The Summoning

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Robert strode up the Cement walk. Like a lot of single old men, Hillman insisted on wearing the hip clothes of the last fashion cycle, which somehow made him look more pathetic and out of it than if he had simply worn the fashions of his own era. Robert had always felt a little sorry for the caretaker, who had never seemed to him to be a particularly happy or well-adjusted man, and he felt even sorrier for him now.

"Gentlemen," Robert said, nodding his greeting as he stepped onto the porch.

"I don't know how it could've happened!" Hillman said. "I swear to God!" His voice was higher than usual, his words spoken too rapidly, and Robert realized that he was not only worried but badly frightened.

"What happened?" . Stu closed the notebook in which he'd been writing. "He says he locked the gate at nine, the way he always does, and everything was fine. He called out and shone his flashlight around, to make sure no one was still inside the cemetery, then he came back home. He took a shower and, when he went to close his drapes, noticed that the cemetery gates were open. He got dressed, walked across the street to investigate, saw that the graves had been dug up and called the station."

"That was exactly how it happened!"

"Within an hour? All of those graves were dug up within a single hour?"

"I swear to God, everything was normal when I closed up at nine."

"Let's go out and take a look," Robert said.

Stu nodded. "We were just waiting for you."

"Do you need me to come?" Hillman asked. "Couldn't I just stay here--"

"We'd like you to come with us, Mr. Hillman."

The old man nodded, not daring to argue, and closed the screen door.

The four men trekked across the street, Robert in the lead. "Does the cemetery have any lights? We'll radio for some portable high-intensities, but until then I don't want to wear down our batteries."

"We have floodlights, but they're not very strong. Not as strong as yours." .: . "Turn them on anyway. We'll use one car at a time." He nodded toward Stu. "Turn your beams off."

Robert and Ted stood at the gates of the cemetery as Stu ran over to the cruiser and Hillman knelt next to a black box on the ground. From this angle, the tall saguaros behind and to either side of the graveyard looked like alien sentries standing stiffly at attention.

The halogens suddenly snapped off, leaving Robert's now off-center beams the only illumination. The powerful white spots shone strongly on the left portion of the cemetery, making the larger right part of the graveyard seem even darker. There were shadows within shadows, oddly formed sections of blackness amidst the rubble and de bris. A moment later, the cemetery floodlights came on. They were indeed as poor as Hillman had indicated, mounted on the fence at regular intervals and weakly shining on small segments of ground with a faded yellowish glow.

Robert walked slowly through the wrought-iron gates into the cemetery.

All of this in an hour? It was unbelievable, but he had no doubt that Hillman had been speaking the truth. Whatever else he might be, the caretaker was not a liar.

That's what was so frightening.

Robert looked carefully around, stunned by the thoroughness of the desecration. Between the time Hillman had closed the gates and called the station, nearly a him dred gravesites had been torn apart, their contents unearthed and discarded. The partial skeleton of what appeared to be a small child lay atop the dirt mound in front of him.

The not-quite-decomposed body of an old man lay folded over itself to his side.

He continued forward, skirting the holes, rounding the mounds, Ted and Stu following. Stu had brought a flash light from the car, and he shone it randomly about. The most horrifying thing was that Robert recognized several of the corpses. Lying atop an irregular pile of chunked dirt he saw Connor Pittman, the contours of his young face still visible even after the years of degeneration, the patchy filaments of his hair a parody of his once long blond locks. When the boy had died of a freak heart attack on the school track, Robert had come with the ambulance and helped load the body onto the stretcher.

Connor had seemed dead to him then, his body nothing more than a discarded vessel from which the soul had fled. But looking at him now, seeing echoes of the teenager he had been in the staring fright mask of a face, Robert was struck by what little change death had really wrought. He found himself thinking morbidly that perhaps there was no such thing as a soul, no mystical invisible essence of being that left the body at the instant of death. Perhaps whatever it was that made a living thing alive died when the body died and simply lay used and spent within the decomposing form of its biological host.

His gaze moved on, and he saw Putter Phillips and Lavinia Bullfinch and Terry Feenan. The most jarring sight to him was Sally Hicks. Or rather, her head. Sally had died of a heart attack a few years back, and her family had insisted on an open casket funeral. He'd hated to admit it, but she'd looked nearly as good in death as she had in life.

Now her head, rolled onto its side, sat alone near the base of a century plant, skin peeling off in patchy flakes, black lips curled over her once beautiful mouth in a permanent gap-toothed sneer.

There were low, scuttling sounds in the darkness, but whether they were caused by lizards and beetles or by the slight breeze that blew from the north, Robert didn't know. He did know that the breeze was not strong enough to dispel the odor of death, decay, and mortuary chemicals that hung thickly over the cemetery. He, Stu, and Ted all had their hands over their noses, but the stench had so heavily permeated the, air that they could taste it. Stu, to his left, spit continuously. Ted closed his eyes, trying bravely not to let the smell affect him, but was soon gagging. A moment later he bent over and threw up loudly next to a spiny cholla.

Robert felt like retching himself, but he willed himself not to. He turned around, looking for Hillman, and saw the caretaker standing just inside the gate, next to one of the lights. He was about to walk back toward the old man, when he looked down at the broken red-finished wood of a smashed coffin and the realization suddenly hit him: all of the graves had been dug up.

All of them.

His head jerked instantly to the left, his eyes easily picking out the familiar spot, even with the altered topography. There, in the far corner, next to two smashed caskets, a broken skeleton had been tossed over a thin, partially clothed wraith. '

Dad and Mom.

He took a step toward that section of the cemetery, then stopped.

Fingers still pinching shut his nostrils, he took a deep breath, tasting death. He did not want to get any closer. He did not want to see. Already the familiar, healthy figures of his parents, so lovingly preserved in his memory, were being superseded in his mind by the two callously mistreated corpses in the dark corner of the desecrated graveyard,

He stood there trembling. The sanctity of his parents' memory, the dignity of their deaths, the privacy of his own feelings had been violated, and the fear he had felt was replaced by anger and outrage..:: Whoever had done this was going to pay.

He knew he should call Rich, let him know what had happened. But he didn't want to call his brother. He wanted to protect him from this, to spare him, although he knew that was impossible.

He closed his eyes. When they were little, he ten and Rich five, he'd found the dead body of their cocker spaniel Roger in the ditch in front of their house one morning. Roger had obviously been hit by a car and had dragged himself out of the road and into the ditch, where he'd died during the night. The dog's black and white fur was matted with drying blood, blood so red that it looked like . catsup, and there was a wet streak of smeared dirt on the road where the dog had pulled himself forward.

The loss of Roger had hit him hard, and he'd wanted to run back inside and tell Morn and Dad and have them somehow make everything okay, but he'd known that, this time, everything would not be okay, cod not be okay, and he'd sat down on the edge of the ditch and cried, for Roger, for himself, for his parents, and, mostly, for Rich, who'd loved the dog more than anything else in the world.

He had buried the dog himself, not telling his parents, not telling Rich, preferring to let them think that Roger had simply run away. He'd placed branches and dead leaves over the dog's twisted lifeless form in the ditch that morning and had returned at night alone, picking up the hard bony body, the gluey blood sticking to his hands, and carrying the dog out to a spot in the surrounding desert near a particularly large saguaro where he'd already !idug a hole.

He had never told anyone the truth, and forever afterward Rich and his parents had believed that Roger had run away and had not come back because he had found another friendly family to live with. They had never given up the hope of getting Roger back, had always thought they would run into him someday in town or hear his bark from someone else's backyard, for years had even made weekly pilgrimages to the small corral behind the vet's that passed for a pound in Rio Verde, but of course they had never found the dog. He had successfully spared them the horrible truth of Roger's death.

But he could not spare Rich this.

Robert opened his eyes, glanced back toward his men. Ted, especially, looked stricken, and Robert remembered that the young patrolman had lost his own mother a few years back.

She was doubtlessly one of the disinterred corpses now littering the landscape.

"Ted?" he asked. "You want to take a breather?"

The patrolman shook his head. "I'm fine." He ran a hind through his short brown hair. "Who you figure'd do something like this?

I ::" "I don't know," Robert admitted.

Stu looked toward them, the flashlight pointing down at his feet.

"Where do we start? I mean, do we dust the tombstones for fingerprints?"

"We look for tire tracks in the road. We take soil samples.

Footprints should be our best bet. Whoever did this had to walk out of here. He had to step on this dirt somewhere."

"Unless he flew." Stu's voice was quiet.

"Knock that crap off." Robert looked from Stu to Ted.

Both were pale, frightened. They were just kids, he realized Hell, out of all his men, only he and Ben had any life experience to speak of. The rest of them were just... babes in the woods.

He was just being overprotective. Equally young cops in inner cities dealt with worse things than this all the time. But he didn't know those young cops in inner cities. To him, they were faceless men in blue uniforms, like the police on TV crime shows, somehow better trained, more mature, and more competent than his own men. He did know Stu and Ted. They were good men, good cops-good small-town cops--but they had never had to face something like this.

On the other, hand, neither had he.

"What are we going to do about the bodies?" Hillman asked from behind him.

' Robert turned to face the caretaker. He felt tired all of a sudden and realized that it must be getting close to midnight. "After we're through with our investigation, we'll hire some men to re dig the graves and return the bodies to their proper plots."

"How'll we tell who's who?"

"We'll have family members come out and identify the.." remains. If that doesn't work, and if we can't tell by the placement, we'll have to go by dental records." He nodded toward the corner. "My parents are over there." No one spoke.

Robert bent down to examine the body closest to him, an ancient skeleton wearing the rotted remnants of a dress. He found himself focusing his attention on the ex posed left femur. The bone had been snapped in half. Frowning, he motioned Hillman over. "Is this usual?

Do bones usually break like this?"

The caretaker dropped to his knees and squinted at the skeleton's leg.

"I can't really say. My job is just to take care of the cemetery grounds. I don't know nothing about the bodies."

"Maybe it broke that way when she fell out," Ted offered Robert shook his head. "I don't think so. Look at how the body's positioned. It's been taken out of its coffin and deliberately placed here. That leg hasn't even been bent How could the bone have broken?" Stu climbed a small dirt mound nearby. "Come here," he said.

They followed him. His flashlight shone on the femur of another skeleton. This one, too, had been broken. ""Looks like we have a pattern here." His flashlight beam moved on to another corpse lying next to an open new coffin on the other side of the mound, ii

Hillman gasped. '3esus."

Robert moved quickly forward, sliding down the pile of dirt, the others following. The body at his feet, though fully clothed and obviously interred only recently, had been shriveled and shrunk and bore an uncanny and uncomfortable resemblance to Manuel Torres's exsanguinated corpse. The same wrinkled parchment skin clung moisturelessly to the skull, the same deflated lips surrounded the overly toothy mouth. It was Caleb Peterson, Robert realized. He'd forgotten that old Caleb had been buried last week. He'd read about it in the paper, but he hadn't known the miner that well and hadn't gone to the funeral.

Only Caleb looked as though he'd died decades--not days---ago.

Robert put forth a tentative finger. The skin he touched was dry and brittle. -J The vampire had smelled fresh meat.

He pushed the thought from his mind. "Ted," he said. "Get on the radio to the station. I wantJud out here with a camera. Get Woods here too. I want a medical opinion on this."

"Yes, sir."

"And see if we can use Globe's K-9."

[ , "You're not going to want to hear this," Stu said quietly.

"But I think it was a vampire."

Hillman nodded fearfully. "I think so too."

"Don't be stupid."

"Stupid? This whole place was uprooted. In an hour.

Mr. Peterson's body has been sucked dryB"

"The vampire got a mouthful of embalming fluid then."

"Those bones were broken open because he was looking for the marrow."

Robert kept his face as impassive as possible. "We're here for ten minutes, we haven't even started our investigation, and already you're jumping to conclusions. Idiotic conclusions, I might add." You don't think all this is weird? Mr. Torres--"

"Yes, it's weird. But we don't know what's doing this, and until we do know, I want you to keep your mouth shut. There are going to be enough rumors as it is. I don't want any of them to originate with the police department.

You got that? If you have theories, you keep them to your self."

"Are you going to tell your brother?"

Robert glared at him. "Yes, I am. I think he has a right to know since his parents are lying over there with their graves dug up."

Stu looked down at the ground. "Sorry. I just meant that, since he's on the paper and all---"

"I know exactly what you meant. Now if you don't think you can handle this investigation without blaming every thing on monsters, I'll get Steve out here and assign you to the desk."

"I can handle it."

"I hope so." Robert looked at the young officer, then sighed. "While we're waiting, why don't you take Mr. Hillman's statement."

"Why? Am I a suspect? I swear to God, I didn't do itw" "You're not a suspect. But you're the closest thing we have to a witness. We just have to record what you saw and when you saw it."

He blinked. "Oh. Okay."

Robert stood alone next to Caleb's dehydrated body and empty coffin as Stand and the old man headed back through the cemetery toward the caretaker's house.

Looking for bone marrow.

The idea made sense.

Shivering, he looked again at the tight, grinning face of the corpse.

There was the sound, far off, of a coyote howling. A cliched noise at a cliched time, but it did its work, and the peach fuzz on the back of his neck bristled, turning into goose bumps on his arms.

Turning to face the bright beams of the car, he followed the others out of the cemetery.

It was time to call Pdch.

Sue stood for a moment in the middle of Center Street, looking at the front of the newspaper office. Stenciled white lettering in a rainbow curve on the window read: " RIO VERDE GAZE TITE Beneath that, the chipped and faded ghosts of previous letters could be seen on the dusty glass. A lone pickup was parked next to the door.

She had passed by the newspaper office plenty of times but had never really noticed it before. It was located in one of the nearly identical sandstone brick buildings that made up most of the town's business district, lost amidst the proliferation of lawyers' offices, insurance offices, real estate offices, and title companies. Across the street was a small house that had been turned into a bauty salon, and next to that a metal quonset hut that was home to the American Legion Thrift Store.

She walked slowly across the asphalt, wondering if CarterRichwas watching her through the window. She felt exposed and a little embarrassed, and she wished she'd had her father drop her off farther away. Her palms were sweaty, and she wiped them on her jeans. Jeans?

She glanced down at her pants. She should have worn some thing dressier the first day. A skirl A nice blouse. Earrings. Jewelry.

At least she'd thought to put on makeup.

The door to the office opened, and Rich walked across the hard dirt parking lot toward her. He had been watching. "Hello," he said. "I'm glad you're here."

"Hi." Sue nodded at him. He looked tired, she thought. The other night, at the school, he'd seemed vigorously healthy, but now there were dark circles around his red-rimmed eyes, and his face seemed thinner, though she knew that he could not have lost weight since Thursday. His clothes were wrinkled enough to have been slept in.

He must have caught her looking at him and correctly interpreted the expression on her face, because he gave her a wan grin. "Forgive my appearance. I'm not usually this seedy, but I've been up most of the night. The graves at the cemetery were all dug up, and I had to cover the story. I was at the cemetery until one, and then I went back home to write the article." He cleared his throat, and his smile faded.

"Also, two of the graves were my parents'."

"I'm sorry." Sue looked away, not knowing what to say. She focused her gaze on an oversize bee de scuttling across the dirt. "You know, if this is inconvenient, I could come back another tim em

"Inconvenient? You're a lifesaver. I need someone right now." Sue licked her lips. "I'm not sure how much help I'll

"Don't worry about it. I'll teach you what you need to know. Right now, I'll take you on a tour of the facilities." He opened the door and stepped aside to let her in.

Inside, the newspaper office seemed bigger than it looked from the street. Next to the window was a low naugahyde couch and a wire rack filled with copies of last week's edition. Across from the couch, a kindly looking old lady sat behind an overlarge desk sorting through what looked like bills or invoices. There was a modular room divider in back of the woman's chair, and a cat calendar and various photos of cats clipped from magazines were tacked to the fabric wall. Over the top of the divider, she could see into the room beyond.

"This," Rich said, gesturing elaborately toward the old lady, "is Carole Taylor. My right arm. She mans--or womans, or persons--the front desk, answers all phone calls, deals with all walk-ins, is in charge of circulation and billing, and does many other things too numerous for me to mention and too complicated for me to understand."

Carole giggled. "Knock it off, Rich." She smiled at Sue.

"How are you, dear?" "Fine."

"Rich never has been able to do a proper introduction.

You're Susan Wing?"

"Yes. Sue."

"Well, I'm glad that you're here. We're both glad that you're here."

Sue immediately liked the woman. She had a soft, al most musical, voice and a natural air of friendliness. She looked the way Sue had always imagined Santa's wife would look: white hair in a bun, plump happy face, small wire-rimmed spectacles.

Rich walked behind the desk and put an arm around Carole's shoulder.

"If you have any questions about any thing and I'm not here, ask Carole. Come to think of it, even if I am here, ask Carole."

The old woman giggled again.

The editor walked around the side of the room divider, motioning for Sue to follow. "Enter the newsroom."

