Twice Paul grunted as Rita screamed again and again. But Paul would not be thwarted. He could feel the knife stabs. Hot and cold at the same time. Pain like he had never known before. But he would not abandon Rita. She was his focus as surely as she had been the focus of the intruder only a few seconds before.

Again and again his blows landed on the man's face and throat. Finally the man quit moving. Paul pounded a few more shots into the man's throat making sure that whatever was crushed in there stayed crushed forever. With some surprise, he found himself utilizing his first aid training and feeling for a pulse in the man. Nothing. Dead. Good.

With a fatigue he had never imagined possible, Paul slipped back off the man and allowed his body weight to carry him to the floor. He was conscious of his blood pumping and leaving his body in immense proportions. He heard Rita screaming at someone. He wondered who. He looked back to the lifeless body of the intruder and knew he had nothing to fear from that quarter. That man was not going to bother anyone ever again. So, who was Rita screaming at.

Then he was outside his body. Paul was not a religious man. He had only been to church once in his whole life and that was to get married. He believed there was an afterlife but had no idea what it would look like. He had no idea if only good people enjoyed an afterlife or if there was a bad place for the bad people. He had never really considered any of those things. Suddenly, those things seemed important.

A woman at a fair one time prayed with him. He believed in God and she told him it was necessary for him to pray that prayer in order to get to heaven. Well, his friends were going to heaven so he wanted to go too. He didn't remember the prayer, now. It was a long time ago. He did remember that she had said he had to live right from then on, whatever that meant. He had lived his life to be counted a good man, helping when he could, not hurting people, being just the opposite of what he figured his father was. He wondered now if maybe he should have gone to church to learn about some of this after life stuff.

Chapter Two

From his new perspective, standing outside his body, he looked down at the blood seeping into the carpet around his body and thought he looked quiet and calm. He saw the chest rising and falling slowly and knew he was asleep. Why he could see these things from this perspective, he had no idea. It just was.

"What's happening?" He asked Rita who ignored him and continued screaming into the phone.

She must be calling for help. She was so excited that he doubted anyone at the other end could tell what she was saying. She talked fast enough when she was in a normal state. Now, she was a cascading torrent of words that made no sense and connected even less. If it was a 9-1-1 call, she would get a response because of the location coming up on the operator's screen. No one could decipher what Rita was screaming into the phone at the moment. All the person at the other end would know is that some hysterical woman was calling 9-1-1. He was standing right there and he could not understand anything she said and he knew what she was calling for.

The intruder was still dead. Suddenly the intruder stirred. Paul had a momentary flash of panic. What if the intruder woke up and attacked Rita again. He was not in his body. He instinctively moved toward the rousing figure, placing himself between Rita and the intruder.

"No need for alarm, brother." A voice spoke calmly from behind him.

"Huh?" Paul turned. Alarm was written all over his face. Two intruders.

"Whoa! Keep it cool, brother."

Paul turned to see a man standing there. He was in shadow beyond the reach of the light from the window. A tall, thin man with small shoulders and long legs. A shadow inside the shadows. The stance of his form suggested he was calm, stationary. No threat. Paul lowered his guard for a moment. He would wait to see if the guy was here to help or hurt. He had already killed once. He would not hesitate to do it again. The adrenaline was still coursing through his body.

"No threat." the man raised his hands. "Just want to talk."

"We need help." Paul answered the man. "We've been attacked."

"I know. He was working for us."

"You?" Paul was incredulous. His fear rose up and his defenses went back up.

"Whoa, Tiger. You're dying." The man pointed to Paul's immobile body on the floor. Paul looked.

"This man attacked us. I defended our lives and he is dead now." Paul defended his actions.

"I know. I saw."

"You saw?" Paul could not remember anyone else being there. Had he missed someone in a corner? Someone who came to watch the murders?

"Yes. From the plane of Sand, I watched."

"Plane of sand?" Paul repeated the guy's words. This guy was as crazy as the attacker had been. Paul did not let down his guard. Rita was still screaming into the phone. He wished she would stop.

"No time for long explanations. You're bleeding badly."

"The man cut me in several places. Bad. Deep." Paul explained. But if the guy had been watching, he already knew that.

"You have a decision to make."

"Decision?" Paul asked.

"You're dying."

"You said that already." Paul hated people who repeated themselves to him like he was stupid.

"It's a truth you need to deal with."

"How?" I can't fix it. I need the paramedics to arrive." Paul glanced at the still yelling Rita on the phone. He wondered if anyone was on their way.

"We can fix this." The shadow man said.

"How?"

"At death, every human of this plane gets to choose their destination unless they have been wicked and are already earmarked for the Place of Chains."

"Place of Chains?" Paul was confused.

"Yeah. A place of interminable boredom and agony away from the Creator of Life and all that He has created. A death place if you wish. Anyway. You get to choose what plane you wish to move into upon your physical death."

"Physical death?" Paul looked down at his body on the floor. There was a lot of blood. He could see it clearly in the light from the window, spreading outward from his body seeping into the carpet underneath him.

"Any minute now, unless we do something fast."

"What?" Paul asked, noting the urgency of the man's voice.

"Like I said. You can die and choose where you would like to spend eternity, what plane I mean. Or, you can take assistance from us and we can put you right back into your life here."

"Why would I choose death if you can fix me up and put me back where I belong?" Paul asked the obvious.

"Because, if we fix you up, you'll be one of us and ... uh ... quite different from what you were before." Shadow man explained.

"Different? How?"

"For one thing, you'll not be flesh and bone any more. You'll be sand."

"Sand?" Paul was really confused now. The onset of death must make people crazy.

"Yes. We will replace your flesh and blood body with a sand and blood body. You'll look the same. Act the same, be the same as before. Only, you'll really be one of us living in the human plane."

"Human plane?" Paul was not following as well as he would have liked.

"No time for long explanations. You're slipping away fast. If you die before we make this decision, we can not help you stay here. You're flesh and blood body is dying. Dead for all intensive purposes. Even if the paramedics were here already, there is nothing they can do to reverse the damage already done to your body. You have the choice at death of choosing where you want to live after death. There are many different planes of existence within the panorama of life the Creator of Life has given us. You always admitted there was a God and did not choose to be evil, so you are a candidate for one of the other existences besides punishment. You have the option of dying peacefully right there on the floor and passing away to one of those other planes. At your death there will be about ten of the representatives from a few of the planes coming to offer their existence to you as an option. They'll explain all about the life they can offer you away from your wife. It will seem like they come and give you a long time to decide, but it actually takes place in less than the span of a human breath."

"There not here yet, so I'm not dead yet." Paul reasoned out and tried to follow this strange logic the man was revealing. He had no idea how death worked so this was as good an explanation as he had ever heard. Best one.

"Or." the man raised his hands in a gesture of option. "You can join us and become one of us walking the human plane."

"As sand?" Paul asked.

"Yes." The voice chuckled. Paul saw no movement that suggested mirth. "You will in effect, become a sand man, living and residing in the human plane just like you always have. Only thing is, you will not be subject to the ills and failings of the human body or the human intellect. You will be smarter and healthier and stronger than ever before. Improvements to be sure, but with a purpose."

"What purpose?" Paul was interested in anything that made him smarter. That was one area where he felt totally inferior to Rita. She was a genius as well as being beautiful.

"To work for Sand."

"What's sand? You mean like normal sand on the ground?"

"Well, yeah." The man said. "Exactly. Only you don't know that your ORDINARY sand on the ground is part of a vast series of elemental existences that span the planes and have a life all their own."

"Life? In sand?"

"Exactly. Sand is a plane unto itself. It exists inside of the other planes. Almost every plane allows sand to exist inside it for purpose of substance and ground to exist. Sand is very important in this respect. We establish continents and land structures in every plane. A very important task and a very important existence."

Paul nodded his head. If other planes of existence were real, he could imagine they all needed sand as part of their structure. He could follow that.

"What we in Sand want to establish is a more dynamic life form, sand people, if you will."

"Sand people?"

"Yes. Sand People. People who are comprised of the life force of their human blood and our sand. Cross breeders in a sense. Half human and half sand. But far superior."

"Superior?" Paul asked. "Smarter, stronger?"

"Exactly. You will be our first."

"Why me?"

"Because our man Lucius there botched the job of feeding us more blood in the proper manner."

"More blood?"

"Yes, all life exists because of the life force of blood. In the human plane it is prevalent and wasted too many times. We enlist the aid of men like Lucius, castaways, killers with no moral compunctions. They are going to kill anyway. We just allow them to kill with a little protection from us and they share their bounty of blood with us."

"Blood?"

"Well, blood, bodily fluids and spiritual energy as the life force of the human killed exits the human plane. With so many humans killing each other all over your plane, we do not have to actually kill anyone ourselves, only reap the harvest of that which is wasted. All the elemental planes reap of that bounty. There are always wars and murders and such in your plane. My task was to keep Lucius, there, supplying for us." Shadow man pointed at the dead body of the stranger.

Paul shook his head to clear it of the pictures the words of this stranger were creating. This seemed incredible. But he always knew the world was far more complicated than anything he could conceive of. Now this guy was explaining it and he knew he had been right. It was too much for him to understand. He wished Rita could help make sense of it all for him.

"So, I need to choose a place to live for eternity?" Paul asked.

"Or choose to join us in Sand and become one of us. To live in eternity, you must die and leave Rita behind as you move on to your new plane. If you join us, we will fix your body back to better than before, increase your intellect with ours and help you succeed in life where you have not been so effective before."

"You mean I get to stay with Rita, stayed married, and you'll help me become more successful in the future?"

"Exactly."

"How much in the future?"

"How about tomorrow?"

"That sounds like a deal to me. What's the catch? There's always a catch?" Paul was serious.

"You'll live forever as Sand. You will only age as you desire to age. Someday, your lovely Rita will die but you will not. We can help you move on and acquire another identity, but you will live in the human plane forever."

Paul gave the words some serious thought. He felt a fatigue coming over himself that pulled at him. He felt tired like never before. He wondered if that was what death felt like.

"That's exactly what physical death feels like." The voice was inside his head, now.

"Huh?" Paul was startled.

"That's another thing." The voice said in his head again. "As part of Sand you'll also be part of the spiritual world we inhabit. That means you can speak mentally without the usage of your physical mouth. Just think the thoughts and they are out there. You can learn to control who can hear you, too."

"That's good," Paul thought. Sometimes, he did not want people to know what he was thinking.

"I will help you until you get proficient." The voice offered, helpfully.

Paul thought some more. He felt the pull of the fatigue again.

"You don't have much time, Paul." The voice told him. "A few more minutes and the choice of joining Sand will be gone. All that will be left is the options for eternity like everyone else gets."

"I'll do it," Paul decided. He wanted to live. He had just started a new life with Rita. He couldn't leave her yet. And with the help of this sand, he might be able to provide a little better for her, too.

"A lot better," the voice in his head, explained.

"Let's do it," Paul urged. "What do I need to do?"

"Nothing? You just lie there in your body and we'll take care of everything. we'll have to let the police and paramedics do their thing first. That will take a few days. Then we'll start replacing your flesh with sand little by little so that you will not be shocked with all the pain of such a process. We also need the doctors to stop the bleeding and get your body back to making healthy blood reserves again. This will take a little time but it will also make everything seem normal to everyone around, especially Rita. We do not want to frighten her off after all this effort you are going to to stay with her. Do we?"

"No," Paul agreed.

"Climb back inside." The voice commanded and pointed to Paul's body.

Paul knew what he meant but had no idea how to accomplish it.

"Just want to be back inside and looking up at the ceiling," the voice instructed.

Paul did as he was told and in a flash he was back inside his own body looking out through his own eyes. Also back was the terrific pain of his wounds. Paul sucked air through his teeth as he felt the stabs of pulsing fire burning in each cut he had received. He also noticed Rita glance sharply down at him as he breathed in raggedly.

"I can hear the ambulances and police," Rita spoke into the phone. She sounded much more calm now. Her words were making sense.

"Yes, I'll go out and meet them and direct them in." She laid the receiver on the nightstand and left the room without looking at Paul again.

A few minutes later he heard sirens and saw flashing red and blue lights playing off the walls and ceiling, all around the room. He heard Rita calling out to the rescue workers, directing them to the front bedroom where he lay. Then all was calamity. Voices, hands, arms, instruments, bandages, pain. Oh, the pain. Who knew helpful hands caused so much more pain.

"Easy," Paul heard the voice in his head. "Don't talk out loud now. Just think what you want to say and I'll be with you every step of the way. You're one of us now. Nothing can harm you."

"What about intruder guy?" Paul thought. Being one of them hadn't helped him.

"He was one of us only in that he worked for us by bringing us blood. He was not one of us as you are now one of us. He was not of the Sand like you are. Think of it like he was an employee and you are an owner."

"Wow! I never owned much before." Paul was feeling drowsy from the medications the paramedics were introducing into his system.

"Before we are done you will own a substantial piece of the human plane. We'll see to that. The medication is starting to take effect, so you'll sleep now. When you wake up, we'll be further along in the process and we'll talk more then. Sleep well, friend."

"Thank..." Paul never finished the thought. He drifted into a grayness that enveloped him and succored him. He felt the nourishment of the ages swirling around him. He tasted of the metallic tinge on some breeze and felt the cool wetness of the swirling particles of sand that touched his body occasionally. It felt electric, stimulating. Instead of pain, he felt regeneration. Instead of patched stabs he felt healing reconnection. He let whatever was happening to him take place. The medication. The paramedics. The Sand.

John awoke to a bright sunshine, despite the coolness of the weather. Winter time in the campground was a time of replenishing and rebuilding and adding on the new things. That was the plan he and Kathy had developed before she had gone away. The guys took care of the work in John's absence. Enrico was turning out to be not only a great worker around the campground but also a capable manager, which was good, given the disposition John possessed of late.

John had no false idea that he was okay. He knew he was slowly sinking into a mire of self pity and self absorbed anger and frustration. It was okay. He was still in control. The worst part was, he was enjoying it. The anger was something he had kept bottled inside for years. He had tried to be the model Christian, like his father. Never mind how awful it made him feel to always back down, always let the other guy win, always take the back seat to others. Not now, though. Now he was number one. Anyone who had a problem with that could go pound sand.

He got up from the bed and poured himself a cup of coffee. He had remembered to set it up the night before. It had not been a regular thing lately. Forgetting or more aptly described, not caring, about things had become his modus operandi lately. No reason to care with Kathy gone. That was his reasoning. He knew he loved her before she died. He had just not been prepared for how deeply he had come to love her. It was like someone had reached down inside his gut and pulled everything out. Everything that was good about his life. The hole it left was filled with anger and frustration and revenge and everything else he had fought to keep out of his life for so many years. And he savored the feeling of being like everyone else for a change.

He had always envied the other kids growing up. They could show their emotions without their parents reminding them to act like Jesus would act. And of course, whatever the situation was, Jesus would always allow the other guys to win or do whatever they wanted. His father had called it, taking the high road. It always sounded like a trick to him as a child and more so as a young adult. But he had learned what his parents wanted him to learn, how to be submissive to the bad things of this world to allow the Christian idea of love to prosper. Now he wondered about his parents. Who were they kidding. Taking the high road always put him below everyone else. It should have been called, taking a beating, because that was what it felt like every time.

No more. No more taking a beating. That was his plan now. He had no idea what that meant, but he was through waiting for others to advance while he looked on. He would stand up for John Corwin now. He would take what he wanted and needed. He would look after John Corwin's affairs and desires. No more taking a back seat to anyone. He was definitely going to take the high road from now on, but it was not going to cast him out below everyone else any more. His high road was going to lead to a place where he was on top. Screw the rest of the world.

John could sense his thoughts exciting him emotionally. It was the only emotional exercise he could accomplish any more. He used to get excited thinking about life with Kathy. Now, it was life for John. The difference was the emotion that drove his excitement. When Kathy was alive, it had been love for her and love for everything. Now, it was hatred and hatred of everything. Two sides of the same coin. Love and hate.

He remembered how his father had always preached that hate bred bitterness and he guessed it was having a field day inside him. Bitterness only needed something to focus on and he gave it plenty. His father had served God all his life and been severely mistreated by the people he gave his life ministering to.

John had tried to escape the whole idea of God and moved away to start a new life. That new start had been interrupted by the love of Kathy at the same time that a new revelation of God or, as the entities in the Mist called Him, the Creator of Life, took hold in his life. Then he had been thrust into the do good scenario again. Kathy's brush with death as a child drove her to try and fix other people's hurts. On their first time out, that desire to help others caused Kathy to be put in a situation of danger beyond the scope of normal people to imagine. She had been forced to choose between having the child of a monster named Gol or dying and living eternally in the Mist with the other entities of that plane of existence. She had chosen death rather than give birth to a monster's child, thus ending the monster's claim to life in the human plane.

John understood the decision just as he understood her desire to help others. He had lived with it all his life. What angered him was that both the people he loved, his father and his wife, had wanted to help others using a spiritual emphasis, and only ended up leaving him alone. That was the real problem. John was alone again.

Chapter Three

John had felt alone all his life. As a child others came before him. His father always told him to be big about it and try and understand that others needed help more than he did. So, he had stayed silent and endured the enforced solitude all his life. The preacher's kid, standing off to the side as others went by living life and succeeding.

Then he had gone to college. He was not like the other kids. They had normal lives with normal relationships. He did not fit in. He was alone there too. It was probably why he did so well. No distractions. He had always told himself that he was focused and couldn't be bothered with relationships through college. The truth was, he didn't have but a few opportunities to meet other people and he had no idea how to relate to them in a normal fashion. All his life he had been told to take a back seat and watch others to make sure they were all right. That did not help in preparing him to relate to others on equal terms in any way. Even his college roommate avoided him because the relationship was awkward at best.

When Kathy had come along, he finally felt like his being alone was over. She answered all his questions of life and his ability to relate to her was as if he had known her all his life, like they were part of the same body that finally came together. It had been like a dream coming true, meeting and marrying Kathy. Then she was taken from him, too. Now his father was dead from giving himself away to unappreciative congregants and his wife was dead from keeping the human plane safe from a monster. Both gone and he was alone again. Both taken away to do service for others. Both leaving him alone to serve some higher purpose.

He was tired of higher purposes. To hell with higher purposes. Or to The Place of Chains with higher purposes. Whatever. He wanted to scream at the world. He wanted to inflict pain like he was enduring. He wanted others to hurt like he was hurting.

For almost one solid week, after Kathy's death, he had yelled at the woods. The woods were where the Mist resided. It was inside the Mist he met Marcie and Emil, two entities who had been killed too early in life and chosen to live out their eternities in the Mist, a plane of existence that transected many other planes of existence giving them extensive coverage and maneuverability. So he had yelled at the Mist and at the ultimate Creator of it all, the Creator of Life. He wanted them to know how he felt. He wanted them to hear him vent his anger and frustrations. He wanted them to know how much he hurt.

No one could end his pain. Death had brought it and only death could take it away. He had been attached to his father and then to his wife and now both were gone. Dead. Forever. It made him mad to think about it. It made him furious to think about a Creator of Life who could do all things. He could slam a monster of incredible strength against a wall like he was slapping a doll. But he still let Kathy die on him. His precious rules. To hell with rules.

Because Kathy had chosen to accept, actually beg for, Gol's seed inside her, a decision made under extreme influence from the spiritual charisma of Gol exercised upon her against her natural will, the seed was a viable existence in the human plane. It was the rules. To abort the seed was murder under the Creator of Life's rules. Impregnating her against her natural will was not against the rules, but killing the seed created by that rape was. So Kathy had been forced to make the more noble decision of saving the world with her death. A decision that forever altered John's thoughts toward the battle of good and evil. He saw it more as evil and eviler. It was easier to classify the world that way. Everyone was the bad guys. Some were just worse than others.

His dad had died a similar death, choosing to give his life for the people he ministered to. He wasted away to nothing as cancer ate away at his body. But the cancer was only eating the flesh. He had already been consumed by the membership of countless churches invading his life at all hours and demanding he minister to their needs instead of taking care of himself or his family. Noble to a fault. Saving the world one person at a time. Still dead. Still making a choice for the good of the world that ended with his own death.

Both gone. John alone. Again.

John stepped off the deck of his camper. He balanced his cup of coffee with one hand while using his other to balance himself on the two steps to the ground. He heard the few birds calling in the trees but paid them no mind. Even the wildlife of his surroundings, something that usually made him happy to see, was of no consolation now. What made the beauty worthwhile before was the hope of a life. A life of togetherness. Not alone. Hope was gone now. It had left with Kathy.

He strolled the campground across the back portion. Any campers still in the place were located toward the front, per his instructions to Enrico. He did have a soft place in his heart for Enrico and Juan. They were running the place without him and giving him the space to vent his rage at the rest of the world without any invasion from the outside world right now. Juan had even done the grocery shopping for him last week so he did not have to go to town and face all those townsfolk with their offerings of condolences on his loss.

Hell, they had known Kathy longer than he did. He should have been offering his condolences to them. But they had never taken to her like she was one of their own. She was the girl who had been kidnapped. Different. Strange. Somehow tainted by her forced abduction. Not her fault, but it still happened. Too bad. Now she was gone and they offered their sorrow to John. Not her. To her husband.

He could imagine their thoughts. He must have loved her. He made her happy. She must have loved him. She made him happy. Together they always seemed happy. Complete. Finally. The strange distant girl and the hapless, uprooted young man. Together.

Tears filled John's eyes as he walked. He wanted to yell some more. To vent his rage. He was starting to think he was all yelled out. The yelling did not excite anything in him any more. It was just so much noise. It didn't help with the pain either. Just made him more aware of it.

Sadness was his thing now. Tears and pain and sadness and pain and crying and pain. Pain. Hurt like he had never known was possible. Not physical but so deep that it hurt worse than any physical pain he had ever endured. It burned its way inside his heart and stabbed him in one long, quivering dagger of sensation. Pain. The kind of pain that no one could see. Everyone knew it was there. Some had dealt with it. Everyone knew it existed but no one talked about it. No one knew what to say about it. No words could lessen it. No advice could shorten its duration or make it go away. It was different for every person.

He did not wipe at the tears streaming down his face. He just walked and cried. He let the emotion of his pain overcome him until his breathing came in ragged gasps. It was too much. He wanted to avoid the pain. He wanted it to stop. But if it stopped Kathy would be gone. He feared that more than death itself. When the pain grew to be too much for him to hold inside he let it out.

"Kathy!" He screamed into the woods around him.

He didn't care that the few campers up front might be able to hear him. Pain motivated his actions. Whatever made the pain stop. He knew how to stop the pain. Stopping pain was as easy as not caring any more. He wanted to care. He wanted to care more. He wanted to care so much that Kathy had to come back to him. Somehow he wanted to do that Superman thing like in the movie and raise her up by flying so fast in an opposite direction of the world's turning that he reversed time until he could rescue her from the fate that befell her. He forced his will to exude from his body with every breath of forced air he yelled into existence.

"Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy!"

He repeated her name over and over. With every utterance he forced himself more and more into the words that escaped from his mouth. He exhausted his energies by screaming louder and louder with every try, to exert his will upon the world. He would accept no defeat just like he had refused to lay down against the far superior strength of the giant, Gol.

"Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy!"

He repeated his efforts driving himself harder and harder toward whatever wall he felt he was pushing against. He had to break through. She was on the other side. He had to be with her and make this pain stop. If death was the only way then he would force the world to bend to his will or die trying. Accepting the pain was not an option. Forgetting the woman was never part of the question. John would make this work, too.

"Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy!"

His voice was growing hoarse. He was pushing himself to the physical limits of his body, especially his throat, which was already hoarse from previous shouting blasts. But quitting was no option. He would still yell even when his voice quit. If his body died in the process, he would continue shouting her name. Nothing could stop him. He refused to take a back seat to anyone or anything, even death.

"Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... Kathy! ... K-a-t-h-y!" He choked out.

"Ka-a-a-t-t-t-h-h-h-y-y-y!" He croaked one last chortle of breath and sound from his strained vocal chords. Only air came forth after that. Raspy, tired air.

Then he did something he had told himself he would never do again. He called out in his mind for his lost love. He had to make someone hear him. If not the world he lived in then ... the Mist. He was desperate. He was tired. Tired of being alone.

"Kathy!" He cried in his mind. "Kathy!"

He felt the Mist swirl around him at once. A cooling wetness with a metallic tinge of smell and taste he was familiar with from better times. The light made its way through the swirling presence of the Mist but no sight could pass through. Anyone entering the Mist now was at the mercy of the entities of the Mist. John was completely engulfed and enshrouded in its protective embrace as the Mist coddled one of its own.

He heard the voices immediately. He had let them in. He didn't want to. He wanted to maintain his anger. But he couldn't help himself. He was alone. He did not want to be alone. He hated being alone. Alone was like an amplifier to his pain.

They all came. Marcie. Emil. Kathy and Him. The Creator of Life.

"Please." He heard Kathy say.

It was not a teary eyed crying. It was a statement of desire. There were no tears in the plane of the Mist. But sadness existed there. And John heard the sadness in her voice. Her sweet voice. It still had its musical tone and its mirthful call to it. But there was a definite sadness to it also. She was concerned about something. He presumed it was him. He felt guilty because he knew his self destructive ways of late were upsetting to her. The one time he had tried to talk with her, she had made that plain enough. But he could not help himself. He could not do one more thing for someone else, even if that someone was Kathy. He owed this rant to himself. It had been building for a long time, all his life. He was not going to be denied this time. Not even for the love of his life. Hate was the language he chose lately.

"John?" It was Marcie. She appeared before him in her little girl body. Beaten and still wearing the ripped clothing from her attack over a hundred and thirty years before. Her stringy hair hung across her puffy, battered face obscuring some of the damage her attacker had done to her.

"Marcie," He thought her name in his head. A friendly face. A friend. She had once told him she would never do anything to hurt him. He remembered that now.

"Never," she repeated in his head, knowing his thoughts.

"Marcie." He let his legs give out and sunk down on his knees. He kept his eyes down to avoid the image of her beaten little girl personification. "Help me." He forced himself to think the words.

"Whatever you want, John. If I can do it." She qualified her words. "You know I want to help."

"Make the pain stop." He broke down with racking sobs shaking his entire body.

For all the strength he had shown for weeks now, he could contain it no longer. He let it flow. He opened up the dam and released the waters. Every bit of pent up anger and pain and frustration and pain and hopelessness and pain and sorrow and pain and sense of loss and pain, he let go. He wailed into the lap of the little girl ghost as she cradled his head, kneeling there on the ground in the midst of the Mist. He was on his knees leaning forward to her. She accepted him in an embrace of comfort and love that she invited him to accept. For all his anger and pain, he wanted the solace and comfort more. He needed someone who could understand his pain to come along side him and offer him that comfort of acknowledgment. His wails of release went up into the Mist but never left it. They absorbed the energy of his cries and took solace in the fact that he was now sharing his pain with them. He was one of theirs again.

Paul Paxwood awoke in the hospital with a powerful thirst. He was to discover that the thirst never went away again. He kept the nurses hopping with filling his pitcher of water with ice several times an hour. It got to the point where they just brought him another pitcher of fresh ice and water each time they came in to check on him. It saved time and hassle for them. It was a little inconvenient to keep the second pitcher at their station all the time, ready to fill for the next visit to his room, but it was easier than being sent from the room to do it before Paul would allow them to complete whatever check they were making.

His wounds healed quickly. No major damage had been done to any organs or muscles. He had been very lucky, the doctors told him. He knew there had been some help involved they knew nothing about. He had lost a lot of blood but the wounds were not too deep. The attacker must have been weaker than he looked or Paul was luckier than any man should be.

Rita stayed by his side night and day for the first two days. By the third day, she was looking haggard and he was feeling so much better that he actually asked her to go home and get some rest. She admitted she could use a shower and after a long talk and a promise from the nurses to call her if anything changed, Rita had gone home to shower, catch a quick nap and then return with his favorite, fried chicken from their favorite restaurant.

By day five, Paul was making such good progress the doctors started talking about sending him home soon. Rita was going home at night and returning each morning at breakfast to see to her man's needs again for the day light hours. Paul found himself stronger and stronger with each passing day. He loved Rita and was sure that everything he was doing was for her. But he could not deny how much he enjoyed the new strength he felt flowing through his body with every passing hour.

Sand definitely had a thirst to it. Every day it seemed his desire for water grew exponentially. He was now sipping at his water constantly. It never was far from his hand. When no one was looking, he guzzled it down until the pitcher was empty. But he felt stronger with every glass he drank, every minute he breathed, every second that passed until he could walk out of this hospital.

The doctors were amazed at his progress. He had been brought in near death. Less than a full week later, he was ready to go home. That was an amazing turn around. A miracle, the doctors called it. Rita just told everyone her man was stronger than he looked.

John spent two days inside the Mist being comforted by Marcie, the one hundred and thirty year old little girl ghost who had first come to him when he was in dire need to find Kathy almost a year before. At first the emotional pain that consumed him made him feel like his heart was going to explode inside his chest. Everything from the last year had built up and claimed him as a man in love. Now, with that love ended at the hands of a giant, he had fallen into a dangerous course of wandering through uncharted regions of his mind. He was not at all pleased with what he discovered. John was convinced he could not be the man he was when Kathy was alive. And he desperately wanted to be that man.