The "newsroom" was not as glamorous as she'd thought it would be. In fact, it seemed depressingly mundane, even slightly run down, looking more like the tired office of a failing realtor than the bus ding information vortex she'd seen in cinematic newsrooms. Four parallel rectangles of fluorescent light were inset into the stucco ceiling. One of the bulbs in the middle rectangle had burned out, and while there was no lessening of illumination, the darkened light bar added to the office's overall air of shabbiness. She followed Rich across the faded gray carpet. There were only three desks and one table, all piled high with mail and typing paper. A third table lay overturned against the wall to the left, a clamp on one of its upward-pointing legs. Adjacent to the largest desk was a small stand on top of which was situated a computer terminal.

Two open black doorways disrupted the otherwise perfect white of the back brick wall.

"It's not much, but it's home."

Sue nodded, saying nothing.

"You were expecting "Lou Grant'?"

She reddened. "No, it's not that . ,. "Of course not. Look, I know this place doesn't look great. But you'll get used to it. It's like a cheap car. It'll get you where you want to go."

Sue gave him a halfhearted smile,

"Over here is my desk." He walked over to the large desk with the adjacent computer. "Over there'mhe pointed toward the desk with the least amount of clutter' is where you'll be working. The other desk is Jim Fredricks's."

"How many people work here?" . "You're looking at 'em. This is strictly a two-man operation--or a two-man-one-woman operation, now that you're here. Jim works part time and covers sports. Four or tve people contribute weekly' columns and, of course, we print letters, but all of the news stories, features, and editorials are written by me."

"Why did the other person quit, the person before me?"

"My wife? She got a job at the Church of... at Pastor Wheeler's church."

"Oh."

"Do you know Pastor Wheeler?"

She shook her head.

"I don't either. Anyway, this is it. This is the Gazette. A few years ago, we did have another reporter, a kid about your age from the U of/L Tad Pullen.i don't know if you remember reading his byline. It was just about breaking us to keep him on. As I'm sure you've noticed, there's very little real news in Rio Verde. There's also very little real advertising. The Gazette is not a big moneymaking operation. Tad eventually found a job up in Flagstaff." Sue nodded.

A kid about her age.

Other people her age had already graduated from college, were already starting careers, and here she was, still living at home, still clearing tables, taking night courses that didn't have enough people to keep them open. The optimistic enthusiasm she'd felt when she'd awakened this morning had entirely dissipated.

Rich put his hand on top of the computer. "We have only the one VDT, so if you're going to be m'waiting articles for us, this is where the deed will be done. Of course, you can write your original out in long-hand or on a typewriter at home, whatever makes you feel comfortable, but you'll eventually have to retype it on the VDT because this is where we put your story on disk. We'll then take the disk over to the Compugraphic, which prints out a camera ready copy." He nodded toward one of the open doors in the back wall. "Come on, I'll show you."

They walked across the worn carpet to the doorway. Rich went in front, flipped on a light. "Pasteup."

Sue glanced around. The entire left side of the room was taken up by two upward slanting tables with tops of cloudy glass. Against the facing wall was a huge blue machine on top of which was situated a strange black object that resembled an overlarge film canister.

"The Compugraphic," Rich said, following her gaze.

He walked over, flipped up a corner panel of the machine, and placed the black canister in the niche. He shut the panel. "Your disk will go here," he said, pointing toward a narrow horizontal slot next to a series of square green and red buttons. "We flip the switch, there are some noises and gyrations, and, voila, exposed paper rolls into that black doohickey I just put inside there. We take that to the darkroom, put it in another machine, and camera ready copy comes out." He moved beside a flat table to the left of the Compugraphic, touching a low silver object that looked like a rolling pin welded to a paper cutter.

"We wax the copy here, and paste it up on the light tables. Once the entire newspaper is pasted up, it goes to the printer.

"Any questions?

Sue shook her head.

"Don't worry. You won't be tested on this. I just wanted to acquaint you with the place. You'll have plenty of opportunity to learn how everything works later."

Rich led the way out of the room, shutting off the lights behind them.

He peered into the next doorway over. "Darkroom," he said. "Not much to see there." He reached in, closed the door. "And that's it. That's the tour." The two of them walked back to Rich's desk. He seated himself behind the desk, motioned for her to take the metal folding chair opposite. "Now the question is, do you still want to go through with this, or do you want to quit?"

"Drop the, class? Never."

"Good." He picked up a round piece of flat white plastic, spun the smaller concentric circle attached to it, reading the numbers on the edge of the circle. "Do you know how to work a pica wheel?" She shook her head.

"Do you know what a pica wheel is?"

"No."

"Do you know what a pica is?"

"No. I thought this was going to be a beginning class."

"It was, it was. But the lesson plans have changed.

Which is probably to your advantage. You're going to get a crash course covering beginning, intermediate, and advanced journalism. Only instead of learning the subject the way the book says you're supposed to, you'll be picking up things as needed. Your academic journalism may suffer, but you'll learn what it takes to put out a real news paper. When you do get into a regular class, you'll be way ahead of everyone else. By the way, did you bring that writing sample I asked for?"

"I couldn't find anything," she admitted. "But I did write a short story about my parents' restaurant."

"Short story?" He frowned.

"Nonfiction." , ...... "Then it's an article, not a short story. First lesson: terminology."

"Should I write that down? Should I be taking notes?" "Not unless you want to."

"So what is this exactly? A job or a class?"

"Both."

Sue sighed. "I told my parents it's a class. They think there's a field trip today to the newspaper. I didn't tell them that's what was happening, but I sort of let them think it. I should've corrected them, but..." She shook her head. "My father will be cool, as long as it doesn't affect my work at the restaurant, but I'm not sure what my mother's going to say."

Rich smiled sympathetically. "Do you want me to talk to your parents?"

"No," she said quickly. "I'll do it. But I do need to know what my hours are and all that sort of thing."

"The hours are flexible. You come in when you can, work when you want to. I'll give you assignments and deadlines, and as long as you meet those deadlines, no problem."

"How is the grading going to work? Are there still going to be tests?"

"Every Thursday. The newspaper's going to be your test. And don't worry about grades. This is strictly pass fail "Do you have an assignment for me yet? .... He grinned. "Glad you asked. You get to go through all that mail on your desk over there, separate the press releases from the ads, then pick out one with a local angle and rewrite it as a feature. That was the first assignment

I was given when I was an intern."

"Did it teach you anything?"

"Not really. But that mail does need to be sorted, and it'll give you something to do while I go over your article." "I guess you want the article, then." "It would help."

She reached into her purse, pulling out several folded pages paper clipped together and handing them to him. "Here."

He scanned the top page, then looked up at her. "I'm impressed. You've got the right format and everything."

She smiled self-consciously. "It's amazing what you can learn on a trip to the library."

He smiled back, but above his mouth his eyes were trou bled. Now that she looked, she saw that the easy good humor that had been so natural to Rich the other evening seemed forced today. She suddenly remembered what had happened, where he'd been all night. She glanced away from the editor, unable to meet his gaze. She tried to imagine how she would feel if her parents' graves had been dug up, but she didn't even want to think about her parents dying and immediately pushed the thought from her mind. "I'll, uh, start looking through that mail," she said. :::'.

"Okay. I'll go over your article."

Sue went to the other desk, her desk, sat down, and began opening envelopes. Before she was even a fourth of the way through the pile, Rich was calling her back. She walked over, and he handed her the pages. She sat down in the folding chair, feeling as though she'd been kicked in the stomach. She'd spent the better part of yesterday working on the story, revising and rewriting it until she felt it was as good as she could make it, but obviously it hadn't been good enough.

The top page alone was covered with red pencil--squiggles and circles and unfamiliar marks.

"Not bad," Rich said. "I'm impressed."

She looked up to see if he was being facetious, but his smile was gentle and understanding and not at all sarcastic. She felt confused and flustered. "Not bad? Then what's all.." this?"

"Copyediting symbols. Some are corrections, but most are just symbols that tell the typesetter what to do. You'll be doing your own typesetting here, but I thought it was important for you to learn the symbols anyway. Typesetters don't go by the appearance of the manuscript, they go by what you tell them, so you should learn how to prepare your copy. The story itself, though, is pretty good. You're not a bad writer."

"Really?"

"You're not a journalistic writer yet. This reads more like a report for an English class than a news article, but I think you'll be able to make the transition without too much trouble."

He spent the next half hour explaining to her the basics of copy editing telling her what the symbols on her paper meant and when and how they were used. He then gave her a short assignment: copy edit one of the press releases she'd come across in the mail.

He opened the middle drawer of his desk, then the drawers on the side, searching for something. "I was going to get you a pen, but I don't seem to have any extras here. Why don't you ask Carole to get you some."

Sue had almost forgotten that the secretary was out front. She walked around the room divider and saw the plump woman gathering a handful of multicolored pens and pencils from the bottom right drawer of her desk.

"He's always losing pens," Carole confided. "I just gave him a box last week. I swear I don't know where they all go." She handed Sue the pens she'd taken from the drawer. "Here you go, dear. This should tide you over for a while."

Sue smiled at her. "Than" ......... "You're more than welcome." .....

She returned to the newsroom and went directly to her desk. She found a suitable press release in the pile--an article from the Forest Service about an infestation of ips bee des in the northern part of the state--and began dutifully transcribing the symbols from her own paper to the release.

"I have a deadline to meet," Rich told her. "So I'll be working on my own article. If you need any help, give me a holler. Sue nodded. '

The two of them worked in silence. Sue kept glancing over at the editor. She couldn't help thinking that she should initiate a conversation, but she had no idea what to say. She wondered if he felt as strange and awkward as she did and hazarded another glance in his direction. He appeared to be busily working on his story, apparently unconcerned with the silence.

He glanced up, caught her looking at him, and smiled.

"How would you like to do "Roving Reporter'?" he asked. "Me?"

"I'm busy, I'm tired, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get to it this week. If I don't put it in, though, I'll be getting calls from everyone and his brother. The people in this town don't like their regular features to be missing."

"What do I do?"

"You know how to work a camera?" . "A little."

"Either you do or you don't. We have a Canon AEI." "I don't," she admitted.

"No problem. I'll show you how." He opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out the camera by its strap. "I should warn you, though, that

"Roving Reporter' is not as easy as it looks. People think we just stake out a spot, ask the question, take a few photos, and that's it.

But you're going to find that there are a lot of people in this town who don't want their opinions published or who are afraid to express their opinions even on innocuous subjects. And there are even more who don't want their picture taken. I remember standing in front of the bank for two hours one day looking for five people to tell me whether they prefer ice cream or frozen yogurt. Not a controversial subject, but I stood there for haft the afternoon trying to find someone to respond. Everyone likes to read the "Roving Reporter," but no one wants to meet him. Or her..."

Sue smiled. "Adversity and I are no strangers."

Rich chuckled. "We'll make a reporter of you yet."

Since she didn't have a car, Sue was forced to stake out a location within walking distance. She considered the post office, but Rich told her he'd been there two weeks ago and didn't want to repeat this soon.

He suggested the Shell station, but she said she didn't feel comfortable hanging out there. They finally decided on Mike's Meats, the butcher shop.

Sue first walked inside and told Mike Grayson, the owner, what she was planning to do and asked his permission to stand on his front walk. He said he didn't care, and she went back outside and waited.

And waited.

An old man ignored her completely, not responding to her request or even looking at her. Two women agreed to answer the question but refused to allow their pictures to be taken. A cocky-looking teenager laughed at her.

It was going to be a long morning.

By the time she returned to the newspaper, it was after one. Carole's seat was empty--the secretary was obviously on her lunch break--and Rich was at his desk, eating an apple. Sue sat down in the folding chair and placed the camera on top of his desk. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. "You're right. No one wanted to talk to me."

"What'd I tell you? How many responses did you get?" "Four." "How many people did you ask?" "Twenty." ...... Rich smiled. "Were the responses good?" She shrugged. "I guess."

"Anybody give you advice, tell you what you should be asking instead?"

"Three people told me I should be asking about vampires."

Rich's smile faded. "Vampires?"

She nodded.

"They were joking, weren't they?"

"I don't think so."

He frowned. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing. I smiled, nodded, told them thank you, then went on to the next person."

Rich stared silently at the camera, making no move to pick it up.

Sue cleared her throat. "Maybe we should ask about vampires. It seems to be on a lot of people's minds. I think--" She broke off in mid-sentence, suddenly remembering the events of the night before. She mentally kicked herself, looking quickly away.

"We may," the editor said quietly. We may have to." "Hey, Daddy!"

Sue turned her head at the sound of the voice. A young girl with long blond hair came speeding out of the door to the paste up room.

"Oh," the girl said, stopping short.

Rich stood. "Sue, this is my daughter Anna. She's going to be visiting us for a few hours in the afternoons. Anna, this is Sue Wing.

She's going to be working here."

"I know you!" Anna said, coming closer. "You work at the restaurant!"

"I recognize you too," Sue said. She turned toward

Rich. "I know who your wife is. She's a regular customer." "Yeah.

We like your food."

"How come I've never seen you in there?"

"I've been in, a couple of times. You probably just didn't notice."

"Or I was in the back." "

"I like the fortune cookies[" Anna announced. Sue laughed. "Me, too.

You want me to bring you some tomorrow?"

"Yeah[" Anna grinned at her father.

"You've got yourself a friend," Rich said. He sat down again. "Now there are two of us who've glad you're here."

"Three," Sue said, smiling.

The FBI agent and the representative from the state police left at the same time. Robert saw them to the door of his office, shook hands with both men, and gave them a smile and a hearty "thank you."

The second the door closed, he stuck out his middle finger, thrusting it upward in the air for emphasis. Assholes. - .

He had never before had to deal with state or federal law enforcement authorities, and he hoped to Christ he never had to deal with them again. He walked across the room and watched through the slats of the miniblinds as the two men got into their respective cars. A chain of command had been established, and for that he was thankful. The buck no longer stopped with him. He was now merely a link in the chain, and if he couldn't handle the situation, he could pass that buck on up to the state police and the FBI. :,.:

But he regretted giving up his autonomy. Last week he'd been confused, not knowing what he should do or how he should do it, but a week of responsibility had given him a taste for serious decision making, and now he felt resentful toward the big boys for trying to horn in on his territory. :":, Especially since the were such complete and total assholes. The state policeman had said almost nothing during the meeting, had simply requested duplicates of every thing asked for by the FBI agent. It was the FBI agent who had done most of the talking who had laid out the recent events in Rio Verde in such a patronizingly arch manner that the emerging picture, though factually correct and chronologically accurate, made Robert and his department look like Joe Doofus and his Goober Patrol.

God, he hated the smug attitude of that business-suited geek.

To make matters worse, Robert had snuffled and sneezed his way through most of the meeting. The hand kerchief on his desk was soaked. Fall was always the worst time of year for his allergies, and, unfortunately, they'd picked today to start the season. He would're taken a pill had he known, but in that instance the cure was almost worse than the disease. Even the mildest over-the-counter allergy medicine knocked him out. If he had taken a pill, he probably would have dozed off halfway through the FBI agent's diatribe.

Not that that would have been a bad thing. He and the agent, Greg Rossiter, had experienced an immediate antipathy toward one another.

That was strange. Ordinarily, he was a fairly easygoing guy and got along with practically everyone. But something about Rossiter had instantly rubbed him the wrong way. He'd known from the moment he'd laid eyes on that blond brush-cut Nazi's head that he wouldn't like the man. And his response to Joe Cash, the state policeman, had not been much different.

Both men had seemed to take a perverse pleasure in making him feel as inept and incompetent as possible. After allowing him to describe the coroner's findings on the death of Manuel Tortes and relate his own firsthand knowledge of the cemetery, Rossiter had said only, "Rio Verde only has ten thousand people. Anything new or different would be noticed immediately by you or your men, wouldn't it?"

The implied criticism in that condescending query had made Robert bristle, but he'd forced himself not to be come defensive, had made sure his voice remained professionally impersonal. "Not necessarily.

Our town may be small compared to Phoenix, but we still don't know every one in it. And we're not in the habit of keeping tabs on people when they haven't done anything wrong."

"But they've done something wrong now, haven't they?"

"Who?" Robert had tried to keep his voice even. "We're a couple hours' drive from Florence, Globe, Miami Superior. We're four hours from Phoenix. Five from Payson and Randall. Seven from Flagstaff and Sedona. Who's to say someone's not cruising into town, doing his business, and leaving? We get a lot of tourists passing through here on their way to Roosevelt Lake. It seems more than likely to me that this is being done by someone who does not live in Rio Verde."

"Really?" The agent had looked at him with a bored expression. "I think it highly unlikely that any criminal or psychopath would specifically make a series of runs all the way out here merely to perform activities he could do in his own hometown." :

He'd sneezed and said nothing more. "

The thing that had galled him the most was the importance both men seemed to place on anything that happened in Rio Verde, their almost nonchalant attitude toward the horrors that had occurred here. A man had been murdered. A man with friends, a family. The bodies of hundreds of the town's departed loved ones had been disinterred, their resting places desecrated. Wild animals had been killed. But none of this seemed to make any sort of impression on either Rossiter or Cash.

It was almost as though they considered events in Rio Verde too trivial to be taken seriously, the province of children rather than adults, hardly worth bothering with.

He half considered calling up both men's superiors and leveling a charge of racism against them, claiming that they were dragging their feet because Manuel Torres was

Hispanic. That would get a response.

Only he wasn't sure he wanted any deeper involvement from those people. The FBI had installed a fax machine in his office, a direct line to the federal building in Phoe nix so he could send copies of all reports and paperwork.

That was enough meddling in his business, as far as he was concerned.

]

He would keep them informed of his progress, let them know when something was discovered, but that was it.

The intercom beeped, and Robert moved away from the window and back to his desk. He held down the white

"Talk" button, leaning into the receiver. "What is it?"

Steve's voice came through clear and strong. "We have a slight, uh, situation. I think you'd better come out here."

"Be there in a sec." Robert let go of the button, wiped his nose with the wet handkerchief, and collected the forms and pamphlets the FBI agent had left him, carrying them out to the front office.

In the waiting area, six or seven people were clustered on the other side of the counter near the front door. They were standing close together, obviously upset. At the receptionist's desk, Lee Anne was trying to look busy, shuffling through recently typed papers, not looking up. Robert scanned the group of people and noticed that they were all from the Central Arizona Bank.

Almost as one, the faces turned toward him. Robert dropped the handful of pamphlets on Steve's desk and bent down. "What is this?" he asked quietly.

Steve shook his head, grinning. "I'll let them tell you."

"Mr. Johnson wants us to wear underwear Tammette Walker said.

"Uniforms!" Maxine Gilbert added.

Robert straightened up and stared at them uncomprehendingly. "He wants us to wear uniforms made out of underwear!"

"He's gone crazy! There must be a law againstm" Robert held up his hands for silence. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on now, just hold your horses. One person at a time." He nodded toward Maxine. "Maxie? Why don't you try telling me what this is all about?"

The elderly teller pursed her lips and nervously clicked the clasp on her handbag open and shut. "Mr. Johnson has not been himself lately, not for the past week or so. Usually, he's very involved in the operation of the bank, but for the past several days we haven't seen him at all. He just stays cooped up in his office. This morning, though, when we arrived, he was there waiting for us, and he had his ..

. uniforms on display."

"It was disgustingl" Tammette said.

Robert held up his hands. "Let Maxie finish. Please." He nodded at Maxine. "Go on."

"They were---" She shook her head, as though unable to come up with an adequate description. "They're made out of underwear. He sewed pan des and bras and boxer shorts all together, into pants and shirt swell they're not really pants and shirts, but they sort of have sleeves and legs and necklines---and he calls them uniforms. He said that all bank employees now have to wear one of his uniforms. He said if we don't wear them, we'll be fired."

"I think they're made from used underwear," Mort Emerson added, grimacing. '"They have stains on them."

Robert cleared his throat. "I don't quite understand what you want me to do about this."

"Pee Wee would know what to do," Stephanie Bishop said through pinched lips.

"I'm not Pee Wee."

"We want you to arrest him!" Tammette said. "It's not legal to force us to wear uniforms made out of underwear."

"I don't think an actual crime has been committed here. I'll go over and talk to Mr. Johnson if you want, but I can't arrest him. My suggestion would be to call the head office and talk to the bank president, tell him your problem-"

"There is no head office," Mort said. "Sophocles Johnson is the president."

"Well, if worst comes to worst, if Mr. Johnson really does fire you, you may have to take him to court--"

"We need our jobs," Tammette said. "And what do you mean court? Isn't there a law against forcing your employees to wear uniforms made out of underwear?"

"Used underwear?" Art added.

Robert sighed. "I'll talk to Mr. Johnson. I'll try to get this cleared up. If I can't, I'll call the Better Business Bureau and the state wage and hour commission. I'll get this thing sorted out, okay?"

"He's crazy," Maxine said. "He won't talk to you." "It sounds as though he's a little whacked out," Robert admitted, "but I'll see what I can do. Right now, why don't all of you leave your numbers with Lee Anne over there at the front desk. I'll give you a call this afternoon."

Maxine clicked and un clicked her purse clasp. "What about the bank?

It's going to stay close?"

"I can't afford to lose a day of work," Janice Lake said. "I'll do what I can," Robert told them. "I'm going to go call Mr. Johnson right now. Just leave your numbers with Lee Anne He turned away, forcing the receptionist to deal with the bank employees. He looked over at Steve, who was still grinning, rolled his eyes, and walked back down the hall to his office.

The first thing he saw when he strode through the door was the fax machine on his side table.

This was turning out to be a hell of a day.

Before he retired and moved back to Arizona six years ago, Bill Covey had been an architect. Senior Architectural Supervisor at Sippl, Doyle and Dane in Irvine, California to be exact. He never had any illusions about himself, and he would have been the first to admit that his architectural efforts had been less than inspired. Many of the small stores and restaurants that he had designed in the fifties and sixties had, in fact, been bulldozed over and replaced with splashier, more eye-catching structures in the wave of redevelopment which swept over Southern California in the seventies and eighties. The con doming ium plans he had laid out before retiring, his last project for the firm, were probably the best work he had ever done, yet even they were hardly original.

Now, however, he was inspired.

Covey, pumped up with caffeine from the massive amounts of coffee he'd been gulping all evening, raced through one sketch after another, not bothering to do cleanup work, not bothering to smooth out the rough edges or draw to scale. He was creating here, setting down ideas for the Church of the Living Christ, the future physical home of the Son of God on earth, and he could not be bothered with petty technical details. He could fix the small stuff later, right now he was on a roll, and he had to try to record these ideas as they came to him, before they were lost.

He had never been a churchgoing man, had always thought of belief in a higher power as a crutch used by people who couldn't manage their own lives, but some thing had made him start attending Pastor Wheeler's church a few weeks ago, and he was prepared now to admit that it was the hand of the Lord guiding him. When he'd heard the pastor describe his plan to build the ultimate house of worship right here in Rio Verde, Covey had known that the reason he had been put on this earth was to design Christ's church.

He'd talked with the pastor after the sermon, prepared to beg for the assignment if need be, but he hadn't had to say much at all. It was almost as though the pastor had been expecting him to approach and volunteer his services

They'd met once since then, a single quick informal conversation. They had not talked specifics, but the two of them had understood each other. He knew what the pastor wanted without being told, and when he'd explained a few of his ideas, Wheeler too had realized how closely aligned were their goals.

He'd been drawing ever since, putting Onto paper every thought that occurred to him, designing doorways and naves, chapels and chambers, altars and pews.

Living quarters for Jesus Christ.

All of which could be constructed within forty days. He wondered what Jesus was going to do when He established His kingdom on earth. Was He going to abolish war and hunger? Was he going to make the world a paradise Was He going to reunite families with their dear departed loved ones? Covey put down his drafting pen. Was He going to resurrect Judith?

No, he thought. Jesus wouldn't do that to him. Not when he was designing His church.

Would He?

Just to be on the safe side, maybe he would try to talk to Jesus when all this was over. Maybe he could ask for a favor. Maybe he could get Jesus to make sure that Judith burned in hell for eternity.

Covey had not yet seen the Savior, but he already knew, that Jesus was nothing like he had imagined. He had bought the Hollywood conception of Christ, had always, seen Him as kind and loving, tolerant and forgiving. But he knew now that Jesus was judgmental and unforgiving: that He was ruthless in His dispensation of power, and although this was not what Covey had expected, it seemed right to him. This was the way it was supposed to be.

Which was why he knew Jesus would understand about Judith.

Covey finished the last of his cold coffee and looke over what he'd drawn. It was a sacrificial altar, a carve and decorated block of stone not unlike those he'd see in Bible movies, where offerings could be made to Jestu Jesus liked sacrifices.

Covey rubbed his tired eyes, looked at the clock, an decided to call it quits for the night. Next to the clock] on top of the television set, was the pickle jar in which he, planned to keep his lizards. He'd caught the first one thi morning in the backyard. It, and another he had caught at noon, were now caged in the jar. He would offer these and the others he intended to catch, to Jesus as a sacrifice Maybe, if he had time, he would even capture some bigg animal.

Maybe that would ensure that Judith would be take care of.

Covey stood up, turned off his desk light and, feelin exhausted but happy, he headed toward his bedroom.

Ginni saw the green sign before she could read the words on it, and she prayed that the number of miles to

Rio Verde would be under twenty.

No such luck.

She sped by the sign and swore softly to herself as she saw that the town was still fifty miles away. She'd promised her sister that she'd be there before noon, and now it looked as though she wouldn't be there until after three.

She put her hand in the ice chest next to her, feeling around, but her fingers encountered only cold water and half-melted ice cubes. She'd finished the last of the Diet Cokes some miles back, and she was thirsty again. The small Hyundai had no air-conditioning, and even with the windows down the desert heat was stifling, the wind which blew against her face warm and hellish.

She also had to go to the bathroom, and she wasn't sure she would be able to wait until she reached the next gas station, the pressure on her bladder was becoming too insistent to ignore. She glanced outside the window at the barren landscape and didn't even see any bushes she could squat behind if worse came to worst. There were only tumbleweeds, cactus, and thin leafless trees. She pressed down on the gas pedal, edging the car up another five miles an hour.

Mary Beth, she knew, was going to be frantic that she was late. Ever since their father had disappeared, her sister had, understandably, been a bundle of nerves tense jumpy, always on edge. Although she had not let Mary Beth know it, Ginni too was worried sick. She had not been surprised when their father disappeared for a few days---it was not as though he hadn't done it before--but when a week had passed, and he hadn't contacted anybody in the family at all, she'd become worried.

Now she was convinced that her sister was right, that something had happened to him. Ahead, on the right, she saw a blue sign, and though it was still too far away for her to make out the words, Ginni knew from experience that the sign announced a rest area coming up. She sighed with relief.

A few miles later, she saw a trio of picnic tables covered by cheap metal awnings and, between them, a low brick building. A bathroom! She pulled into the rest area and parked next to the only other car there, a red Flat Its occupants, a young man wearing a white tennis outfit and his blond girlfriend, were eating at one of the picnic tables.

Ginni fairly ran through the doorway marked WOMEN. The smell hit her the instant she stepped inside, but she didn't care. She saw, in the second before she sat down, that the metal toilet did not have a chemical disposal system but was positioned directly over an open septic tank. Then there was relief, and she closed her eyes gratefully. She heard a loud sickening plop from the tank below. She jumped up, stared into the open hole. It was dark down there, and she could only make out a vague dark lake of human waste. She thought she saw something white swimming through the sludge.

Then her father popped up from the sewage, grinned at her, and resumed swimming in the filth.

The Flat people had been just pulling onto the highway when she ran screaming out of the bathroom. She'd run instinctively after them, but before she had even reached the parking area they were gone.

Now she sat on top of one of the picnic tables, staring at the bathroom. The small tan building looked threatening to her now.

Standing alone in the middle of the desert, the only sign of human encroachment in the flat empty wilderness, the structure seemed out of place, wrong. Ginni took a deep breath. She knew she was just being paranoid. Her perceptions had been altered by what she'd seen in the cavernous hole beneath the toilet.

She shivered. Had she really seen what she'd thought she'd seen? It was so off-the-wall crazy that it did not seem even remotely credible.

If she'd heard about it from some one else or had read of such an occurrence, she would have dismissed it as ludicrous. Even now, her rational mind was telling her that she'd imagined it, her worry and concern having overshadowed her reason. Could her father really be living in a septic tank under a woman's bathroom in the middle of the desert?

No.

But she'd seen him swimming through the shit. He'd grinned at her.

She knew she should get out of here, tell Mary Beth, tell the police, but despite what she'd seen, despite the fear within her, she was still not certain that her father was really down there. How could he be? No human being could live in such an environment. And it didn't make any sense. Why would he disappear from home to live under a toilet?

Ginni pushed herself off the plastic tabletop, pulling her shorts out of the crack of her buttocks. She started walking slowly down the winding cement walkway. She had to make sure. She had to see.

The inside of the bathroom was dark, the only light coming from the diffused rays of the sun through a battered translucent skylight and the open door. Her heart pounding crazily, Ginni approached the toilet. The smell was as bad as before, maybe worse, and she almost gagged.

She forced herself to look into the open septic tank.

"Dad?" she called hesitantly. The lake of filth remained undisturbed.

She cleared her throat. "Dad?"

Her father's head broke through the surface of the effluence, white and grinning.

Ginni backed up, her heart feeling as though it would burst through the walls of her chest. She realized she was screaming, and she forced herself to stop. Gathering her courage, she approached the toilet again, looked down into the opening.

Her father stared up at her, waste dripping down his exposed forehead, brownish liquid running out of his grinning mouth. "Don't come back" he hissed. His voice was cracked and wheezy.

Oinni looked around wildly. What should she do?

Should sheA middle-aged woman weng a fashionable blue business suit stepped into the bathroom. She stared at Ginni, standing over the toilet, looking down, and cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she said awkwardly. "I need to use the facilities."

Ginni whirled on her. "You can't! My father's down there! - :

The woman backed up, a look of startled incomprehension on her face.

She exited quickly, and Ginni looked back down. There was only darkness, only brown.

"Bitch!" her father's voice hissed from somewhere in the septic tank.

Frightened as much by the hatred in that voice as by the circumstances in which they were spoken, she moved hesitantly away from the opening.

An excrement-encrusted hand shot upward from the seat of the toilet.

Ginni made it back to the car and barely managed to lock the doors before fainting.

The hours after she came to were a blur. She remembered being revived by a uniformed police officer--someone had apparently seen her lying slumped over the wheel, unconscious, and had called the police. She remembered telling and retelling her story. She remembered the influx of policemen and sewage workers and, later, the television cameras.

She remembered nothing of the capture, but she remembered Mary Beth.

Mary Beth hugging her and holding her, crying with her, talking for her to the police. Mary Beth taking care of the details and formalities.

And she'd always thought she was the strong one. Ginni stared through the bars as her father paced restlessly back and forth across the cement floor of his cell. She was alone back here except for a uniformed guard. Mary Beth was in the front office, talking to the police chief.

Her father's eyes were bright, alert, and filled with a demented sort of excitement. She could feel the kine dc energy radiating from him.

He stopped pacing, turned to look at her, then rushed the bars, hitting them with his head and grinning. "Bitch!" he screamed.

"Settle down in there," the guard ordered. '

Tears welled in Ginni's eyes--tears of pity for what he had become, tears of loss for what he had once been. The man before her still had her father's form and face, but the words, the movements, the expressions were those of a different person entirely, an alien. A tear escaped, rolling dovna her right cheek, and she wiped it away with a finger. "Why... ?" She swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice steady. "Why did you do this?"

His grin became wider. "I'm a shit. I've always been a shit." He shoved his head in the toilet, swishing it around. Ginni turned away.

She closed her eyes, saw in her mind her father's hand emerging from the septic tank.

She left the detentior area crying, escorted by the guard.

Robert stared hard at the fax machine, still not sure if he should immediately inform the feds about Vigil or if he should wait. They probably knew already, probably had people whose job it was to monitor radio and television newscasts for crime reports, but no one from either the

FBI or the state police had yet contacted him. He was tempted to hold off for a few days wait to fax them the information, but no, he couldn't do that. He thought of

Mary Beth's face when she'd seen her father in the cell: a bleak barren landscape.

She deserved the best men' and resdiees that could be mustered.

Rich walked in, and Robert nodded tiredly at him, moving back behind his desk and sitting down. "How's the news biz?"

"Pretty good. How's law enforcement?"

"Takes it up the ass."

"Different trokes for different folks." : The two of them were silent for a moment. Rober leaned back in his swivel chair, which creaked with a exaggerated opening-door-in-a-haunted-house sound. "You oughta get that thing oiled." "Yeah."

Rich walked over to the fax machine. "I wish I could afford to get myself one of these things."

"It's the FBI's. If it was up to me, it wouldn't be here."

"Have they been able to find anything out?"

Robert shook his head. "Who knows? If they did, I' probably be the last person they'd tell. I'm sure they'r, running everything through their computers and what not, doing whatever it is they do."

Rich leaned against the windowsill, faced his brother. "So what is happening?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you."

"The cemetery made it into the Republic the other day. Did you see that?"

"I've been too busy to read the newspaper lately. I haven't even gotten to your article yet."

Rich grinned. "You don't have to read it. It was brilliant."

"They think they're going to be able to rebury all of the bodies based on the plot map. Nothing was moved too far."

"Thank God."

Robert cleared his throat. "Did you ever go out there to see--?"

"I didn't look."

Robert focused his attention on a topographical map of the county that hung on the left wall, not wanting to see his brother's face. "I didn't either. But now I think maybe I should've. It just doesn't seem right to me that... I wasn't there. That neither of us were there."