Marcie comforted him the entire time. She never left him for even a minute. She held him when he wanted to be held and stood or sat beside him when he just wanted her to be near. For hours on end, they said nothing. When words were spoken, they were monosyllabic and only communicated more pain on his part and more empathy on her's. At times John cried out and screamed his pain like he was hurtling balls of his fury far into the distance. At other times it was soft moments of gentle sobbing as he lamented the loss of his great love.

Half way through the first day, he asked Marcie why Kathy did not come to his aid, since she was of the Mist now. Marcie had replied softly and sincerely that Kathy wanted to come but the Creator of Life did not want him to think his relationship was the same now, only that Kathy was inside the Mist. She had explained that as a human he needed the relationship of a human woman to make him whole, just as the woman needed the relationship of a man to complete her. It was part of the Creator of Life's plan for the human plane that it would be such. As man and wife, a couple became one completed individual capable of understanding to the fullest extent possible, all that the Creator of Life had designed them to be.

But inside the Mist it was not so. The awareness of the universe and the Creator of Life was so intense inside the Mist that an individual was completed by their relationship with the Creator of Life. That wholeness allowed them to not have to marry. They could enjoy the pleasures of the universe in relation to the plan the Creator of Life intended for all living entities. In other words, she had explained. The Creator of Life did not want John thinking he was still married to Kathy, only now that relationship had her inside the Mist and him still in the human plane. It was not so.

For a long time that explanation had caused John some little pain. To believe his Kathy was gone for good was too much for him to contemplate. He had bolstered his false bravado over the past few weeks by reminding himself that she was close by at all times. Now, Marcie had torn away that charade of curtain he had been living inside. It had caused another round of racking sobbing and then finally a screaming session aimed at the Creator of Life for allowing this pain into his life.

Through it all, Marcie stayed quiet and comforting by his side. She reached out to him when he needed her to and let him have his moments of alone time when he seemed to be thinking things through. She never spoke unless he addressed her first and never offered any advice. She just listened and explained what she knew. He absorbed her comments and her presence like a thirsty sponge. She was not a replacement lover, though she had been his lover that one time. Instead, she held a far more exalted position at the moment. She was his friend. He had time to think on that as he laid there in her lap. He had been taught a friend loves at all times. Not just the good times, but also in the bad. Marcie was proving to be a great friend.

By the middle of the second day, John had ranted and raved all he needed to. He had mostly flushed his anger and allowed the peace of Marcie's friendship to nurture him back to sound reasoning. John was a logical person and no one was more aware than he that his actions of late defied any real sense of logic. His conversations with Marcie became more and more civil and productive as the afternoon wore on. He confided in her the pain of loss he felt and still felt. She comforted him with her own closeness and the knowledge that true friends never part. He accepted her explanations as fact. She had never lied to him and only done things that made him understand she wanted to help him.

As night fell inside the Mist, John was under control again. He had reasoned out his situation and come to understand the necessity of the things that happened. He came to put less blame on the Creator of Life and take more responsibility for his own healing process. Marcie was there by his side every step of the way, always knowing the right words to build him up at the moment when he needed them. It was an intense, emotional time that John thought might equate to the kind of bonds soldiers create between themselves. If it was or if it wasn't, John knew that Marcie was now a friend for life and even beyond.

For her part, Marcie was happy to help. There was nothing she wanted more than to be there for John in this hour of torment he had created for himself. She knew it was the human way of burrowing inside their guilt and then lashing out from that protective womb at anything and everything that moved until they had chased away every good thing in their life. Men became drunks, drug abusers and violent offenders of mankind when pressed with such emotional issues as losing a close love like John had. Women became drug abusers, drunks, sluts and worse to ward off the pain that came with emotional distress and physical separation from their loved one.

The human condition was a frail one, as conditions went in the planes of existence. Why the Creator of Life had made such an existence was an oft talked about subject among those in the other planes. No one knew the real reason for sure. When asked, the Creator of Life always said, "Because." But Marcie had her own thoughts on the matter.

Marcie believed that the knowledge of the Creator of Life in the other planes was so evident and clear that He had desired a less evocative presence with the Human plane. He had created a limited existence species in the humans and given them promises of great revelation and eternal endurance. While other planes lived in the knowledge of life and existence and purpose, the humans lived in hope of life and existence and purpose. With the other planes, the Creator of Life was mostly hands off as they lived out their purposes mostly with just His life force flowing through them. But with the humans it was necessary for a more hands on approach. They needed something from the Creator of Life everyday. And Marcie believed the Creator of Life was in need of that constant and continuous relationship. After all, in the other planes, relationships went on everywhere all the time as everyone passed by and enjoyed the pleasures the Creator of Life had made for them all. But no one really tugged at the Creator of Life's heart strings like his humans. They were special. They were designed to need him. She believed the Creator of Life had created humans because He needed them as much as they needed Him.

In the course of John's recovery Marcie had revealed her logic on the motives of the Creator of Life and he had agreed with her. Having studied the religious aspects of human life as he had as a young man, and combining what he had learned from his experiences with the Creator of Life, as He was called in the other planes, John agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment of the situation. Through his growing understanding of the plan of the Creator of Life, as Marcie outlined the idea of living out their purposes, John came to recognize that the people of the human plane were God's lovers. Despite all claims from the religious factions as to God's design of the human condition as rulers and conquerors over the earth, John understood one thing, God was love. The Creator of Life was love. It was both definition and purpose.

Now, as the Creator of Life, stepping into John's world in a huge way and giving his wife options on how to live her life, John saw greater purpose of love in the Creator of Life's actions than any thought he previously had about keeping Kathy with him. It was the love the Creator of Life had for her that had given her options. If Kathy had stayed in the human plane and given birth to the baby of the giant, her actions would have legitimized Gol's existence and claim on the human plane. But choosing to die and move to the plane of Mist, Kathy had chosen not only to forgo the misery of such a motherhood experience but also to save the human plane from Gol's treacherous plans upon mankind.

John was no longer mad at the Creator of Life. He had worked the anger out of his system. Not that his anger would have done any good, anyway. He was also surprised that with his better understanding of the way things worked, he was no longer mad at Gol for trying to gain a foothold in the human plane and using Kathy as his surrogate mother. Gol was merely carrying out his purpose as he had chosen it to be. Kathy had chosen her purpose when she decided to thwart Gol's plan by giving up her physical life in the human plane and moving on to the Mist.

John now understood that purpose was not part of anything designed into the human condition. It was a choice. John had always known that people had to make choices for their lives. He had planned his life around choices that brought him to the place where he had met Kathy. He would never regret that series of choices. Instead, he cherished them. But now he saw a greater depth in choice that actually controlled a person's purpose. People were not born to fulfill a purpose, they grew to choose one. Kathy had chosen hers and now John had to choose his.

It also helped him deal with the choices his father had made. John saw that his father had made hard choices, just as Kathy had made a hard choice. Both their choices defined their purpose. Set it even. He had to respect that now. His father had made hard choices and set his purpose. Not to be away from the family, but to help those in need who were not growing or could not find their own purpose in life.

John was ready to set his own purpose now. His next round of choices would accomplish that. He recalled the story in the bible of David after his child had died. He mourned that child for a while, even denying himself food and water. But when the time for mourning was accomplished, King David got up, washed his face and called for a meal to be brought. It was time for John to wash his face and have a meal in celebration of his wife's choice. He would celebrate her purpose instead of lamenting his own loss.

"Thank you, Marcie." John told his shimmering friend when he made the decision to get on with his life.

"It was a pleasure to be there for you and I thank you for letting me help." The battered little girl winked out and became the beautiful naked woman John had become used to seeing. He hardly noticed the transformations she underwent constantly because of the pain inflicted on her at death.

"You truly did help, too." John told her. "I could not have come through this without your help."

"That's what friends are for." Marcie smiled at him.

"You're better than any friend." John smiled back, no longer feeling guilty or weird about their relationship.

"I am happy to hear you say that." She smiled even brighter. "I like being your friend."

John reached out and took her hand. He felt comfortable with her even if she was from another plane of existence. He saw the surprise in her eyes as he gripped her hand.

"I want to apologize for any bad things I ever said to you or any wrong ways I ever acted toward you." John apologized.

"You were only going through hard decision times," Marcie offered him a way out gracefully.

"No." John was going to go through this like he had the rest of his life. The right way.

"I was a jerk sometimes, ignoring you and wishing you would go away. You just wanted to be my friend and when I was down, really down, you proved that I was even a bigger jerk than I thought I was being. You have proven to be my best friend while I was being a rotten person. I am sorry. You are welcome around me any time from now on. All the time, if you want." He offered.

"Well. That certainly is a turn around I did not expect." Marcie laughed. "I did not do it expecting you would change. I did it because I want the best for you."

"Why?" John was perplexed.

"Because you are family, John." She said it like she meant it.

"I am truly glad to be accepted of the Mist." John replied and bowed his head in recognition of the honor she was giving to him, to be part of their plane while still existing in his own.

"No, John," Marcie went on. "I mean real family."

"How do you mean, Real family?" John asked.

"I am your great, great grandmother's sister, John." Marcie let her words sink in.

"My family?"

"On your mother's side. Yes." Marcie flickered back to the little girl ghost.

"So, one of my relatives was killed by a child murderer?" John was aghast at this revelation. He had thought his life was more normal than that. How could he have a murdered relative in his family? It shook his view of his family.

"Actually, the man who killed me was my uncle." Marcie explained. "They caught him and he was put in jail for life. He died there many years ago. I have kept a watch on the family ever since."

"On me?" John was still dumbfounded. Short questions were all he could manage.

"Yes. You and others. I told you once that your mother was part of the Mist because of her accident and the blood she shared with us."

John nodded his head.

"I was not there by accident when she had her accident. A man was trying to kill her by running her down with his car. I knew his plans and was trying to get her to alter hers to make his plans of no effect. She refused me that day, much as you have done these past months. The best I could do was offer her help after the fact." Marcie explained.

"Someone tried to kill her?" John could not believe what he was hearing. Once again, Marcie was turning his world upside down.

"Yes. She had had an affair with the man and broken it off when it endangered her relationship with your father and you. The man was mad. He was determined that if he could not have her no one would have her. So, he decided to run her over with his car and make it look like an accident."

Chapter Four

"My mom had an affair?" John was incredulous. This was impossible. His mother was a saint. Always so prudish and dignified.

"Yes, John. You were not the only one who felt the emptiness when your father was involved with everyone else but the family. She gave in to an impulse one day with a man who did not even go to church. That turned into a relationship that filled in the lonely times when both your father and you were gone.

"Before you went to college, she filled the empty part of her life with you. When you went away, there was no one around to help her pass the time. Much as you determined to go your own way and do your own thing to live a fulfilling life, your mother rebelled in a way that gave her life some kind of meaning.

"The problem was that she decided one day that this new meaning was not what she wanted her life to represent. She made a choice to go back and endure as the wife of a pastor and live that life to its fullest, even in its emptiness. When she announced this decision to her lover, he was furious. He threatened to tell about their affair but even then your mother would not back down. She had made her choice. She wanted to do the right thing."

John was speechless. His mother had had an affair. He would have never thought her capable of it. But, knowing the loss he felt for Kathy, he could understand how his mother had felt a similar loss with his father always being consumed with other things. Home but never really there. Just a man who stopped by in between projects and meetings and counseling of those others who always took precedence. He had no problem understanding her need for someone to fill in the hole his father must have left in her life. He knew the hole that the loss of Kathy had left in his own life. Marcie had been filling in that hole for the past two days. Not that he was having an affair with her. Or was he?

"Are we having an affair, Marcie?" John asked suddenly. "To fill in the hole I sense now that Kathy is gone?"

"In a way, I guess you could say that," Marcie smiled.

Her figure flickered back to the beautiful naked woman again. John felt ashamed as he noticed her transformed body anew. An affair? Like cheating?

"Not cheating, John." Marcie apprised him. "It could only be cheating if Kathy were still there with you and I was there, too. Only if you were allowing someone else inside your life instead of her." Marcie heard his thoughts.

"Yeah, I guess." John agreed, still thinking it through. "Then what are we? Besides family?"

"We are whatever you want us to be." Marcie was plain spoken as always.

"Are we lovers?" John asked.

"We were one time." Marcie smiled. "At least I enjoyed it enough. You seemed to enjoy it at the time, but not so much later." The naked woman laughed.

"Well, uh...I felt guilty about enjoying sex with a little girl." John admitted. "Even if you are a hundred and thirty years old. You still look seven or eight."

"It wasn't the seven year old little girl that you enjoyed, though, was it John?" Marcie asked.

"It wasn't?" John gave her a puzzled look. He had been ashamed because he thought it was.

"Not at all. Have you ever been sexually attracted to any other seven year old?"

"No."

"There you go. You're no kind of pervert. What caused you to enjoy that moment of fluid release with me almost a year ago was not some perverted idea of having sex with a little girl. It was an innate knowledge of the experience you had with a woman who presented at times with the form of a little girl. It is complicated, to say the least, but not some sick idea of human perversion." Marcie explained.

"So, I am not a pervert?" John asked seriously.

"No." Marcie could not help herself. She had to stifle a laugh before it got too far out of her.

"I sure felt like I must have been. I had sex with a little girl ghost and enjoyed it more than I thought I would, more than a man should," John admitted.

"Thank you for that admission but you're not a pervert. You have a healthy human interest in sex with grown women, not young girls. I've even noticed you checking out much older women. I've seen no indication that you even look twice at little girls, if that helps any." Marcie offered.

"That sure takes a load off my mind." John breathed a sigh of relief.

"Does that mean you're okay with us again?" Marcie asked.

"Well...uh...I guess that's what I'm saying. But...uh...I'm still thinking about the family thing." John said.

"There is no such limitation inside the Mist or in any other plane except the human one." Marcie explained. "We were destined to be family when I was alive. Now I am of the Mist and you are of the human plane. Separate entities from different worlds, if you will."

"So, we violated no rules, when we...uh...shared fluids?" John searched for the words to describe their coupling.

"I would never have caused you or I to violate any rules, John." Marcie told him. "What we did was totally within the rules and necessary for you at the time to complete the task you had chosen to accomplish. Because of my familiarity with you and your family, I was the obvious choice to make first contact. I was thrilled to be the one to bring you into the Mist that night."

"Thrilled?"

"Sure. Bringing new energy to the plane is always a big feather in our caps, so to speak. But bringing in a family member is doubly good. Your energy is actually doubled by the Creator of Life when you join us because you and I are family. Although family does not mean a blood limitation inside the Mist, the fact that we are family makes us of a more enduring bond and thus makes the Mist stronger because of our bond."

"Are there many of our family in the Mist?" John asked.

"You mean besides Kathy?"

"Yes."

"There are several. And one day your mom will be given the chance to join us or to join your father where he is, in throne city. You have never met any of the relatives that are in here in your physical life, but one day you will rejoice with us inside the Mist, if you choose to come here."

"How could I not?" John smiled. "My two favorite ladies are inside the Mist." Meaning Kathy and Marcie.

"I am so glad to hear you say that, John." Marcie smiled and flickered back to the little girl.

"I wish there was something I could do from this plane to help you finally evolve into the womanly form once and for all." John offered by way of apologizing for his bad attitude toward her and trying to insert himself into Marcie's world.

"Actually there is," Marcie smiled.

"How?" John really wanted to know. He was anxious to make amends for his behavior. "Just tell me what I can do and I'll do it."

"Take me to your bed and love me with the love of a true friend. Want the best for me, as I have done for you, and your love will empower me to fully withdraw from the atrocities of the human plane that still have a hold on me. I was disfigured physically and emotionally in the human plane by one who hated with a strong hatred. One who loves with a stronger love can break that bond and give me a freedom I have not known for a long time."

"I can do that." John stated. "I want to do that." He added. "Nothing would give me more pleasure than to help you as you have helped me."

For the first time in John's life, he felt a purpose in helping someone else. Not a stepping back and taking a back seat. But a stepping up and doing the thing that made their life more purposeful, more full. He finally understood in a small way what drove his father every day to step out the door and do it all over again despite any setbacks and failures. He finally understood what went through Kathy's mind as she made her final decision in the human plane.

Marcie smiled up at him from her battered little girl form and he saw hope bursting forth from the misery engraved in her filthy, torn countenance. That glimmer of hope ignited his own hope. Things were going to be okay. He knew it now. He could sense good things on the horizon. White puffy clouds. Not the dark ones. And it would all start with helping Marcie as she had helped him.

"Come, lover," Marcie held out her little girl hand. "Let us indulge in the pleasures of love and acquaint ourselves with the joys of fluid sharing on a level you have only dreamed of before."

John heard the over flirtatious tone of her voice and wondered if she was really excited by this change or just trying to maintain her positive outlook and keep him moving forward. A splash of guilt flowed through his mind as he remembered his past actions and how they had been self serving. He held out his hand and took hers. It felt warm and alive and vibrant this time. He had no idea how this would change her permanently but if she said it would, he would help. He did love her. Not just because she was family. Not just because she had been a good friend in his hour of need. He loved her because somehow he sensed they were destined to meet like this and to share a relationship exactly as they were. It seemed right. It seemed perfect. Maybe not a permanent thing but at least, as his father would have put it, right for this season of his life.

Paul Paxwood was thirsty. He had been drinking water all day and as the evening hours brought quiet to the hospital, he experienced no relaxation of his thirst. He was being released the next morning. His loving wife, Rita, would be back at nine a.m. to pick him up and he was glad to be getting out. But the thirst worried him. He could not get enough to drink to satisfy the dryness he felt with every inch of his body. It was driving him crazy.

"It WILL eventually drive you crazy." The voice broke into his thoughts. It was in his head, not in the room.

"What?"

Paul had not yet gotten used to the comings and goings of the voice in his head. The voice had been with him every step of the way. At night, when Paul was the only one awake and dealing with the healing process in his mind as well as his body, the voice would come to him and comfort him. During treatments, when the pain of his physical body seemed to be almost too great to handle, the voice spoke the words of reason and endurance he needed. At every turn and new juncture, Paul came to depend on the voice to be there and know what he needed. But the suddenness with which he just showed up or popped into his head were startling events. Alone, then not alone. Sudden.

"I said, the thirst will eventually drive you crazy. As you grow more and more aware of your connection with the elements of the Sand, you will also experience a greater and greater dryness drawing from the connection your awareness is creating with more and more of the Sand plane. Water will not quench that thirst. It is a blood thirst."

"Blood thirst? You mean like a vampire?" Paul asked, trying to link the thought with something he understood, or at least knew about.

"Well, not exactly but somewhat similar in scope." The voice began. "You do not need to drink anyone's blood, but you do need to partake of it in a manner that adds blood to the Sand plane."

"Sounds gross." Paul admitted.

"I guess to the human mindset it would seem so," The voice gave him that consideration. "But the satisfaction you desire now, is linked to the needs of Sand. As you have become part of us, you will experience the needs of the collective plane. Because you are also human and still in the human plane, you will experience the thirst in a more severe or sensitive way."

"You saying I have to drink blood, now?" Paul was concerned with this new twist.

"Not drink. Imbibe."

"Imbibe?"

"Yes. You must meld with a person whose blood still flows through their body and partake of their blood energies to satisfy the thirst inside you." The voice explained.

"Meld!" Paul almost spoke out loud. This was getting out of hand. No one said anything about melding, whatever that was.

"Melding is a process by which you touch another human and enter them with your sand elements and drink of their body's fluids. Take a little and they will feel a little weak but not be harmed. Drink too much and they will be dead where they fall because life can not exist with only spiritual energy left. Life requires a balance of blood, fluids and spiritual energy. If you partake too deeply of blood or fluids during the melding process it will not leave the body strong enough to contain the spiritual energy."

"You saying I need to drain people to satisfy my own thirst?" Paul was getting scared now. This was not part of the deal.

"Yes, Paul. It was part of the deal. You are of the Sand now. We healed you of your need for flesh and its confines. Part of that process is bringing you into the world of Sand. Sand has a blood and fluid energy demand. Maybe we did not talk about that at the outset, but there was too little time to explain everything. I asked you what your choice was and you chose to stay in the human plane. There was only one way, at the time, to accomplish that. We did our part by helping you achieve your goals. Now, as part of us, you must do your part to satisfy the collective thirst."

"This is crazy." Paul felt trapped by his decision. He was not so sure he would have chosen to join the Sand if he had known about this requirement.

"Sure, you would have," the voice told him. "Staying with Rita was your primary concern, then. What has changed? You still want to stay with her, don't you?"

"Of course." Paul admitted.

"Then what would have changed in your decision?" The voice asked.

"I would have had to think more seriously about what my staying would mean." Paul explained.

"First off, you did not have time for any more thinking about it. Second, think about it now. You want to stop? Do you want to go ahead and die and leave Rita, now?" The voice made his case.

"No. I guess not," Paul gave in. "It's just so ... uh ... so unnatural." Paul spit it out. "Drinking people's blood to satisfy my own life. Sounds like some science fiction show or something."

"You're not drinking it. You'll never taste it or feel anything accept satisfied from the process. The melding will leave a little rash on the skin of the person you touch but that is it. As far as science fiction, where do you think all those ideas come from? Someone from one of the other planes comes through to a human in your plane and shares something. If that human tells his or her story, it becomes a myth or legend or at least a good plot to some book or movie. So, you are not far wrong from your diagnosis of the events of your life. You are living a real life science fiction plot. Only its not fiction. It's real."

"Is there no way around this blood thing?" Paul asked. " I really do not want to hurt people."

"Listen to me and no one will get hurt. The only real danger to people is if you do not listen to me and refuse to control your enjoyment of melding."

"Enjoyment? I hardly think I will ever enjoy it." Paul was pretty sure of that fact.

"Ever been so thirsty that you got a bottle of Coke and turned it up and drank it all the way to the bottom no matter how much the bubbles burned your throat?" The voice asked.

"Sure. Everyone has done that." Paul smiled to himself.

"Well, partaking of the blood is that kind of satisfaction, maybe even a little bit higher because it also has a fluids contingent. The temptation to drain the person to the bottom like that Coke bottle will be hard to resist if you are not in control of yourself and listening to me." The voice explained.

"How often am I going to have to partake of the blood, as you call it.?" Paul wanted to know.

"Depends on how sensitive you are to the needs of the Sand. Also depends on how much the person you choose satisfies your thirst. A lot of factors go into the level of satisfaction you achieve. At the top would be consuming an adult human blood supply totally. That would probably result in a month long satisfaction, maybe more. The partial partaking of a healthy adult, leaving them weakened but still healthy, would most likely yield about a week's worth of satisfaction. Partially partaking of a child might get you through a couple days. It all depends on what, who and how much you partake."

"This is real then? I really have to partake of human blood to survive and continuing to live in this plane, as you call it."

Paul was accepting the situation without liking it. He had made the deal. True enough. Yes, there had not been time to find out all the details. Yes, he believed the voice had held back this detail on purpose. But there was nothing he could do about that now. There was Rita to consider and his own future success which he wanted to achieve. What was done was done. He was not going to change that.

The voice was right. Even if he had known the full details of what he was buying into, he would not have chosen differently. He would still have chosen to stay with Rita. He loved her. He wanted to be with her so much it hurt. He could not have left her even if he had known that he had to partake of other people's blood before making his decision.

"It's real, Paul."

The voice called him by his name, uncharacteristically. Very personal for a change. Not just a voice with information. It was someone he knew. Someone he would have to trust in these things. Someone he would have to depend on.

"Well, if we are going to be close friends like this, I should probably know your name." Paul tried to sound enthusiastic but had to settle for accepting.

"My name is Kul." Pronounced COOL.

"Well, how do we go about this, Kul?" Paul asked. "Do I just walk up to people and ask if I can take some of their blood?" He was being purposely ignorant.

"No. That would not work well, even if it were a good idea. You need to do this in a manner that people are unaware that you are taking anything from them. If the authorities are alerted to your partaking activities, they could make it very hard for you to satisfy the thirst."

"Then how do we make it happen?" Paul was curious about the process that allowed him to walk up to another human being and take some of their blood.

"Along with the ability of the Sand within you to meld with individuals for the purpose of extracting some of their blood, you also have the added characteristic of placing people in a trance with just your eyes. Get them to stare into your eyes and they will fall into a trance from which they will allow you to do anything you want with them. Get them to move to another room, meet you somewhere, anything. Once they are in your trance, you can command them to carry out your bidding even when they awake. And then, when you are alone with them, they will give themselves to you, which makes the extraction of their blood legal. Taking blood without permission is against the rules. If they do not offer it, you can end up in the Place of Chains for stealing blood. Sand does not want stolen blood. Only blood offered willingly." Kul explained.

"But your man in our bedroom was going to take it without our permission." Paul reminded Kul.

"Not actually. One way to get a person's permission is to get them to fight back. In a fight, both humans are at risk of spilling their blood. They thereby give permission to have their blood spilled in the commission of the act."

"So, if I had not fought back, your man could not have taken my blood?" Paul was curious at this strange fact.

"Precisely. He could take it but it would not have been legal. Thereby unusable for Sand. Most every human will fight back when faced with immediate danger of death. That response, makes them perfect candidates for partaking of their blood."

"Kind of tricky, ain't it?" Paul asked.

"Yes. But the trick is in knowing the rules and most humans are unaware of the rules through their own choice to be ignorant. By not understanding the rules of blood and fluids and spiritual energy, they make themselves targets, not immune from danger. Your commonwealth laws say that there is no excuse for not knowing the law. Your are still subject to obeying them. It is the duty of every human to understand the laws about the things they are involved with. That same principle applies in the different planes of existence. Just because a human does not choose to understand everything about the rules of the plane they exist in, does not exempt them from those same rules."

"Okay, so there is a legal basis for the trickery." Paul agreed. "Still, it is trickery."

"No more so than you buying new clothes to impress your then girlfriend, Rita, all those months you dated. The image you presented to her when you went out together had nothing to do with the real person you were when she was not around. Same idea. You used her ignorance of who you were before you met her to add to your image and be someone you thought was acceptable to her. We do the same thing to become acceptable to humans in this plane. We dress our intentions up so that everyone gets what they want. Rita got a more impressive you and you got Rita. No difference."

"How do you know about me before I met Rita?" Paul wanted to know.

"We have been monitoring you for a while, now. We did not know when or even if we'd get a chance to talk with you but you have been someone we thought would make an good addition to Sand since you were young."

"Since I was young?"

"Yes, about four I believe. You had cut your hand pretty badly and then rubbed it in the sand of your driveway to wipe away the blood. When your mother asked you why you rubbed your hand in the dirt, you told her that the sand was thirsty."

Paul remembered that day. He was very young but he remembered his mom telling that story many times. She remembered it and told the story often because she said it was a sign that Paul was headed for bigger things in life. He was not just joking, she told everyone. Paul actually knew that the sand was thirsty for his blood that day.

"You were there?"

"Not me, actually, Paul. But us of the Sand."

"Seems strange to be monitored and not know it." Paul spoke softly in his head. He was thinking.

"Even as small child, you understood there was more to this existence of the humans than met the eye. You had a special attachment to nature, animals and such. You saw and felt things in them that others missed and just walked over. As you grew older you let those others talk you out of it. Your parents never introduced you to anything remotely spiritual, so the understanding took a back seat in your mind. But it never completely left. That is why you had no trouble believing me when I came to you that night. It was easy for you to understand the other planes and making the decision you made as long as you thought about it without letting your brain get in the way. Inside you, where the real Paul lives and plays, you know a truth beyond what your outer person was subjected to. That was the Paul I was trying to reach that night and recruit for our purposes."

"So, those things I experienced as a child were real?"

"More real than the explanations the adults gave to make you conform to their view of the world." Kul answered him. "Church is not the only place where adult humans fit their definitions and ideas into small boxes that are easy to label. That is why there is so much strife in your human plane. Too many people who want others to think they know all the answers without doing any of the research or investigation necessary to achieve it."

"Kind of makes a guy mad to know his authorities were lying to him all those years." Paul grinned.

"Not lying. Ignorance can not lie. It can still lead others astray and it can even kill, but it is not a lie unless the one telling it knows better. Bad information. Perhaps even a negligent attitude, but not lying."

"Still, I felt like I was stupid all those years. Seeing and hearing and thinking things that made me seem weird in comparison to other people." Paul explained.

"Well, in your plane, weird is everything that does not line up with the expectations of those in authority at the time. What is done today in your society would have been declared weird by past societies."

"I can see your point," Paul acknowledged. "So, where do I find these people I am supposed to put in a trance and partake of their blood?"

"Anywhere and everywhere." Kul answered. "The only thing anyone will remember of their experience after you partake of their blood is that somehow they feel a closer affinity to you."

"You mean, after I partake of their blood, they are actually going to like me more?" Paul chuckled at the idea.