"Morn would've understood....... "Dad wouldn't've." i There was a knock on the door frame. "Am I interrupting anything?" Brad Woods stood in the entryway, holding by his side a manila folder stuffed with papers

Robert shook his head. "Come on . nWoods walked across the worn carpet and dropped the folder on top of Robert's desk. 3 copies of my reports. I already sent copies to the county. I ended up examining eight of the bodies in detail, the ones that appeared to have been specifically, for lack of a better word, operated upon. You were right. The marrow had been removed from several of the corpses, although most of that marrow was already dried.

But I could find no evidence of any surgical procedures, no telling marks upon bone or flesh, no trace of chemical substances that shouldn't be there, no method, no indication even whether this was done by a human or an animal."

Robert sighed, picked up the folder, glanced halfheartedly at the top page and dropped the packet down on his desktop once again.

Woods took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and examined it. "What have you found out? Do you have any idea who could have done this or why?"

"No. I was hoping you'd help me out with that." Woods stopped examining the cigarette and placed it, unlit, in his mouth. He looked from Robert to Rich and began pacing. "What if we really do have a vampire on our hands?"

Rich snorted. "Come on, now. Not you too."

"No. Hear me out. I've been doing a little research on exsanguination techniques, and the way Torres's body and the bodies of those animals were drained was .. . Let's just say it was highly irregular. It also shouldn't have been able to work as it did."

"Brad--"

"I know this is crazy. I understand how you feel. But, medically, this stuff does not happen. And I'll be honest with you. Examining those corpses from the cemetery gave me the creeps. The technical aspects and examination results are in those reports, but what's not in those reports is the weirdness. It just spooked me to work on them. I kept wondering why anyone would suck the dry bone marrow from a corpse."

Robert stood. "Maybe it's a cult. Who the hell knows?" "Exactly.

Who the hell knows? All I'm saying is that right now we need to keep an open mind about this." Woods took the still-unlit cigarette from his mouth and replaced it in his shirt pocket as he stopped pacing.

"What about Vigil? What did County Psych say?"

"The guy's in there right now. I'm just waiting for him to report back." "Who is it?" "Jacobson."

Woods nodded. "He's good. A little flaky, but good. : The county doesn't usually get shrinks of that caliber." ' He moved next to Rich, turned toward Robert. "Can I wait around here until the results come in?"

"Sure. Why not?" /

"What about me?" Rich asked. "Is "" this going to be on or off the record?"

"Your call. I'm not going to tell you what to do."

"That's a first."

Robert picked up a paperclip, threw it at him.

Ten minutes later, the three of them met Dr. Jacobson in the conference room. The psychiatrist, an unusually tall, bald man with earrings in both ears, did not even wait until they were seated. "Are you familiar with the Medusa Syndrome?"

Robert and Rich looked dumbly at each other. Woods shook his head, since the question was clearly directed to him. "Can't say that I am."

"It is exceedingly rare. It refers to a trauma-induced personality change, or, more specifically, aberrant behavior produced by exposure, to a traumatic incident. What differentiates the Medusa Syndrome from other trauma induced personality disorders is the fact that it is not merely triggered by a single incident but is actually caused by that one-time exposure, the shock is so great that the individual is not able to cope with what he or she has seen, and the defenses of the ego break down completely. The person experiences what might be referred to as a personality restructuring. I've never before come across it myself, but I can tell you this: I've never even read of anything this severe. Mr. vigil's name is going to live in textbooks for years to come. If he survives, if he didn't catch some fatal disease down there, we're going to have ourselves quite a study."

Robert cleared his throat. "Excuse me for asking, but how can you be sure? Maybe Mike--Mr. Vigil--has been crazy all along. Maybe he just snapped."

"I'm not a hundred percent positive. I only met the man today and only examined him for a few hours. But the signs are there. To be honest, we may not be absolutely certain of the diagnosis for some time , to come. But I'll tell you this: There's a high probability that Mr.

Vigil is suffering from the Medusa Syndrome." Jacobson ran his index finger over his top teeth. "You know, I was at the conference where the syndrome was named. I wanted to, . call it the "Tommy Syndrome," after The Who's rock opera because Tommy becomes deaf, dumb, and blind after witnessing the murder of his mother's lover by his father. But the other psychiatrists were all quite a bit older and were not even familiar with The Who. I doubt if most of them knew who The Beatles were. Besides, they had to get in the obligatory Greek reference.

Psychiatrists love classical references"

"What about Mr. Vigil?" Robert prodded.

"Well, it's clear that this individual has been severely traumatized.

To the point of precipitating radical behavioral changes. From the brief conversation I had with his daughters, and from my own discussion with him and observation of his behavior, it appears quite likely that he saw or experienced something that so shocked or frightened him that his psychological defenses were shattered. He retreated into the person you discovered in the septic tank."

Woods looked at Robert, then at the psychiatrist. He cleared his throat. "What if a person saw a vampire? Do you think that would produce the sort of shock necessary to cause this change?"

Jacobson gowned. "A vampire? What do you mean?"

"A monster," Rich said. "A guy with a black cape and fangs who sucks blood."

"This is not a joking matter," the psychiatrist said, standing. "I don't have time to play games with you. I was called in here and asked to look at this man, and I've given you my opinion. My recommendation will be for him to remain at the hospital in Florence for further examination

Robert stared at Woods and found himself hoping that the coroner would pursue this line of reasoning, would say, "We're not joking," would press the psychiatrist on the vampire issue, but Woods remained silent, eyes down cast. Robert glanced at his brother, who looked away.

Jacobson began gathering his papers.

"What sort of thing could frighten a man this badly?"

Robert asked. "I know Mike--knew Mike--and he is not an easily frightened man."

Jacobson looked up, shook his head, his left hand toying with one of his earrings. "I don't know," he said. He thought for a moment, and a slow smile spread across his face. "But we'll find out. And when we do... that's going to be interesting. Very interesting."

"Susan."

The words were a whisper, spoken with a Cantonese accent. Soo-sun.

"Susan."

She opened one eye, peered into the darkness. There was an unfamiliar weight on the end of her bed, an indentation that affected a gravitational pull on her feet. Outside there was wind, a sibilant dust storm that played around with the defenses of the house but was not strong enough to attack. The pillow next to her face smelled faintly of breath.

Stretching up and out of the fetal position in which she slept, Sue saw her grandmother sitting on the edge of the bed, a small hunched shape in the too large darkness. She rubbed her eyes. "What is it?" she. asked tiredly in English, then, correcting herself, in Cantonese.

Her grandmother was silent for a moment, the only noise in the room her labored breathing, which blended perfectly with the sandstorm outside.

Sue felt a dry cold hand touch her cheek, trace her chin. "I dreamt again of the cup hu rngs/." Sue said nothing.

"I have dreamed for five nights of the cup hugirngsi. '" Cup Hu Girngsi.

Sue knew the sounds, knew the words they formed, but she had never before heard them spoken together, and their combination sent an icy shiver of fear down her spine Cup hugirngsi. Corpse-who drinks-blood.

She looked carefully at her grandmother's face, searching for a sign that the old woman was joking. But her grandmother's gaze remained unwavering, her expression deadly serious, and Sue knew from the fact that her grandmother was here, in her bedroom, at this time of night, that this was no joke. She reached up, instinctively touched the jade around her neck.

"Yes," her grandmother said, nodding.

Sue felt cold, and she wrapped the sheet more tightly around her body.

She wanted to be able to laugh off what her grandmother was trying to tell her, wanted to be able to fall back asleep and forget that this conversation had ever taken place, but sleepiness had left her completely. She found herself thinking of Manuel Torres, of Rich's parents and the others in the cemetery.

Of what she had felt at the school that night.

Her grandmother suddenly leaned forward, eyes wide. "You have sensed it too!"

Sue shook her head. "No." ...... "You have. You cannot hide it from me." Her grandmother was whispering, and her voice was nearly indistinguishable from the wild wind outside "You know of the cup hugirngsi."

"I have never heard that name before." "It is called something else in America." "Vampire," Sue said.

"Vampire. Yes." Nodding. "But we know it as the cup hug/rngsi. I have dreamed of it now for five nights, and it is here. You have sensed it too." "I have not sensed anything." "You have."

"I cannot 'sense' things."

"Yes, you can. You have D/Lo Ling Gum. ""

"I do not!"

"Your mother does not. Your father does not. John does not. You do.

"She reached for Sue's hand, tightly clutching the sheet, and squeezed it. "Do not be afraid."

"I am not afraid, because there is no cup hugirngsi. "" "There is. I have seen it." Her grandmother was silent for a moment. The wind outside seemed to grow louder and sounded almost liquid. When she spoke again, Sue had to lean forward to listen. "I was eight years old when the cup hu #rngsi came. We lived in Cuangxun, a small village in Hunan. I was young, and it was a long, long time ago, but I remember it all. I can still see the houses on the hill in the early morning mist, standing like silent sentries in the fog.

"I can still hear the screams of Wai Fan echoing through the valley."

She stared in Sue's direction but past her, not at her. "We were awakened by the echoes of those screams. I was frightened and confused, and I ran into my parents' room. Father and Mother knew immediately what had happened. They knew it was the cup hugirngsi.

That frightened me even more, the very words terrified me. I had never seen my parents scared--I had never seen them not be in complete control--and the haunted looks on their faces made me more afraid than anything I had ever seen. I realized, that whatever was happening, they could not protect me from it. They were yelling but not arguing, and that was scary also.

"They did not want to bring me with them, but they were more afraid to leave me alone, so Mother grabbed my hand, and we ran down the path, through the cold mist to the house of Wai Fan. The air felt different to me as we ran, not the way it usually did, and I could smell something strong that I did not like. We were running south, away from the open end of the valley, but it felt as though we were running north, and I knew that some thing had happened to my sense of direction.

"When we reached the house there was already a crowd, and Mother left me outside with Father and the other men and children, and went inside with the women. I was too afraid to talk or ask any questions---all of the children were--but I understood from what the fathers said and the few words I could hear from inside that all three sons of Wai Fan had been killed by the cup hugirngsi.

"We stood, waiting. The air became even colder, the bad smell stronger, and then we saw it, floating down the path in front of the house in the mist: the cup hugirngsi. Father whispered and said it was Chun Li Yeung, who had died the year before, and someone else whispered that it was Ling Chek Yee, but I saw something that no one else saw, and I did not say anything because the figure I saw floating through the mist was not the corpse of anyone we knew. It was not a corpse at all. It was not human. It had never been human. It was a different creature entirely older than any human corpse could have been. A monster. It looked at me and saw me, and it knew that I saw it for what it was. And then it disappeared into the mist and was gone."

"What did it look like?" Sue asked.

"You do not want to know." . "Yes, I do."

"No, you do not." Her grandmother was silent for a moment, staring not into space but into time. Sue said nothing, waited for her grandmother to continue.

Finally the old woman did, and her voice was sadder, softer. "I knew after that that I was different from every one else, that I had Di Lo Ling Gum. The knowledge comforted me, but it also frightened me. I talked about it to my father and mother, to the wise men of the village, hoping that someone could teach me, train me, tell me what to do, but there was no one in Cuangxun who understood

"I had thought, I had hoped, that the cup hugirngsi would go away after that, after killing the sons of Wai Fan, but it did not. It remained in the hills, feeding off the hong mau, growing stronger. In the day, the men went looking for it, hunting it. In the night, we all stayed locked in our houses. A baby was taken from one of the young women in the village. One of the hunters did not return. The land itself began to die. The trees dried up, and the bamboo, and the rice in the fields. There were no more animals to be found. One old man, Tai Po, wanted to offer a sacrifice to the cup hug'irngsi, believing that would appease it. He suggested that we offer a virgin to the monster but I knew this would not work, and I said so, and because of my power they believed me.

"In the end, we decided to leave. Father thought that it would be better to begin a new life in Canton than remain in Cuangxun or anywhere in Hunan. Several families left at once, ours and six others.

I do not know what happened to those who remained behind.

"We survived. In Canton, I found a teacher. I learned the ways of spirits and tse mot. I learned how to protect against the cup hug'irngsi, but I never again saw one."

The wind outside had stopped, and the house seemed suddenly quiet, too quiet. "There are such monsters, Susan. There always have been. There always will be."

Sue shifted uncomfortably against the backboard. She did not know what to say. She did not exactly believe in vampires, but her grandmother's story had frightened her, and she could not say that she entirely disbelieved it.

Her grandmother patted her hand. "We will speak more of this later, when you are not so tired. We know what is out there, and it is our responsibility to make sure that it is stopped." She stood and moved away from the bed, walking into the darkness.

It is our responsibility to must make sure that it is stopped. What did that mean? Sue wanted to ask, but her grandmother was already out of the room and closing the door, and she knew that she would have to wait until morning for an answer to that question.

She listened to her grandmother return to her own bedroom. She remained sitting, no longer tired. She heard her parents talking in their room down the hall, their voices little more than low, muffled mumbles. Had they been talking before? She'd thought they'd been asleep. She held her breath, trying not to make any noise, but though she strained to hear what they were discussing, she could make out nothing.

She sat in the darkness, still clutching the edge of her sheet, staring out toward the curtained window, feeling cold. She was not sure whether or not she believed her grandmother, but she had to admit that ever since she'd gone to the school that night she'd felt something in the air, an indefinable sense of wrongness, the impression that everything was not as it should be.

Maybe her grandmotlr was right. Maybe she did have a touch of Di Lo Ling Gum. She lay down again, her head sinking into the fluffy pillow.

She thought back, trying to recall if she'd picked up on any supernatural vibes at any time in her life, but could not.

She fell asleep soon after, and she dreamed of a rotted corpse, blood dripping from its grinning lips, floating through fog in a Chinese mountain village, searching for her, calling her name .... The next day, at the restaurant, Sue tried to stay as far away from her grandmother as possible, making an extra effort not to be alone with the old woman. She felt bad about it, ashamed, but in the clear light of day the talk of D/Lo Ling Gum and the cup hugirngsi seemed down right silly. She felt embarrassed for her grandmother and found herself wondering, guiltily, if perhaps the old woman's mind was slipping.

By lunchtime, the kitchen was almost unbearably hot and humid. The ventilation system was on, but her father was cooking on four woks at once, as well as deep-frying two orders of shrimp, and the air, recycled or not, was sweltering.

Sue took the plastic bowl of chopped onions from the back counter and handed it to her father.

"More chicken," he said in English.

She hurried across the palleted floor and opened the oversize freezer, taking out the bag filled with sliced breasts that he had prepared that morning. She passed by John, who leaned against the counter and stared up at the TV. "Why don't you help out?" she asked.... He grinned at her, raised his eyebrows "Father!" "John, help your " sister"

"Why do I always have to do all the work? It's not fair. She gets to spend all day at that dumb newspaper, and I have to stay here and do everything."

"You do nothing around here," Sue said. "I could have five other jobs and still help out more than you do."

"Stop arguing," their father said in Cantonese. "Susan, you help me.

John, you help your mother out front."

"John!" ..... "Have fun," Sue said in English

"Susan!"

John stormed out of the kitchen, and Sue turned back toward her father.

He was scowling at her, but she could tell from his eyes that it was an act, and as he flipped the shrimp onto two plates, he was smiling.

John returned a few moments later, polite, humbled, and obsequious. He lightly tapped her shoulder. "Sue, greatest sister ever to walk the face of the earth--"

She smiled. "What do you want?"

"Trade with me. Let me work in the kitchen. There's a guy from my science class out front, and I don't want him to see me."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Mother's trying to talk to his parents." :'

The past came rushing back in a wave of emotional recognition, and Sue nodded, understanding what her brother meant without him having to spell it out. She too had been embarrassed by her mother, by her father, by everything her parents did or said, a magnification of the mortification all teenagers felt in regard to their parents' behavior. She had spent most of her grammar school years trying to deny any association with her family.

She recalled even being embarrassed by their yard, wondering why her father had chosen to draw attention to himself by imposing his own artificial conception of nature on the desert instead of adapting to the local terrain like everyone else. All of the other houses on their street had had sand or gravel with rearrangements of existing vegetation: cactus, sagebrush, succulents. Her father had planted a yard--grass, flowers, and two ludicrous willow trees which flanked the sides of the driveway.

Even now, she still wasn't quite sure how she felt about her family.

For years she had not wanted to be seen in public with her parents, avoiding shopping trips, dreading open houses and back-to-school nights. She'd seen the smirks on the faces of her classmates, heard the snickers, when her mother had come to pick her up from school and called out to her in Cantonese. For a whole year, third grade, the year that the schoolyard rhyme "Chinese .. .

Japanese .. . Dirty knees .. . Look at these[" had made the rounds, and Cal Notting had teased her unmercifully by pulling taut the corners of his eyes and sticking out his front teeth in imitation of a stereotypical "Chinaman," she'd prayed each night before going to bed that her parents would wake up in the morning and speak perfect English. She had never been to church in her life and did not really understand the concept of God, but she'd heard enough about praying from her friends and from television to have gotten a general idea of what she was sup posed to do. So she'd folded her hands, closed her eyes, started off with "Dear God," followed that with her wish list, and signed off with "Amen." It hadn't worked, though, and she'd given up the prayers when she'd graduated to fourth grade.

That embarrassment had ended somewhere along the line, but those years had taken their toll.

John was still stuck at that hypersensitive stage, and she was a little worded about him. By the time she was his age, she had already started growing out of it and coming to terms with her family and her background.

She wondered if that was something John would ever be able to reconcile within himself.

It was hell living in two cultures. "Okay," she said. "I'll trade."

"If mother says anything, tell her it was your idea." She was about to argue with him, then changed her mind. "All right," she agreed. She caught her father's eye, and he gave her an approving nod .... He understood.

Her mother wouldn't understand, and Sue was glad that she had not been in the kitchen with them. It would only have resulted in an argument.

Her parents were so dissimilar in so many ways that Sue often wondered whether their marriage had been arranged-although she'd never been brave enough to ask. She realized as she picked up a completed order from the low shelf next to her father that she did not really know how her parents met. All she knew was that they had been living in Hong Kong and had married there. That was it. Her friends all seemed to know the intimate details of their parents' courtships and were able to recite specifics the way they would the plot of a movie. She and John knew no such stories of their parents' past.

Her mother came in through the door to the dining room. "Hurry up, John. Customers are waiting." "That's okay, John," Sue said. "I'll get it."

He looked at her gratefully as she handed her mother the plates and followed her out to the front.

"You owe me," Sue said over her shoulder as she walked into the dining room.

John nodded. "Deal."

Corrie watched through the window as Pastor Wheeler got into his car, backed up, and pulled onto the street.

She put down the pen she'd been writing with and flexed her fingers.

Being a church secretary was different than she'd envisioned. She'd thought it would be a leisurely, slow-paced job: writing Thank-you notes to little old ladies, scheduling appointments with parishioners, calling people during the holidays and asking them to donate food for the poor. But she seemed to spend most of her time filling out permit applications, making out invoices, and filing requisition forms.

/

Not that she minded.

Just as the subdued pastel light of the chUrch office in which she worked stood in sharp contrast to the harsh fluorescents of the paper office, the simple unstructured demands of her new position were a welcome change from the rigid deadlines of the Gazette. She might have a lot of work to do right now, but the labor was not mentally taxing, and she felt as though she finally had time to think, to sort things through in her mind.

She had also grown to like Pastor Wheeler, although she knew that the mere thought of that drove Rich crazy

The pastor could be a little aloof, a little preoccupied, but he was a good man, with good ideas, and he really was dedicated to serving God.

I have seen Jesus Christ.

She pushed the thought from her mind and looked down at the paper on which she'd been writing. There was going to be a big church fund-raiser a few weeks from now, a picnic, and it was her responsibility to make sure that the event was publicized in the Gazette. Rich would cynically suggest that that was the reason she'd been hired, her close ties to the paper and the publicity which that relationship could provide. But he knew as well as she did that, in Rio Verde, anyone who wanted publicity got it. There simply wasn't enough real news to take up the slack. "

At least not until recently.

She added a line to the description of the fundraiser she'd been preparing, and glanced up at the clock on the bookshelf. Three-thirty.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the darkened doorway that led down the hall to the chapel, and she quickly focused her attention back on her paper.

She didn't like being left alone in the church. Itwas a strange thing to admit, but it was true. She felt comfortable and at ease when the pastor was around, but as soon as he left, the whole tenor of the place seemed to change. Noises that had been unobtrusive became disconcertingly loud. The hallway and chapel seemed darker, the locked doors to the vestibule and storage room appeared to be hiding something. Her office remained unchanged, but the atmosphere in the rest of the church altered palpably, and the empty hulk of that new addition seemed downright threatening.

He has spoken to me.

Corrie reached over and turned on the desk radio, found the faint rhythmic stade of a powerful Top Forty station out of Phoenix. She shifted her chair so that in her peripheral vision she saw the window facing the street rather than the doorway opening onto the hall.

She focused her attention once again on her work and began writing. c The spider was still there when she got home. Corrie stared at the hairy black body in the upper right corner of the living room as she took off her shoes. She knew Rich had seen the spider that morning, and she'd watched him studiously avoid that entire section of the room as he prepared for work. She had purposely not touched the spider, had waited for him to take care of the creature, though she'd known that he wouldn't kill it.

Sure enough, he'd left it there for her to deal with.: : A grown man afraid of a bug.

She heard Rich talking to Anna in the kitchen, and she felt suddenly annoyed with him. Why did she always have to be the one to take responsibility in this relationship? Whether it was their finances, their domestic arrangements, or even a simple spider, she always had to make the decisions, she always had to take action. Anything outside of the precious newspaper automatically became her responsibility. If he worked as hard on their marriage as he did on that damn paper, they might be able to have a fairly decent relationship.

She heard Anna laugh, heard Rich say something to her. His voice was light, happy, relaxed. As always, he was acting as though nothing was wrong. That annoyed her too. It was fine to behave that way around your daughter; children needed their parents to be strong. But it was quite another thing to put on that same happy face in front of your wife. Part of her felt guilty for resenting his behavior. It wasn't up to her to tell him how to deal with his feelings, how to cope with his grief. But then again, maybe it was. She'd been sympathetic with him. She'd been there for him. She knew how he must feel having the graves of his parents desecrated--she knew how she'd feel if her parents died and their bodies were dug up--but he had not shared his feelings with her, had not opened up to her the way she'd expected.

The way he should have. The way, at one time, he would have. That angered her. What made her even angrier was that she knew he wasn't even discussing it with Robert. She knew that the two of them, when together, would tiptoe around the subject, talk about it like reporter and cop, not talk about it like brothers, not talk about the way they felt inside. What the hell was wrong with that family?

She picked up one of her shoes and, standing on her tiptoes, smacked it against the spider. The black body fell down onto the carpet, where she hit it again, pressing the heel down as hard as she could to make sure it was dead.

Anna heard the sound, came running out from the kitchen. "Mommy["

Rich looked at her over their daughter's head. "What was that you just killed? A spider?"

Corrie picked up Anna, gave her a kiss on the forehead, then looked flatly at Rich. "Yes," she said. "It was."

At the church, the days passed quickly, much more quickly than they had at the paper. The work was by no means challenging, but she felt less stifled than she had working with Rich all day, and some of the edge seemed to wear off of her dissatisfaction. She still wanted to get out of this town and move back to civilization, to raise Anna in a more culturally enlightened environment, but some of the urgency had gone out of her need. She was more laid back now, more willing to take things easier, to wait a little.

Perhaps it was the influence of Jesus. She preferred not to think about that, tried desperately hard to keep it at the back of her consciousness. If she allowed herself to even consider the idea that Jesus had returned to earth, had come here to Rio Verde, she would become so frightened that she would not be able to function. She knew that Anna was still worried, still scared-she'd had nightmares every night this week--and she wished she could do more to set her daughter's mind at rest. To set her own mind at rest as well. In truth, she was not sure what to think. She and Pastor Wheeler discussed only the practical matters of the parish, the day-to-day operation of the church. She knew from Wheeler's bearing and attitude, from the assumptions underlying his statements, that he truly believed he had seen Jesus Christ. But her own certainty had waned with the week, the al most palpable belief that had been imparted to her and the rest of the crowd by the pastor's sermon now seeming more and more like the by-product of a good speech.

But if she didn't believe, why was she dreading this Sun day's services?

Why couldn't she reassure Anna that there was nothing to be afraid of?.

And why was she keeping it all from Rich? She had the feeling that if she could just talk to Rich, if she could just tell him what was going on, if she could just share her confusion with him, everything would be okay. Wasn't that what marriage was about? Sharing and support?

She pushed such thoughts away. The bottom line was that, despite the fear, she enjoyed working here, and she felt better now than she had in a long time. The words that came immediately to mind were "tranquil" and "at peace."

Church words.

He is going to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth.

"Jesus loves you," the Pastor Mr. Wheeler said. Corrie looked up.

The pastor was smiling at her. There was something a little off about that smile, a hint of fanaticism in its too wide parameters, and it would have frightened her had he not spoken, had he not said those words, had he not addressed the doubts inside her head.

But he had spoken, he had said those words, he had addressed her doubts. And his voice was comforting, soothing, making her feel warm, wanted, and content.

The Pastor Clan Wheeler had truly been blessed by God. Wheeler stood and walked out from behind his desk, holding in his hand the pristine white Bible from which he drew his sermon topics. "Glen Lyons did not show up last night," he said. "He was supposed to take over the night shift from Gary Watson and construct that installation in the walkway to the addition. I am very disappointed in Glen. Very disappointed.

Would you call him and tell him that? Would you call him and tell him that the next time he volunteers his time and reneges on his promise, I will personally rip his balls out by the roots and feed them to Jesus?"

The pastor was still smiling. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a warning buzzer sounded, telling her that these words were not normal, not right. But her perceptions seemed to have been encased in Lucite, and that warning was just a dull hum somewhere far in the back, ground.

Corrie nodded. "I'll tell him."

Behind the preacher, on the wall, she could see a calendar for the year. Small black X's filled the squares for the months of January through September. October 31, the date of the Second Coming, was circled in red. The rest of the year had been whited out.

Corrie found Glen's number in the church directory, picked up her phone, and dialed while the pastor watched. She realized that there was less than a month left until the Second Coming.

That suddenly seemed very important to her.

Very important.

Glen, obviously hungover, answered the phone after six rings. She told him in a cold voice that the next time he volunteered his time and did not show, causing construction of the church to fall behind schedule, Pastor Wheeler would rip his balls out by the roots and feed them to Jesus. She liked saying that word: "balls."

And she found that she liked hearing the terror in Glen's voice as he desperately and pathetically tried to apologize.

She hung up on him in the middle of his apology, and looked up at the pastor. He grinned at her. "Very good," he said. "Very good."

Her doubts seemed to have disappeared, and in their place she felt only a quietly unobtrusive bliss. She was smiling to herself as she returned her attention to the invoices on her desk.

He saw it again. The Face in the Sand. Cutler closed his eyes and gripped the sides of the sink for support. Outside the restroom of the Shell station he heard the blowing wind, a whooshing noise that would have sounded like water were it not for the tiny granules of sand that scraped against the metal door and the small dirty window above the wastebasket. From inside the gas station itself, muffled by the wall, he heard the dinging of the bell as a late-night customer ran over the cable and pulled up to the pumps.

Cutler opened his eyes, looked again at the mirror. Over his shoulder, he could still see the reflection of The Face, peering in at him through the window.

He looked down into the sink, concentrating on a rust stain connected to the drain directly below the faucet. The Face in the Sand. The malevolence of its gaze and the un naturalness of its composition had been burned permanently into his brain, and after all these years had lost none of its terrifying power. Seeing it again, Cutler felt like a small frightened child, and he was dimly aware that he had wet his pants.

The whooshing sound seemed to grow louder.

It was The Face in the Sand that had kept him from setting out and searching for the Lost Dutchman when he was eighteen. Along with Hobie Beecham and Phil Emmons, he'd been planning to take a year off after high school and before college, to search for the fabled gold mine.

Having grown up in east Mesa, practically under the shadow of the Superstition Mountains, the three of them had spent most of their grammar school years obsessed with the Lost Dutchman, dreaming of becoming rough, tough, rich, and famous prospectors. For six months in fifth grade, after they'd pooled their allowance money one week and purchased a weathered "Genuine Lost Dutchman Treasure Map" from the tourist trap on Main Street, they'd thought the mine was theirs. The obsession had cooled somewhat by high school, but they were still seriously planning to spend a year prospecting in the Superstitions beginning the summer after graduation. They didn't really expect to find the mine, but they were expecting to party, live off the land, and generally enjoy their last gasp of freedom before becoming responsible adults.

Then he'd seen The Face in the Sand.

Cutler had never told his two friends what he'd seen, knowing they would think him pussy or worse. Instead, he'd given them a transparently false story about growing up and putting away childish things, a story neither of them bought. Both Hobie and Phil had tried desperately, together and separately, to change his mind, playing on his sympathy, on his memory, on his loyalty, but he'd re fused to budge. They'd ended up fighting with him, then fighting with each other, and the whole idea had died an ignominious death. He hadn't seen either of them after that, was not even sure if they'd kept in touch with each other. At the end of the summer, carrying only the stuffed backpack that he'd planned to bring with him into the Superstitions, he'd hit the road to Denver, where there was supposed to be an airplane mechanic's school. He had some half-baked idea of becoming a jet mechanic, but he'd lasted there about nine months before moving on to Colorado Springs, where he lasted about nine months before moving on to Albuquerque, where he lasted about nine months before moving on... :: And always The Face had haunted him. He'd seen The Face in the flat desert outside Apache Junction. It had been a hot Saturday afternoon, and he'd been walking alone, down one of the old Indian trails that wound through private property and reservation land to the base of the Superstitions. The sky had been spectacularly, unnaturally blue, so blue that he had specifically noticed it, though that was not something that often captured his attention. He'd felt slightly dizzy, and he'd stopped to rest on a low mound of sand, taking off his T-shirt and using it to wipe the sweat from his face, knowing from touch that his nose and forehead were already burned. He'd glanced down at his feet. : And he'd seen The Face. Twice the size of a normal human face, it had looked like a sculpture protruding from the ground. The chin and cheeks, eyes and mouth, nose and forehead had all been formed from sand and had a strange, grainily smooth texture. For a brief second he'd wondered why he hadn't seen it before and what its creators had used to hold the sand together. Then he'd seen that the face was moving, muscles outlined in ridges beneath the cheeks stretching taut, lips spreading out into a silent scream, eyes rolling wildly.

He'd jumped up, nearly tripping over his feet in his at tempt to scramble away from the mound. Even as he moved frantically back, he kept his gaze on the face in the sand. Or The Face in the Sand, as it had immediately become. He would have screamed, wanted to scream, but was afraid of what The Face would do in reaction. The sweat pouring down his face was cold, and his heart was pumping crazily. It was not merely the fact that sand was sen dent that scared him so; it was the structure of The Face itself, the contours of its form. There was something about the cruel shape of the mouth, the way the eyes were positioned above the nose that seemed wrong, unnatural. Evil The effect was all the more terrifying because of the monochromatic nature of the sand. The eyes that were glaring at him, the mouth that was grimacing at him, everything was the same light tan white color, and the imposition of a three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional substance was monstrous.

Above the beating of his heart and the pounding of blood in his temples, he'd thought he heard a noise, a hiss issuing from those shifting sand lips. He held his breath, tried to hear the sound above the panicked rasp of his own breathing.

The words were faint, but audible: "I will find you." The eyes had met his, locked, and though he'd tried to look away, he couldn't. The Face had strained, grown, pushed outward, as though trying to break free of the confines of the earth, then had sunk back into ordinary sand.

There'd been a brief moment of respite, a few confusing seconds in which he'd put it all down to heat prostration and an overactive imagination. Then The Face had reformed in the sand at his feet, thrusting upward from the ground. A small cactus was sucked into the opening mouth. The horrible eyes had glared at him, then the mouth had grinned and whispered his name. "Cutler." Again: "Cutler."

And: "I will find you."

He'd run then, back down the trail on which he'd come, knowing that at any moment The Face in the Sand might reappear, might pop up before him, might whisper his name.

Might do something worse.

He had not known why The Face had promised to follow him, but it was instantly clear that he had to get away from the desert, away from Arizona, away from the sand. Whatever it was, whatever its purpose or motives, it would not be able to find him if he stayed in forests or cities, if he got away from the stuff of its substance.

He'd done a good job of keeping away from the desert before coming to Rio Verde to work at the Rocking D. But somehow, he had never traveled far. He had never gone to the East Coast or the South or the Pacific North west or another country. He'd always stayed in the South west, near Arizona.

And now he'd returned.

Why hadn't he stayed away forever?

Again he closed his eyes, willing The Face to go away, praying to God, promising He or She or It that he would be good, that he would never so much as swear ffhe could just get out of this restroom with his sanity and his life.

It was late and the gas station would be closing soon. Surely the attendant would come back here to see what had happened to him, to inform him that they were get ting ready to close.

But the Face in the Sand might get the attendant.

But then the police would come.

But what if the police couldn't stop The Face? What if nothing could stop it? What if it would not give up until it had him, no matter how many others it had to kill first? "Curler." . The voice was rough and whispered, barely audible above the grainy liquid sound of the wind.

He wanted to scream but could not. He opened his eyes, and in the mirror his mouth was open, although no sound was coming out. Over his shoulder, outside the small window, was The Face. The features changed, the wall of sand on the other side of the dirty glass shifting, rippling, now grimacing, now smiling, now screaming, the movement not smooth and fluid but still and jerky.

Hadn't it been more fluid before? ,

"I found you."; .;

He plugged his ears, trying to keep out the voice, trying not to hear it, but though the sound of the wind was shut out, the voice echoed in his head. There were only the two phrases, repeated--"Cutler" and "I found you' rebut for some reason that frightened him more than if a coherent series of threats had been leveled at him.

The glass in the window shattered, flying inward, and, reacting instinctively, Cutler hit the floor, curling instantly into a position under the sink that was half fetal, half duck-and-cover. Now he was screaming: short, high, feminine bursts.