"Precisely. And if you partake of them again a few months later, you will strengthen the bond between you. You never kill them but you steal away a part of them with their blood and they are drawn toward the one who is now a part of them without even realizing why. You leave nothing of yourself in them so you are not drawn to them, but they are drawn to be part of your life from that moment on because you contain a part of them."

"This could get to be sticky, if the person is a woman," Paul thought about it.

"No more so than if it were a man," Kul added.

"I see what you mean," Paul smiled. "When can we get started. I have a powerful thirst that needs quenching."

"Now you're talking," Kul answered. "But first we have to plan it out."

"How so?"

"Because those you partake of will be drawn to you, it only makes sense that you partake of people who can help you succeed at whatever you choose to do. Since they become drawn to you in the process, their help in your endeavors in the human plane will be assured. Need a loan, partake of the bank examiner responsible for giving you that loan. Instant approval."

"I see..." Paul let the last word drag out until the breath ceased coming from his lungs. This was going to be good, Paul thought. Maybe even better than he thought.

Chapter Five

Rita Paxwood was amazed at the change in her husband when he came home from the hospital. She had heard people say that confronting death changed people. But she would have never believed such a wild turnaround for her husband was possible. At first it was like a dream come true. He was more confident, more positive, more take action. She liked that. Before he had too often let life happen to him and then was only left with a chance to complain about it later. After exiting the hospital, though, he was a different man. He had purpose. That was the only way she could describe it.

Others noticed it too. Her girlfriends commented that Paul walked and spoke with an air of authority they had never seen in him before. Rita always replied that she knew it was there all along but if she was truthful, she would have had to admit that it surprised her, too. Paul had always been a follower. That was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. She knew too many would-be leaders and shakers of the world growing up in her father's house. Her parents were always trying to marry her off to one of them or the other.

It was a small rebellion but it was hers, to insist that the man she would marry would not be a corporate ladder climber like her dad. Her dad was a good man but too busy to spend much time with the children. She wanted her husband to have time to spend with the children and wanted the man to want to do it. Even if that meant having less in the bank and struggling at times to make ends meet.

Paul had met that criteria and then some. He was one of the most gentle men she had ever met. He did not have an ambitious bone in his body. Being a psyche major she had many times tried to determine if his gentleness was a meekness caused by early failures in life that forced him to accept less and less for himself, or if he truly did not want anything except a simple life with a family. Paul had convinced her he was a simple man wanting a simple life in the final year at college. She had consented to marry him even though neither of them had good jobs yet. Paul seemed content to remain at the job he had since high school. That was part of the charm, she had told herself.

Although she had consented to marry Paul, he had not been her first choice. Her first choice was a far more elusive yet just as gentle man who seemed to be always trying to outrun the shadow of his father, like she was. They had talked about the loneliness they both had endured growing up. Surrounded by people but feeling as though they were abandoned nonetheless because of the absentee father business. His name was John Corwin and she had chased him for three semesters until she met Paul. Actually, John had introduced her to Paul. Sometimes she wondered if he did that to get her off his back.

The way things had turned out with John, it had left her with a feeling that business with John was not concluded. He never denied her affections or said he had none of his own. It was more like he had been afraid to release himself to love her. His unattainableness had made her even more curious and desirous of his attention. In the end, he had found a way to distract her from her goal of searching out his suitability as a future husband. He brought Paul along on a lunch date she had planned. In the confusion of her plans, she and Paul had hit it off and soon they were dating. But she could never completely get John out of her mind. He was the one that got away without a good look. She hadn't thrown him back. She had never landed him.

A few months living with Paul after the wedding and she was not as sure as she was at the beginning that a gentle man with no ambition was the best formula for a marriage. She loved Paul. There was no doubt there. He was a marvelous man. But a husband also needs to be a provider and Paul's ambition, or lack thereof, was a problem she saw too late. Too much ambition might have been a bad thing, but none at all was turning out just as bad. He would have time to spend with the family but the family would be living so poorly that they could not do anything except watch TV together. She had begun to fear that maybe she had gone too far away from the model her dad set when she chose Paul, but there was no way she would ever admit that to her parents, or Paul. Her parents already didn't like Paul because he was not "corporate material" as her dad put it.

Now, Paul seemed to have taken a shock to his system with the attack in their bedroom. She certainly had. Where she was inclined to worry more about enjoying every moment now, Paul seemed more desirous of creating the moments that would count.

In less than a month, Paul was back at work at the hardware store. They had given his counter job to someone else while he was out so, he had to take a job in the back room stocking shelves again like he had when he first started there as a high school kid. She had expected Paul to take it in stride like he always did and mouth platitudes about how it would hopefully work out someday. Instead, after only two days back at work, Paul had quit. That shocked her but not as much as what he did next.

He went down to the bank, borrowed the money to start his own hardware store and then rented the old building materials property that had gone out of business three years before. People all over town were saying that the quiet boy from the hardware store had lost his mind. The owner of the store had come to him twice and offered to put him back on the counter before he did something he would really regret. No one expected Paul to succeed. If there had been a category in his high school yearbook for least likely to succeed, it seems everyone would have voted Paul the winner.

But Paul was determined. Even if Rita had been sure what he was doing was wrong, she would not have tried to dissuade him from trying. She had never seen him like he was currently. Driven. Purposeful. Focused and making plans. He was more like the man her parents had wanted her to marry and she was only slightly irked at the thought that maybe they were right. Maybe they did know what was best for her. Still, in her heart, she held back a little piece that wanted a man who would get down on the floor and roll around with his children. She hoped Paul had not changed too much for that.

Only two months after renting the space for his new hardware business, Paul opened the doors. There were representatives from every major distributor there offering every kind of deal imaginable. The store was twice the size as the old hardware store in town and carried all the latest equipment and hardware items from the largest distributors around the world. Rita was amazed at the variety she saw as she walked the aisles with her beaming husband. She could not help but keep telling him he had done good. She was a little surprised that he seemed to like the adulation. She had never known him to want the attention before. But there he was, giving interviews with local newspapers and radio, drawing the contractor's business with better deals and opportunity as well as in stock availability of product. Paul was a success and everyone was recognizing it. That shy boy was making good.

Two months after the grand opening, Paul got a visit by the owner of the other hardware store. They could not compete. They wanted to sell out. Paul declined.

That was when Rita started getting worried. Paul had always been a compassionate man. Since the attack and his hospital stay, he had become ruthless and hard with people who opposed him. Now, when she would have normally expected him to give the man he used to work for a way out gracefully, he turned hard and cold and demanded the man leave his store and stop bothering him with his petty problems. He said he didn't care if the man filed for bankruptcy or committed suicide or whatever. It was not his problem. He had done what he set out to do, put the man who held him down out of business.

It was a side of Paul, Rita had never even seen a glimmer of before. Paul had always been so sensitive to others that she felt it was a fault. He usually cared more about how others felt than how he felt. He had been selfless. Now he was selfish. And she saw a streak of vindictiveness in there too. Something had really changed inside Paul during that attack.

Paul refused to hire any of the employees that were let go by the closing hardware store he had bankrupted. He sited that they had not treated him well when he worked there, plotted against him while he was in the hospital through no fault of his own and then laughed at him when he had to go work in the back stocking shelves again. He took great delight in interviewing each perspective employee and asking them who was laughing now.

At home, Paul was still the same loving husband he had always been. He did not spend excessive time at the store and let his employees run it for the most part. He said he provided the brains and the money so they could make him more money and let him use his brains to do more things. She had laughed the first time he had said it, but lately it had become almost a mantra with him. Use others to get what he wanted.

Rita's parents took a new liking to Paul since he had found his way to becoming prosperous. The way they extolled the virtues of her choice of husbands now made Rita mad. Not only were they being hypocritical, but they were also just plain lying through their teeth. She had never heard the end of how much her mother disliked Paul before the attack. Even in the hospital, when her mother heard how bad the attack had damaged Paul's body, her mother had thought Paul would die and told Rita it was probably for the best. Now, with Paul's new found success, her parents visited more often and liked going around town and telling the townsfolk that he was their son in law.

Rita kept track of the changes in Paul and everyone around him. It was amazing. People who never gave Paul the time of day before were suddenly his best buddies. Success. It was true. Everyone loves a winner. But Rita was having second thoughts.

Paul had grown up there. He was one of theirs and he had made good. The whole town applauded that and claimed him as their own. That was the hometown formula everywhere. Paul ate it up. He confessed to her that he had never expected anyone in that town to ever think good things of him. Now it seemed, they could think no bad thoughts of him.

That was when he shared his plan with her. He was going to take over every business in town that had ever done him wrong and put the people who owned it out of business as punishment for their ill treatment of him or his family. Rita had tried to talk him out of it but he told her she did not understand what it was to grow up in a place where everyone put him down and refused to give him a chance. Now he was going to help make understand what they had put him through. He was going to put them down and not give them a chance. He said he still had some work to do. He wanted to be able to make sure that the people didn't just up and move their businesses to the next town. He wanted to have long arms.

Rita was scared. The man she had known was no more. He was still Paul Paxwood, but not the same, sweet man she had married only a little over a year before. Rita had money now and friends and things to do in town. She even had the respect of her parents, as sketchy as that honor was. But what she really wanted was her old Paul back. That sweet guy who liked to cuddle on the couch.

With Paul's new focus on his plans for revenge on the town that held him down, her nights became lonely. Paul was staying away a couple nights a week on business. He was traveling and making deals and buying up things that affected the businesses that he wanted to do damage to. She was on strict orders to speak of it to no one. She would not have done it even if he had not told her to keep quiet. She would never admit that her husband was such a ruthless man.

In her lonely hours at night, she began to despair of her decision to marry Paul. It was not working out the way she had envisioned it. She started wondering what life would have been like if only she had managed to get inside John Corwin. He had been her first choice for husband material. Paul was a close runner up and available. John was not available. Something filled John up with things that only John could understand. She consoled herself through the nights and told herself that the whole reason John had been the better choice was because she had sensed somewhere deep down that this extreme existed in Paul.

She felt that now she had an answer to her enigmatic question about Paul's meekness. It was a response to being beaten down as a kid and now that he was up, he was wanting to return the beating. She wished she had answered that question before they had gotten married. Now it was too late. She was stuck with the man her parents wanted her to have. And she had chosen him.

John Corwin's mind was determined to move on but his heart was still pining for the past. He felt better physically and emotionally. He had even picked up his book and started reading again. It had been a long time since he felt like indulging in anything except self pity. He was not worried about his heart. His mind was strong and his heart was passionate. The two would find their way to travel together again soon.

Months had passed since his two day stay in the Mist with Marcie. She had come home with him and become his constant companion since that day. Each night he shared fluids with her and she comforted him in the knowledge of his spiritual growth and trained him to understand all the things he sensed around him. She had become a mentor as well as a friend.

Marcie had finally been able to put off the little girl image that invaded her manifestation for so long. John had taken her into his life and loved her for her. It took several days of sharing their love over and over until she could hold her adult image in strength. Now she came to him as a beautiful, dirty blond woman with sensuous curves and a strikingly smooth skin tone. He didn't see how it was possible but Marcie was happier too, now that she could shed the little girl aura that had plagued her since her death. But it had taken love to make the break with her horrific past. John had provided that. Mutual love. Hers and his. An energy revitalization that spanned the planes.

John saw the pages of his book but was really concentrating on something building on the horizon. It was far off and hard to read. It was dark and foreboding, as it had been that day he had lost Kathy. Something bad was headed his way.

John was not worried. Marcie had told him that the Creator of Life would not let anything happen that he was not ready to handle. Therefore, if something bad was headed his way, he must be healing up nicely enough to be ready for it. Usually not someone to seek out hardship or any kind of confrontation, John saw this as a positive thing. He had been dormant too long. The Spring season was gearing up and he was itching to be doing something besides preparing.

Marcie had been great. She had been there every step of the way. She knew when to step out of the way and let him solo and when to grab on and hold him up. She was fabulous. It struck him as very strange how far his attitude toward her had changed since their first meeting. Then she had been a guard he had to get through. Now she was an ally in making it through every day.

Over the top of his book he could look out at the campground and survey what he and Enrico and Juan had built. He had made them each ten percent owners for their hard work and to reward them for what they had put into the place. Enrico had proven to be a fantastic manager who needed little help making the place run. Juan was the ever present aide that always knew the next thing to be done and did it. Between the three of them they were not only ready for a new season but more than ready. They had opened up more than a hundred new camping spaces and built a large playground with a larger swimming pool at the other end of the property. In the next week or so, the new pavilion would be complete and the two new bathhouses would be opened. Yes, they were more than ready.

As John stared through what was only trees now but would soon be parked campers of every size and sort, he saw again the dark cloud amassing just outside of his view. Not clear. Not really fuzzy. Like looking at something so far away that he could not make out any detail. There, but unidentifiable.

He could sense what it was. It was new. Something he had never seen before. Familiar things were identifiable from any distance. For instance, he could sense Marcie coming from a long way off. This was new. It was also big. Not big like Gol was big. More like it covered a large section of the plane. He could not describe it even with Marcie's help. He felt that the size of it was what was making it unidentifiable somehow. Like it was too big to comprehend. Or he was too close inside it and it was surrounding him making identification difficult. Something like that.

Marcie had cautioned that he should take his time. She said the rule of the planes was that nothing ever came as a surprise if one was watching for it. Since he was watching for it, he would see it when it needed to be seen.

John had learned not to argue with Marcie's logic. It never failed and always bore out. He trusted her. After all, she was family, as he liked to remind her so often. She never reminded him that she was the sister of his great, great grandmother deceased by the hand of her uncle. She let that part of her existence go when she said good bye to the image of the battered little girl. She liked when he called her family. She had been killed so young that she never really got to experience family in the human plane. A few Christmases and parties she could remember, but mostly it was the last hours of her life that rushed through her memory. With John she felt like she was capturing a small part of her family connection again or at least what she thought it would feel like. In the Mist, meeting other family members was more like coming upon a friend than a real family relationship. John, being still a part of the human plane, had helped her experience love on the human level and put away the little girl image and move on. It was he who had given her back any sense of family so she allowed him to invoke the word any time he wanted.

John sensed a presence he was not familiar with. Immediately his defenses went up. He swiveled his head to see if someone had crept around behind his camper to approach him from the rear. Nothing.

"John?" The voice was inside his head. Familiar but unfamiliar. He felt he should know it. He concentrated. Nothing.

"John?" The voice again.

"Who is it?" John demanded.

"It's me, John." The familiarity again but still unknown.

"Who?" John demanded again.

"Have you forgotten me already?" The voice was still unfamiliar but the cutting question left John with no doubt about its origin.

"Kathy?" There was a hopeful edge to his voice. John could not help the tears that formed up in his eyes. The pain of the loss and the desire to rekindle that love they once shared in the human plane took over his every cell. It was like someone released a flood gate on his feelings. A warm, washing sensation swept over his entire being.

"Yes, John. It's me."

"Where are you, besides in my head?"

"In the Mist, John."

"I know that. But you've been gone for a long time, no contact. I've been wondering if I would ever see you again."

"Maybe, John. First we have to renew our relationship on terms of my existing in another plane."

"Like Marcie and me?"

"Not quite."

Kathy spoke softly and he knew something was wrong.

"Then what?"

"Marcie is your liaison with the Mist. I can not intrude on her relationship with you. We can be friends but she is your liaison. She has the right to bring all your fluid energy into the Mist before anyone else."

"I see." John said and he really did. He had actually wondered about such a scenario before. He also wondered if there were cat fights in the Mist.

"There are no cat fights in the Mist, John." Kathy's voice said he should stop being silly. "Besides, what makes you think any of us would fight over you?"

"It's good to hear your voice," John said and meant it. He fought back the tears and wiped at his eyes.

"I'm sorry my presence makes you sad." she said.

"It's a good sad," John admitted. "I was hoping to hear from you and learn about what's happening with you now. I miss you something awful but I am dealing with it. Still, it hurts to miss someone I love so much."

"I miss you, too." Kathy was not emotional, he noticed. "There is so much wonder inside the Mist I have tried to keep myself distracted with things and others to keep from remembering us. It's hard because I enjoy the memories, which I still have. I have watched you many times while you were healing up and I want you to know I am proud to have been your wife, if even for a short time. There are no marriages in here, so when you get here we'll still be great friends just not married. It's kind of strange to think I will never be married again. That's why I am so happy that while I was, it was to you. You are the best husband anywhere."

Her words were killing John on the inside. He was losing the fight with his emotions. She was picking at scabs that he thought were healed and discovering they were still festering with a love he could not deny no matter how hard he tried. Tears streamed down his face.

"I have to go, John. I am not allowed to make you cry and dredge up all the old times like that. You need to heal up. Another storm is coming. You can not be sidetracked by our human relationship which is gone forever. I just want to let you know that I still love you with all my heart. I want the best for you, just like Marcie. Please concentrate on getting past this. The time is coming when you can not afford the distraction I present."

"What's coming?" John asked her. "Tell me."

"I do not know what it is. I only know it is big."

"Will you help me?" John called out in his mind.

"Of course, John. We all are here to help you."

"Emil's there, too?"

"Yes, John." Emil answered him. "Marcie, Kathy and I are here for you. But listen to what Kathy has told you. Something big is moving on the horizon. We know you can see it coming. You need to get past this relationship thing and prepare for the coming battle."

"Why me?"

"Because the battle is coming to you, John."

"Why? What have I done to anyone?"

"We do not know that." Marcie jumped into the thoughts in his head. "We can only see that it is big and headed for you. Not towards you or in your general direction but actually coming for you. Whatever it is, the darkness is aiming for you."

"Thanks a lot," John sighed. "Just when I start feeling human again, some evil entity from another plain comes knocking at my door."

Kathy gave a little chuckle in his head.

"Sounds like the old John I know and love," she quipped.

"If you guys really love me get me more information. Like who is out to get me."

"Don't worry, John." Marcie took the lead again. "Whatever we learn we will pass on to you."

"What should I do in the mean time?"

"Get ready to see what it is and do something about it." Kathy answered for them all. "Otherwise it will run right over you like a storm wind through a chicken coop."

"Aren't we the country girl, now?" John teased and wiped the last of the tears from his eyes.

"Beautiful thing about the Mist is we can be whoever we want to be in here. We got all the time in the world to practice it. Fun is the order of the day and pleasure is its engine."

"Quite the philosopher, too."

"Emil's been teaching me a few things." Kathy admitted.

"I'll bet he has," John drew out the words for affect.

"Jealous?" Kathy asked.

"A little." John replied.

"Me too." Kathy answered.

"Huh?"

"You and Marcie make quite a couple lately," Kathy laughed. "Think I wouldn't notice?"

"Uh..." John was speechless. He had not thought about it like that. Funny, he had thought about having a relationship with Kathy like that but had not considered his relationship with Marcie in that light.

"Wow!" John laughed. "I guess I have been carrying on a bit."

"A bit?" Kathy sounded incredulous. "Every night."

"Well ... uh ... Marcie's insatiable." John spit out.

John heard laughter in his head.

"I might be insatiable, but you're always horny, too." Marcie defended herself. "I live in a plane that shares energy that way. You live in a plane that just gets off on the feeling of the sex. So whose the real pervert here, anyway?"

"Okay. Okay." John gave in. "I guess I'm guilty of monopolizing her time a little lately."

"A little?" It was Emil's turn. "We could power Denver off the sparks you two are throwing up."

"Good, huh?" John laughed at their good natured teasing.

"Fantastic!" Marcie admitted, then realized they were talking about the power their coupling produced for the Mist. "I mean ... uh ... the sex was good, too."

They were all laughing now.

"It's good to hear you laugh again," Kathy said. "There were times I wondered if I would ever hear it again."

"There were times I wondered if I would ever find anything to be happy about again." John admitted. "I can never remember anything hurting me as badly."

"I'm sorry." Kathy said. "I did not want to hurt you."

"I know. I never thought you did. I had opened up such a big hole for you to climb into my life that when you left it was like having my entire guts pulled out and the hole left gaping."

"I wish there was some way that I could have absorbed all that pain for you." She offered.

"It was something I had to go through to grow, I guess. I just wish there was an easier way to get through things than actually having to endure them."

"Don't we all." Kathy laughed.

"Are you really okay in there?" John asked the question that burned uppermost in his mind.

"I really am." Kathy answered. "It's not the same as being there with you but it is still good. Different but good. If I could come back, I would only want to visit. It's really good here. No problems to deal with. Just living every day to its fullest. I can't wait until the day you get to see it all for yourself."

"Seems there's more for me to do here, so I guess it will be a while before we can go on a picnic there." John laughed. "Who knows? Maybe this cloud that is tracking in on me will send me to the Mist."

"Don't say that John." Kathy admonished him. "You live every day as though it is the best life in the world. You will get to come here soon enough. Don't do anything foolish."

"Well, I promise not to do anything foolish on purpose," John gave in.

"That's good enough for me," Kathy laughed. "Who knows? There may be another wife out there for you. You are still young and handsome and quite a catch now that you own a very lucrative business."

"Yeah, who knows?" John did not try to sound very enthusiastic about that one. He didn't want another wife. He wanted Kathy.

Chapter Six

Rita awoke suddenly and sat bolt upright in bed. Her breathing was labored like she had been running a marathon. Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears in the quiet emptiness of her bedroom. Paul was gone again. More often of late he left her alone to carry out his master plan as he called it. Also, more and more she wondered who it was that he was becoming.

She had had the dream again. That makes three times, she said to herself. She found that in her recent loneliness she had taken to talking to herself. It was a strange dream about a strange place she didn't recognize. But somehow she felt comfortable there. She had the feeling she belonged in that place, wherever it was. But Paul did not think she belonged there. That was the climax of the dream each time. Paul showed up and asked her what she thought she was doing there. She admitted she didn't know but explained that she thought, somehow, she needed to be there or belonged there. Her statement always made Paul furious and then began his murderous rage of shouts and threats against her and whoever the mysterious shadow was that watched them arguing.

That shadowed seemed familiar but was too far away to be recognizable. Really just a dotted blur of darkness within the already dark landscape of her dream. Always, she ran away from Paul's screaming fury. Then Paul would chase her. He was bigger than her and faster than her and she knew she could not outrun him. Somehow she knew that if he caught her he was going to kill her. That made no sense to her, though. She knew Paul loved her. He would do anything and everything he could for her. He had proved that so often. Why was he screaming for her death in her dream? The senselessness of the actions were as disturbing as the being chased in an unknown place. She ran. She ran hard but she had no idea where she was going. She was in good shape but not an athletic person by nature. She had always been more of the pretty cheerleader type than the hardcore athlete.

Rita awoke from the dream each time scared to death. Fear held her in its grip and controlled her every thought for the first few minutes after awakening. Catching her breath and reasoning out that it was just a dream helped her bring her life back into perspective. She knew it was silly to think of Paul as anything but her husband, lover and biggest fan. Any other thought was a foreign intrusion that had no place in her world.

Getting out of bed, Rita padded barefoot across the carpeted floor of their new bedroom. She loved the new house. It was everything a woman could want in a home. Big but not too big. In a good neighborhood where they could raise kids safely and not too far from the school. It had a big back yard with a swimming pool and lots of little flower gardens, which she loved.

That was her plan today. Gardening. Since Paul's success, she had become a woman of leisure at his request. She filled her day with gardening, rearranging furniture and thinking about the changes in her life. And wondering about the dream.

Today she would start with the gardening. She had gotten some Monkey Grass to plant all around the borders of the gardens at the back fence. She thought it would add a touch of lighter greenery to the darker bushes at the fence and the bushy annuals she had planted previously in front of the bushes. She had looked and looked at the combination for days before deciding it needed something with a different green to really set it off. The Monkey Grass would do nicely.

After lunch she planned on tackling the dining room. There was only one place the big table Paul had bought looked right, but the china cabinet and the dry sink were still not quite right. And when those pieces finally had a permanent home, she would need to work on the wall appointments. She had a wonderful painting of a halfway house by a river in what looked to be the old south. The colors matched the room perfectly and the hospitality of a halfway house spoke volumes to her way of thinking about the service she wanted to bestow upon those that dined with them in the future.

As she brushed her teeth and checked her face in the mirror, the dream came flooding back. Running. Curious. She could not really imagine a situation where she would be running away from Paul. Even with all the changes he had undergone since the attack, she only saw him as her big, strong protector.

The shadow. She gave that some thought. In the dream she was afraid of Paul and comforted by the presence of the shadow. Totally opposite how she saw things in the light of day. Paul was her comfort, especially when he was home. She was not an easily frightened individual but the unknown was always a concern that caused her to check up and think twice before doing something. Funny that the unknown in her dream would be a comfort for her.

She tried applying her psyche training to her dream and it made no sense. Somehow her subconscious was sensing that Paul was the danger and some person she did not know was going to help her or save her. That was the reading she got. If she had been talking to a friend about the friend's dream, she would have cautioned the friend to be careful around Paul. She believed the subconscious mind saw things the conscious mind dismissed. Her counsel to a friend with the same dream would have been totally opposite the counsel she gave herself. Don't eat any more peanut butter sandwiches before bed. Too heavy.

With a shrug, Rita slipped out of her short, silky nightie and let it drop to the floor. Bending down, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her skimpy but equally silky panties and slid them to the floor. Stepping out of them, she admired herself in the mirror thinking for the millionth time that she was lucky to have been born with such a nice figure. She knew many women were unhappy with their bodies in one respect or another. She liked hers. Men liked it too. Their approving glances told her that. Maybe that was what she really liked, that others liked her body. It gave her a sense of acceptance.

Turning the hot water on in the shower, she let it heat up and steam up the room before getting in. She loved the warm, steamy wetness of the atmosphere in the large bathroom when she showered. It was like walking through a warm mist and letting every sensory organ in her skin enjoy the experience. Even the ceramic walls held the moisture for hours after the shower like they could not bear to part with the moment either.

Once the room was acceptably cloudy with the steam of her shower, Rita walked into the shower. It was floor level and had a drain sunken in the floor. There was no door. Just a space large enough to allow her to take a shower and splash around without the water going too far from the large space allocated to the shower facility. Paul said he liked it because he could watch her in the shower and admire her body while she enjoyed the hot water cascading down her body. Paul also could not control himself when he watched and usually ended up joining her. He said he liked that, too. The fact there was enough room for the both of them to do whatever they wanted in this shower.

Her thoughts of Paul dampened her spirits when she should have been soaring with the sensation of the hot water running down her body. That concerned her a little. Before the attack, thoughts of Paul always brought a smile to her face. Now, thinking about him always brought her to the place where she wondered about his dark side. Every person had one. She had been sure that Paul had his dark side totally hidden. Lately, he seemed to be enjoying discovering it more and more.

She closed her eyes and let the water run over her face, washing away the cares of the attack, Paul's changes and even the dream that had so frightened her only moments before. A sense of warmth flooded her being and she enjoyed the feel of the water scalding her skin and exciting every nerve to its fullest awareness. Every part of her was awake. Every part of her was listening to the sounds of the universe and waiting on every vibration to summon the better things of life to her. She hummed to herself. Nothing special. Nothing recognizable. Just sound. Her sound. A sound that summoned her deepest consciousness to draw strength from and find the peace of existence.

Rita just let it come, enjoying her moment of life disconnected from life in its physicality but connected all the same in an existential way that she had learned to cultivate since her childhood. From her earliest memories she could remember her parents had always argued with each other. That was another reason she wanted a gentle man. To escape the noise of the shouting, she had often turned inward upon herself and found a quiet place of her own to hide from the confrontation of the pain and unsure moments of her life. The shower had become a bastion of refuge in her home. The place she ran to to find peace within when there seemed to be no peace without.

The heat of the water was almost unbearable, which made it all the more inviting. Bear up under it and achieve a place where others won't come. Let the pain of the heat wash away the pain of reality. Rita enjoyed the sensation of the water running in rivulets down her bare skin. She shifted position to make the water go where she wanted it to. Her place of control. She controlled every sensation in here. Her every move was part of the control. This was her world.

"Hm-m-m-m-m!" She sighed out loud to herself and hugged herself tightly swiveling under the steady stream of hot prickles the water created as it exited the shower head and splashed downward over her body.

She was feeling better every second. Gone were the misgivings about Paul and the dream and everything else. A sense of calm was coming back. A sense of control. Even a sense of blissful joy began building at the edges of her consciousness.

That was when she noticed the strange figure standing just at the edge of her mind. She shook her head, but did not open her eyes. He was still there. This was her place, under her control. Still, the figure remained, unmoving, unflinching. In her mind's eye, she stared at the figure. He posed no threat. In fact, his presence was understood to be a protection against something evil.

Rita relaxed. The figure watched her, admiring her nakedness in the shower. She felt no compunction to cover up. A part of her wanted to give herself to the stranger's eyes. He was a friend. She did not know how she knew that. She just knew. His presence was acceptable, desired even. She continued with her shower, letting the hot water wash away the world outside. The stranger watched her. She let him.

Paul sighed into his chest. His head was down and he was feigning resting while the cab driver drove him to his destination. He had long ago wearied at the babble of cab drivers around the country. No matter where he went, it was the same thing. Every cab driver acted like every fare needed to be brought up to speed on the area they had come to explore. Well, maybe some did. But he did not. He preferred them to just shut up and drive. Besides the time spent in his artificial rest state allowed him to check in on the little woman.