He stopped screaming when the first grains of Sand tickled the back of his neck. I ............ There hadn't been a single car on the highway for the past fifteen minutes, and Buford wanted to close up early. He had never closed the stand before ten o'clock in the nine years it had been operating, and he didn't want to start now, but something was wrong here. He could feel it; he could sense it. He glanced over at the clock, but he could see the order window in his peripheral vision, and he looked immediately away. Licking his lips, he started singing.

Military songs. "pick the lock with my enormous cock, said Barnacle Bill the Sailor. "His voice sounded strange in the silence, and he stopped almost immediately. He reached over, flipped on the radio, turned the knob, but there was only static.

Something was definitely wrong. He didn't like the color of the sky or the sound of the breeze or the fact that his was the only business open this late in this part of town.

He scraped the grill with his spatula, oncentrating all of his attention on the square of dark metal and the brown hardened grease, trying not to think of that blackness beyond the order window. There were goose bumps on his arms, and he had to admit that he was spooked.

Hell, a few moments ago, he'd nearly jumped out of his shoes when the phone rang. It had only been Jacy, and for the few moments they talked he'd felt fine, but the second he hung up the receiver the chill had returned.

He'd thought he'd seen movement outside the window, but when he'd looked more closely there'd been nothing there.

He'd avoided looking out the window since then.

He'd pretended to himself that he hadn't heard the noises.

He finished scraping the grill and used the spatula to pick up the congealed grease and drop it in the empty coffee can on the floor. He had never before been this scared. Not in "Nam, not nowhere.

But there was nothing to be frightened of, nothing out there.

Buford reached for his cup on the edge of the grill, picked it up and drank the dregs. He should close up, let Taco Bell or Dairy Queen get the extra business. How much could he make between now and ten anyway?

If he was lucky, a couple of kids would stop by for Cokes and fries after the movie got out, but that was the most he could hope for. And considering the fact that the theater was showing a "serious" film this week, not an action flick or a comedy, and that this was a weeknight, not a weekend, the chance that any kids would come by at all was damn near zip. He could close up now and not notice the difference.

But he didn't want to close up, and he was forced to admit to himself that he was afraid to leave. His truck was parked in the rear, facing the desert, and the outside bulb in the back had burnt out some time ago.

The stand was surrounded by darkness.

He could call Jacy, invent some excuse, tell her to come over and meet him here. But she'd probably taken her bath and was in bed already.

Besides, he wasn't such a pussy that he had to have his wife save him from the monster, was he? found himself thinking of Manuel Torres and those animals lying in the arroyo with the blood sucl out of them. The arroyo stretched only a few dozen Fa behind the stand. He knew that a police had searched area thoroughly, but he also knew that nothing had been found. He imagined the arroyo at night, a huge black gash across the desert, its floor, invisible in the gloom his mind, he saw the top of the arroyo, saw white finl reaching upward from the blackness, grabbing the edge of the cliff, saw the vampire pulling itself upwal

Vampire. Jesus Christ, he was turning into a little lady. What the hell was wrong with him? He should knock this shit off, close up, and get his ass home to

But as he stood next to the grill, he heard rustlin the sagebrush outside, the light whisk sound of mo gravel, and he concentrated once again on the squa the grill, afraid to look up, not knowing when he would build up enough courage to leave the stand and go home.

" After dinner, Rich helped Anna with her spelling flasl cards. Her class was studying "at" words this week--cat hat, fat, and bat--and she could recognize them all excep bat," which for some reason she missed each and ever2 time. She kept confusing it with "fat." He tried to explain the difference between the two, and she could get it correct if he repeated the flash cards in identical order, but the minute he shuffled the cards, she would miss it again

They quit studying after fifteen minutes, when he sensed that Anna was getting restless, her attention starting to wander, and he told her she could watch TV un till bedtime. The two of them sat next to each other on the couch. A few moments later, Corrie came into the room Rich had thought she was in the kitchen doing something but she came in from the hallway.

She walked in front of the television. "Here," she said "I want this in the paper." She tossed two paper clippec pages on the coffee table.

He picked up the pages, glanced at the top one, shool his head. "Can't do it."

"What?"

"Joking," he said, raising his hands in apologetic self defense. "I'm just joking," He read through the copy. fund-raising picnic for Wheeler's church? We don't haw to go to this, do we?"

"I'm going. Anna's going." She looked at him coolly. "I would appreciate it if you would accompany us."

He dropped the papers on the table "I suppose." "It's for a good cause."

"Yeah," he said. "Right. Could you move over a little? You're blocking the screen."

Corrie's mouth hardened into a straight line. "Anna," she said, "I think it's time for you to go to bed."

"But the show's not over yet!"

Rich patted her leg. "Listen to your mother," he said. She hesitated ....... "Anna! " Corrie repeated.

"A story? I thought you said you were too old for me to read you stories."

"I'm not too old anymore."

Rich looked at Anna, but she wouldn't meet his eyes.

He glanced over at Corrie, who was frowning. "Are you afraid to go to sleep by yourself?. Is that it? Have you been having bad dreams? We could leave your light on for you."

She shook her head emphatically. Too emphatically.

"It's all right, honey," Corrie said softly. "We're here to protect you."

"I'm not afraid!" Anna pulled away from her father, jumped off the couch, and stalked out of the room.

Rich and Corrie looked at each other. The anger, the unborn argument that had been building between them had dissipated, and all they saw in each other's faces was concern for their daughter.

He stood. "I'll find out what it is."

"No, I will," Corrie said.

He followed her down the hall. "We both will."

Am Hewett stared into the muzzle of the cocked pis for what seemed like hours before finally turning it a from his face. He slowly uncocked the gun and placed on the table in front of him. His hands were wet sweat, and perspiration streamed down his forehea stinging his eyes, dripping onto his nose.

He really had been planning to kill himself, to bl, his brains out, but at the last minute something has held him back; the feelinguno, the knowledge---that life would be better sacrificed some other way. Donna was going to the police. He had no doubt of that. She'd packed all of her clothes and personal belo ings and had taken Dawn with her, and the two of them were probably in the police station right now, spilling their guts, trying to make him look like some sort of sick perverts.

Or were they?

If Donna had planned to press charges, the cops wot have come to him by now, would have shown up at the store or, at the very least, would have been waiting him when he arrived home. Besides, why would Don pack all of her clothes if she was just going to turn him in? There would be no reason for her and Dawn to go out or find someplace else to stay if he were in jail.

Maybe they weren't going to the police. Maybe they were just running away.

Head pounding, he stood up and walked from the kitchen, through the living room, to Dawn's bedroom. Leaning against the door frame, unwilling to disturb the sanctity of her sanctuary even though she was gone, he took visual inventory of her room. She'd taken her clothes and her books. She'd taken her stuffed Winniethe-Pooh. She'd taken her high school photos, the ones she'd taped to the edges of her dresser mirror, as well as her old transistor radio. She'd left her Walkman. And her unicorn picture. And her camera.

Everything he'd bought her........... He felt a twinge of unreasonable hurt, a flash of pain in a vacuum of emptiness, but he was glad of the hurt. It meant that he still loved her.

He stared at the reflection of himself in the newly revealed mirror. He blamed Donna. He would bet a dollar to a donut that it was Donna who'd made her leave all those things behind. The bitch was jealous; that's all it was. She wasn't concerned about her daughter. She didn't give a rat's ass in hell about Dawn's welfare or happiness. She just wanted to get back at him. She was hurt and she wanted to hurt back. It was her own fault. She should have known what to expect. She should've seen it coming. He liked them young. Always had. She knew that.

She'd been sixteen when he'd married her, he'd been twenty-six. She'd known that it was her youth that had been one of the chief attractions for him, and she should have known that when she crossed that line into middle age, he would be forced to look elsewhere for his pleasure.

Only he hadn't meant for it to be their daughter.

He stared at Dawn's bed, remembered all of the good times they'd had there.

It had started innocently enough: he'd seen Dawn masturbating.

It had been a Friday night. He'd gotten out of bed after the ten o'clock news to go to the bathroom, and as he walked by his daughter's room, he saw movement through the crack of the open door. He had not looked closely, but that one quick glimpse had been enough. He'd seen Dawn's hand, massaging between her legs, backlit by the small wall night light.

He had not been able to get that image out of his mind--his daughter rubbing herself---and he began to notice, at breakfast and at dinner, that she was growing up, starting to fill out. That she was becoming a very attractive young woman. He began thinking about her when he was taking off his clothes, when he was taking a shower, when he was with Donna.

One day he came home from work at lunch to find a note from Donna waiting for him, explaining that she'd gone to the store with a friend.

He'd started to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when he noticed a rolled up pair of Dawn's white cotton panties on the tile floor next to the washing machine. Putting down the butter knife, he'd walked over to the washing machine and bent to pick up the panties. He stood slowly. They were small, delicate, and they felt soft and sensuous to his touch. He unrolled them, and pressed the thin material to his lips before guiltily dropping them into the washer.

He began coming home at lunch more often after that, secretly hoping that lightning would strike twice, but not daring to admit such a desire even to himself. He ate his lunches at the counter, staring toward the washing machine. His hope soon graduated into an obsession, and after two weeks he gave up all pretext of innocence, contriving as often as he could to get Donna out of the house before quickly sifting through the hamper for Dawn's panties. They hadn't had much of a smell at first, only cloth, but he'd soon begun to discern through the material the faint fishy scent of female arousal.

He hadn't intended to have sex with her, and probably would not have done so had she not caught him. He probably would have continued playing with her panties, fantasizing about her when he was with Donna, masturbating. Perhaps he would have eventually found a girl who looked like her......... But she'd come home one day at lunch, and he'd been sniffing the crotch of her underwear, inhaling the delicious perfume of her panties a she'd walked through the door into his bedroom. Dawn hadn't said anything, hadn't done anything, had simply stood there, staring. He'd slowly lowered his hands, feeling the guilty red heat of embarrassment flush across his face. He'd wanted to say something, wanted to apologize, but he hadn't been able to speak.

She'd backed up, started to move away, but he found his voice and said in his stern Father tone, "Dawn! Stop right there!" She'd stopped, turned ashamedly around to face him, and then he had rushed forward, taken her in his arms and held her, hugged her, pressed against her, kissing her full warm tips. He knew that she could feel his hardness against her and that made him even harder. He slid his hand under her shirt, feeling the tiny nipples of her firm young breasts. She was whimpering, crying, her eyes closed, but she was not fighting back, and he knew that she wanted it, and he pushed her to the floor, slid her shorts down and felt the rough hair of her vagina beneath his fingers.

He'd taken her there, on the carpet next to the bed.

She'd stiffened at one point, and he knew that she'd come.

He'd wanted to roar in triumph; he'd wanted to cry in shame. He'd wanted to hug her with gratitude; he'd wanted to beat her in disgust.

They'd done it regularly after that, at least twice a week for the past year. He had not told Donna; of course, but he had not forbid Dawn to tell her mother, and he'd assumed that she'd known.

More than once, he'd even considered a threesome. But Donna had not known, until yesterday. Despite the extra attention he'd shown Dawn, the extra things he'd bought her, the obviously un paternal kisses he'd bested upon her, the stupid bitch still hadn't figured it out If she hadn't been snooping where she wasn't supposed to, sneaking through Dawn's diary, she probably never would have found out.

But that was all water under the bridge now, and after reading Donna's letter, he'd known that his time was up.

That's when he'd taken out his gun. There was no way in hell that he was going to go to prison. Especially not as a short eyes.

He'd rather just end it before it got that far.

But a bullet in the brain was not for him. He walked back into the kitchen, looked down at the gun lying seductively on top of the table No, he was not to die this way. He was supposed to die, his time had truly come, but the manner and method of his death was not to be so meaningless, so trivial. He knew that. He knew it not as a conscious thought but instinctively, deep inside, the way he knew that tonight the sun would set and tomorrow it would rise. He closed his eyes, feeling a sudden pressure on his brain, fearing a headache. But no headache came.

Instead, he had the impulse to go outside and walk into the desert in back of the house.

He frowned, wondering if his mind was going. His eyes focused again on the gun, and he found himself thinking that there was no reason to kill himself at all. He was safe;

Donna had obviously not gone to the police The pressure kicked in again. He shut his eyes so tightly

" that tears came, and in a clear instant he understood that it was his time to die. '

He walked out of the kitchen, through the back door, through the yard, past the rusted barbecue, and crawled through the hole in the chain-link fence. He stood up on the other side of the barrier, not bothering to dust the sand and burrs from his clothes, and began walking across the open desert, heading in the general direction of Apache Peak. Behind him, the sun was setting, and the ground was bathed in an orangish red glow, the saguaros and ocotillos black shapes against the color.

Death. He stopped walking. The pressure in his mind strengthened but he pushed back against it. He knew he should continue moving forward, keep walking, but he sensed that Death was near, and he was now scared.

Death, he suddenly realized, was not merely the absence of life but the presence of... something else. It was not a natural cessation of mind and body functions but an actual, physical end type. He turned his head, looking toward the darkened north, his terror growing. It was coming, moving across the desert toward him. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it, a blackness on the horizon, and as it drew closer he knew that it was very big. And unbelievably ancient

The pressure in his mind no longer seemed to have any hold over him, and he suddenly gathered his wits, turned, and ran. He ran not toward home, not toward shelter, but away from the onrushing.." thing, away from Death, scrambling madly through the sand in an effort to escape its coming. What the hell had possessed him to come out here in the first place? Temporary insanity? What had compelled him toHe slid, fell, tumbling arms over head over legs down the soft sand to the bottom of the arroyo, still looking behind him. His shin hit a rock, the side of his face a bush, and he landed hard on the arroyo floor, hearing and feeling the bones in his right arm crack beneath him. He was stunned for a moment, but then he remembered what was after him, and he stumbled to his feet. He looked upward, wondering if he should chance a climb up the cliff or run through the gulch.

There was a noise from around the curve behind him. A whooshing hiss.

It was a sound not unlike water, and for a brief second he thought a flash flood was sweeping through the arroyo, though there'd been no rain. He started to stagger away from the sound, then a blanket of peace settled over his mind, and he felt no worry. He stopped, turned around, and began walking toward the noise, growing more docile, more tranquil with each step he took.

He did not even cry out as he rounded the curve and saw the face of Death..

Sue awoke feeling tired, her mind a conflicting jumble of images from several disparate dreams. There was something about a hole in the earthen floor of a building, a hole that led into-a tunnel. There was a man nailed to a willow tree, screaming. There was a river of blood that ran uphill.

She sat up in bed, fluffing the pillow behind her and using it to brace her back against the headboard. She'd gotten to sleep late last night.

Janine had come over after work to talk and had stayed until nearly midnight, ignoring the not-so-subtle hints of Sue's parents, who tried to kick her out at eight, nine, and ten before finally giving up and going to bed.

John had already gone to school by the time Sue walked out into the living room, but her grandmother was still in bed. She found herself wondering, not for the first time, if maybe her grandmother was ill, if she was dying.

She forced herself to think of something else.

After breakfast, she accompanied her parents to the market. :

There was only one other car in the parking lot this morning, an old green Torino, and her father pulled next to it, parking so close that she and her mother could not open their doors all the way and had a difficult time get ring out of the car. She maneuvered her way between the two vehicles and walked up the curb to the store sidewalk.

Her father grabbed a shopping cart, and she hell the door to the market as her parents went inside.

She noticed the difference immediately.

The market had changed.

She had always enjoyed coming here; had always foundi the atmosphere to be pleasant and friendly; had always l liked Mr. and Mrs. Grimes, the owners of the store. Butt today something was wrong. The atmosphere was different the air filled with an unfocused hostility that sheI sensed the second she walked through the door. She fel unpleasantly uncomfortable, and she desperately wanted to walk back outside into the cool fresh air.

She watched her parents walk down the first aisle toward the produce section at the far end. They obviously felt nothing out of the ordinary, sensed nothing wrong, but her muscles grew tense as she watched them, her uneasiness and anxiety increasing. She noticed for the first time that Mr. and Mrs. Grimes were nowhere in sight.

Ordinarily, the checkout stand was never left unattended.

There were a series of burnt-out lights above the meat counter that cast an entire section of the market into semidarkness. Her parents walked into the shadow.

"Hey thereI"

She jumped at the sound of Mr. Grimes's voice and turned quickly around to see him standing directly behind her, smiling. There was nothing false about his smile, nothing sinister, but the fact that he had been able to sneak up on her like that, without her being able to hear him, scared her.

"How are you and your folks today?"

"Fine," Sue said, forcing herself to smile at him.

The negativity in the air had not diminished, the atmosphere within the market remained unchanged, but she knew that the impressions she was receiving had nothing to do with a cup hugirngsi or tse meg, were entirely unrelated to the supernatural.

" She suddenly wished her grandmother were here. Her parents had turned the corner, and Sue moved across the front of the store to the next aisle, looking toward the far end. They were not there, and she con ting ued on to the next row.

Mrs. Grimes rushed toward her from between the stacks of canned foods.

Sue stepped back, feeling as though she'd been physically pushed. This was where the hostility was coming from, the source of the negativity within the market. She could feel it rolling off the woman in nearly palpable waves.

Mrs. Grimes moved past her, frowning, saying nothing. Sue walked quickly down the vacated aisle and found her parents in the produce section, stocking up on cabbage for the restaurant. Her mother looked up at her, annoyed. "Why are you just standing around? Help us. Get a gallon of milk."

Her mother had a list for the house, her father for the restaurant, and they alked through the market, picking up everything they needed for both before heading back to the checkout stand. Again, the register was unattended, Mr. and Mrs. Grimes nowhere to be seen.

Her father began taking items from the cart and placing them on the unmoving black rubber conveyor belt. "Wait," her mother said. "We forgot to get cereal for John."

"Cereal?" her father said.

"He doesn't want rice every day."

"You're going to spoil that boy," he said, but he followed her back down the first aisle to the breakfast foods.

Mr. and Mrs. Grimes emerged from the shadowed meat department, both of them moving behind the register. "All ready to go?" Mr. Grimes asked.

"Almost," Sue said. "My parents are just getting some cereal."

Mrs. Grimes cleared her throat loudly, melodramatically, and nudged her husband. Mr. Grimes looked embarrassed and pushed her arm down, but he faced Sue. He smiled, tried to make his voice casual. "How come your morn and dad're always talkin' Chinese. he asked. She blinked. "Because they're Chinese." "But they're in America now."

Her cheeks were hot, and she could feel herself becoming defensive.

"What does that mean? They're in America so they should be speaking American? What is American? What language is native to this country?

Navajo? Hopi?"

He laughed. "You got me there." He looked at his wife and rubbed his chin. She could hear the rough skin of his fingers scraping against the stubble. "No, I just mean that, well, since they're in an English-speaking country they probably oughta be speaking English."

"They do," Sue said, her face growing warmer. "When they need to. But Cantonese is their native language, and when they have personal conversations it's easier for them to speak Cantonese." She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "It's like if you and your wife moved to China. You'd speak Chinese when you had to, to get along in society, but when you were home alone you'd speak English. It's your native language, it's easier for you. There'd be no reason for you to speak Chinese in private, would there?" She motioned toward her parents.

"Same thing."

He nodded thoughtfully, still rubbing his chin. "I see your point."

Next to him, his wife leaned forward, thin lips pursed. "Well, I'll be honest with you. I don't like it. I mean, your parents are good folks and all, don't get me wrong. But sometimes .. . well, sometimes I can't tell what they're talking about when they talk like that. I can't help thinking that they're talking about me."

"Right now," Sue said drily, "they're talking about corn flakes."

Mrs. Grimes frowned. "You know what I mean. I have nothing against your parents, but what if there were some of them who weren't so nice, who weren't such good people?" '" "Some of who?" '-' .... " ' She colored. '"You know, foreign.." people from othel countries. I mean, how would we know what they weft talking about?"

Mr. Grimes turned toward his wife. "I think her point Edna, is that some conversations are private. Some thing'. you don't need to know about."

Her parents returned with a box of Rice Krispies, ant both Mr. and Mrs. Grimes smiled pleasantly at them, she totaling the purchases on the register, he bagging the grocery ceries. "Come again," Mrs. Grimes said as they left.

Sue had often wondered what it was that had prompte, her parents to settle in Rio Verde. After moving to the United States from Hong Kong, they had lived for a years in Chinatown in New York--where she was born before heading west when she was two. But what had made them decide on Arizona? And why had they decided to live in this town instead of Phoenix or Tucson or Flagst or Prescott?

She had never Come out and asked her parents why they were here. Partly because she did not want to mention to them that she was not completely happy here, partly because she suspected that her father had been suckered into buying land in Rio Verde.

But as they walked out to the car, as the oppressive ne that had hung over her since she'd stepped into the market lifted, she found herself wondering if there were oth reasons they had come here. Had it been laht sic, fate? had her grandmother's Di Lo Ling Gum steered the here?

She pushed these ideas out of her mind. Her father unlocked her mother's door, then popped open the back of the station wagon, and he and Sue loaded the groceries. Her father closed the hatch, then went around to the driver's door. "We'll stop by the restaurant first," he said.

"I need to go to the newspaper office," Sue told him. "All right Actually, I think I'd rather walk. I can use the exercise.

And you won't have to go out of your way."

"Are you ashamed of us?" her mother said from inside the car.

"No."

"Then why won't you come with us?"

Sue sighed. "Fine," She opened the back door of the station wagon.

"If you want to walk, walk," her father said. "It is not a problem."

"I don't want to cause an argument."

"Go," he told her.

She smiled at him. "Thank you."

Sue moved out of the way, and as the station wagon backed up, she expected to hear the sound of her parent arguing, but even her mother must not have considered this a big deal since both parents waved and smiled through the windows as the car pulled out of the parking lot.

Sue looked around. She was standing alone now by the green Torino, facing the smoked glass of the market door, and she turned away and hurried across the cracked and broken asphalt of the parking lot, wanting to get as fast away from there as possible.

She began walking toward the newspaper office, but! instead of heading down the highway, she found herself turning onto Jefferson, then onto Copperhead. She did not know why she was going this way--it was longer and slower and led through the crummier part of townEbut her feet were leading and her head was following, her directions running on instinct.

She turned left onto Arrow. And there was the black church.

She stopped. There was something about the way the buildings fit together that she didn't like, that set her on edge. It was nothing specific, nothing she could put a finger on, more of a general feeling--a sense that the architectural aesthetics of the union were wrong.

Although it was daytime, the street was deserted. A scrap of paper blew across the asphalt, drifdng from the construction site to the empty feed and grain store, making everything seem like part of a ghost town.

Ghost. '

That was it exactly. There was an air of unreality about this street, the sense here of something supernatural.

She wanted to go back the way she had come, but a fog seemed to have settled over her brain, and her feet took her forward instead, toward the church. There was the sound of pounding, hammering, sawing, the noises of construction unnaturally loud on the otherwise silent street.

Sue looked up, saw men at the top of the church roof, on a makeshift scaffold at its side. The men looked gaunt and haggard and far too white for laborers used to toiling in the sun. Two of them had taken off their shirts, despite the cold, and across the broad back of one she could see red welts that looked as though they were made by lashes from a whip.

She forced herself to walk faster.

On the steps of the church she saw Pastor Wheeler. He stared at her as she hurried by, and she shivered, chilled. There was something predatory in the pastor's gaze, some thing that didn't sit well with her, and she quickened her pace. Although she did not really know Wheeler, she knew she didn't like him. The few times she'd met him, he'd seemed sneaky and somehow sleazy, like a car salesman or a child molester, and that first impression only stayed. now.

"Miss?" the pastor said.

Sue didn't want to stop, wanted to run, wanted to pretend as though she hadn't heard the call, but she turned. "Yes?"

A slow grin spread over the pastor's face. "Chink," he said softly.

"Fucking chink."

She backed up a step, swallowing.

Wheeler's grin grew wider. "Fucking slant-eyed heathen slut. Why are you walking by my church'"

She shook her head. "I--"

He walked down the steps toward her. "I'll teach you a lesson, you cock-teasing bitch."

She ran. The slight numbness that had seemed to come over her when she'd stepped onto the street lifted, and she was free to act, free to move. She ran like hell.

She heard the pastor behind her. She did not know if he was following, but he was definitely shouting at her, though the sound of her breathing mercifully muffled his cries into an indistinguishable drone.

She turned left at the corner, and though her legs and lungs were hurting and it was getting hard to breathe, she did not stop or slow down, and she continued running until she reached the highway.

Rich didn't want to go to the picnic, but Corrie had to attend, and he and Anna had been formally invited. It was a legitimate news event, he reasoned, and he would have been obligated to go and take a few photos for the paper anyway. Rather than argue with Corrie, he agreed to make it a family outing.

They argued anyway, on the way over. They were driving toward the park, he and Corrie traveling in silence, Anna in the backseat singing to herself, when Corrie said, out of the blue, "People here say 'man-aisc." ":

He glanced at her, puzzled. "What?"

"They say 'man-aisc." Either they have reading problems or speech problems. It's 'may-o-naise," not 'manaise." How do you get 'man' out of 'mayo'? Tell me that. Is this the kind of thing that you want your daughter to grow up emulating?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about our daughter's future."

"What does colloquial speech have to do with Anna?" "Everything.

Children are products not just of genetic. but of their environment.

I think she's growing up in the wrong environment."

"I bet Pastor Wheeler says 'man-aisc' too."

She stared at him, face muscles tightening. "What's that supposed to mean?" ,.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"No one's forcing you to go to this picnic, you know.

If you don't want to spend time with your wife and daughter..."

"Jesus. Just shut up for a while."

Corrie did not respond. Anna's singing had stopped, and the silence in the car seemed unbearable. Rich reached over and pushed a cassette into the tape player.

Allman Brothers. Corrie hated the Allman Brothers, but she didn't say anything, simply sat staring straight out the windshield, arms folded over her breasts.

They drove to the picnic without speaking.

The park was crowded, much more crowded than he would have expected, and he had a difficult time finding a parking place. He finally found a spot a block away on the opposite side of the street, and they walked back.

Lines had already formed in front of the barbecue grills, and there were people everywhere. Wheeler's church was not one of the major denominations and Rich would not have expected this many people to show up for a fund raiser, but then again not everyone here was from

Wheeler's congregation. Most of them were probably people who had read about the picnic in the paper and had come out of curiosity, or because nothing else was happening in town this weekend. Still, the turnout was impressive.

The picnic did seem to be well planned and put together, he had to admit that. A large banner proclaiming this the "First Annual Rio Verde Picnic and Church Social" was strung between the park's two dusty oaks, and all of the benches and picnic tables were festooned with yellow crepe paper. There were booths and cordoned-off areas for organized games, and plenty of name-tagged church members were on hand to direct newcomers to the appropriate section of the park. The air smelled of burning charcoal, beer, relish, insect repellent, and suntan lotion. Rich glanced up again at the banner. He was a little leery of the fact that this was being called Pdo Verde's church social rather than the Church of the Holy Trinity social, but the banner's grammatical error and its implications didn't seem to be troubling anyone else, so he let it ride.

Taking Anna's hand, Corrie started off across the dried grass toward the barbecues, without giving him so much as a backward glance. He considered remaining where he was, or even going back to the car--just to give Corrie a little sore---but he didn't want to drag Anna into this, so he followed his wife and daughter through the crowd.

The day was hot. There was very little shade in the park, and what shade there was had been usurped by church families who'd staked out the benches underneath the occasional trees. He glanced around as the three of them headed toward the food, smiling, nodding, waving, saying a few quick "'hi's, but though he saw several acquaintances, he saw no friends. Most of the people here were strangers to him.

Ahead, behind the middle barbecue, in a white apron and comical chef's hat, spatula in hand, stood Pastor Wheeler. The preacher was grinning hugely, joking wit the men and women who waited in line, paper plates in hand, but there was something about his manner, aboul the way he talked to the people in front of the barbecu( that seemed forced, false, and slightly patronizing. It was unnerving to see such unapologetic glad-handing, ant Rich felt even more ill at ease when Wheeler noticed Corrie and turned some of that guile on her. ' He did not follow Corrie and Anna around the barbecue but remained where he was. Anna, he noticed seemed wary of the pastor. She didn't blanch or pull back when he smiled and patted her head, but she wasn't a friendly or forthcoming as she usually was, and he could tell from her posture that she was afraid of the man. Apparently, she had inherited his own good sense find instinctive ability to judge character.

The strange thing was that Corrie, too, seemed somewhat frightened. Her beaming smile and friendly tone of voice betrayed no such reservations, but her body language told another story. She stood stiffly, awkwardly; even her usually expansive hand gestures appeared reserved.

Rich watched Wheeler for a few moments, making no effort to move any closer. The pastor was of medium height and medium build, but carried himself as though he were something more, something special. There was about him an indefinable air of sleaziness and opportunism common to all salesmen. Rich watched him clap hands on backs, overreact to jokes. Try as he might, Rich failed to understand how people could find such a man charismatic.

And how people could believe that such a man knew The Truth was totally beyond his comprehension.

Rich caught Corrie's eye, motioned to her that he was going to look around, but she simply looked away. She'd seen him, he knew, though she wouldn't acknowledge it. He started off through the crowd toward the booths at the edge of the playground. He wondered if he should have brought his notebook, but then decided that any factual material about the picnic he might need he could get from Corde. He'd go back to the car a little later, get out his camera, and take a few crowd shots. Maybe a small kid eating a big slice of watermelon. Or a dog playing Frisbee. Something cute and heartwarming.

To the side of the first booth--a ring toss game--was a table covered with red crepe paper. From the front edge of the table hung a sign on which was printed a single word, "Raffle," and a price, "$5." He walked around the line of people in front of the table to where the ticket sellers sat and looked down at one of the raffle tickets.

As a fund-raiser, the church was raffling off a car donated by Whit Stasson's Chevrolet.

Sure enough, a new white Blazer was positioned in the street behind the table, half hidden from this angle by the ring toss booth.

Rich frowned. Churchgoer or not, a car was one hell of a donation for a person to make, particularly in this town where raffles were usually for video rental coupons or, at best, toaster ovens. One hell of a donation. Whit had cut hack on his advertising in the paper earlier thit year, and Rich knew firsthand that the dealership was not doing all that well.

How could Whit afford to do this? And why would he do it even if he could? Whit was no Holy Roller.

What was the money going to be used for? Rich found himself wondering.

Judging on past actions, Wheeler was not going to donate it to the poor or use it to help need} families.

The woman seated behind the table looked up at him smiling a Stepford smile. "Would you like to buy a chano to win a new Blazer? It's only five dollars"

Rich shook his head, moved away from the table "not today."

The afternoon dragged on. He and Corrie and Ann: ate together, standing with the crowd watching the relay races, then played a few of the games. He wandereq around taking a roll of photos, letting Anna carry the camera case. Several men on the fringes of the festivid grew progressively drunker, progressively louder, as hours passed, and members of Wheeler's congregatio kept sneaking furtive glances at the pastor to see what his reaction would be. But there was no reaction, no sermonizing, no lecturing. Although Wheeler's eyes seemed grow blank when he looked over at the drunks, he remained cheerfully tolerant of their excesses, choosing put up with them rather than make them an exam pl Rich found himself thinking that, in con artist terms, i was easier to take a drunk mark than a sober one.

That's what Wheeler reminded him of. A con artist. "What's the money being raised for?" Rich asked Co tie as they walked back to the car.

Behind them, the noun cement of the raffle winner was about to take plac

"The church just purchased more construction mate rials from the Valley," she said. "Pastor Wheeler is in. hurry to build the Church of the Living Christ."

Great, Rich thought, another monument to a shyste preacher's vanity.

What was next? A prayer tower? A broac casting tower? A TV show? But he said nothing.

The three of them walked back to the car in silence.

The Branding Iron, Rio Verde's only real bar, was the last building on the desolate east end of town, a low nondescript structure on the highway to Casa Grande that was separated from the Shell station the end of the town proper by a good half-mile of empty desert. The building was brick, with a small lone window next to the perpetually open front door through which shone the neon lights of red and blue beer signs. There were hitching posts around two sides of the building, and on summer ' weekends, for two days straight, an army of motorcycles remained parked in front of the posts, chrome shining in the desert sun, gleaming under the desert moon.

Tonight there were no hogs in front of the bar, only a few broken-down pickups. And Brad Woods's Buick.

Robert pulled next to the coroner's car and got out, yawning. He was fired. He'd spent most of the morning on the phone and most of the afternoon on his feet, and he'd been planning to go home and go to bed when Woods called and asked to meet him at the Branding Iron. He would've begged off, but the coroner had sounded half-crocked, and the fact that he refused to discuss what was bothering him over the phone alerted Robert's police sense.

He didn't want to meet Woods, but he had to.

Robert walked around to the front of the bar and through the door into the darkness. He heard the coronet's voice before his eyes had completely adjusted, and he made his way toward the far corner, feeling his way around the tables

There were three empty glasses in front of Woods and a half-full glass in his hand. He did not look up as Robert approached but moved over on the vinyl seat, patting the bench. "Pull up, have a sit down."

"Knock off the B-movie crap." Robert swiveled the end of the table so he could fit in and slid into the seat.

"What's all this abouL" "Vampires." "Shit."

"I'm serious."

"About vampires?"

"You know me, Robert. I'm not a superstitious man. But I'm also not a stupid man. I'm open-minded enough that I'll discard theories if they don't work, or adjust my worldview if evidence shows that I've been wrong." He swallowed a healthy amount of his drink. "And I have been wrong."

"Come on, you're drunk."

"I am drunk, but I'm not thinking this because I've had too much to drink. I've had too much to drink be cause I've been thinking this.

There are vampires, my friend. And we've got one here. Or more than one. Who knows?" He finished his glass, called for another.

Robert felt cold, but he kept his voice even, rational. "What brought this on?"