Kul had taught him how to go through the plane of Sand in his mind and reach out to her wherever she was. At first it had been difficult, moving in a realm where he could not be physical. His mind had been relaxed for too many years and he needed to build up those mind muscles again. He also found that he could look in on those he had partaken of and see what was going on with them, which allowed him even greater control over the environment of his business deals. Kul was proving to be a real boon to his success and his enjoyment of life in general.

The sigh that escaped Paul as a long puff of expelled air was because he saw the stranger in Rita's dream and then again in the shower with her. He had seen him before and knew exactly who it was. At least he believed he did. He never saw a face, just the way the man stood. He knew a man who stood just that way. How he roamed inside Rita's mind like he did was a mystery to Paul. He had meant to ask Kul about it but had forgotten.

Previous encounters with the man in her dream, as she ran from Paul, were just that, encounters. He was there. She went on by and kept going. No recognition. No acknowledgment. Nothing. She saw the figure and dismissed it just as quickly. No problem. But in the shower, that was a problem. She not only saw the figure but accepted it as a friend and allowed the figure to watch her shower.

Paul was uneasy in his spirit because of the figure. Not the figure as much as Rita's response to him. If the figure was who he thought it was, Rita was headed in a dangerous direction. Not for her, maybe. For him. Maybe the figure was real. Maybe Rita was conjuring him up for her own excitement. He could not be sure of any of it.

She had always been his since they met. But he had always felt like he should have been her second choice. Or maybe a distant third, even. The past few months had made him forget about those feelings. Now, watching her showering and enjoying the eyes of the stranger upon her, those feelings came rushing back. He wondered in his spirit again. Rita was fantastic. Part of him felt he had earned her love more fully since he became a better provider. Still, another part of him knew it had been artificially manufactured. He felt like a fake sometimes. Maybe Rita could sense that he was not for real. Not just the change in him, but something deeper. After all, she was his wife. His better half.

Rita was scared of him since the attack and his change. He could tell. She still loved him and supported him. But she was cautious somehow. Feeling her way along around him. He tried to be totally at ease around her but her wariness pricked his own. No matter how much he tried to be her old Paul, his new found success drove him onward. He liked being the boss for a change. He liked fixing the wrongs that had been done him. He liked providing for Rita in a manner he felt was worthy of her. He intended to make it even better. He hoped she would learn to understand he did what he did for her.

But this stranger in her mind was a concern. Whether she was conjuring the figure up in her own desires or the figure was advancing upon her on his own, Rita was enjoying his presence. She was liking the figure looking at her. She was wanting him to look. He knew Rita was not one to cheat on her husband. His concern was more about why she felt the need to seek protection and why she was choosing this man. It seemed natural to Paul that she did not run to her newly successful husband for protection. She had not known him as protector long enough. It was too recent a change in him. He hoped that time would bring her around.

Paul sighed again and looked up in time to see he was arriving at his destination. The cab slowed to a stop and he paid the man. Getting out of the cab, he stood in the sunshine momentarily looking around. The offices he sought were straight ahead. To the left the street was modern buildings and high rises blocking the sun on the street in places. To the right the buildings ran shorter and became more sparse. The sun was bright across the street in that direction. Paul admired the contrast in directions. One was sunny and bright. The other was hidden and blocked. Kind of like his life. A bright, exterior version and a darker, interior version.

Heading into the heat of the Summer season, John worked less in a physical sense and more in a mental capacity. He left the real work of maintaining the campground to Enrico and Juan. The heat did not seem to bother them as much as it bothered him. Besides, he was the boss and needed to have plenty of face time with the new arrivals and campers with concerns. At least that was how he justified it to himself when he thought about it.

John walked in the Mist in the woods at the back of the property each night. He loved the stimulation of the sparkling contact with the entities in the Mist as he slowly moved through the dampness and swayed with his arm movements. Marcie said the Mist enjoyed his foreplay as much as the anticipation of the sharing of his fluid energy with her, which always came after his walk through the Mist.

It had become their normal nightly ritual. He would close up the office, take a shower, get something to eat and then take a walk as the evening light grew darker. The stimulation provided by the walk through the Mist always set the stage for Marcie showing up later. It was a fantastic release to his day of stress related conversations with disgruntled campers.

Fixing the imagined problems of others all day was proving to be an exhausting job. By the time Marcie showed up each night to help him release some of that tension, he was more than ready to share with the Mist. Thankfully, Marcie was always an attentive and energetic partner. Since her permanent image was now the knockout, dirty blond with shapely hips and bust line, without flickering back and forth with the battered little girl, he had no problem being properly excited at her visit.

They talked too. Marcie had proven to not only be a sexy partner in the bed, but also a good sounding board and source of information in almost everything he needed to know, especially things concerning the spiritual planes. She was his liaison with the Mist because she had been the one to bring him into the Mist but she was also his friend. More than that, even, she was his family. They shared a blood energy from their shared past as well as the fluid energies they created each night. She only came by for short periods of time to minimize her drawing of energy away from the Mist, but the energy she received from their visit more than tripled what she used up to make the visit. Everyone was benefiting and John was no longer feeling so alone without Kathy around.

Marcie had left for the evening after her nightly visit. John laid still in the bed, relishing the experience as he did each time she left. Unlike with a physical woman, the act of sharing with Marcie lingered after she was gone. Almost like his body was still attached with hers beyond the coupling act. He had felt that way with Kathy many times. After they had made love, if one or the other of them had to leave and go somewhere, he always felt like a part of her remained behind with him, enjoying the sense of being joined in such a way. With Marcie, though they were not technically making love, it was a similar sense of joining in a permanent way that stayed around after she left, allowing him to feel her presence more acutely each time she returned. It also made him desire that return more each time. If he had thought about it, he might have equated it closer to a drug dependency than he would have liked.

Laying there, he could not imagine his life being any different than it was. But he knew it was a strange existence he lived. Sharing fluids with entities from other planes of existence. He almost felt like he lived in a fantasy world.

"It is a fantasy world, darling." Kathy burst in on his thoughts. Her voice in his head was another joy he relished whenever he could.

"But it's my fantasy world," John laughed.

"Ever think of dating some nice, young girl, instead of sleeping with your personal ghost?" Kathy asked.

"Maybe I'll do both." John joked. Well, half joked. He had been thinking more and more lately about getting a physical relationship back in his life.

"Well, yeah, I can see how that might be appealing to someone like you."

"What do you mean, like me?" John tried to sound offended.

He had learned long ago that people of the Mist can not do anything accept what they sense to be the best thing for those in the human plane. Kathy was not only his deceased wife, but a member of the Mist. She was doubly influenced to only desire the best for him. Whatever she said would always be for his best interest. She could never hurt him on purpose. Kind of like Marcie, who was the sister of his great, great grandmother. Family and the Mist made her doubly sure to be trying to help him. It was love on a scale beyond anything humans understood or experienced without help from someone beyond their normal plane of existence.

"You know, a pervert. Someone who has to have sex every night." Kathy laughed.

"I only do that to add to the energy level in the Mist." John defended his nightly activities, though he smiled to himself.

"You personally support the power supply for an entire city inside the Mist." Kathy laughed.

"Really?" John inquired, impressed at his own sexual prowess.

"Well, maybe a small town." Kathy amended. "Don't go getting a big head now."

"How can I with you constantly reminding me what a pervert I am?"

"That's what wives are for." Kathy laughed inside his head again.

"I thought wives are supposed to cook and clean and iron my clothes." John took his own shot at her.

"I am not that kind of wife." Kathy said in her most indignant voice. "I have other talents."

"When do I get to sample those talents, then?" John asked.

"Wow! You really are a pervert. You just had a marathon session with Marcie and now you want some more?"

"You know what I mean." John gave her his best I'm-annoyed voice.

"Yes, I know exactly what you mean. That's what I have come to talk to you about."

"What's that?"

"Your sex life, John."

"What about it?"

"It's ... uh ... unnatural, to say the least." Kathy searched for a way to begin.

"Yeah. I guess." John was noncommittal.

"No guessing, John. You need to develop a healthy physical relationship. The human body and mind can not exist in any plane except its own. It's unhealthy to be living primarily for the relationships of another plane. Your physical body may not be complaining right now, not yet. But, the effects of the mental stress without the corresponding muscular exercise to excite the nerves and correlating sensory cells of your body will eventually start to cause you problems."

"Wow! That's a mouthful." John joked.

"A serious mouthful, John." Kathy reminded him.

"Okay. Okay. So I need some physical relationships in this plane. I'll get to it eventually. It's not even been a year yet."

"Muscles need to be exercised regularly, John. Not just once a year. Nerves dry up and stop working. Tissue cells reorient themselves to be useful in other ways to the body's functions. Don't let your relationship with the Mist cause you to abandon the human plane before it's your time to leave. You need to be one hundred percent in the human plane at all times. Your knowledge of the Mist and other planes may give you a mental and spiritual advantage but it does not erase your involvement in the physical world you live in."

"I understand." John acknowledged her words. He had thought of this a few times himself.

"It's serious, John." Kathy warned him. "When you can generate physical relationships again, Marcie says she'll back off a little."

"What if I don't want her to back off?" John was worried he could not function without Marcie around. It had been too long. He feared being alone since Kathy had died.

"You're never alone, John." Kathy reminded him she could read his every thought. And you can function just fine without Marcie having to hover over your every action. She has a life, too, you know."

"I know." John felt defeated, like Kathy was warning him that all the good times were about to end because they were too good.

"Nothing's going to end, John." Kathy sighed. She didn't feel like she was doing a very good job explaining this to her still physically living husband. "You just need to get on with your human life and stop depending on the Mist for your support. We're here for you, but we are not capable of being everything you need to be healthy and happy in the human plane."

"I feel pretty good and I am definitely happy," John laughed and flashed Kathy a memory of himself with Marcie riding energetically above him in his bed.

"Whoa, Cowboy." Kathy stopped him. "You can not see the degeneration of your musculature like we can. I'm just trying to help you."

"I know. It's just hard to move on."

Kathy knew what he meant. Moving on meant to John he was giving Kathy up as gone and leaving her memory behind. He did not want to do that. He liked the memories. He was afraid the memories would somehow be tarnished if he let another woman into his life. That was why Marcie made such a good substitute. She was not really in his life. At least not physically. She did not take up space in his camper and walk around with him during the day. She was an acceptable substitute.

"I'm not afraid," John reminded her that he could also read her every thought. "And Marcie is not a substitute for you. She is a totally different relationship."

"Then prove it." Kathy challenged him. "Move on to other relationships in the physical world and let's see where we can go from there."

"I've been thinking about it." John admitted.

"It's time." Kathy stated.

"Seems funny having my wife tell me to go find another woman." John smirked in his head.

"I am not your wife any more, John. I've told you that. I was your wife. I have moved on to an existence without marriage. You still live in a plane that needs marriage between a man and a woman. It's not good for you to be alone. It's not just a mental thing. It affects your physical and spiritual energies as well.

"I'm not trying to push you away. Believe me, if my coming to you every night was healthy for you, I would definitely be there. I can not think of anything I would rather do. My love for you did not lessen when I joined the Mist. The effect of the Mist on my love has amplified it to a power far beyond anything I could have ever imagined. At times it hurts. A good hurt, but still a hurt. I think of you and watch you and think to myself how much I ache to be with you. You have no idea how much my love for you has grown since I passed on to this plane. That is why I have to tell you this.

"It is good that the Mist and Marcie were there to help you get over the extraordinary event of my death in the human plane. It required more than just the normal healing process for humans. But that's been accomplished now and you have to get back to living in the human plane again. You're like a man who's been in the hospital for a long time on pain medication and when he gets out can not come off the medication, so he looks for substitutes. A good doctor denies such a patient access to the medication that would ruin his life. We do not want to deny you any access to the Mist. We enjoy the relationship as much as you do. But we want you to be healthy. You have got to go back to living in the real world where you reside."

Kathy was finished with her prepared speech. She hoped it hit the mark and got his attention. There was a long silence. She could not tell if John was considering her words or ignoring them. His mind was a fuzzy, emotional blank. She could read nothing.

"You still love me?" John's singular, plaintive question worked its way out of his fuzzy mind.

"John?" Kathy was asking him to concentrate and listen to her.

"Yes?"

"I will always love you. I can not be married to you but I can not stop loving you either. You are a part of me as much as I am a part of you. There is no way we can be separated unless we choose to be. We were joined in the human plane and that oneness will remain forever through eternity. We'll always be one in a sense. Even though marriage is not necessary here, we will still exist in a joined pattern here. If you choose to go to another plane, we will still be connected by that oneness. We will never escape it. It is eternal. My love for you is eternal. Love, in it's purest form is eternal and can not be diluted of adjusted.

"Right now, your love for me, as strong as it is, is still only a fraction of what it will become when you depart the human plane. Real love, in the full presence of the Creator of Life blossoms like a giant flower that will not be denied its place in the sun. My love. Your love. Our love. It's all the same thing in eternity. No matter who else you choose to share your love with, there is enough love in the universe of planes to cover all of it.

"You're not cheating on me, Darling. In fact, if you would get your physical life back under control, I might be able to come to you in a few physical meetings of my own. Marcie said she would not mind. But the first thing we have to concern ourselves with is getting you back to complete health. Your spirit and even your emotions, for the most part, are doing fine, now. It's your physical and mental energies that need a little recharging. Marcie is not a proper physical counterpart for the exercise you need in those areas."

Kathy added an unprepared sidelight to her speech. She said a lot more than she had intended. John's fragile state about her love hurt her deeply. She could not bear a single moment that he was not totally sure about her love for him. That was never in question for her. He just did not understand the way things worked in the other planes. He needed to live in the human plane. She needed to help that happen.

John just laid there. His fuzzy thoughts kept Kathy from knowing what effect she had on him. She was just about to break in on his thoughts and find out when he spoke finally.

"I needed that." John told her. "I wanted to hear that. You have no idea how badly my heart needed to hear that. I am still struggling to work out this plane to plane existence thing. I can not envision my life without you in it, though."

"Well, I understand. Really I do," Kathy spoke inside his head. "And I know I have preached at you enough. I don't mean to. I guess I'm just worried for you. You do not have an existence in this plane, only in the human plane. Relationship with us here allows you to know things about the Mist and other things, but you only exist where you are, in the human plane. Therefore, you have to answer to the laws of the human plane. One of those laws concerns your health. You must exercise your love in the human plane for it to be a healthy thing. Please, believe me when I tell you I wish I was enough to sustain you. But that's not the way it is. I am not enough for you in the human plane. Marcie is not enough for you. Together we could never be enough for you."

"Wow! Now you really make me sound like a pervert." John laughed, the tension breaking. "Okay. Okay. I get the message. I guess I was kind of leaning on the Mist like a drug addiction. I can see that."

"So, you'll move on?" Kathy wanted a promise.

"Yes, dear." John answered her like she was a nag.

"Okay, then." Kathy laughed. "That's what I wanted to hear."

"Never let it be said, I didn't tell a woman what she wanted to hear." John laughed.

"Oh!" Kathy blew out a deep breath in mock frustration. "The poor women of the human plane are going to need a lot of help with you back on the market."

"That's another thing," John chuckled. "Think you could steer a couple good prospects this way?"

"Oh! I never!" Kathy thought loudly and with great pose of indignation.

"Maybe you should." John laughed out loud in his small bedroom.

Chapter Seven

Rita could not shake the image of the stranger in the shadows no matter how she tried to occupy herself. He was an enigma. An unexplained presence in her mind that almost seemed to belong there. That was what intrigued her most. The stranger seemed to belong as much as anything else she claimed as her own. How could that be? He was a stranger.

She tried sweating him away with her gardening and then thinking him away with the designing of the dining room. Still, the image persisted just at the edge of her mind. Not fully in and not fully out. He was part of her thoughts without being intrusive or predominant.

Supper time came and went without Paul being there and she found even more time to herself as she sat and sipped her evening coffee and dwelt on the presence that captured her imagination. Maybe the strange figure was some kind of knight in shining armor come to rescue her from the life she had fallen into. The idea appealed to her sense of romanticism but depended on her acknowledging that her life was not what she wanted it to be. She was not ready to do that yet. So it stayed a dream and a sweet sideline to the real world she lived in.

It was late when Paul came home. Another business trip. But she had stopped minding his being away any more. Now that she had the mysterious figure to dwell upon, she didn't think she would mind being alone. It was kind of like not being alone with him watching her from the edge of her mind like that. Strange. That was the only word to describe her life. Even her thought life was turning strange on her. She smiled a deep smile of satisfaction to herself as she allowed the darkness of sleep to envelope her. Maybe the stranger would reveal himself tonight, she thought as the cloud of sleep closed over her.

Paul laid quietly beside his wife knowing her thoughts as she drifted off to sleep. He made no mention of it to her. He could not be sidelined right now. He was thirsty. His deals of late required him to be so busy, he was neglecting the thirst at times. Kul had warned him to not be so distracted. Lying beside his wonderfully full wife made him realize just how thirsty he really was. He could actually hear the blood flowing through her veins and arteries. In the darkness the pumping of her heart was like a flashing neon sign to a drunk looking for his next drink.

He resisted the urge to hug her and partake of her for even a little. He had made himself the promise that he would never resort to that. There were plenty of others he could drink from. But with the sand so thirsty in him at the moment he was coming closer than he wanted to needing her blood for himself.

He listened to her breathing until her breath came in long, drawn out releases. When he knew she was fully asleep, he roused himself slowly and gently from their bed. He may not need her blood but he needed someone's. The thirst was starting to ache in his stomach. It had been three days since his last partaking. He was sure he could not wait until morning. Morning was not a good time to approach people, anyway. Night time was better. People expected to be approached. They expected relationships and meetings and companionship. All the things that were conducive to getting someone alone and having a drink.

Paul walked the streets. He did not want his car out around town. A shiny, black Lincoln garnered too much attention. Besides the bar he was headed for was only five blocks away. He always found someone there. Usually one of the women there were more than glad to come outside with him. After a good, long drink, he could send them back inside unaware they had even been outside with him. He was getting good at the eye thing. In seconds he could establish contact and create a trance in most people. It was working out well for him in things other than business lately, too.

He had slept with a pretty blond the night before. He had not partaken of her for reasons of his own. He wanted to see if he could enjoy another woman sexually without needing her blood. It had become harder and harder to get excited with Rita lately. Her suspicious and wary nature was a turn off. He had enjoyed the blond woman immensely. She had been very reluctant at first. She was married and afraid her husband would find out. After looking into his eyes, he had convinced her to stay the night. She had also proven to be quite an uninhibited partner, doing things with him he had never done with Rita. She had peaked his interest and he now wondered about what other women might have to offer him.

When he sent her home in the morning, she was scared about going home to her husband so late and smelling like she had been working in a whorehouse all night. She had asked if she could use his shower and he had laughed and told her to get out. He had suggested she keep a change of clothes in her car from now on if she was going to play the late night bimbo, but she didn't acknowledge him because she was cussing him in loud echoes up and down the hotel hallway.

The memory made him chuckle to himself as he walked along the now deserted street. He sensed a cat somewhere off to his left and a couple of dogs in the back yard of another house he passed. Otherwise all was quiet around him. Not like when he had been in the city. Homeless people made easy targets. No one around to witness the partaking and they were found pretty much everywhere during the warmer weather.

As he made the last few hundred feet to the entrance of the bar, he thought again about his situation with Rita. He loved her. No doubt. But he was having difficulty believing she was necessary for his life if she was not going to support him. He could not imagine life without her but he was living mostly without her now, hoping she would come around and be the wife he needed her to be.

He definitely did not need her to be dreaming about other men. That was totally unacceptable. Even if she had no idea who the other man was, any man was unacceptable. He might get to a point where he didn't need her any more. Part of him was afraid he was moving in that direction. But he'd be damned if he was going to let anyone else have her. If anyone was going to make Rita happy, it was him. If she could not be happy with him, she would simply not be happy. That was all there was to it.

Inside the bar Paul saw several women who struck his fancy. But he was not there to enjoy their company. He needed only one thing from them. Their blood. Sweet and innocent. He liked partaking of new women each time. It was like going to bed with a different virgin each time. He was known to the people in the bar, so he always had to get the woman to go outside before him and then he would meet her outside later, so no one got the idea he was with other women. It would not do for him to have a tarnished reputation in the community. He would not allow it.

He saw a woman that reminded him of Rita, except she excited him physically when he looked into her eyes. He wished for an instant that this was just a strictly sexual need he came to assuage. They talked briefly and then she went to another table as he had instructed her with his stare, unbeknownst to her. Ten minutes later, she got up and walked out the door. Paul waited another ten minutes, finished his beer and followed her out the door.

She was waiting in the shadows behind the building as he had bid her to do with his stare. She was like putty to his hands and her smile, as he wrapped his arms around her and began the partaking, was so much like Rita's that he could not help but notice the similarity. She fell limply into his grasp and readily gave up the life force he desired of her. To anyone looking deep into the shadows they would have appeared as an amorous couple in the throes of a wild moment shared between two clandestine lovers trying to stay out of view from prying eyes.

Bored with the now familiar process of partaking of their blood, Paul began thinking about the mysterious stranger invading his Rita's life. He still struggled with the knowledge. He had no problem understanding that Rita was a healthy woman and would look at other men occasionally. That was normal. But her dwelling on this strange figure at the edge of her dream was very disturbing. Why was she so obsessed with this man? Every time he asked himself why, he came up with the same answer. She was wanting to get rid of him. It just made too much sense. She was dreaming about another man and wishing she had another man instead of him. In her dream she was running from him. He was no psychological genius but he figured that meant she wanted to get away from him. Dwelling on the mysterious stranger gave her a dream to aspire to. A man to take her away from him. An unknown man. Any man.

Paul was getting worked up thinking about his wife's impending departure. For two days he had thought about very little else. He was obsessed with her obsession. She was his obsession and he wanted to keep her with him.

In the darkness behind the building, he felt the rush of the woman's blood diffusing through the sand of his body as it melded with hers. It was being welcomed by the Sand itself. He felt the connection and enjoyed the release of energy as the blood was transformed from its human plane existence of life force into the Sand plane form of liquid energy.

He felt the woman in his arms responding like she was giving herself to him in the throes of sexual union. Kul had explained that for the woman it was like having the most intimate sexual union ever. She felt a bonding at a soul level that fulfilled her like no sexual coupling could ever do. That was why he had changed to partaking mostly of female victims lately. His mind could not wrap itself around giving such an experience to a man. Seemed almost perverted to him. He didn't want some man thinking of him in those terms. Even if they did not really know why they had those feelings. It just bothered Paul, so he avoided partaking of any males unless it furthered his business deals.

The woman was moaning like she was having an orgasm. Paul was always amused that his partaking had such an effect on women. That was why he had allowed the blond in his bed without partaking. He was curious if he could be turned on or turn her one without the partaking effect. The experiment had proven to himself he was still very much a man.

He bent down and kissed the woman hard on the mouth as she screamed her enjoyment of what he was doing to her. She was bucking and gyrating in his arms like every nerve ending in her body was on fire. He drank deeply of her and imagined how Rita would dance for him if he ever allowed her the privilege. He saw Rita in the face of the woman he was kissing and swore that he would never let her go without a fight. He was a man after all. He had his pride.

The woman ended her gyrations meaning her orgasmic delight was subsiding. Paul continued to drink, gorging himself on her blood and filling himself with her essence and energies. He could smell her fluids as they leaked from her womanhood. He fought the urge to reach her there and fondle her wetness. He felt his own excitement grow at the realization of what he was doing to her. His breathing increased in depth and rapidity and he forced himself deeper into her flesh with his Sand grasp.

She moaned more loudly at his deeper depth of intrusion into her flesh and he continued kissing her so that her moans were smothered by his mouth being over hers. She was gyrating again and falling into a trance like state of fulfillment that bore a strong resemblance to a drug induced stare. Her body movements were uncontrolled and involuntary. She was responding to his imbibing of her life force with a release of her own protective instincts. She was giving all herself to him. She was holding nothing back. She was willing him to take all of her. And the pull on his own ego was powerful.

He was so enamored of his affect on her body as he partook of her blood that he intended to take her over the moon again just for being such a close resemblance to Rita. He drew her up into the climactic sphere of sexual release again and she moaned with increasing volume as her body responded to the increased stimulation. Her hips were once again gyrating in tandem with some unseen force stimulating her womanhood.

"Paul!" Kul tried to get Paul's attention. "Stop! You're going too deep. You'll mess up her internal organs. Stop! You're taking too much blood. You're hurting her permanently."

Paul did not hear. His mind was fuzzy with the effect of his control of the woman in his arms and the problems of dealing with Rita's mysterious stranger. He wanted to do something. He wanted to force Rita to be with him, but his sensibilities refused to allow him that simple answer. Rita had to choose him and forcing her to be with him was not the same. He could not respect her or himself if he had to resort to making her stay with him. On the other hand, he could not abide her leaving him either. The paradox angered him. He wanted what he wanted. He would not be denied. He could not let that happen. Rita would be his. All of her. And this woman would be his. All of her.

Deeper and deeper he drank of her life force. When she climaxed in his arms again the woman had no idea it would be her last time ever. She was not even aware that she had enjoyed it so well. Paul enjoyed it for her. He drank and drank until she had nothing left to give him.

Empty, he dropped her lifeless body to the pavement behind the bar. That was what he did with women he was finished with, he smugly thought to himself, meaning Rita if she chose wrong. He was not only satisfied but he was ecstatic. The partaking at such a deep level had a mutual effect on him, too. He looked down at the wetness seeping through his pants and the bulge that now discomforted him. He laughed softly to himself as he realized that he had never been so satisfied with a woman as he was right then. He had finally gotten a woman to give herself totally to him. That was the feeling he wanted. Total and full abandonment. Hers. Rita's.

Looking down at the crumpled, lifeless body at his feet, he blew her a kiss. She really had taken him places he had never been before. How many times had a woman said that to a man and never been able to adequately do it? Well, he had finally met a woman who kept her word.

Rita was going to keep her word, too, he vowed to himself. She was his. She would stay with him forever. Or else. Or else her parents would mourn the loss of a child. He didn't need her. He realized that now. He just wanted her. She would want him or else. He made that decision and knew he would not retract it. She would be his one way or the other. No one else would have her. Especially some mysterious stranger in her dreams.

He looked around quickly and saw that he was alone. No one saw him. Good. He had to get home. Moving with the shadows, he made his way back to his house. Rita was still asleep. He changed and laid there beside her remembering his experience with the woman behind the bar. Never had he felt such a release of sexual energy as he had when she gave up her spirit to him. Blood energy. Fluid energy. And then her spiritual energy. He had totally consumed her. She had totally given herself to him for the sake of the sensation he was giving her. He chuckled in the dark. She had literally let him screw her to death, even though he had not physically penetrated her.

He wondered if it would have been any better if he had been in bed with her and doing the same thing. Another chuckle escaped his lips. He stifled it to keep from waking Rita. It would not do to have her wake up right now and ask why he had such a pressing erection going. Still, he thought he might have to try the penetration partaking until death thing sometime. It sounded too good to pass up.

"Careful." Kul warned him in his head.

"I was careful. No one saw me with the woman and there's nothing to link me with her death. She died from having no blood. How could they blame me even if they did connect us? They have no way of proving that I extracted her blood. Anyone that tries would be laughed out of court." Paul was getting better at directing his thoughts in his head.

"Just be careful. That's all. Too much attention in any way can become dangerous. People figure things out despite the logic of situations." Kul explained.

"Okay. I'll be careful. I won't do it around here any more. I noticed that you didn't seem to mind her dying." Paul challenged his mentor.

"It's dangerous. Very fulfilling but also very dangerous to call attention to us in any way." Kul cautioned.

"Understood. It is not my normal activity." Paul defended his actions. "I won't make a habit of it."

"I hope not. And you need to get this thing with your wife under control before it derails you. Your distraction is not good. Fix it or move on. I know you accepted our deal so you could stay with her but if she can not handle you as a success, then you need to move on and forget her."

"I'm not going to forget her." Paul answered. "She'll either get with the program or she'll be moving on."

"Good." Kul left it at that.

All Kul could do was warn the young man. The choices were all his. He wanted to guide him, not control him. Paul had to make his own decisions. Any coercion would move Kul closer to getting Paul to do things against his will. Kul needed Paul to be totally willing for what Kul had in mind. Besides, a little wanton killing would be fun until the time for Paul to finish his tasks for Kul.

John and Kathy walked side by side in the cool of the Mist. They could have met anywhere. John had grown used to the Mist while building his relationship with Marcie over the past couple months. He was comfortable there. Meeting Kathy in more familiar territory, places they had shared as man and wife, might have proven too emotional.

John lazily swirled his arms inviting and exciting the myriad display of sparks from the contact made with the energized entities of the Mist while they slowly strolled among the roots and soft earth of the woods where the Mist resided. As was usual in the Mist and most the other planes, Kathy was naked now and John found her beauty even more exciting than when she was physically alive in the human plane. Kathy had explained that when she left her physical body, she was made perfect in every way for her existence in the plane of Mist. She was explaining a great many things to John of late. She was so excited about her new surroundings, she wanted to share everything about it with John. He enjoyed her company so much he really didn't care what she talked about as long as she came and talked to him.

She still urged him to date other women and seek out a new wife every chance she got but she was not as adamant or enthusiastic about it as she had once been. Not that she didn't want him to move on. Just that she sensed he was dealing with the moving on thing and needed time to make it happen for himself. He was no longer opposed to the idea and agreed that he would start looking around again when the opportunity presented itself. He had even taken to letting her know, in a joking manner, when he thought one of the campers in the campground was good looking. The relationship between John, Marcie, Emil and Kathy had grown to an entirely new level since John got his feet back under him and stepped back into the things of his human plane.

"You have no idea how much bigger or more magnificent the universe is after death, John." Kathy explained.

"Is it bigger or just seem that way because more of it is open to you?" John asked.

"Both." Kathy answered him. "We see such a small part of the world and the universe in our human existence. We confine ourselves to only the things we can explain and touch."

"Humans are easy, huh?" John chuckled.

"Not really. Humans are extremely complicated. Maybe it's because they are, that they think everything else is supposed to be. I don't know. But humans have a way of making simple things inaccessible simply because they are not willing to see how uncomplicated it really is."

"Like what?"

"Take the whole God explanation for one thing."

Kathy was exuberant and playful and so straight forward. Not that she was not those things before. But she was not the same Kathy he had married. She was but she wasn't. She was different. Her body was more perfect, not that John had ever thought that would have been possible. So was her mind and her attitude and her understanding and her ... well ... everything. There was no hesitation in her life any more. That was the only way John could explain it to himself. She was fully and unalterably Kathy now. No holding back. No trying to be anything else. Just pure, perfect Kathy. John did not think it possible but he believed he loved her more now than he did when they were married.

"Listen up, John. I'm talking here and you're day dreaming." Kathy admonished him.

"Sorry. Tell me what you have learned about God." John found her details about God or, the Creator of Life as He was known in the other planes, fascinating. She was unraveling the complexities imposed by an organized religious system that was more concerned with controlling citizenry than revealing the pure manifestation of a supreme being.

"First off, the whole God thing came about because man wanted to lump Him into a category and define him in a way that made them feel in control. The Creator of Life really has no name that can be uttered or even pronounced in the human language or by the human tongue. So, calling Him God was man's idea, not the Creator of Life's. Secondly is His whole presence thing. I know I didn't study much about God or go to church much as a kid but what I did learn was that he was some kind of old guy sitting on a big, white, stone chair or throne or something. That's not even close. He has no human image, really. I mean we see what we want to see or rather, he shows us what He knows we are looking for. Nothing more or less. He's really more like a huge cloud that wisps in or out with varying degrees of clarity and opacity. He's everywhere because he is everything, really. Like, if one grain of sand on a beach was intimately connected to every other grain of sand around the entire earth, that would only be a small part of the covering of the Creator of Life."

"Wow!" John was impressed. If not with her revelation, at least with her enthusiasm for the subject. "What about the Jesus thing."

"Wow! Are you kidding? This is going to knock your socks off."

John couldn't help but smile. The few times he had tried to talk about religion with her when she was alive in the human plane, she had changed the subject. Now, she was the one initiating the conversation about this Creator of Life.

"There are three of them, Creators, and they do all think alike just not like you think. At least not like Emil thought when he was in the human plane. He says most humans think of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Well, it's close but also misleading. It's a wonder anyone ever learns anything about the Creator of Life in the human plane."

"You're going to have to explain that. You can't just leave me hanging here." John urged her onward. Like he could have stopped her anyway.

The Creator of Life is in charge of everything. He actually created everything. All things come from him. He is actually the blood energy all living things share."

"Blood energy? You mean there is blood in the entities of the other planes?"

"No. There is blood energy. Without the blood energy life dies. In the human plane the physical body dies and the blood energy is transferred to whatever plane the person chooses. Blood energy is a collective energy that belongs to the whole plane where it resides. That's why touching the blood is so dangerous. Mess with it and you're messing with all of life in that plane."

"Wow!" John could think of nothing else to say. The Blood was important in the religious teaching of the human plane but never explained like that.

"The Creator of Water is the connecting energy between the blood energy and the spirit energy. Blood, Water, Spirit." Kathy recited the oft quoted mantra of the Mist people as they explained to him again and again how they collected fluids to increase their energy levels in the Mist.

So, if there is a Creator of Life and He is the Blood energy, a Creator of Water and He is the Fluid energy, then there must be a Creator of Spirits or something over the spirit energy." John reasoned out before Kathy explained.

"Every person in the human plane is endowed with a spirit or heart energy that contains the essence of who they are as an individual. The blood is the collective living force of the entire plain and the water is what connects all the individual hearts of the plane as a collective force. Affect one life force and affect them all." Kathy explained. "Oh, the third one is called the Creator of Heart. Blood, Water, Heart."

John Nodded.

"You seem to be getting along very well inside the Mist." John allowed.

"Emil has helped a lot and Marcie, too. I had no idea how much I could cram into my life before. I am still learning all the things I can do."

"Sounds great."

"It really is. You know the biggest thing I have learned in here?"

"What?" John wanted to know.

"The true expanse of the heart."

"You mean like how much it can love?"

"Oh, that is only a part of what the heart can do. We humans so limit ourselves because we try to stick everything into a neat little box." She spoke with derision about the human lack of understanding.

"The heart is who we are, not some little organ of the human body pumping blood around. Who we are is connected to all of life everywhere and we do not even know it. Some sit in the woods and sense the living things around them in a small measure of the truth of that connection. Others, like twins, feel each others burdens and sense each other more fully because they allow their love to connect them. Mother's love their children so much they can sense when something is wrong. It's a start but does not cover the full impact love can have.

"Love is of the Creator of Life. All the Creators are love. That's their connection. They love in such a completely unblocked state that their connection is full and eternal. They love so deeply that all things are connected to them. If we humans could let go of our prejudices and hatreds long enough to fully explore the depths of our capability to love, we would be astounded by the connections we would share with one another."

"Like our marriage?"

"Exactly. You were deeply hurt when I left the human plane because our connection was severed at the loss of life as you understood it. Your joy came back and the hurt went away when you learned the connection across the planes between us."

"I'm still learning," John admitted. "The pain is not totally gone."

"Exactly." Kathy was excited again. "That same understanding of the love connection between us can also release you to make connections all over the human plane. It should be easier there because you are actually in the human plane and not trying to span the planes with the connection. Water is strong enough to do it but our understanding and dependence upon it is shaky, thereby making it weaker than it actually is."

"So, you're saying that if I can open up and love others like I love you and Marcie, unconditionally, I can actually make a connection of some special, spiritual level in the human plane?"

"Better. With us there is an emotional attachment. That gives us a strong connection. Love without the emotional attachment is a choice. Choose to love with your mind and it is the way you become. The way you choose to view life. No matter what the situation, your love becomes a force of its own. Not just wishing good for others, actually doing good, meaning good, being good. First in your mind, then in your choices of actions."

"Like you did when you chose to leave the Human plane. You made a choice that benefited others and exampled a bigger love than emotional love?" John felt the realization even as he spit it out. It was that quintessential moment when the teacher says something out loud they had never thought of before. It just made perfect sense all of a sudden. Perfect clarity on the subject.

"You are definitely grasping this stuff, now." Kathy beamed at him. "Because you have an understanding of how it works, you should be able to actually connect with whoever you choose to aim your love at in a way that puts you in their head as surely as I am in yours when I want to be."

"Wow! That is amazing stuff."

"The heart of each of us is always searching for others to connect to. That's why we need each other so much. We have the capacity to connect to everyone. Think about it. If a human could learn to love everyone and every living thing on earth and understood how love connected us all, that human would actually become connected to the consciousness of the entire earth. He or she would be in perfect communion with the Creator of Life as He orchestrated the daily workings of the universe concerning the human plane. And ... if that human allowed that love to blossom with the Creator of Life leading him or her with the connecting power of Water and the full revelation of the Heart of the universe, there is no end to the effect that one human could have on the world."

"Wow..." John blew out a long stream of air that said he was holding his breath, caught up in the excitement of her explanation.

"What do you think?" Kathy asked.

"That is indeed a fantastic thing to learn." John admitted.

"I mean about you." She corrected him.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you."

"What about me?"

"Think you can learn to love like that?"

"Huh?"

"Love like that." She repeated.

"Why would I do that?"

"The human who could love like that and reach out beyond themselves would be so connected to the human plane and the universe through the Creator of Heart that that human could go and do anything. Don't you think that would be a great thing to be able to do?" Kathy asked.

John never had the ambition to change the world that Kathy did. Obviously she was looking for a way to get him to continue the idea of fixing the evils of the world that had gotten her dead in the first place. He was not sure that was his destiny or his desire.

"Look, Kathy," John began. "I am not the crusader you were when you were alive. I'm just a campground owner with small ambitions."

"John. You forget that I know you better than you know yourself. I know that you want to help others, too. I'm not suggesting you go out and take on the evils of the world like I had been planning to do before my physical death. What I am suggesting is that if you open up your love connection with the human plane, you will be able to find another love like ours and maybe even a little deeper since ours was interrupted before we got to fully explore it. Also, you could learn enough about others to help out along the way as you bump into people who need help. That's what connection is all about. Utilizing all the resources of one plane to meet all the needs of every living creation in that plane. Think about it. If every human learned this love connection of the heart, there would be no more poverty among the humans and no more extinction among the animals. Humans would stop polluting their planet and life would increase immeasurably for everyone in a short period of time."

"Sounds great, Kathy." John acknowledged her statement. "But there are too many people walking around that would prefer to take advantage of others for that to ever work."

"Exactly!" Kathy shouted.

John Jumped beside her. She giggled at his reaction. John calmed his heart back down.

"What I'm saying is that if you develop the ability to love to that extent you could change the little part of the earth you influence with your presence."

"Oh." John did not sound convinced.

"I'm serious, John."

"I know."

"Besides, the more you are connected the safer you'll be."

"Why? Am I in danger?"

"That black cloud you keep seeing?"

"Yeah?" They had talked about it a couple of times already.

"It exists fully in the future plane. You could see it if you were fully connected."

"Can you see it?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you just tell me about it?"

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"The future plane is only open to those who are connected to it. It is forbidden to bring things from the future plane to those not connected. Such a breach of the deal would land me in the Place of Chains. I can not risk that. Not even for you, Darling."

John heard the concern in her voice.

"Is it that bad?"

"Yes." Kathy answered immediately. "I can tell you that much because you already know that the cloud represents something ominous heading your way."

"Okay. I'll consider it."

"I hope so." Kathy stated flatly. "It would help you a great deal."

"I just don't understand why anyone would be coming to do me harm." John argued.

"That's because you have no idea how you are connected to the situation."

"What situation?" John tried to wheedle a little info out of her.

"Can't say." Kathy held to her deal with the planes. "Just try it, John. You might find you like it more than you think. And don't worry. You won't end up like your dad, fixing everyone's messed up life."

"I wasn't thinking that." John protested.

"You're always thinking that, John. Knowing how to help people allows you to do something effective, not just wave at the problem and pray about it for them. It would also keep you safe."

"Okay. Okay." He tried to close down her effort to psychoanalyze him.

Kathy saw his aversion to bring up his father's ministry again. She knew he could not go through life despising the work of his father and learn the true depths of love at the same time. Good and bad water can not flow from the same fountain. John needed to deal with his problem of the ministry activities that kept his father away so often.

"John?"

"Yes?"

"Your father did not wear out because he did good. He got tired and was used up by people because he did not have effective tools to help others. His desire to help was overloaded against his ability to help. He was mired in the traditions of his religious training and experience. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but also not the perfect tool to accomplish the things that were in his heart. He did what he did to the best of his ability using what he knew. If someone had taught him about love and the bigger connection he might have understood a way to help in a greater capacity."

John laughed.

"Sounds noble to hear you say it."

"It was noble, John. Your father took whatever bad situation came his way and did all he knew to do to alleviate suffering and pain for others. It was just that he did not have the understanding or the tools to help as much as he would have liked. You do."

"I do?"

Kathy saw a light of understanding go on behind John's eyes. She knew it was a pain he had carried before she met him. In all likelihood, it was a greater pain for him than the one she had caused him when she left the human plane.

"Yes, John. The question is, what are you going to do with it?"

Chapter Eight

Paul got up early and went into the store. He went to his office in the back and stayed there. His manager could open and run things without him. He had designed it that way. His office was the one place he could go and get away from everyone and think. No on ever bothered him in his office. It was a rule. Every employee knew that no one was allowed back to his office except him. Even if he met with people, they would be shown into the office up front or the conference room. He could meet with them there. No one was allowed in his office except him. Even Rita had never been in there.

Pail was concerned about the events of the previous evening. He had not planned on killing the woman at the bar. The paper had reported a woman's body was discovered behind the bar and not much else. The police apparently knew nothing at the moment. He hoped it stayed that way. He might have to cultivate a few police sources in the future.

More pressing was the feeling of guilt that stormed his senses. The more he thought about it the more he was sorry for going so far and killing the woman. He tried to remember the point at which he lost control. He thought it was when he saw how excited she became as he drew himself deeper into her flesh. But then there was his own erection and ejaculation thing, too. Even as he considered the situation he sensed his own arousal again. It was embarrassing to think he could not control himself with this thing. Apparently he was so excited by the experience of taking her life in such a manner that his body automatically responded to the very thought of doing it again. That made him upset.

He could not go through life with a problem like that. He had to get it under control. He had gained so much control lately, he was unprepared to deal with something that did not respond to his control. But a part of his life was getting outside his ability to control it.

"You've tasted the dark side." Kul broke into Paul's thoughts.

"Dark side?" Paul asked.

"Yes. Just as there is a plane of Sand, there is also a plane of Dark. What you did last night felt so good because you loved it enough to cross over into the Dark plane." Kul explained.

"Cross over?"

"Yes. Love is a powerful thing." Kul started. "When you truly love something, you embrace the power of that thing. The deeper you allow yourself to experience that power the more you open up your love connection across the universe. It's that opening up of the connection that allowed you to cross over into the plane of Dark. Once there, you gave into the experience of Dark, taking a life and enjoying the power of releasing that energy into the Dark. The Sand partook of the blood energy and you spilled your own fluid energy also. But the Dark came along and absorbed the woman's spirit energy as you released it for them."

"I did all that?" Paul was incredulous. There was certainly a lot to this other plane thing.

"Yes, you did. You opened up yourself to let the true Paul out. Once you did that, you were vulnerable to experiencing the true joys of the universe and sharing them with that woman. Believe me, she died in this plane because her physical body was drained of its blood but she experienced a release in her spirit that rivaled the best sexual release this world has ever produced.

You may have killed the physical woman, but the place she went to received her blood and water and spirit energy with a wonderful welcome. She is happier knowing the truth of the planes than she ever was knowing the struggles of life in the human plane. You have to believe that. Don't feel guilty about what you did. She gave herself to you willingly. Her great excitement, which you saw, went beyond the trance you induced. She experienced something beyond her plane of understanding that drew her deeper into real life than she had ever gone before. You did that for her. Get your emotions under control. That's a good thing. Don't give yourself away. But do not feel guilty about releasing her spirit because she is grateful to you for the opportunity you afforded her."

"Seems kind of strange to be thinking that she was glad I killed her, though." Paul tried to smile. He wanted to believe Kul. Badly wanted to. But he had heard a lot of used car pitches lately from desperate salespeople. The number one ingredient was how much what they were selling was right in line with whatever he was doing.

"Believe it. If you had beaten her or strangled her or performed some other equally violent action, she might not have enjoyed the experience as much. That's true. But because you entered her on a level so deeply connected to her essence, she was overcome with the emotion and passion of releasing herself to you. That release culminated in the total release of her spirit, which was like icing on the cake to the perfect experience of passion." Kul explained further.

"How do I control the physical reaction my body has to the experience, though?" Paul asked.

"Get used to it." Kul offered. "Just like when you were a teenager. It popped up at bad times and you hid it for the most part. Now, because this is a new and fuller experience with a whole new set of stimuli, it is similar to your first time as a juvenile. Work it out. Get the poisons out of the building, so to speak." Kul suggested. "Whatever you do, don't walk around like you're horny all the time. Even your stare won't keep the ladies attention if they are scared off by a perverted sense of arousal."

"So, I got to work off my tensions, so to speak." Paul tried to make sure he understood what Kul was telling him.

"Correct. Rita is a healthy woman. Go home and give her some attention." Kul always seemed to be reminding him that Rita was still his wife. Paul didn't know why but that reminder was becoming more and more irritating lately.

"I'm not sure she is that into me any more." Paul admitted, his own sense of failure showing through his words.

"Doesn't matter. She's the wife. Use her as a receptacle for your ... uh ... tensions." Kul tried to make it sound acceptable. "All the better if she doesn't add her own excitement to yours at this point anyway. You are excited enough for ten people. Let her lay there for all you care. As long as she let's you work it out so that you can function properly when you need to."

"Okay." Paul agreed to the plan.

"Oh, by the way. Now that you have connected with the Dark plane, you may notice an increase in your ... uh ...tensions. It may be better to keep Rita close. Even on trips. Might be wise to take her with you from now on. You may never know when you need her to help."

"Okay."

Paul was still not happy that he could not control this thing himself. He had just about convinced himself that he didn't need Rita any more. He believed her presence was becoming unnecessary. Having to use her felt unacceptable. Wrong. But it was a plan until he could think of something better. And he would think of something better. He would control this thing himself. Somehow.

John took Kathy's advice. He did want to love more. He loved his father. It was just that he still felt a bitterness deep inside him towards the ministry that kept him from being a real dad. He had always tried to separate the man from the job and just hate the job. But he could see Kathy's point. He had to flush out all the emotional hate. Hating the act of murder was a choice. Hating something because he didn't like it was an act of emotion. He needed to choose to love even that which emotionally he wanted to hate. Separate the emotion from the choice. Not the easiest of things to do.

Kathy's love had opened him up to a world far beyond anything he had ever imagined for himself. Love on the level of the Creator of Life had to be a step above that at least. He wasn't sure how much he could open himself up to. Maybe more than he thought. He had certainly come further than he thought he would have. He had convinced himself that the only way to find out would be to give it a try.

Kathy had suggested he start out trying to remember all the people he had ever had good feelings towards and letting himself imagine what it would be like to love them at a higher and higher level. From deeper and deeper places within himself. She said he should listen for sounds and watch for visions and accept the unknown in a way that allowed him to explore whatever came his way, rather than trying to control it. She said that at first, it might seem like something was trying to invade his mind but to let his heart guide him. That was why she suggested thinking about people he had loved in his life. She joked that maybe old girlfriends would be a good place to start. She even suggested that some of them might still be available.

Lying on his bed he tried to think back to an old girlfriend. There had not been any, really. Girls he had talked to were plentiful to remember. But being a preacher's kid, he hadn't dated in high school. In college, he had been too busy for girls. The only one he could even think about really as a friend was Rita. She wasn't a girlfriend. He thought she wanted to be his girlfriend at one time, but he had no time for such things then. He had introduced her to Paul and she had never looked back. At least he had never noticed her looking back. But no one else came to mind. Besides, Kathy had said it was not about who loved him but who he loved. He felt that maybe he could have loved Rita. Not that he would ever admit that to Kathy. Not out loud. He had never really admitted it to himself.

John tried to picture Rita. She was beautiful as he remembered her. Her beauty would give Kathy a run for her money. Where Kathy was blond, blue eyed and had a creamy complexion, Rita was black haired, brown eyed and looked more exotic with her well tanned, angular features. But both women had shapely bodies, proportional measurements and fantastic personalities that tended to draw him out of his own reticence to mingle with others. He prized that in both women.

Kathy had not been a replacement for the loss of Rita, who he never actually tried to date. But if such a scenario had existed, Kathy would have been the perfect replacement for Rita. The thought entered his head that maybe now that he had lost Kathy, Rita should be thought of as the perfect replacement for Kathy. He shook the thought as soon as he had it. No woman could replace another woman. They were whoever they were. Each one was different. Still, he could not shake the thought that the two women were so strikingly similar in many things. He chocked it up to his own likes and dislikes.

Picturing Rita was easy. Loving her would have been easy too, if he had taken the time. She made him feel good when she was around. Made him feel lost when she was not around. That was what had scared him back then. He did not want to love someone and feel that loss when they were not around. He had had enough of that with his dad.

John was surprised how easily he could conjure up good thoughts and memories of Rita. Although it had not been so long since she was in his life, his experiences over the past year or so had made him feel as though centuries had passed. After all, his girlfriend in the Mist was over a hundred and thirty, wasn't she? Even the way he could joke with himself about such things made him feel even further away from the world he had left behind such a short time ago.

Rita had made a deep impression on him. As he laid there thinking about her, he admitted to himself that she would have been someone he could have loved if he had not been so intent of pushing people away back then. He tried to imagine what it would be like if she had chosen to marry him instead of Paul. He remembered being happy for Paul at the time. They had married a few months after school ended while John was starting up his campground. He had been invited to the wedding but could not attend because of his duties and time constraints. At least that was the excuse he used. He had not admitted to himself that as happy as he was that they were moving on with their lives, he felt like a part of him was stuck in the past, waiting. Now he understood that what he was stuck in was his own choice to hate his father's job.

The more he played with the memories and the what ifs, the more he allowed himself to relax with the warm memory of what she had been like. What started out as a silly and uncomfortable experiment became relaxing and comforting. Rita would not object to being thought of in a respectful, loving way. She always enjoyed others being around. He could easily imagine her now with loads of friends and parties and the love of her husband shoring up her life. She was probably doing some important job in some big company somewhere.

He wondered if she ever thought of him in this way and dismissed the thought as easily as he had thought it. Why would she think about him? He had pushed her away. He had refused her attentions. She was probably the life of the party and more beautiful than ever, fighting off all those men that wanted to win her away from her husband. She had always run with the fast crowd at school. But she seemed the type of girl that enjoyed quiet, peaceful men. That was why he introduced her to Paul. He thought Paul might fit her bill better than he ever could. It struck him as funny that even when he was pushing her away, he was still trying to help her move along in life. The perfect preacher's kid. That was him. Self sacrificing all the way.

John dozed as he thought of Rita and she was, understandably, in his dream. He saw her running past him and looking his way. Someone was chasing her. He could not quite make the chaser out. His focus was more on Rita. Where was she running? Why was she looking at him? Suddenly she yelled out.

"Help me, John!"

Her shout woke John up. He bolted upright in his bed, breathing hard and shaking. The dream had been so real. Rita's voice still echoed in his head. He could remember hearing her footfalls as they pounded the ground, trying to escape the clutches of whoever was chasing her. There was the hint of a recent rain in the air that he could remember smelling. He could never remember a dream being so real before.

John looked down at the socks on his feet and felt the dampness that had soaked into the material from the ground in the dream. It had to have been real. How else could he have gotten wet feet? Rita was real. Was she really being chased? He laid back on the bed and tried to think it through. What did it all mean?

Rita was thrashing wildly in the bed as her dream fell upon her yet again, waking in a smothering sweat with ragged, labored breathing heaving her chest. Paul was closer this time, chasing her harder and shouting for her to stop running. She had felt a greater urgency to get away than ever before. This time, when she looked to the mysterious stranger watching her, she had seen his face. It was John Corwin. The familiarity made sense. John was a familiar figure. He was someone she knew. She had no idea what he was doing in her dream, but whatever the reason, she reached out to him and shouted for him to help her. He had just stood there, letting Paul chase her.

Sitting up, she worked first to bring her breathing under control. The memory of John in her dream was a new addition to her contemplation of what the dream meant. Somehow he must figure into the scheme of things. She had no idea what the dream meant so she also had no idea what his presence meant. But at least she had another piece of the puzzle. It was better than not getting another piece of the puzzle.

She breathed a long, easy breath and felt her control come back. Her adrenaline level was subsiding and she felt able to get up. She slipped out from under the tossed blankets and padded softly across the floor to the bathroom. She washed her face and checked her face and then turned on the hot water. She thought she heard a noise in the house and turned off the water to listen closer. She heard footsteps approaching the bedroom.

"Paul?" She yelled out the bathroom door.

"It's me, Babe." Paul replied. "I realized I've been ignoring you too much lately. I came home to surprise you with a little good morning loving."

Rita was surprised, too. She stepped from the bathroom and found Paul already disrobing in the bedroom a few feet from her. He was leering at her like he had so many times before, with that boyish smile creating the impression they were sneaking away from the rest of the world. He was an insatiable partner in bed when he was hungry for such things. It had been a while since she had felt that hunger from him. But there it was again. She thought maybe she had been silly trying to assign to Paul some evil influence since the attack. Here he was, his old self again, just a man trying to squeeze some of his old life into his new life. She felt bad for the way she had been feeling toward him.

Then Paul advanced on her and roughly ripped the nightie from her shoulders. She saw that he was already fully aroused but also in a hurry, not pausing for any foreplay. This was not the old Paul. This was some new version with a decidedly more volatile exterior. His unfamiliar approach to her startled her and made her wonder what his full intentions toward her were at the moment.

"Paul!" She shouted loudly enough to be above her normal speaking voice but not so as to alert any nosy neighbors.

He pushed her to the bed as he tore her bikini panties away from her body. The stretching tear of the silky material and the loud snap with which they tore apart mimicked the same stretching and tearing Rita's mind was going through. This was not the man she had married. This was some animal version with no conscience and a drive to conquer everyone and everything around him. Now, he had chosen to conquer her like she was some new acquisition to his herd and he was going to put his mark on her.

"Don't be an animal!"

She increased the volume of her voice. She could not keep the fear from coming through. She saw the wicked gleam in his eye. He looked like Paul on the outside, but inside he was a totally different man. His eyes told that story. They did not see her. They were looking past her to some goal he had already set and achieved in his mind.

"You want animal?" Paul bellowed the question not waiting for an answer. He sensed her fear. It enraged him to think she thought of him in a manner that caused her fear. He had never hurt her. He knew that she didn't think of her dream stranger with fear.

With a deft sweep of his arm and a quick turning of her body, he whirled her around and pushed her face down onto the bed. Her smaller body offered little resistance to her husband's strength both because he was bigger than her and because he acted in such swift fashion. She fell to the bed with little struggle not realizing until after landing that he fully intended to take what he wanted.

When he mounted her from behind, a rage filled her mind and blossomed into a speed and strength she had never needed before. She twisted and turned her body under him. He fought to pull her back where he wanted her and she used the momentum of his turn to go fully the other way and defeat his efforts once again. This second turn brought her legs between his legs and she never gave it a thought as her knee drove up into Paul's groin aiming for that sweet spot that puts all men back into their cages.

Paul was not doing this with her. She had never thought about rape before. Never been in that situation. Not even close. But as she felt her husband's animalistic attentions towards herself, she knew she was not going to give in to him that easily. He was not making love to her. He just wanted to use her and that was unacceptable.

She felt him cease his attack, at least momentarily. He did not move away but he did not move closer, either. She could sense his muscles bunching and protecting him as he assessed the damage she had already done.

"Happy now?" She could not resist the jibe as she faced her attacker.

"Finally found something that you are good for." Paul laughed, looking down at her. He waved her comment away as though he was waving away the pain, too.

"You'll have to stay ready from now on. If I have to rip too many articles of clothing off you, it could hurt." Paul pretended that she had never resisted him and went ahead with his explanation of the way things were going to be.

"So, you think you can come and do this whenever you want?" Rita was getting mad.

Using the momentary lapse in his attentions as he tended to his injured privates, Rita launched herself from the bed and ran for the bedroom door. Paul was not as hurt as she had hoped. She did not have time to consider why. He caught her by the arm after only three steps. She swung wildly back into the room, half from his strength and half from her own desire to use whatever strength he applied against him to allow her to break free. The effort landed her three feet from him and staring straight into those heartless eyes. He had always had dark eyes. Now she saw a blackness that offered to suck her inside and swallow her whole. She turned her eyes away and considered her options. Run. Fight. Give in. All bad.

Rita was not an athlete even if her body tended to look like she worked out a lot. Even this little bit of exertion was making her breathe hard. Add her adrenaline rush at the closeness of danger and her legs felt like they were made of water. She wondered how she was still standing. She had never known such fear in her life. Her mind was going numb from the realization of what was happening to her. Paul was blocking the door. She felt trapped. Facing a physical confrontation, the adrenaline was not only running through her extremities but her entire body. Her mind felt fuzzy. She was considering giving in and letting him do whatever he wanted to her. She couldn't stop him anyway.

He smiled at her as he saw her shoulders slumping. She knew he knew she was giving up. She was not a fighter. He knew that. She only wondered why he had waited so long to show his true colors to her. She had watched as he tore up the lives of others lately. Why not her, too?

Then he laughed. She couldn't explain it but his laughing at her made her mad. Rita had always tried to forgive and forget. That was her motto. But she had a feeling this day was not to be forgotten and certainly she would have difficulty forgiving what Paul was intending.

He laughed again as she stood there staring up at him.

"Ready, Sweetie?" He smirked and moved towards her. She grimaced under his advance.

She feinted left and drove forward knocking him backwards before he got a grip on her. As he stepped backwards under her blow, he swung his arms to grab at her. She had expected that and ducked, spinning right and thrusting her left leg outward in a fast push to propel her toward the door. She made three steps again and he caught her with one arm, flinging her light body sideways at least the three steps she had advanced toward the door. Unfortunately, the wall was only two steps away.

She hit the wall with the side of her body in mid air. Her head snapped hard against the picture and frame hanging there, smashing it and sending shards of glass raining down on the carpet. The picture had been hung on a stud behind the sheetrock. The force of the blow caused a concussive force of her moving energy against an immoveable wall to drive the light from her eyes and make the world spin.

Slowly, Rita slid down on legs no longer answering to her brain's signals to run. She tried focusing her eyes but no light entered in. She wondered if the blow to her head had made her blind as she felt Paul's hands dragging her away from the wall. Roughly he pulled and pushed until she was lying on something soft. The carpet? The bed? She was losing all perspective of sensation as she felt him rolling her onto her stomach. She could not tell what was happening. Her world was dark and without sensation. Like she was floating. She was floating. But it was dark. Pitch dark. She knew she had given in to him. She knew he would never quit until he got exactly what he wanted. But she could not feel a thing. She was no longer able to sense anything except blackness. No sound. No touch. No sight. No smells. But she could taste something. It tasted metallic. Metal. Funny. In what she considered her final moments of life, she could only taste metal. This was not at all how she expected it would be when she died.

Chapter Nine

John laid on his back outside. It was warm and the sun was high in the sky. He had found a secluded spot in the woods beyond the Mist and the other campers. It was as close to being alone on his property as he could manage. His intention was to get alone and remember the dream with Rita in it and discover what it all meant. He had decided it was real. But what real was it? Was it real as in it had happened, was going to happen, might happen if things lined up right. He didn't know. Neither did he know whether what he dreamed was part of his thoughts or some other area of his mind.

He didn't want to talk to Marcie or Kathy or Emil about it until he had worked through some of the things that the dream had brought up. Like his feelings for Rita. He didn't like to admit it but his feelings still scared him. Twice he had been hurt by letting his feelings out. First his father's absence and now, Kathy. He was wary of a third time.

He never knew he had such feelings for Rita. Never gave them consideration. After the dream was over and he was wide awake, he had laid still for an hour contemplating why he had driven her away. He never asked himself that question before. He had never thought about actually driving her away before. It had just happened. He wondered if that meant he had some serious issue to figure out. Maybe Kathy dying was more his fault than he was allowing for. After all, he was the one who could see the dark cloud. Maybe he didn't just accidentally put her in harms way. Perhaps some inner demon he had yet to wrestle with was responsible for doing harm to those he loved.

That word scared him. He just lumped Rita in with those he loved. He had never thought of her in those terms before. He was sure of that. The rest of his life might be a mess, but he was sure of what was in his past. It was too desolate to have missed something like loving a fantastic person like Rita. But if not then, why was he suddenly putting her into that category after more than two years of not seeing her? This connecting was unleashing emotions as well as thoughts, apparently.

A dark cloud funneled up around his thoughts and suddenly John was rushing through the middle of a giant swirling mass of darkness and dry heat. He sat up immediately, jerked to full awareness by the speed with which the cloud had enveloped him. Moving quickly over him, it slowed to a swirling motion around him giving him the impression the cloud had found whatever it was looking for in him.

He did not feel an electrical connection like he could with the Mist. This gave him to believe the cloud was not another plane invading his life. Still, it was very disconcerting to have a dark cloud hover over him. Even with all the strange things that had become normal in his life in the last year, this was unnerving.

"Who's there?" John tried the direct approach, not even sure the cloud was connected to anything living.

Silence answered him. Hot, swirling air with dark particles of some unknown composition keeping light from intruding inside. John sat quietly. He had no idea what to do next. He wondered if he should call for Marcie to explain it for him.

He thought about calling Marcie. Nothing happened. Either she was not around or she couldn't hear him. He wondered if the cloud blocked his access to the Mist. He called out for Kathy and then Emil in his mind. Nothing. He was effectively cut off inside this cloud. That thought worried him. Not that the cloud was menacing him in any way. Just that the disconnection from the Mist was uncomfortable. He had become used to it. Almost expecting it to be there. It was his connection with the other side of life, the eternal world beyond. He found he liked that connection more than he had realized. It was comforting. It was necessary to make him feel whole.

Wholeness. That's what he missed about the blockage from the Mist. Marcie, Emil and Kathy were a part of his life. Maybe too much, like Kathy had said. He was still John Corwin without the Mist. He just felt like he was a better John Corwin with the Mist. The Mist didn't create life. It just made it better. Deeper. More assured. He would not forget this lesson, he told himself.

Concentrating on the particles of darkness – he did not know what else to call them – around him, John could see nothing that gave him any better idea of what was happening than when he was first startled by its appearance. He tried to see through it. The darkness, although not complete, was too deep to see through to where light should be shining from the sun. He knew instinctively, somehow, the dark cloud was the same kind of cloud he could see occasionally on the horizon. Seeing the cloud on the horizon meant that trouble was coming. He wondered what the meaning was if he was inside the cloud.

"What were you concentrating on?" Marcie's voice broke through his thoughts.

"Marcie? Where have you been?"

"Takes a little more effort to move through clouds, John. Now, what were you concentrating on just before the cloud moved in?"

"A dream I had. It has bothered me that maybe I should be doing something about it."

"What you think about when you are trying to connect, is exactly what you will perceive." Marcie explained.

"So, the dark cloud is the dream?"

"More like something in the dream is the trouble you were perceiving as coming. By thinking specifically about the dream, or maybe someone in the dream, you have moved closer to the trouble."

"Is the cloud the trouble, or dangerous, or anything." John asked her in his mind.

"No. The cloud is only a shadow of what you are seeing or perceiving. As you grow more and more capable of dealing with the connection, you will be able to see inside the cloud and actually see the trouble before it comes."

"That would be helpful." John admitted.

"Sometimes."

"Why sometimes." John was curious.

"If you do not know what the problem or trouble is, you can avoid it sometimes. Just move out of its path. But, if you know what it is, you are required to do something. That is the rule of the cloud plane. You are connected to things in the future, but you are also obligated to handle them."

"Oh." John saw her point. "Maybe I shouldn't seek out the trouble."

"You've already seen it, John. Now it is yours."

"Oh." John said again. He thought about Rita calling out to him. Trouble.

"What's her name, John?" Marcie asked.

"Rita."

"An old friend from the looks of things."

"Looks?" John asked.

"Yes, John. Where you see in pictures flashed in your mind, we see in moving pictures. It's more like videos of thoughts than words. Her calling out to you for instance, You just heard her call for help. Inside here, from the plane, we see her interjecting her thoughts of rescue and the bond between the two of you that makes such a rescue thought a possibility. More than her words is the picture of her meaning enough to you and you meaning enough to her to bond you in a way where she would expect you to act on her behalf."

"You see all that?" John was amazed.

"And more, John. Don't be alarmed but your every thought inside the Mist plane is like watching a long movie about how you arrived at that thought."

"How do you keep track of the conversation if the movie is longer than the words?"

"Time is not the same inside here, John."

"Oh."

"Because we have no time constraints, we can go forward or backward in your plane, the way you would view it. To us it is like time slows down for you so that everything that is happening is absorbed by us. You may say that Rita is a friend. We see every thought that flashes through your mind concerning Rita. Instantaneously for us. Seemingly an eternity for you. Like an instant computer download."

"Sounds complicated."

"If you tried to come here without transforming, it would be impossible. Your physical body is subject to a strict time continuum. Your mind would not be able to grasp the unlimited positions of movement in what you see as time marching on. We have no such constraint on us in our plane. For us it is a simple fact of how we are designed to operate that allows us to gather more information."

"Something to look forward to," John smiled.

"Some day." Marcie answered him.

"So, I should continue practicing on making the connection work?"

"It would be a good idea. Just remember, things you see from the cloud planes, whether white or black clouds, are not to be divulged to anyone."

"Can I talk to you about them?"

"In the spiritual planes they can be discussed openly. Just not in the physical planes. Keep working on it. See where it takes you. But be careful. Some spiritual entities move through the cloud planes. Not everything you see will be in the future. Some of it can touch you immediately."

"Like what?"

"Like anyone you see moving around in there. Anyone you see can move through the clouds to come to you."

"Does that mean that I can move to them if I desire?"

"Yes. Be careful, though. Moving there might be easier than moving back, especially if the movement is from a physical plane to a spiritual plane."

"I can move into a spiritual plane?"

"Yes. But remember. You are physical no matter where you go. Spiritual entities have greater abilities in their plane than they have in yours. So, moving to their plane is not a good idea in most cases."

"This is more complicated than I imagined."

"You've not imagined it all yet. Not even close."

"Phee-ew!" John blew out air physically expressing his frustration at all he still needed to learn. It never ended.

"Also, you can move from place to place in your own plane, John." Marcie added.

"Really?"

"Yes. Once you have seen a place in the clouds, whether white or black, you can step into it. Or someone there, can step to you. If you are not careful, you can fall into their place, even as you look around in it."

"Sounds like a treacherous thing to do. Move inside the Clouds."

"Can be. But mostly, if you stand still and use the cloud for viewing, the clouds will give information."

"What information will this cloud bring?"

"Depends on how you mine it?"

"Mine it?"

"Right. You can only see what you specifically are looking for."

"Like what?"

"You might want to know what the trouble is but have to discover it by uncovering who is in there, where they are, or what they are involved in. In other words, the trouble may not necessarily be readily visualized. What you want to see may not be easily viewed. It may come through channels or from areas, or out of unexpected places."

"You're saying that what I see in the clouds may still be a puzzle that I have to work through?"

"Exactly!" Marcie's tone became excited. "It's a puzzle. That's a great way to explain it."

"Is the cloud real, or just in my mind?"

"Depends on how you look at it. It's really only in your mind. But, if you project yourself into the cloud, you become really in it. Whatever happens to you in the cloud realm becomes real in your physical life."

"I see." John was thoughtful.

"All I can suggest is that you keep practicing. It will come to you as you allow yourself to think out of the box and discover things you could only dream of before."

"Good things?"

"And bad." Marcie answered truthfully. "Remember, it's what you do with them that gives them meaning. Knowing a bad thing is going to happen is not a bad thing in itself. It gives you time to stop it or change it or something."

"Just not get out of its way..." John sighed. He was in deeper than he really was comfortable with.

"It's not about comfort, John. It's about succeeding. The information helps you succeed at your purpose."

"What's my purpose?"

"Only you and the Creator of Life know that John. Anyone who tries to explain your purpose to you is only suggesting what they see and hear from their own purpose. They might be linked. They might be miles apart. Point is, only you know."

"Will I discover my purpose in the cloud visions?"

"Purpose is more than one success or one journey, John. Purpose is a string of opportunities to succeed. A person's purpose is to approach those opportunities and succeed at them according to their own value objectives."

"That's why no one can know my purpose except me?" John was seeing her point.

"Exactly. Too many variables for mixing the situation with all the factors. Then we add a person and their character and all their baggage and their needs. Well, you get the picture." Marcie ended her explanation.

"I think I see it better now." John admitted. He felt better. Not with what he knew but that he had added to his knowledge. That was growth he could measure. This spiritual stuff was sometimes unmeasurable. Like a relationship.

"You'll get it, John."

Paul was furious. He had lost it. The more he tried to be nice to Rita the more she pushed him away. Why could she not see what he was doing for them? He had changed, sure. But for the better. Everyone said so. Everyone except her. Why was she being so negative? Why was she trying to keep him down?

That was it. It came to him in a flash. She had married him because he was not her father. She could never control her father's coming and going. She had told him that many times. She had married him because she thought she could control him.

The thoughts flew through his mind. With every flash of memory, every recalled instance of her decision making, Paul saw the pattern. She had been running his life and saying she loved him. Now she was not running his life and she had stopped loving him. She didn't love him. She loved some idea of the puppet she had made him into.

Paul ground his teeth as he sat in his office waiting on his next meeting. She had helped satisfy his physical urge but she did nothing for that spiritual desire he felt lurking at the back of his mind. It was like a shadow waiting there and watching, hoping to find what it needed in the next thing he did. And Paul knew what it was hoping to find. More blood. More life force energy to share. The shadow wanted to kill. Not just kill but control and dominate and torture. He knew that the next time would not be as clean and neat as the last one. And there would be a next time.

Rita woke on the floor of her bedroom. She ached in places she had no idea a woman could ache. Not a good ache either. The discomfort she felt physically was compounded by the pain she felt emotionally. Paul had snapped. Her gentle, loving man had lost his mind and done the very thing she had never expected from him. He had become the animal she had spent so much time trying to avoid.

She laid still, listening to the noises of the house. She was sure she was alone. Not only was Paul done with her, but she felt he had no more use for her either. Except as an object of his own sexual release. And she had no desire to be used in that manner ever again.

Once she had been very aware of these feelings. She had thought they were far behind her when she married Paul. But here they were again, stronger than ever. The self loathing and embarrassment left a familiar taste in her mouth. Like it had never left, the flavor of her life flooded back through her senses as she laid there on the floor trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

First her father, now Paul. Maybe she was destined for a life of abuse. That was the thought that dominated her mind. The foggy residue of her attack and the numbness of the realization of what she had endured made sharp focus and clear pathways of delineation impossible to discern. Everything seemed joined like one big conspiracy to force her life into the exact place where she now was.

For years she had resented her father for his absences from home and a business focus that kept him away from family things. The rare times when he was home carried dark memories of fearful moments while he took out his aggressions and frustrations on her. That's what had scared her so much about Paul's attack. Not the attack itself, but the old memories it dredged up. He father had never left a mark that anyone else could see, she knew she was scarred emotionally. Until now, she had assumed she was dealing with it well. She had even taken to visiting with her parents since the wedding and trying to pretend all those incidents had never happened. She loved her parents. She loved Paul. Why did those she loved treat her so badly?

Now those old feelings came flooding back with all their viciousness and anger as she recalled Paul's attack. Two men. Same result. Not for the first time in her life, Rita wondered if something in her make up or disposition drew such men to her. Or worse, maybe she was the cause of their anger and frustrations. Her father had always apologized later for his actions and even rewarded her with things and other stuff she wanted growing up. She had told herself that the embarrassment and shame she felt as a child was okay because she had learned to deal with it and even profit from it in some ways. It made her stronger as well as giving her power over her father in some ways. Not that she ever used it. She just talked herself into the idea that it was there.

But Paul's attack had been more of a promise. Not just anger and frustrations being released. More of a harbinger of things to come. His attack left her with the definite idea that someday it would not end so easily. She had felt that desire in him to finish her off for good. She had succumbed to his anger and violence only after realizing that he intended to see her dead. She could sense it in his every breath. His heart was murderous and killing her would have been easy. She had no idea what caused him to stop short of killing her this time. She also had no doubt that one day he would finish the job.

The haze in her brain made trying to wrap her mind around this change in her situation tiring. She didn't move. It was not just the pain in her body that kept her immobile. Her head felt funny. Like someone was swishing the water around in circles in a fish bowl. She stayed still on the floor. Part of her wanted to get up and run before Paul came back and finished the job. Another part of her wanted to just lay there and get it over with. It was not worth it. Her all-business father had abused her. Now, her formerly gentle and tender husband had discovered some hidden desire to abuse her from deep within himself. She knew it was cliché, but she said it to herself anyway. Life sucks.

With a new revelation, she remembered the first guy she had ever tried to love after getting over her father's attacks. He had pushed her away. Maybe he could sense the poison flowing through her veins. Maybe he could sense what men were supposed to do her and he didn't want any part of it. Maybe she was poison. Maybe she was the problem.

Tears flooded her eyes and streamed down her face. Rita forced her face into the crook of her arm as she laid on the floor, wailing her misery for no one to hear. The darkness falling upon the earth outside her bedroom window was not near as dark as the darkness that came in the shape of sleep and pulled her back away from the pain of her life as she had come to know it. Dark mercy.

John fitfully lounged in his chair inside the camper. He had enjoyed many hours of sitting there and relaxing while building his campground but now it was a reminder of those different days. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

He had been naive or ignorant or something. Whatever it was called, he had been blissfully unaware of the nature or depth of the spiritual world around him. Brought up in the church with a preacher father, John had come to believe he had seen it all and experienced everything associated with the spiritual life. Nothing had been further from the truth. The church had been a shelter more than a school. A solid door that no one had a key to.

What he knew today about the spiritual workings around him changed everything he had ever thought about life. His relationships, his choices, his ideas of success and careers and everything associated with the idea of the good life were now in flux. He struggled with adapting his mindset of what he used to believe was true to what he now knew to be true. It was like walking though life under water. Every day went by in slow motion. At some moments he felt like he was living his own life from the outside, watching himself go through the motions.

And this cloud thing was more than just a little disconcerting. Seeing into the future was exciting in one respect, fearful in another. John had always felt responsible for things going on around him. That was probably why he resented his father being gone so often. He felt like he had somehow pushed the man away. Or at least not given him a reason to come and stay around. Now, he was stepping into obligations of dealing with future things he could see and piece together from the cloud. He was more than a little uncomfortable with that. And right from the outset, he was somehow being made responsible for something that was coming against Rita, a girl from his past who had never really meant anything to him but somehow had left an indelible mark on his heart.

Confusion would have been nice to claim at the moment. John thought about it but knew he would never choose to ignore something that was his obligation. He didn't have that capacity. He liked being responsible. That was the truth. But this new responsibility worried him for many reasons. One, how was he going to get back into Rita's life and deal with whatever it was? Was he supposed to? He had pushed her away. He had severed the relationship and then made sure she was firmly attached to another guy. Two, what could he do about whatever it was anyway? He only knew she was in danger. He had no idea what to do about it. Marcie had said he would have to put the puzzle together. Obligation to help and a puzzle. His life really had gotten complicated. Worse, the only ones he could confide in were in another plane of existence that somehow did not fulfill the physical nature of his body's requirements. Great! Easy! Impossible!

With a loud expulsion of air, John leaned back into the comfort of his chair and closed his eyes. Lately he had been dreaming more about escaping all this madness and joining Kathy in the next plane of existence. But she and Marcie and Emil had made it abundantly clear that he needed to concentrate more on living and succeeding in the human plane than wishing for transportation to another plane. Everyone had to live the life allotted to him or her in the manner designed for them. Some would live short lives. Others long one's. What was sure, was that no human chose their length of stay in the human plane. That was a decision only the Creator of Life could make.

That thought always brought him up short. Had Kathy been designed to live her life in such a fashion as to leave him mourning and alone? Was he destined to stay alone? Kathy didn't seem to think so. Sometimes he wanted it to be that way. Other times he missed her so much that the pain in his chest threatened to rip him apart and leave him a shattered, empty shell lying on the ground. Complicated. That was his life now. Decisions. That's what he needed. Going on was painful in its respects. Staying where he was was painful, too. Life. Pain. They seemed joined at the hip in his life.

To whom much is given, from him much will be required. That was the scripture his father had used to rein him in as a child growing up. The meaning was clear. Because he knew more about what was happening spiritually around people, he was the one who should do the most and give the most. He hated it then. It made him an outcast, never quite in the group like the others. Always an outsider.

He had thought those days were over when he struck out on his own. A new life. A new master. Himself. It seemed that now he was more entrenched in it than ever before. Maybe all that training as a child was to get him to this place today. If Kathy, Marcie and Emil were to be believed, nothing ever happens without a purpose and a meaning. It was uncomfortable to believe that his purpose was to help others all the time. Who was going to help him?

"I will." Marcie was back.

"Great!" John smiled in his head. "Then you can help me get out of this."

"Sorry, John. You walked into it with full knowledge of what you were doing. No one ever coerced you or took advantage of you in any way. You did what you did out of love and need. I suggest you find a way to continue in that respect. That way stuff will make more sense to you."

"Sure. Sounds easy to hear you say it."

"Glad to help." Marcie was smirking. He couldn't see her but he knew she was smirking. Connection.

"I see you're getting more at ease with the connections."

"Connections? Plural. I was under the impression it was one connection, like to the universe or something." John explained his understanding.

"Actually, when you get to the spiritual planes, it is one connection through the Creator of Life. Everything is connected through him. But in the physical planes, everything is free standing, sort of. Connected to each other but then again, not connected. Separate but not separate. You can make decisions and they sometimes impact others and the things around you in a way you can see. Other times, it may seem as though you are the only one affected. In the spiritual planes everything we do is visible in its affect on everything around us even before we actually make the decision, helping us make better decisions and stay on the same page as the Creator of Life."

"You can see the affect of your decisions before you make them?"

"Yes. It's a fail safe method of understanding the repercussions of our choices so we make better decisions."

"Some times, I wish I had that in this plane."

"Develop your connections and you will to some extent. Not fully aware of all impacts, but definitely aware in some respects."

"Really?" John added her revelation to the already insurmountable knowledge he was carrying around in his head.

"Yes, really. But that's not what I came to tell you, John."

"What?"

"You are trying too hard. Stop trying to force things. Just live and love and let the connections flow to you. As you develop your ability to understand what is flowing to you, you will develop a greater ability to reach out beyond the immediate and discover the things of the cloud and the puzzles they present."

"Stop forcing it?"

"Yes. Just concentrate on what is right at hand, what you already know and understand. Then, the connections, which you already have, will be allowed to flow through and add to what you know."

"Oh, I see." At least John thought he did. He was very aware that lately he had been privy to information that he could not only not see but could only understand if he took its affect on total faith.

"You're getting there, John. You're getting there. Just don't lose heart. It really is designed to work out for you."

"How do you know that?"

"Life is designed to work out for everyone. In the physical plane, the plan works according to good choices and proper decision making skills. In the spiritual planes, it works based on similar choices but with considerably more emphasis on the repercussions. There are immediate results of our choices in the spiritual planes making it necessary to know the affect before we make a decision. In the physical planes, the results are hidden and part of discovering the wonders of life, so knowing a result ahead of time is not as important. For you, relationships are more important than results. Connections"

"Seems like it would be simpler to just know ahead of time and make the right call."

"Sometimes. Sometimes it just raises the pressure to do what's right instead of what you feel like doing. In the physical world you can always ask for forgiveness and say you're sorry. In the spiritual planes forgiveness or saying we're sorry is not necessary. If we made a bad choice, it was because we wanted to. The relationships are all open and already discovered. Clear and easy but not as romantic or mysterious. The physical plane is all about revealing or uncovering the spiritual planes. That's the joy of growth and progression. The ultimate reward is being made known as you are already known. But after that, it's all the same every second, if seconds were something to be concerned with here."

"You saying that spiritual life is boring?"

"Not really. Just different. What excites you there, in your physical world will change when you get here and things are revealed in their totality. There are many new joys and treasures to discover here, but it's more like exploring the universe than learning new things about yourself or someone else."

"Oh." John felt he should acknowledge her explanation somehow.

"Anyway," Marcie began. "Relax and enjoy the ride. Take in all you can and ask for help when you need to. Don't take the weight of the world on your shoulders. That weight belongs to the Creator of Life. Live life and make it as full as you can. Use the spiritual things you learn to add to the flavor of your life, not to be the focus of your life."

"You're saying I should live my physical life and enjoy the spiritual knowledge I have rather than wrap my life around the spiritual things?"

"Exactly!" Marcie got excited again. "I told Kathy you would understand."

"She didn't think I would understand?"

"She believed you would be too focused on understanding everything before you let go of it."

"Well, yeah, I guess that would be my first inclination."

"Right. But it shouldn't be. Live. Enjoy." Marcie said it like she was advertising for some life skills method.

"Okay. Okay. I'll learn to live more fully." John promised.

"We're going to hold you to that, John."

Chapter Ten

Paul controlled his breathing. It was easier than it had been earlier. He was fast developing the ability to keep his body under control. His emotions were another matter entirely. His afternoon romp with Rita had proved physically satisfying but decidedly left out his emotional urges. Not that he could not have satisfied himself emotionally with her. It was just that she would have to die for him to do that. He was not ready for that. Not yet. In his own way, he still loved her. He just didn't need her.

He smiled to himself as he watched the young woman walking to her car. It was dark. It was late. The bar had closed over an hour ago and now he watched as the last two people, a bartender and a waitress, made their ways to their vehicles. Both were women. Either one was a good target.

He had decided on women because he wanted the fear they emanated to fully inflame his emotional fires. Without the fear it was just a death. The fear was like sex used to be. The more they acted out their fear and showed him their pain at the peril he was placing them in, the more he could absorb their desires and energies. He had considered it all afternoon after his encounter with Rita. That was why he had driven so far out of town and up the highway.

The bar had a gravel parking lot, so he had left his car in a gas station around the corner. He wanted no connection between himself and this incident. That's what he had decided to call them. Incidents. His time with Rita had been a physical incident. Those were no longer fully satisfying. That was because he was no longer fully physical. His new existence required a new satisfaction level and method for achieving that satisfaction.

Rita would never understand his new level. That didn't matter much any more. He had already decided to just let her live as his wife for the rest of her life. It was not a merciful decision like it sounded. For him it was a punishment he was levying on her for not understanding how he had transformed their lives. He was going to subject her to living a life of the dutiful wife for the rest of her life without the rewards of the physical union only he could give her. Instead, he would share that joy with others and give them what he was denying her. At some point he might even tell her what she was missing so that she could truly be miserable about the life he was going to build for her. He would show Rita who was boss. He would show her who the puppet was.

The bartender drove off first, waving to her friend and coworker after both cars were started. Paul watched the lights of the first car going out of the parking lot and then stepped from the shadows beside the building. He staggered forward like he was drunk or maybe injured. He wasn't sure which trigger would excite a response from the woman in the last car.

She was pulling forward to exit the parking lot when she saw him. Her instinct was to brake and see what was happening. A man appearing out of the darkness was scary but not unexpected in her line of work. She had seen it before.

She recognized the man as a customer she had served earlier. He had not been drunk when he left the bar a few hours ago. He certainly was now. Quickly looking around she saw that he had no car in the lot. Funny. There were no homes within walking distance of the bar. How had the man gotten there?

Paul stumbled on as the woman appraised her situation. He struck the side of her car and fell to the ground beside her front wheel where she could not see him without getting out of her car. Slowly the door opened and the woman tried to see what had happened to the man.

She saw the man lying still against her car and blew a frustrated breath from her lips. A long wisp of tired hair fell across her face accentuating how she felt about the exhausting length of her evening and the prospect it was getting longer every moment she had to deal with this drunk.

Squeezing out of her car door because his body was partially against it, she let it slam shut with his weight falling back with its natural gravity. She leaned down to shake the man and see if he was alright. He didn't move or respond in any way. She shook him again. Same response. Nothing.

Kneeling down, she tried to shake the man awake. Her position brought her close enough to smell his breath. Sweet with the alcohol she assumed was his problem. But there was another odor she did not recognize. It was metallic and stronger than the alcohol smell.

Suddenly Paul struck. His hand shot out and landed flat against the temple of his victim. Her long, dark hair flew wildly around her face as she absorbed the impact of his blow and struggled to make an escape before any further damage could be done. Her high heels, part of her tip assurance manner of dress, slipped out from under her. The gravel gave way beneath her feet and left her without traction and vulnerable to his attack.

Paul utilized the moment of surprise to subdue her and bring her under his control. She lost a shoe in the attack and he did not retrieve it for her. Pulling her to the back of the building, into the darkness there, he breathed in her face and let her know that he was going to kill her.

"I have come to take you to a better place, Sweetie." Paul told her as he dragged her scared, limp form behind the building.

"Please..." she cried. "Don't hurt me."

"Sweetie, not only am I going to hurt you, but I am going to cause you such pain that you are going to wish I killed you a long time before you actually will die. Believe me, you are going to beg me to kill you before this is over. And I will happily oblige your request when I am done playing with you. Go ahead and scream. I love the sound and there is no one going to hear you out here in the middle of nowhere."

She screamed at the top of her lungs for someone to help her. No one came. No one heard. Her attacker was right about that. He was also right about her wishing she was dead a long time before she did dive into the welcoming darkness of that forever sleep.

Rita dreamed of being chased again. This time it was definitely Paul the whole time. He was laughing and taunting her as he trotted along behind her. She was running full out and breathing raggedly yet she was not making any distance develop between them. No matter how hard she ran, she seemingly did not get any further away. He was always right behind her, not breathing hard and not putting much exertion into the chase.

She screamed for him to get away from her. He laughed harder and continued coming on. She begged him to stop. He laughed more. She cried out for help and that seemed to make him laugh the hardest of all.

Out of breath and out of energy, Rita knew that if she stopped Paul would catch her and that would be the end of her. She did not want to die. She did not want to run. But run she did.

Suddenly she saw the figure watching her from the side again. It was John. John Corwin. She was sure of that. She had been infatuated with the young man once and she had spent many hours watching him before she had made her move. A move he rebuffed and ignored but still, she had put in the time. She had learned him from watching him. She could not be mistaken. Besides. He was the only help around.

"Help!" she screamed at him. He smiled. "Help me!" She screamed again. "He's trying to kill me."

Still, the figure of her John at the side of her dream just watched.

"Don't you understand? He's trying to kill me. I need your help."

Nothing.

Onward she ran. The figure of John stayed at the edge of her dream world in the same position no matter how hard she ran. The laughing figure of Paul behind her stayed exactly the same distance behind her, too. A thought built in her mind. Maybe her running was not really running. Maybe she was just thinking about running and not really doing it.

Forcing herself to calm down she stopped running and looked back at Paul. He was still laughing maniacally but not advancing on her. John was still in his place at the edge of her dreamscape. She stood looking around. Darkness was the rule of the day. Everything she was not seeing was dark. That is to say, everything except John and Paul was in darkness. There was no definition to the landscape or her surroundings in any way. Just darkness.

"Go away!" She demanded of Paul.

"No!" He bellowed back at her. "I am going to follow you forever and be your worst nightmare because you have ignored me and resented my success."

"I do not resent your success, Paul. I am worried about this change in you and the aggressive attitude that it has given you. You are not the man I married." She felt a need to explain herself.

"You got that right. I was not a real man when you married me. I was a puppet of your devising. Now that I am a real man, making real strides against the losers of this world, you resent my success. I will not forgive you for degrading my life or resenting it when I discovered your duplicity."

"I have done no such thing, Paul." Rita shouted her innocence into the blackness. His voice sounded so strong. Hers sounded so weak.

"You have and you will pay the price."

"Are you going to kill me, too?" She could not explain it but she knew he had killed already. It was in his eyes. Like one could see when a young girl had lost her innocence, she could discern that Paul was not making idle threats.

"Not you." Paul answered her. "I want you to live a long time and be aware of all you are being denied because you once held me in derision like so many others."

"Derision?" Rita had no idea what he was talking about. "I loved you, Paul." She caught her own mistake as soon as it left her lips.

"Loved?" He caught it too. "I suspected as much. As soon as I was no longer your puppet to play with and control, you lost interest in me. Didn't you?"

"No! It's not like that."

"Sure it is." Paul laughed his crazy, low, guttural laugh that boomed across the darkness to her.

"No." Her denial lost its fervency. She was thinking of running again. She had to get away from this crazy man who had taken over her husband's body.

She turned to John.

"John? Can you help me?"

She stared at the figure half obscured by the darkness around him. Paul laughed even harder. She squinted into the darkness. Maybe it was not John. It sure appeared to be him. Maybe it was only a part of her imagination like her running away had been. Maybe she was just reaching out in her imagination and wishing that John would come and rescue her.

"John!" She pleaded with the dark cloud of her dream world. "John! Please help me!"

John fell asleep in his chair. It was comfortable enough that it was not the first time. Suddenly he recognized a wakefulness that was not physical. He knew his physical body was asleep, still. It was his mind that came to awareness. He had heard a voice. A familiar voice. He listened intently and heard it again.

"John! Please help me!" A woman's voice.

He focused on the voice, calling to memory every woman he had ever met. One by one he compared their voices with the one in his head. He knew it was important to discover the owner of the voice. He could not see anyone. Identifying the owner would clear things up a little. Fortunately, his catalog of women's voices was short.

Rita!

The memory of her voice came as both a shock and a shame. The last time he had talked to her she had come to him to ask if he really wanted her to leave him alone and start up a relationship with Paul. He had heard the pain in her voice and seen the slump in her shoulders as she accepted his wish that she move on without him. He had not really wanted to do it, but experience had taught him to avoid relationships that only drifted apart later. Not that there had been many. Just one.

"Rita!" He called out into the darkness of his mind.

Slowly, the darkness gave way to a shimmering figure and he once again saw Rita in the familiar place of her dream where he had seen Paul chasing her before. No identifying landscape. Just the distance and the position and the setting of two figures in the darkness suggested to him it was her dream once again.

"Rita!" He called out again. More light filled the area around her figure.

"John!" She yelled back across what seemed a deep chasm between them. There was even a small echo effect.

"Rita." He said her name again, not sure what he was supposed to do now that he had identified her.

"Help me, John. Paul is going to kill me. Or worse." Rita's voice floated on a strange wind that carried her words to him like a paper boat floating on a running stream across a parking lot after a rain.

"How can I help?" He called out to her.

"Help, John." Her voice was urgent and her mannerism said she was desperate.

"How?" he screamed into the darkness that was the gulf between them. It was like a huge darkness separated them and she was visible only by a lighted window on her side.

"Come to me, John. Help me before he kills me."

John struggled with the emotions in his heart. Kathy. Marcie. Rita. His mother. His father. Relationships. He was scared of them. Except the one he had with Kathy. If only he could get back there. If only she had not died.

"John!" Rita's voice shook him back to the moment.

John shook himself and concentrated. Marcie had said let it flow and it would come to him. He stopped trying to force something he had no idea what it was. He just thought about Rita. He thought about her and how much he really wanted to help her. However she needed help.

A light grew around Rita and the space between them decreased. He continued thinking about helping her. The light grew and the space shrunk. Soon she was within a few feet of him and he could reach out to her. Her voice was stronger, closer. He also noticed she was naked. He had never imagined her that way or thought about her in that manner, so it was a shock to see her now. He wondered if his mind was extrapolating or whether wherever she was she was really naked.

"John. I knew I could depend on you. I always loved you, John."

Her words were like a slap in the face. He had pushed her off on Paul. Now she was calling to him to take back all those things he had done to her. She was reminding him that it was he and not her that made her go away. He was okay with that back then. Necessary. But now it seemed very selfish. Like he had taken something from her that was rightfully hers. Friendship. More.

"I know." He found himself answering her automatically like they had been talking together forever.

"Please, John. Don't send me away this time." Her words tore a new hole inside him. Like the one Kathy's leaving had made on her exit. Except this one was an entrance wound. He felt he deserved it. The pain of his own selfishness causing pain for others.

"I won't."

He told her the truth. In his heart John felt a lot of guilt wash away with that one statement. He would not push her away this time. He would be her friend and make up for the injury he had done her for no reason. She had never been anything but a friend to him. He had treated her like she was trying to steal something from him. He had no idea what it was back then. Today, he knew. His wall. She was a danger to his wall. He had constructed it so carefully to keep the hurt out that he defended it like it was life itself. And Rita was someone who wanted to come through the wall. He could not allow that back then.

"Come to me, John."

Rita reached out to him with both arms in a desperate attempt to grab on to him. John instinctively reached out his own arms and made contact. It was electric. He felt every nerve fiber of his being jolted into action relaying the sensations of their touch throughout his body. She came closer. Felt closer. Physically in his space. The light surrounded them both now. One light, not two.

"No!" Paul screamed from across the chasm of the darkness.

John reacted to the bellowing call of his one time friend with an instinctive flinch that both, sheltered her in his arms and pulled her closer but also shut off the light that spanned the chasm between Paul and them. Darkness settled in around them and John knew he had pulled her through the cloud to himself. He held her tightly, feeling her shaking, trembling fear.

Long minutes passed and she calmed down. Her breathing returned to normal. The trembling stopped. Her body relaxed against his.

"Better now?" he asked her as she looked up into his face.

"Yes." She smiled for the first time since he had seen her in her dream. Then she angled her face and kissed him. It was more than just the kiss of a friend. It was a life long yearning to complete something both of them had started long ago. He returned her kiss and they enjoyed their coming together and the warmth of an embrace they had never shared before.

He knew he would wake up with her in his physical world. He knew it as sure as he knew his name. What he would do about that, how he would explain it to her, he had no idea. That was another matter for another moment. Go with the flow. Wasn't that what Marcie had said? Wonder if she had seen this coming. Wonder what Kathy would think of him waking up with a naked woman in his camper.

Chapter Eleven

Paul gazed out the window of the plane as it was landing. It was dark and the running lights along the runway flashed past at great speed, slowing down as the craft braked to a slow turn at the end of the runway and made its way to the terminal. No one would be there to meet him. He chose it that way. Less to worry about. He could depend upon himself. No one else.

He was still shocked by the realization Rita was really against him. He could not believe she could not see he was doing this all for her. Her parents understood, finally. He used to think they didn't like him. Now he understood they were just worried about their daughter's welfare. No more than he was. Maybe they understood there was something unstable about her ideas of how life worked all along. Sometimes, he wished he could share with them the sacrifice he had made for her. He believed they would appreciate it even if Rita did not.

He did not require sleep any more, so he traveled at night to make time and be ready for his meetings the next day. Tonight's travel was a pleasure. No business meeting this time. This one was going to be a joy. He grabbed his overnight bag and made his way out of the airport. He flagged a cab over and got in.

"Tall Pines Campground, Please." He instructed the driver.

The driver hesitated. Paul explained.

"About thirty miles down the interstate and then two miles out from the town." He gave the driver directions because he did not expect the man to know where the campground was.

The driver gave him a look that asked if he was serious. Thirty miles away?

"Don't worry. I'll pay a night's wages for the effort and your trouble," Paul reached forward and handed the man four one hundred dollar bills.

"Yes, sir." The man reached for the bills. The deal was made.

As he made contact with Paul's hand, Paul locked his eyes with the cab driver's eyes and soon he was drinking of the man's blood. Just a small drink. It had been a long day and an even longer night. The cabby never knew the time it had cost him to reach for that money. To him no time had passed. When Paul was done, he released the cabby's hand and the man turned around to follow the directions he was given. His head felt a little light. He attributed it to turning around too fast. Spatial evacuation he thought he remembered someone explaining it to him once.

"I've heard of the Tall Pines Campground." The Cabby made conversation like he did with all his customers. "Supposed to be some real nice place. Never been there myself. Just heard others talking about it. Lot of northerners come down to stay there. They've got two nice campgrounds there. Tall Pines is the Newest. You here on vacation or business?"

"I'm here to chop down the Tall Pines." Paul chuckled.

Paul leaned back into the seat of the cab and rested his eyes. He wasn't tired. He just didn't want to have to banter with this cab driver all the way down the highway. He could sense the man was a talker. It was a good thing the man could not sense what Paul was.

John awoke with Rita beside him on the floor. He immediately covered her with a throw blanket he kept near the couch. She was unconscious. It was not just sleep. Her transportation from her place in the physical plane to his place was exhausting. At least he assumed it was that way. He felt the tiredness pulling at his own body even as he tried to sit up and rub his face, wiping away the sleep that he knew he wore there. He was sure the cloud had caused the excessive fatigue. It hadn't been there when he drifted off to sleep earlier. Since he had slept, he felt the tiredness was more a result of the spiritual exertion they had undergone.

The hour was late. He could feel it. The clock said it was four in the morning. Felt it, too. He sat still for several minutes letting his body acclimate to the fatigue it bore. Who knew that reaching out to someone in the cloud would be so tiring? Marcie probably knew. She just had forgotten to share that with him. Of course, she had warned him against using that property of the cloud connection. Maybe she didn't think he would need to know that since she hadn't expected him to use it.

He looked at Rita again. She was out cold. Her breathing was deep and regular. Almost scarily so. His eyes traced the form of her body underneath the blanket. She was the picture of tired if ever there was one.

As tired as he was, he immediately wondered why he had awoken. He listened to the sounds of the night outside his camper. Nothing unusual. All was as it usually was. Still, something must have awakened him. Sleepy people did not wake up for just any reason. Something substantial had to have happened. He concentrated on the noises around him.

Once convinced that the physical world around him was as it should be, he focused on the spiritual world. Maybe Kathy or Marcie was trying to get his attention. That was when he noticed the absence. Not the quiet. Not the emptiness. But the absolute nothingness.

He usually could feel the Mist all around him. Since the night in the maze of the Cabin, the Mist had roamed his property pretty much at will. It had become so familiar he had almost forgotten its presence. It was gone. Gone.

The thought scared him. Gone. How could the Mist be gone?

"Kathy? ... Marcie? ... Emil?" He spoke out loud but not loud enough to wake Rita if she was only sleeping.

Nothing. There was nothing there. His words fell into emptiness. Not the emptiness of a chasm or expanse of space where no one was present. It was the emptiness of nothing being there. More like the words fell against a wall and bounced back after being denied admission.

John felt alone. Rita was there. Even if she was awake, he would have still felt alone. The Mist had become his comfort zone. His bastion of peace. He had known that for a while. He had just never understood how much he depended on that comfort. He had thought of it like a comfortable shirt he had gotten used to. Now he knew it was more important than that. Now that it was gone.

"Rita?" His mind searched for alternatives to what had awakened him. Anything except what he was sensing.

Rising, he went outside closing the door behind him with one last look at Rita's quiet, still form on the floor beside his favorite chair. Maybe he should move her to the bed. The thought made him feel guilty. He didn't mean it like that. Just her comfort. Still, he felt like his mind was betraying him in a lot of things lately, taking him places he was not ready to go. No Mist. Guilty feelings about Rita.

Kathy? Was she okay?

The coolness of the night air was undeniable. Spring was well under way but the nights were still cool enough to enjoy the brief respite from the heat of each day. John shivered against the chill that assaulted his body when he stepped out on the deck. Some of it was the coolness of the night air. Some of it was the thought of what life would be like without the Mist around. Something was wrong. He was sure of that.

Marshaling his courage like he thought Kathy would do, he stepped down off the deck and made his way in the darkness up the road, headed for the woods where he had first encountered the Mist. He had to be sure. Maybe it was just his imagination or some reaction of fatigue associated with the transportation of Rita through the Mist. He was hoping for some answers.

Minutes later he was walking into the woods in the dark of the night, something that until a few months ago he would have never thought about doing. He was not afraid of the dark. Just unsure about what could be out there. Content to leave well enough alone. Funny thing was, he was more aware of what could be out there now than he was before. It wasn't the thing that might be there that gave him pause. It was the unknown of what might be there. Somehow, knowing made it okay to face. At the moment, he was more afraid of what he might not find.

In a few steps he was at the spot where he had entered the Mist on that fateful day a few months before. Then he had been in search of the love of his life. As he thought about it, he smiled to himself. He was still in search of the love of his life tonight. She was in the Mist, only she was part of it this time.

He felt the tingling sensation of contact with the Mist. Immediately he sensed the presence of Kathy, Marcie and Emil. The Mist was right where it had been before.

"What's happening?" He asked. "How come I can not sense you in my camper?"

"We are not allowed past the confines of our original Mist boundaries," Marcie answered for them all.

"Why?"

"He's returned." Kathy spoke in his head.

"Who?"

"The Keeper of the Cabin." Kathy responded. "And he's much stronger this time. Something is happening. He's rebuilding the cabin and setting up his torture chambers again."

"How do you know all this?" John wanted to know.

"He's invited us to join him. He's told us he plans on absorbing the Mist inside himself this time."

"Can he do that?" John was confused. "I thought the Mist was a plane unto itself."

"It is but even a plane can be absorbed inside another plane. Like we exist inside your human plane, he can absorb us and draw us inside or wherever he wants us. It's part of his original deal with us. We exist where he wants us to exist." Marcie explained.

"How did he get that strong?"

"Must have made more deals to build whatever it is he's planning now." Marcie sounded worried.

"You don't know what he's doing." John did not make it a question.

"Whatever it is, he's claiming back the deals he first made with rock and wood to reestablish his dominance at the cabin." Kathy said.

"You broke his deals when you confronted him last year by brokering a new deal for you and Kathy." Emil answered John before he could ask the question. "But the deals were still there if ever the Keeper wanted to return."

"But his deal with me was that he never return." John reminded them.

"That was with you and Kathy. Since she is dead to the human plane, he does not have to keep the deal he made with the two of you because there is only one of you now. In effect, he can come back and rebuild." Kathy explained further.

"This can't be happening. This is my property. How can he be here if he has never made a deal with me? This is my land, not his. We're in the human plane, not his." John rubbed his tired face even though he was speaking in his mind.

"True." Marcie answered. "Maybe you should march right in there and explain that to him." she was not joking.

"This is a nightmare."

John spoke out loud and blew out his frustrations with a loud escape of air. At the same time he ran his hands through his hair trying to think things out. Nothing came immediately to mind. He wasn't sure he could survive another encounter with the Keeper of the Cabin. He had almost killed John last time except for some quick thinking and mentally outmaneuvering him by forcing him to break a deal which is tantamount to asking to be sent to the Place of Chains in the spiritual planes.

"It's real, John." Marcie reminded him. "And he's on your property. He is reestablishing the deals he had before and making stronger ones."

"Stronger?"

"Yes," Emil answered. "He is offering to share the whole of the energies for support in his takeover of the Mist."

"Can he do that?"

"His deals were predicated on the supply of life force energies. He can do that. His control over our section of the Mist is part of his deal with Air, under whose plane we exist in some part in every plane."

"So, what do we do now?" John asked.

"There is nothing we can do." Marcie explained. "We are part of the Mist here and subject to the Keeper of the Cabin because of the Deals he has made. For us to do anything against him would require us to break a deal. We can not do that."

"What about my deal with you and our relationship?"

"Secondary to the Keeper's deal. His is primary because he was first." Marcie explained. "We're sort of at his mercy, John."

"You mean it's up to me?" John asked the question but he didn't need any answer.

Screaming erupted from the campground. Hysterical, loud and frightened. John's attention was momentarily pulled away from the world of the Mist and his coming battle with the newly strengthened Keeper of the Cabin. Something was amiss in his campground.

Making his way carefully out of the darkness of the woods, John charged down the somewhat better lit roadway toward the sound of the screaming woman. He was sure it was a woman. He thought he heard something moving in the woods to his left as he ran ahead to find out what was happening in the campground. Something moving away from the campground. His thoughts conjured up a stronger shadow of the figure that had once haunted his nights back when he was first building this campground. Too much happening at once.

Two minutes later, he was standing before a weeping mother telling a chilling tale of a huge man taking her child out of their camper. The crowd of people standing around suddenly saw the dispersal of every other mother there to go check on their children. At least the ones who had not followed them out to investigate the noise.

John tried to calm the mother but knew there was no calming a distraught woman. He had an idea it was the Keeper up to his old tricks, using the campground as his personal smorgasbord. But he could not say anything to these people about such things. Number one, it would ruin his business. Number two, it would do them no good to know about it. The Mist would rebuff every effort to penetrate to the cabin as long as it served the Keeper of the Cabin. Informing them would be a waste of time and energy.

"Someone call the police!" John instructed the onlookers. That was the response expected of the human plane existence he held. But he knew he had to go after that child himself. No one else could do it. No one else knew to do it. It was his responsibility.

Paul watched the excitement created by the hysterical woman. Her screaming had abruptly interrupted his plan. Kul had taken the kid before he had fully joined with the woman. Her desperation at the abduction of her child tore her concentration from his and she had her life back. He could still taste her kisses on his lips. Her skin against his felt so alive and vibrant. The memory made him want to finish what he had started.

Noticing the women leaving the crowd to go check on their own children, Paul formed another plan. He picked his way carefully, silently around the back side of the campers until he found what he was looking for. A young woman had just checked on her baby sleeping soundly inside their camper. She was in the process of returning to the crowd and her husband when Paul stepped out and confronted her.

With a soft voice, he asked her if she had seen his child. The question caught her attention and she looked directly into his eyes. In the darkness of the evening she had to look closely to be sure she had heard what she thought she heard. His voice pulled her focus. Her focus was her eyes. Another child was missing? Another parent was asking after their child's safety. She glanced back toward the camper she had just exited. Then she looked into the obviously hurting young man's eyes again.

His eyes were deep pools of languishing love and excitement and desire drawing her in. The compassion she felt was for the pain of him losing his child. The endless depth of love conveyed in those eyes. The darkness around the two of them. The peacefulness of her spirit as she gazed deeper and deeper into those wonderful eyes. All of it conspired to draw the young woman away from her own thoughts and allow her to bathe in the thoughts found in the depth of those eyes. Paul made no move toward her as he allowed his eyes to pull her inside and simultaneously allowed her to experience the love and sensations of love he could inspire with his eyes.

Several precarious seconds passed by and Paul felt her reach that place of complacency. He instructed her to move around behind the camper, deeper into the darkness near the woods, deeper into his control. There he took her in his arms and began to kiss her.

She was young and soft and tender to his touch. Without her knowledge he had fired her passions and drawn her own desires to the surface of her thoughts until they overwhelmed any inhibitions or societal patterns of decision making. She was fully engulfed with her desire to have this man with those wonderful eyes. Even more, she wanted him to have her. All of her. She tore at her clothes to give herself to him. She felt his arms go around her and wrap her up. She tingled all over as he kissed and nibbled her neck. She could never remember such a feeling of complete abandonment before. Never before had she ever wanted to just take off her clothes with a man she just met and let him do whatever he wanted to her.

"Take me!" She demanded in his ear.

Paul smiled and did just that. He felt his arms melding with her flesh and diving deeper and deeper into her body until he was drinking heavily of her blood and fluids. He saw the surprise in her eyes when she realized he was joining himself to her in a way she had never experienced before. Not fear. Not worry. Just surprise. And after the surprise, longing. A desire so deep and extreme that her eyes now held his. He wanted what she wanted because she wanted what he wanted.

He kissed her on the mouth and she kissed him back. She was fully involved in giving herself to him. More so than that woman behind the bar. He had not understood the fullness of drawing her into his eyes, first. Now he knew. This one was totally his. She wanted to give herself fully to his desires. They were her desires too.

For several minutes he drank of her energies and felt her body tighten with the pulsing, vibrating climax of her womanhood. Her last physical expression of her life and no one was there to see it except him. Then she gave up the spirit to him and he felt her go completely limp in his arms. He released the shell of her being and dropped her to the ground, letting her lay where she fell. Her clothes were disheveled and torn. Good. An attempted rape – fulfilled murder – crime scene just a few feet away from a child abduction should destroy this campground's business once and for all. Paul felt satisfied. Internally and externally.

John waited for the police to come. Four cars pulled into the campground with blue lights flashing. Practically the entire force. He recognized the officers that drove up as people he had met before Kathy had left the police force. They acknowledged him because of her and he acknowledged them with a nod. They took statements, made a cursory search of the immediate area but did not want to disturb the area too much until daylight, when maybe the abductor could be tracked and followed.

The woman was becoming more coherent as time moved forward. Her story now included a strange, tall man who had captured her attention and tried to seduce her while his friend made off with her child. The young girl was seven years old. The age made John wince. That was the age his Kathy had been when the Keeper had tried to abduct her. To John's knowledge, Kathy was the only child ever to return after being abducted by the Keeper. He did not intend to let that record stand. He just didn't know how to get away. It would seem strange to people if he left the scene just yet. After all, he was the owner and proprietor of the campground. What happened here was important to him. Besides, if all held true, he knew the Keeper kept the children for a while before he absorbed them into his world. He still had some time to rescue the child.

Another yell got the attention of the crowd standing around watching the police work. At first, John and the police ignored it. Their hands were full with keeping the woman calm. The father had also entered the picture now. He was demanding action immediately or threatening to take action himself. Although crashing around through woods was not advisable and might disturb whatever trail the abductor may have left, no one was trying stop the man or do more than warn him he might be hindering the investigation. So far he was waiting impatiently for someone to do something. But the new commotion was building in volume and intensity as more voices joined the chorus of fervent need.

"Murder!"

That word got the attention of the police. Two officers separated themselves to discover the source of the noise and ascertain its relevance to the current situation. A missing child plus shouts of "murder" and "dead" did not sound very promising. The father of the missing child was leading the run towards the new shouting with the two police officers fast on his heels.

After a few more shouts of "murder" and "dead woman" John could hold himself back no more. A child missing. A woman attacked, maybe dead. He needed to get a handle on what was happening in his campground. The Keeper was back but this new, open attack on a human population was not his normal way of doing things. Then he thought of Rita, back in his camper. It was the first time her had thought of her in over an hour. The thought made him feel bad that he had forgotten her in all that had transpired in the last hour. After all, he was responsible for her being here in the first place.

John made the excuse he had to go change his clothes and put on something more appropriate for the night air and he left the police to uncover the situation. Quickly, he made his way back through the darkness to his camper at the rear of the campground. He was only halfway down the road after cresting the slight rise when he saw the door standing wide open. He was sure he had shut the door when he left. He remembered shutting it because he felt guilty about the look he had given Rita lying on the floor. Now it was a beckoning hole of his own mistake.

He ran the rest of the way, taking the steps onto the deck in one bound and stopping himself by grabbing at the sides of the doorway to keep himself from falling inside the camper. The scene that met his eyes was serene and empty. Rita was gone. He had already known that. He searched for signs that she had left under her own power. Nothing. The blanket he had covered her with lay in a pile on the floor. She had no clothes on. She would not have left under her own power in a completely naked state.

He stepped back onto the deck and searched the wood line around the camper with his stare. Nothing. No matter how long he stared into the woods, no clues gave themselves up.

Rita was gone. A child had been abducted. Another woman, or maybe that child had possibly been killed. John felt the fatigue of the ages climbing up on his back. In his mind the cloud was still approaching from the horizon. That confused him. If the trouble was still on the horizon, what was all this? He tried to reach Marcie, but there was still no connection to the Mist. The Keeper was controlling things at the moment.

Resignedly, John went back inside his camper and grabbed a sweater. Then he made his way back up the road after closing his camper door. He would keep Rita's disappearance to himself for now. He had not yet figured out how he was going to explain her appearance. He sure had no idea how he was going to explain her disappearance.

Chapter Twelve

A call went out to the Sheriff's office. Less than an hour later, Detective Mercer once again stood in the campground. He had investigated the bodies found the previous year. He had also stayed outside the Mist and held vigil until John had returned with his soon to be wife in hand. He did not know the full extent of what went on inside the Mist but he knew that the story John and Kathy told was not the whole truth. He had been content to accept what they had given him at the time. He had no choice. But he still held a small desire to get to the bottom of it in the back of his mind. Tall Pines Campground was still a blot on his radar screen as well as his career, to his way of thinking.

John shook hands with Detective Mercer, renewing the relationship, this time without Kathy being around. The detective let John know that he noticed the missing Kathy, too.

"Sorry to hear about your wife," Mercer offered.

"Thanks detective." John answered.

"Any thoughts on what is happening here?" Mercer inquired.

"Confusion mostly." John told the truth.

"Seems like a familiar scene to me." Mercer was hedging for some inside information he felt sure John might be privy to. He did not suspect John of the abduction or the murder. But he had a suspicion that John knew more than what he would tell.

"Too familiar." John gave him nothing. "You think it's some kind of copy cat?" He ventured.

The detective looked at John with a slight smile and thought about what John had offered him.

"You thinking it might be someone trying to revive old times around here?" Mercer asked.

The detective was running scenarios through his head. Missing child. Dead woman found behind her camper partially disrobed. All too familiar. Too close to events from a year ago.

Mercer didn't believe in coincidences. When things were familiar there was always a reason. This felt familiar. Child abduction in a place where known child abduction victims had been found. A place where bodies of sacrificed children had been unearthed. A place where a strange mist had hindered him and his men from searching the woods fully. A mist that John went into and then came out of after some kind of obvious struggle. John had brought Kathy out with him but no other answers. It was that lack of other answers that still tickled the edges of his mind and begged for completion.

"Could be." Mercer admitted. He had seen strange things in his career. But copy cats were far more rare than television made it seem.

John held his position and his silence. He could only wait for a chance to enter the Mist and go after the child and Rita. He was sure that Rita was in the Mist, too. Maybe that was where the real trouble lay waiting. Maybe this was not the trouble. Facing the Keeper inside the Cabin again. That was real trouble.

Three Sheriff's deputies and two local police officers approached Detective Mercer where he was talking with John. The deputy in the lead was all business. He had been rounding up volunteers from the two departments because detective Mercer believed they needed to be doing something.

"There are five of us willing to go into the woods and find this kid." The lead deputy announced when he got close.

"Flashlights?" Mercer asked.

"Everyone has one. Brought you an extra one." The deputy seemed proud of the fact he had thought ahead.

"Give it to him." Mercer indicated John standing beside him.

John looked at the detective with surprise.

"Hey, you're the one that found the girl last time." Mercer admitted. "Thought you would be helpful this time, too. After all, this is your property. You know it better than any of us."

John nodded slowly and said nothing. He didn't trust his voice to not give him away. Getting into the woods was exactly what he needed to do. He did not want to seem too anxious to get there.

The deputy didn't seem to think too highly of the plan but he nodded his ascent.

"Need us to get you another light?" The deputy wanted to fulfill his original plan to include the detective even if he was forced to allow a civilian into the search.

"No. I'll coordinate from the edge of the road. I can track your flashlights for a while. I'll be here if anyone finds anything. Yell out or fire your weapon in the air. Let us know where you are. Everyone has their radios, right?"

The officers all nodded, yes.

"You want a radio?" Mercer asked John.

"No, I wouldn't know how to use one anyway." John answered, affirming the lead deputy's assessment of having a civilian along.

"Well, good luck out there, guys." Detective Mercer released them to their duty.

John let them get in front of him and followed them along the road. Every fifty feet or so another officer went into the woods and headed east, deeper into the darkness of the woods, letting their flashlights lead the way. After the last officer disappeared from John's view he made his way deeper into the campground and found his place of entry into the woods. He shut off the flashlight and laid it against the backside of a tree by the road. He knew where he was going. A minute later he felt the tingling sensation of the Mist around him and saw the play of myriad sparks as he moved his arms through the dampness of the Mist.

"Kathy? Marcie? Emil?" John called out in his head.

"We're here, John." It was Marcie.

"The child? Rita? Are they in the Cabin? Does the Keeper have them?"

"Yes, John. But there's more that you need to know."

Suddenly a roaring yell erupted from the darkness and John felt himself being hurtled backwards. He felt a tree slam against his back and for a few precious seconds he could not understand what had happened. There was a loud stomping of debris and sticks and other things that made up the floor of the woods. The buzzing in his ears was like an electrical wire had come loose and was swinging around wildly threatening to electrocute him if he moved wrong or it flicked his way.

He shook his head to dislodge the muddy, murky feeling that was filling him up to the ears. Sounds came sporadically, like something was moving back and forth across his ears blocking them. The darkness was a maze of sparkling explosions of white light and red-blue colors everywhere. He recognized the excitement of the Mist reacting to someone moving amongst them but could not understand who was there. He felt the pain of the impact with the tree on his back but could not remember how the hurt had come to be there. He was on the ground but did not know when he had fallen. Nothing was making sense to his mind. It was like he had woke up inside someone else's body.

The roar filled his ears again and he felt hands grappling with his shoulders and pulling him upright. Immediately, he felt a shaking, vibrating pain coursing along his spine and down to his legs. It was like little electric knives fileting his skin back and revealing all his insides to the world. The pain served to quicken recovery of his senses.

Another shake of his head and his vision came back. The form before him was surrounded by excited sparks and a halo effect of movement within the Mist. John assessed he was being attacked. That kicked in his reactive thoughts of self preservation. The who and why could wait until later. The Keeper of the Cabin and two abducted people came to mind. Right now, all that mattered was getting free of this attacker. He could assess things later.

Shaking loose of the powerful grip the attacker had on him, John was reminded of his battle with the Keeper the first time. The Keeper had used air to attack him then. This was not air. This was solid whatever it was. Whoever it was.

Once loose, John slipped sideways and ran forward, deeper into the Mist putting distance between himself and his attacker.

"Marcie? Can you protect me from the attacker? Hide me?"

"No, John. The Keeper has commanded us to reveal all who are in the Mist to him."

"Is it the Keeper who is attacking me?" John inquired while he kept moving away and deeper into the woods.

"It's not the Keeper, John." Marcie answered him. "You need to be aware that I am limited in how much I can help you. The Keeper of the Cabin controls the Mist. You are connected. The more you are connected with the Mist, the more he may control you."

"He can use my connections against me?"

"If he has control in those areas." Marcie warned him. "You have got to concentrate on using the areas you have authority in and using that against him."

"What areas?" John asked and then the roaring attack came out of the darkness again.

Flashing arms of movement reaching for him and knocking him sideways as he attempted to dodge left. The blow caught him in mid stride and thereby off guard and off balance. Again John felt the ground coming up to meet his side and brush against his face as his hands spread before him to soften his landing. Before he could recover fully, the attacker was again on him and this time he was pinned to the ground under an enormous weight that struggled to get control of him and turn him over.

John gave in to the attacker's desire to turn him and released himself to turn in the direction the attacker was forcing him. But he did not stop. When he felt the attacker had him where he wanted him, John continued turning until he had rolled out from under the weight of the attacker's body and gotten free. Standing immediately, John jumped sideways expecting another stab at him from the big arms that had held him down in the first place.

The brush of the attackers hands as they reached out for him but could not quite get a grip on his legs, left John with a tingling sensation of electrical proportions that signaled his brain of a spiritual presence. How was he going to get away from someone who was spiritual and solid?

He tried to peer through the darkness. Too dark to see anything clearly. He had to think fast.

The fight. Like in the Cabin that first time. He had to think quickly and use the planes against the Keeper.

"I'm not the Keeper!"

The shout startled John. Familiar. But not familiar, too.

"Who are you then?" John asked. "And why are you attacking me?"

"Surely it has not been so long since you last saw me that you have forgotten me, have you, John?"

John listened to the voice. The cadence of the words. The formation, the accent. The authority. No one he could remember with that specific tone of authority. He searched his mind for people he knew from his church days under his father. He had met many people who were in charge of many things back then. No one came to mind.

"Who are you?" John demanded. He was getting impatient. He had the Keeper to contend with. He didn't have time for twenty questions. "Why are you here?"

"I am here to kill you, John. As to who I am, that is the reason I am here to kill you." There was an underlying pain in that voice this time. It had a slower, measured cadence. The voice was more familiar then. It sounded hurt. He knew that voice. But he knew it differently. Meek. Resigned. Shy.

"Paul?"

Immediately John remembered the dream where Paul was chasing Rita.

"That's right, John. It's me. You came between my wife and I and now you are going to pay with the ultimate sacrifice. You'll join us in the Sand."

"Sand?"

"That's right. I made a deal with the Sand and now I supply them with the energies I collect. You got between Rita and me and that was wrong. She belongs to me. She's my wife."

"That's a human plane deal, Paul." John assessed.

"So? She's still mine. Until death do us part."

"In the spiritual planes, deals are unbreakable without stiff consequence, Paul. In the human plane deals are only as good as the person wants them to be. She can change her mind and take back her words. She can ask to be unmarried. Besides, if you are of another plane, she needs a physical relationship to be healthy." John thought of Rita running from Paul in her dream and calling out for help. He had no idea what it was all about, only that it looked serious.

"I am all she needs," Paul said.

"You have to have an area of authority to force her back, Paul. You have no such authority in the human plane. It doesn't exist here. Only in spiritual planes."

"I plan on bringing her into the Sand plane so she can serve me forever."

"Serve you?"

"Of course. What else is she good for?"

"You're supposed to love her and want the best for her," John reminded him.

"She's the one that stopped loving me. I gave her everything a woman could want."

"Then why was she running away?"

"Because she could no longer control me like she wanted to do. Now I can control her and she doesn't want that."

"You've changed a lot, Paul."

"So I've been told a lot lately. For the better I think."

"Rita doesn't think so?" John was guessing.

"She'll come around."

"Where's she at, Paul?"

"The Keeper is holding her for me. We're going to have one last meaningful experience here in the human plane." Paul chuckled in a manner not altogether humorous. "Then she will join me in the Sand."

"What about her choice, Paul?"

"I'll make that for her. She doesn't know what is good for her. But when she looks into my eyes she'll know what she really needs. Me."

Eyes? John didn't understand that reference. What was so special about his eyes?

Paul made another rush at John. John dodged and slipped sideways behind a tree using the trunk of the tree to block Paul making any adjustment and coming after him. With a few quick steps, John was several feet away before Paul could adjust and navigate the obstacle John had placed between them. John made his way toward the Cabin. He knew instinctively where it was. He ran toward the cloud on the horizon in his mind. He was sure the trouble lay there. And there was where Rita and an innocent child were being held. He was sure of it.

"Don't make me get angry with you, John." Paul bellowed from behind him.

John pressed on. He knew that the fight, the real fight was with the Keeper. He did not know how he knew that. He just knew. Paul was a danger. That was certain. But he was more a distraction than the root of the problem. He knew that, too. Somewhere in his mind he focused on the cloud. Paul was not the cloud. He had to deal with the cloud first. Deal. That was the word. Deal.

John reached the Cabin and was about to lift the window and reveal the entrance when Paul attacked again. The crushing speed and ferocity of the blow pushed him beyond the grip of Paul's big hands, tossing him against the side of the old building like a rag doll being thrown by a child. He bounced. That was probably what kept him beyond Paul's grasp. Recovering before Paul did, John jumped to his feet and swung his leg in Paul's direction attempting to smash his foot into Paul's face. It was a fight instinct and nothing John had planned. Just a lashing out. His mind was tired of running. He wanted to confront the Keeper. Paul was between him and the Keeper.

John's foot slipped sideways off Paul's head, barely connecting. Paul made a show of dodging the blow, his movement taking him away from his prey, not towards it. John stepped back a few steps as Paul got to his feet.

"This is not going to end good, John." Paul warned him.

"For who?"

John was tired of running. This was his land. This was his life. Paul may have some spiritual connection but so did he. He thought of a place he had rowed out to about a week ago. It was a rock outcropping at the end of one of the island strips that created all the beach areas where the tourists flocked to. The image of the place was fresh in his mind and he could easily imagine it. He had tried this before and it had worked. He connected with it because he had been there. Once he had the connection in his mind, he forced his physical body to lunge at Paul.

Flash. Or more accurately, absorption. A greater hole of darkness in the already dark woods. And the two men were gone.

On the other side of John's cloud connection, two bodies rolled out onto the rock outcropping in the dead of night. The moon overhead threw shadows of their falling struggles across the jagged rocks. A strong wind blew continuously from the water. Paul landed on his back as a result of John's attack. The sharp rocks and jagged outcroppings dug into his flesh and caused him to momentarily forget the need to kill John. The need to stop the pain took center stage in his mind. He had grabbed John at the onset of the attack but now released him to tend to the matter of getting up and away from the pain digging into his back.

With a loud roar, Paul stood erect and looked around, searching for his prey and wondering what had just happened. He was alone. He stood with the sea all around him in every direction. Waves lapped at the rocks only thirty feet away from him. He had no idea where here was.

"J-o-o-o-o-h-h-h-h-n-n-n-n!" Paul screamed into the air. "I'm going to kill you and you are going to die slowly, now."

John returned to the Cabin before he had even fully let go of Paul's arm. He was hurrying and hoped he did not drag Paul back with him. He didn't think he could surprise him with the same trick twice. Looking at the empty space around him, he knew he had succeeded in moving Paul away from the Cabin. If Paul swam to shore it would still take him a while to figure out where he was and another long while before he could make his way back to the campground. John knew the fight with the Keeper would be over by then. One way or the other, it would be finished and he wouldn't care if Paul was back.

John moved to the window and raised it. Nothing happened. He shut it down and raised it again. Nothing. The Keeper must have changed the entrance.

"Marcie?" John asked for her presence in his mind.

"Here, John."

"Why did you not warn me about Paul?"

"I was trying to, John, when he attacked you."

"Did he kill someone back at the campground?"

"Yes, and he shared the whole of her energy with the Mist and the other planes involved here."

"So the Mist is in a deal with him, too?"

"No. He is in a deal with the Keeper and Sand. Sand is the Keeper's new plane of existence. He does not have form. He has substance but not form."

"How can that be?"

"He exists in the sand plane but does not materialize as such. He moves back and forth faster because he does not hold form. He can jump the planes quickly as he needs."

"Convenient," John thought.

"Also makes him very elusive."

"And dangerous." John added.

"He has no ties to the human plane without Paul." Marcie assessed for him. "No deals of substance. He has his place at the Cabin because of his deals with Rock and Wood. His deal with Air still controls this section of Mist."

"Paul's still around. I just dropped him off on an inaccessible rock island in the waterway."

"I know," Marcie answered. "What I am trying to say is that the Keeper's authority and power stem from his deal with Paul from the Sand plane. He can take what he can control, of course. That is a human plane characteristic."

"Well, he's not taking my land. This is mine and I am the authority here."

"Exactly." Marcie stated.

"Exactly." John repeated, claiming his land.

Then the thought built into an idea.

"That's right. I am the authority here."

"Exactly." Marcie stated again. "Now, you've got the idea and I didn't have to break any deals to get you there."

"Marcie?" John started.

"Yes, John."

"Would you have broken a deal to help me?"

"It was part of my plan, if it came to that. I was kind of hoping it wouldn't. But if it did, I was hoping I could convince the Creator of Life that I was keeping my deal with you and that the Keeper's deal was wrongly made."

"Thank you, Marcie." John was truly thankful. "And I would have gone before the Creator of Life to plead your cause, too."

"It may still come to that." Marcie announced.

"How so?"

"The Keeper demanded that we cut all connection to you with the Mist."

"But we have a connection of our own. I am part of the Mist. You said so. How can he say one part of the Mist can not connect with another part?"

"He can't. Legally. But if you do not complain or can not complain, like locked away somewhere he controls, he can get away with it."

"What's that mean for you, if I fail and he wins?"

"I'm afraid he can do whatever he wants with me, then. He'll control this section of the Mist plane."

"Then we can not allow him to win." John said it as a fact, not a boast or a false claim.

"I'm betting on you, John. Do what you do best."

"Which is?"

"Out think him. Use the holes in his deals to break up his plan. To defeat you he can not kill you. He has to control you and he can only do that by keeping you in his area of authority somehow. If he kills you, you can choose to come into the Mist or to the Creator of Life Himself, since you have a connection with him since Kathy's situation. He'll keep you alive somehow. Then, he can claim the deals any way he desires."

"I thought I couldn't choose Mist if I died inside the Cabin?"

That was before you had a relationship with the Creator of Life. He has the ability to send you anywhere you choose at your death, now. He will be one of those who gather if you die now."

John nodded his understanding.

"So, how do I get in?"

Chapter Thirteen

John found the rock leaning up against the stone foundation of the old cabin and moved it just the way Marcie had described. Before him the ground opened up with a startling yawn of giant proportions. Instead of a long staircase down, there was now a dual set of spiral stone steps leading down into the earth.

"Any idea which one to choose?" John asked Marcie.

"The Keeper always goes down the one on the left." Marcie answered. "Where he goes after that is anyone's guess."

"He still keeps the Mist out of the Cabin?"

"Yes."

John approached the left staircase and looked down into its dark interior. He felt a chill go up his spine and noticed the cloud in his mind was very close. Momentarily he congratulated himself on being right about where the trouble lay. Then reality set in and he did not feel so elated about being right. For the first time since he had last sat in chapel at college, he prayed.

"Jesus, however you may be a part of my life, in whatever capacity or reality and correctness, which I lay no claim to fully understanding, I sure could use your help right now. If you ever helped my father, I would love for you to help me."

"You sound unsure of yourself, John." Marcie suggested. "Maybe you should not go."

"The only thing I am sure of, Marcie, is that I must go."

"Remember your connections, John. You never travel alone."

With that, John stepped down on the first step of the spiral staircase he had chosen. He could feel the electrical surge of the spiritual atmosphere of the underground hideout surging through his body. Marcie had been right. This place was far more elaborate and the sense of the Keeper's power much stronger. He hoped he was up to this. Not that it mattered. Somehow he had been chosen by some turn of events or situations to be here. He had not run when Kathy's life was at stake. He would not run this time, either. Rita was down there somewhere. Rita and a seven year old child. They were both probably scared out of their wits, not believing that anyone could rescue them from this nightmare.

A gentle anger built in his mind as he descended the steps to the bottom. Darkness enveloped him about halfway down and he continued using his left foot to check the step before placing his weight on it. He had visions of the steps disappearing at some point and stepping off into nothingness. But if the Keeper had come this way, there had to be a path to the hostages, too. They were physical bodies that had to be carried or forced along down here.

Ten minutes later, John found the bottom. A soft light from further along the passage landed close enough to the steps to show the end of the downward path. Keeping the past experiences in this Cabin at the forefront of his mind, John admitted to himself he had no idea where the Keeper would confront him. It would happen. He had no doubt the Keeper knew he was there. He was connected to the Mist. He was Lord of this Cabin plane. He knew.

John thought ahead along the tunnel path in the stone and searched for Rita or the child who had been abducted. Nothing. Darkness ahead. That was what greeted his mind. He searched for the Keeper. It felt like a bad move at first, similar to a boxer leaning into an uppercut, but he knew of nothing else to try.

Two more turns in the passageway and he felt the stirrings of Rita's energy. They had made a connection when he pulled her through the cloud. He remembered the way she felt. Actually, when he felt the stirring he recalled what it felt like when he had grabbed on to Rita. He had no connection to the child so he could not sense her. He hoped that she was with Rita. At least then, Rita could offer some comfort to the scared child.

He searched again for the Keeper of the Cabin. Nothing. He had to be blocking the connection. Or maybe the change the Keeper had undergone changed the connection they had from their earlier confrontation. John was guessing. This was new territory for him.

Continuing along the passageway, John promised himself that after this he was going to make sure this Cabin was never used again. This was his land. He was the authority here. He never gave his permission for this Cabin to be there, in the spiritual or the physical.

"And what makes you think you are the authority in my house?" The voice was unmistakably the Keepers in his head.

John stopped walking.

"Let them go, Keeper. We had a deal. You were to leave and never come back here." John tried the obvious even though he had heard the argument against it already.

A storm of sand pelted him. Stinging grains of sand smashed against him and drove him back against the stone wall cowering against the onslaught of tiny sand pellets. He could hear a howling sound, like so many souls enraged at his presence. For a long minute the sand pushed at him, pinning him to the wall. Then it ceased.

John shook the grains of loose sand from his clothing and stood upright in the passageway again. Before him stood a sand sculpture of a human form. The Keeper was tall and strong looking. His eyes burned with a fierce fire that John could not place. Nothing earthly, that was for sure. The smile on the figure's face bordered on the maniacal. John had seen it before. It was definitely the Keeper.

"Why have you come here?" The Keeper was shouting in John's head.

"This is my land."

"So? I have built this for myself and you have no deal with me any more since you let my daughter die."

The Keeper referred to his former relationship with John's now dead wife, Kathy. John was resolute that nothing was going to sidetrack him from his current mission. Retrieve the abducted people.

"You tried to kill me with your control over Paul. You have invaded my land. You are the one who is trespassing. You have no deal with the authority of this land to even be here."

"And who would that be?" The Keeper was still shouting in John's head, trying to disrupt his flow of thought.

"Me!" John shouted back from his head just as loudly. "This is my place, my authority zone. You are an uninvited guest here, who is trying to take it away from me. You shall not succeed."

"The Keeper chuckled. His laughter shook the walls of his underground passage. You are such a puny thing in my world, John. Why can you not see that you are overmatched here?"

"If we were talking physical existence, I might agree with you, Keeper."

"Call me, Kul."

"Kul?"

"That is how I am known, now."

"Whatever. We're not exactly going to be friends I don't think."

"To bad. I was hoping you would consider joining me."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because the alternative is subservience in the Sand."

The storm of sand raised up again and attacked John, driving him to cover his face and lean back into the wall. When the storm once again died down, John shook the grains of loose sand from his clothes and looked around. Gone.

"Kul!" John shouted in his head. "You can't run from me."

"Who's running, boy?" The answer came sharp and biting to him.

John sought out his connections again. Something was blocking him from determining anything. He knew it was Kul or the Keeper or whoever he was.

"You can not hide, either." John warned the Keeper.

"Not hiding, boy. Just waiting."

"For what?"

"For you to stop wearying me."

"I want you off my property," John said.

"So what?" Kul responded.

"I'm making a spiritual complaint. You are trespassing. This is my area of authority because I have purchased the land in the physical, human plane. I have the authority to decide what this land is used for."

"My realm is in the spiritual. It transcends your precious land of the physical."

John thought about that a moment and continued moving along the passageway deeper into the Cabin plane. The Cabin was definitely in the spiritual plane that the Keeper had created to hide from the Creator of Life and the punishment he would be subjected to for the wrongs he had committed.

"Your precious Cabin has an opening in my area of authority. On my land."

"So what, you insignificant, puny human."

John ignored the obvious jibe.

"So, I hereby revoke your ability to come and go on my land."

"You can't do that?"

"Why not?" John asked and kept moving toward where he sensed the Keeper hiding.

"Because I was here first."

"You had no deal to be here in the first place." John reminded him. "You were trespassing then and you are trespassing now."

"So?"

"So, I am revoking whatever privileges you have stolen and claiming them for myself. This is my land, my authority. You must submit to the authority of an area. Anything you do against that authority is a break in the deal which gives me authority in the first place."

"What makes you think I am worried about breaking a deal, now? If you push me from this Cabin, I am at the mercy of the Keeper of the Place of Chains. If you remember right, I built this place to avoid that fate."

"I remember." John admitted. "I also remember I gave you a chance to go away and stay away without subjecting you to that fate. This time I will not allow such a way out."

"Allow?" The Keeper's bellowing anger was a hot wind blowing down the passageway, driving sand and other debris of the passageway against John's cowering body.

"Who are you to allow me anything?" The voice kept bellowing and the sand storm continued blasting against John's hunkered down form.

"I am the authority of this land." John held his ground. It was all he had. If he relinquished it, he was finished.

"Careful, boy. If you chase this construction I have so carefully built away, where will it leave your precious Rita and that child."

John had not thought of that. He had not considered that he could make the Cabin go away. He had moved under the assumption that he would shut it down and bring the captives out unharmed. But Kul had given him another thought. The girls were underground. If the Cabin ceased to exist, the girls would be trapped in the earth when it returned to its normal physical state. They would die.

John searched again for the connection he had with Rita. He thought he felt it and then it was gone. Kul again. Either he had lost his control for a moment or John was getting close enough to make contact no matter what Kul was doing to block him.

"Leave boy, or I will bury them here." Kul demanded.

"To do that, you have to submit yourself to the Keeper of the Place of Chains. I'm betting you're not going to do that."

"You're willing to risk that?"

John thought about the question for a second before answering.

"No choice. If I give in to you, I lose forever. If I don't, you lose forever. You'll pay for your actions and the Creator of Life will take care of your victims."

John felt a wavering in the block against him seeking Rita. She was close. He could actually see her in his mind. He chanced it and reached out for her puling himself to her.

"No!" Kul's roar was deafening and the ensuing sand storm was the worst yet.

John covered Rita's unconscious form and saw the form of an unconscious child nearby. Through the sting of the sand flying around the small room, he reached out and pulled the inert form of the child under him, also. The roaring voices in the swirling, driving sand particles complained against the rage of his intrusion in their world. It was a howling sound that made a winter blizzard seem like a gentle breeze.

The sting of the sand made it hard to concentrate but John had no choice. He had to concentrate if he was going to return the child to her mother. As much as he felt he and Rita would be okay if their lives ended there right then, he also knew the child would be okay, too. But he could not shake the sight of the mother crying and wailing for the return of her child back in the campground. That memory drove him to fight for the child's return. The physical world needed its champion and he was it.

With a final push on his much depleted energy level, John remembered the outside of the Cabin and pushed himself, pulling the two unconscious people in his grasp after him. They landed softly in the pine needles outside the Cabin.

"No!" Kul's rage threw sand and pine needles and sticks and other debris of the wood around them.

John held his position covering and protecting his charges. He felt the sting of the sand and the pricks of the pine needles being propelled along at immense speeds. The sticks were like clubs pounding away at his grip sapping his attentions and what little energy he felt he had left.

"I revoke the ability of this Cabin and all the deals that supported it to remain in my woods!" John gave the shout his all. He spoke it aloud and for all to hear. "I am the owner of this land. I decide who abides here. I decide that the Keeper of the Cabin has no right to be here and all his spiritual construction is hereby denied any right to exist here. This is my land. Be gone, all who abide here unlawfully."

The sand storm quit. The woods settled back to their normal quiet. John lifted his head and looked around. Dawn was coming. The grayness of the air around them testified to the coming of the sun on its daily cycle. John blew a slow breath through his lips and took inventory of his body. Pain. Stinging pain met his every concentration. Wherever he thought to check himself stung from the sand blasting he had taken.

Lifting himself up further, he looked down at Rita and the child he had rescued. Rita was stirring.

"What's happening?" Rita's voice was as John remembered it from all those days ago. It had only been a little more than a year but he thought about it more along the lines of ages.

"You're okay." John assured her. "You're safe."

He wondered how much she remembered of what had happened. Would she even know what had gone on while she was unconscious? He decided to wait to hear what she would say before he told her anything.

"Where am I?" She asked looking around in obvious confusion.

"This is my campground," John answered her initial query. He had to tell her something.

Rita stared hard at John and fought with some idea that was shaking around in her head. In an instant she seemed to get a handle on it and she lunged forward, putting her arms around John's neck and pulling him down on top of her.

"John!" She said loudly. "You did save me. I thought it was a dream. I called out to you and you saved me."

Releasing him slightly, Rita looked around her environment again. Confusion came back into her face.

"How?"

"It's a long story, Rita." John shook himself free of her grasp which she relinquished regrettably.

"You'll have to explain it to me sometime," Rita smiled at him as she saw him move and bend over the form of the little girl.

"Who's she?" Rita asked indicating the still form of the child.

"A little girl whose mother and father are looking for her."

"Is she okay?" Rita moved over to examine the child, too.

"She's breathing." John answered. "Let's get her out of here and get a doctor to look at her."

Rita stood with John as he lifted the child. She followed him with her hand on his arm as he led the way through the woods to his camper. He was keenly aware that she was still naked. John felt her touch and smiled to himself. He searched the clouds and saw nothing. No danger anywhere in any direction. He walked on.

When they made it to the camper, John told Rita where she could find some of Kathy's clothes inside. He had not touched them since she last had put them away. He told her he would wait outside until she got dressed.

When Rita came out the camper door wearing Kathy's clothes, his mind revolted a little. Those were Kathy's things. He fought it down and told her she looked great. Then she joined him on the ground and they turned up the road, back toward the campground. As they topped the rise, John searched for Marcie or Kathy. Nothing. He had not felt the familiar tingle of the Mist as he walked through its area either. He had not thought of that.

The Mist was there because the Keeper of the Cabin had made a deal for it to be there. When he sent all the spiritual construction of the Keeper away, he had not thought about sending the Mist away also. He had been intent on revoking the rights of the Cabin to exist on his property. He forgot that it was the Keeper's Cabin deal that brought the Mist there in the first place.

The thought of Kathy and Marcie being gone saddened him. He had won the battle but he had lost the war. Losing Kathy before had been hard. But he had always known she was in the Mist. He could always call upon her, almost like she was still there.

Tears filled his eyes and he tried to blink them away. Rita held onto his arm and followed him diligently not fully understanding what was happening but knowing that somehow, John had saved her from an almost sure death at the hands of her Paul. When they reached the roadway, he stumbled trying to shift the weight of the child in his tired arms. She caught him and pulled him upright. He smiled at her through tear filmed eyes and thanked her for her help.

"Kathy!" he screamed in his head. "Marcie!" There must still be a connection. He was fighting down the panic he felt.

"There is."

It was a strange voice that filled his head. It sounded like running water, yet more like lots of running water trickling over rocks and splashing into small pools.

"Huh?" John was surprised.

"There is always a connection to where you've been and even to where you are going if you can see that far."

"Who?" John was startled at this strange voice. "Who are you?" he thought.

"I am the Creator of Love. You called upon me before you went into the Cabin."

"Jesus?"

"That is one name among many that I have through the planes."

"Are my friends in the Mist gone?"

"They are where they have always been, John. You claimed back your land revoking the privilege of the Mist to operate there."

"I understand that. Will I ever see them again?"

"They are where they have always been John. Keep seeking your connections with this world and the planes around you and you will know the truth of connection as never before."

"So, I can contact them again?"

"When you learn the path. May I make a suggestion, though?"

"Sure."

"Pay attention to what's hanging on your arm now."

"Rita? What about Paul?"

"He was part of the Keeper's construction. He disintegrated into the sand that he was as soon as you revoked the rights of Kul on your property."

"He's dead?"

"He was already dead. Kul had given him artificial life to trick him into doing his bidding."

"Why do you let things like this happen?" John asked the universal question.

"The rules of the universe and all the planes are set. Some may break them and escape the consequences for a time. Eventually all things come full circle and those who do wrong must pay the price. Kul paid the price. Right always triumphs over wrong. Unfortunately, he tricked Paul into following him and now Paul will pay a price alongside Kul."

"But you could stop the wrong before it happens." John thought of the wrong that took Kathy from him.

"I could, but then everyone would be living what I wanted and not what they want. Choice is a big thing, John. Without it, there can really be no happiness. Love can not exist without choice."

"Seems like maybe there should be some kind of spiritual police to keep things in order."

"Why? You did just fine. Keep up the good work, John. Be not weary in well doing."

"Ha, ha." John smiled to himself. "You sound like my father now."

"Where do you think he got it?"

Rita stumbled on a root and grabbed John's arm to keep herself upright. He steadied her and kept his footing so the child would not fall out of his arms.

"We're even now." She smiled up into his face as he turned to make sure she was okay.

"John!" The call came from up the road on the rise. Detective Mercer.

Suddenly John felt tired. Like someone had opened a flood gate and all the energy in his legs just floated out. He slowed his steps as he saw Mercer running to get to him. Someone he could relinquish the rest of the responsibility to.

"Good job, son." He heard the detective yelling as he closed in on their position.

"Well done, good and faithful servant," John heard another voice in his head. Funny. The voice sounded like his father's.