"I've been thinking on it for a while. Since Manuel's autopsy. I'm sure you know I was the one to suggest he be cremated. And I'm sure you know why."

Robert said nothing, suddenly wishing he'd ordered a drink as well.

"I got a call from Ed Durham this afternoon. Ed, you know, autopsied the animals. He didn't seem to be as spooked by them as I was by Manuel, maybe because they were animals, not people, but he sounded weird ar plenty scared when he called today. He told me to con over right away, he had a big problem. I knew somethir was up, so I hurried over there as quickly as I could.

"When I walked into the animal hospital, the place was silent. Silent.

You know what that place's like. Usually il so noisy that you can't even hear yourself think: meowin barking, braying, what have you. But there was nothing this time, and I'm telling you it gave me the creeps.

I came out, and he looked like a damn ghost. He didr say anything, just held open the door into the back, yard I followed him.

"The animals were dead, all dead. Drained. Just like] the ones from the arroyo. I could see them lying in the cages, the dogs and the cats and the hamsters and fluffy rabbits, and outside, through the window, in the dirt, horses. I've never seen anything like it. For a second, thought maybe it was some sort of unknown virus. thought maybe some government biological agent had been accidentally released into the wind and doused and that I hadn't detected it in Manuel's autopsy because I hadn't known what it was. But'I looked into the ca next to me, a tabby cat who'd been shaved around his neck for surgery, and I saw the wounds, and I knew it was a vampire. I knew it. I kept wondering if the vampire has; opened each and every cage, had grabbed the animal i side, bit into it, replaced it, and locked the cage.

"Ed asked me how he would tell people that their pets had died. He asked me about his insurance. He was we tied about all this small stuff, and I told him he had some thing bigger to worry about, and he became silent. I thi he knew it all along but didn't want to admit it." "Great," Robert muttered.

The bartender arrived with Woods's drink, and Rol ordered a Scotch.

Double.

"What I want to know is what are we going to do about this? We know what's going on here, and we can't walk around with ocular recta litis---"

"Is that what you think we're doing?"

"Don't get your damn feathers all ruffled. I know you're trying to find the murdererwthe vampire, let's be honest about it--but I'm talking about offensive, not fen sive measures. We should be practicing some pre tative medicine," ':" The bartender eturnd with Robert's drink. He 1 the man and downed it. "You really think there's a vampire here?"

"Don't you?"

Robert shook his head. "I don't know."

"But you admit it's a posslbfllty.

" He nodded. "Yeah."

"We need to start planning." He grinned. "Rein, her Jaws? If I've learned anything from movies, it's people in power should not stonewall the public if t have facts in their possession."

"Facts?"

"We have to come up with some sort of civil defense plan. Publicity should be no problem. We have you. brother We can't paniC people."

Woods finished his drink. "You think there is a yamF don't you?"

Robert took a deep breath. "Maybe." Woods looked at him, nodded.

They both ordered another drink.

Robert drove himself home. It was stupid and irresl: sible, having had several drinks, but he was the police chief, and there was hardly anyone on the road at time of night.

Robert staggered into the house and immediadly locked the door behind him. He turned on the lights in the living room, then the kitchen, the dining room, the den, the bedroom, the bathrooms. Just in case. '

:

The house was empty.

He took a piss, walked over to the sink, splashed some cold water on his face, and felt a little better.

Walking into the bedroom, he stood just inside the door for a moment and scanned the videotape titles in the bookcase. A lot of them were movies he'd seen once and didn't care to see again. When he'd first gotten his VCR, in the throes of what for a few years had been a full-fledged mania, he'd taped anything and everything, consumed with an absurd desire to own all that he watched. The history of his videotape obsession sat spread out in chronological order on his shelves.

Now, reading those titles, he was reminded of Julie. He moved slowly through the room and lay down on the bed, not bothering to take off his clothes or even kick off his shoes. He rolled on his side and stared at the unfinished oak dresser and the pink flowered print in the frame on the wall above it. He realized that he had never bothered to redecorate after Julie left. The furnishings and decorations had all been chosen by her, were all to her taste. For years he had unthinkingly continued to clean and straighten and live among the abandoned belongings of his ex-wife. This was her world, not his. It was funny how he'd never noticed that before. Well, it wasn't actually funny. It was sad, really. He was like one of those pathetic old guys who kept their wives' memories alive by holding on to clothes and perfume and personal items after they had died.

Was that what he was trying to do? Hold on to Julie's memory?

He didn't think so, but he found himself thinking of her now, wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was with.

He closed his eyes, tried to will himself to think of some thing else, couldn't. He slowed his breathing, tried to fall. asleep, couldn't.

He opened his eyes, stared into space. He thought of getting out of his clothes, taking a shower or a hot bath, but he did not move, did not do anything. He simply lay there.

It was well after midnight before he finally dozed off.

In the dream he was a little boy, and he was sitting in a bathtub in the middle of a church. His father was standing before him, the Bible in one hand, a switch in the other. The man was lecturing him, but he could not understand the words; they all ran together in a loud, blurred, dictatorial drone. Behind his father, on the altar of the church, his mother was doing a striptease. Her face was calm and bland and plain, the face he'd seen in her photo, but her gyrating body was slick and supple and fantastically well endowed. Her top was already off, her large firm breasts bouncing, and only a thin line of cloth covered her dark pubic area. He tried not to look at his mother, tried to concentrate fully on his father, to focus his attention on his father's lips in order to match the movements with the sounds and decipher what was being said, but he kept sneaking peeks at his mother on the altar, and his father's droning never resolved itself into coherent words.

Pastor Wheeler awoke with an erection.

The throbbing between his legs was painful' demanding but he ignored it. Slowly, calmly, he pushed the sheet off his body, got out of bed, and walked into the kitchen. In the refrigerator, next to the milk, was the pitcher of ice water he kept for just such occurrences. He carried the pitcher to the bathroom and set it atop the closed lid of the toilet as he took off his pajamas. He climbed into the bathtub, grabbed the pitcher, and poured the it water slowly over his already fading erection, gratified to see his organ shrivel beneath the stream of cold liquid.

He stepped out of the tub, patted dry his pubic are with a towel, and once again put on his pajamas.

It was still dark outside, and Wheeler walked into his study, glancing at the liquid quartz numbers on his de, clock.

Three-thirty.

The time when Joseph of Arimathea laid Christ's boc to rest in the tomb.

He had awakened at three for the past five nights, an though he had not seen Jesus, he knew from the significance of the time that the Savior was speaking to him.

He assumed that Christ was happy with the way thing! were progressing.

If He had been displeased, He would] have confronted Wheeler with his inadequacy and failur But things were progressing as planned.

Wheeler stared down at his desk, at the plans spre out there. The first addition was not yet completed, the materials had arrived yesterday for the third section of the new church, and he saw no reason for the work be done in stages, no reason why one phase of the church's construction had to wait for a completion of the old. Jesus needed the entire complex completed before October 31, the date of His rebirth, and heads were goir to roll if it was not done to His satisfaction. So Wheel now had the skilled laborers working on the frame of the new room while the unskilled workers, within the congregation painted the original building black.

The Church of the Living Christ was going to be the finest structure ever built. The most perfect building on the face of the earth.

Wheeler looked up from the plans, and his eyes passt over the world atlas above the desk. The thought occurr to him that his makeshift conglomeration of two rath, ordinary churches and additions could not hope to match the majesty and power of the cathedrals of Europe or even such heathen structures as the Taj Mahal, that perhaps he would not be able to pay God the respect He deserved, but Wheeler quickly pushed that thought from his mind. He was thinking in Old World terms. It was a New World now.

There would never be anything like the Church of the Living Christ.

Wheeler sat down at his desk and picked up his white bound copy of the Bible, turning to his favorite book, Isaiah. He rad the entire book, from the first verse to the last, backtracking several times to reread his favorite passage: "Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts the land is burned, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no man spares his brother. They snatch on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied; each devours his neighbor's flesh. '"

Smiling to himself, Wheeler closed the Bible and placed it on top of the church plans, feeling restful and contented. He stood, stretched.

He had to go to the bath room, and he walked back across the hall. He pulled up the toilet seat, slipped his penis through the pajama flap, and urinated.

A stream of red flowed out of his body into the toilet. Wheeler stared down at the swirling red water. He was surprised, a little shocked, but not scared. The blood in his urine would have panicked him a month ago, would have made him go immediately to a doctor to find out what was wrong. But he knew now that Jesus was showing him Hi gratitude for all he had done.

And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

Wheeler finished, flushed the toilet, and returned to his bedroom.

There was a lot of talk of blood in the Bible. He had noticed that recently while preparing his sermons almost though it was not something that had jumped out at him before. Blood was important to God in the Old Testament, important to Jesus in the New Testament. What was it that

Jesus had said at the Last Supper? "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood."

Jesus liked to drink blood.

'

Soon, when he was worthy enough, when the Church of the Living Christ was completed, Jesus would ask

Wheeler to dine with Him, and they would feast on the blood of the sinners. The blood would be purified within their bodies, the bad made good.

He would have to get used to the blood first, however.

He did not want to embarrass himself before the Lord

Jesus Christ.

Maybe he would try some blood. Start off with some " thing small. A bug maybe. Then work his way up to a rat.

A cat. A dog.

Wheeler smiled to himself. He would make Jesus proud of him.

He closed his eyes and fell leep instantly.

They awoke before Anna for once, and Rich place. tentative hand between Corrie's legs, testing the war, His fingers pressed against wiry pubic hair and soft and then Corrie's muscles tightened, her legs closed, she firmly pushed his hand away. He lay there for a moment, silent, unsure of whether to press on or give up] had been weeks since they'd last had sex, and it de pre him to realize that he could not even remember the exact day.

How had they let their love life deteriorate to point?

He turned toward her, spoke softly. "Anna's not up you know."

She gave him a disgusted look; then rolled over to the other direction.

"I'm still tired. I need more sleep He sighed, got out of bed to make breakfast. The day was long. In the morning Rich hacked of columns, typeset a want ad, and went over Sue's making only minimal changes to her lead, surprise pleased by the relatively high quality of her writin Fredricks came by and dropped off a roll of film and sports articles, staying for only a few minutes to sho breeze. Corrie brought Anna by after lunch, saying to Carole and not bothering to come into the back him, and for most of the afternoon Anna sat in the next to the secretary, reading a book, while he ran out what he had and began pasting up the pages.

After work, Rich took Anna to Mike's for pizza. To her it was a special treat, and he was glad she felt that way, but they were going out tonight more out of necessity than desire. Just before five, Corrie had called from the church and, for the third day in a row, said she would not be home for dinner. The mere thought of having to eat another one of his own meals made him feel like gagging, so he'd asked Anna if she would like to go out for pizza, and of course she'd said yes.

She stood now with a group of her school friends, watching a thin, dirty, tough-looking boy kill row after row of aliens on a video game.

Rich sat on a hard bench at the table by the front window, fiddling with a glass shaker of Parmesan cheese, glancing idly around. He had not realized that the pizza parlor would be so crowded on a weeknight, or that so many parents let their children out unattended. Fully half of the kids clustered around the video game were on their own recognizance, with no parent or older sibling in sight.

His gaze shifted from the video game crowd to the parking lot outside the window. Before leaving the office, he had called Robert and asked him to meet them here, but his brother hadn't been sure he would be able to make it. So far there'd been no sign of Robert's car.

Rich stared blankly out at the vehicles in the parking lot, wondering why Corrie was having to spend so much overtime at the church. Surely Wheeler couldn't have that much work piled up--at least not work that required immediate attention. So why did Corrie feel compelled to late instead of the next

The thought briefly crossed his mind that she was hay stay finishing things up day? ing an affair, but he dismissed that ludicrous idea immediately. He'd been watching too many movies.

Besides, Corrie seemed to find the idea of any sex all these days fairly repulsive.

He found himself listening to the talk of the people around him, tuning in one discussion, then another, ears conversation hopping. Reporter's instinct. At the ble behind him, an old man he couldn't see and had noticed upon arriving was talking about his heart problems: "... I woke up naked as ajaybird with a tube shos up my nose. There was a doctor there, and I asked him what was happening, but he just told me to take a deep breath, and then I was out again. I woke up and I had big 1' scar down the side of my leg, and my chest hurt like a son of a

"bitch..."

A cowboy-hatted man at the table to the left of wearing a turquoise bob tie, was talking about a dog in Phoenix: "... He said he got the skinny on from them fLxed races an' said he'd cut me in on it. I shot known right there that he was a crooked..."

A braless woman wearing a black tank top, stare with her equally braless friend at the counter: "Rob he's going to make some stakes and crosses..." Stakes and crosses.

He tried to zero in on that conversation, but they moved away from the cash register toward the back. He thought of following them, trying to eavesdrop, just then Robert walked through the door, looking at the crowded restaurant, and Rich waved his brother Robert sat down.

"Where's Anna?"

Rich nodded his head toward the video game. "Oh." He picked up Anna's water glass. "That's her glass."

"I'll get her another one. I'm dying of thirst. downed the water in a single swallow, leaving only the cubes. "God, that tastes good. The drinking fountain crapped out on us this morning at the station, and been having to make do all day. I'm telling you, you realize how much you rely on something like that until it dies. Especially in this weather." When do you think this heat wave's going to end?"

"Who the hell knows?" , Rich took a sip of his own water. "So what's happening?"

Robert chuckled. "You know, I'm never sure if you're asking that as a brother or a reporter." c!

Rich smiled. "Both."

"You heard about the animal hospital, didn't you?"

"That's my front page story."

"Well, that's not the half of it. Norbit over at the Shell station said it looked like a sandstorm hit his bathroom last week. Said the floor, the sink, everything was covered with a foot-high layer of sand.

He thinks teenagers are responsible, only he claims that it happened while he was working, and he didn't see or hear anything. He came bitching to me about it this morning, asking me what I'm going to do about it. He waits a week to tell me, cleans it up before letting me look at it, doesn't even take any pictures, and expects me to tell him the culprits are about to be caught? I straightened him out, let me tell you. You know Am Hewett?" Rich shook his head. Works over at Basha's? Liquor deparefit?" :... "Tall guy? Balding?"

"Yeah. That's him. Anyway, he's gone. The whole family's up and disappeared. I don't know if they just pulled up stakes and left, or if something happened to them. I got a call from Bailey, his boss, who said he'd already called neighbors and Hewett's sister, but no one knows anything. I ran a check on Hewett, and he's done some time, but it was years ago and for small stuff. I cabled the sister and told her she could file a missing person's, but she sounded real squirrely, so I don't know what the hell she plans to do." He shook his head. "There's a lot of weird shit going down, a lot of weird shit, and I don't like it. "Whatever happened with Sophocles Johnson?"

Robert looked into his glass, shook the ice cubes. "Did he ever let you talk to him?"

"Yeah, I talked to him. He's crazy as a damn bedbt He put on a normal act with me, told me that he he had some problems to work out and was seeking he] but I could tell it was a load of horse pucky."

"Sounds like you have your hands full these days." "That's why I came over here tonight. I need a bred

"What about the FBI? Aren't they supposed to be givi you help?"

Robert snorted. "Rossiter has the attention span fucking gnat. He and his boys came in here all hot to acting real official, threw their weight around, told they were going to put their resources behind this, m haven't heard word one from them since." He pop an ice cube in his mouth. "Not that I'm complaining." FBI and the state police investigating crimes in Rio Vi is kind of like the old bull in the china shop routir don't think they understand the place or the people enough to tread as carefully as they need to in order find this.." whatever it is." "Well, isn't that your job? To acquaint them wit town, act as their liaison?": "whose side are you on?"

::

"No one's side. This just seems a little out of league. I mean, murders and grave robbings are no

"No graves were robbed, and for your informadol is not out of my league. I'm not the tube you see think I am." "I didn't say that, and I don't think it. Don't worked up over nothing. Jesus." "Well..."

:

"I just thought that the FBI probably had the resourc to deal with all of this."

"Yeah, but it's too close to tabloid territory. I dot think they want that sort of publicity. Not in these budg crisis times. They'd rather have us solve it and not had' to explain why they were spending time and resourc looking for a... vampire." ...... "That's what a lot of people are talking about, know."

Robert looked at his brother, thought for a moment then shrugged.

"Maybe it is a vampire."

""Knock off the crap."

"Maybe it's crap, and maybe it isn't. We both know that the supernatural exists--"

Rich shook his head. "Wait a minute here. How did the conversation get around to this?"

""Why?"

"Because we thought we saw a ghost in grade school "Because of The Laughing Man."

Rich was silent.

"There are things We don't understand."

"All I'm saying is I'm keeping my eyes open."

"Weren't you going to get Anna another glass water?"

Robert sighed. ""I didn't come here to right

"Me either."

"Fine. Let's drop it."" He glanced toward the re gist "Did you already order?"

Rich nodded. "A small cheese pizza for Anna. A larI pepperoni for us."

"Five minutes or so." Robert tore a strip from his napkin, rolled it into a ball on the tabletop "Donna Sandoval said she saw Caldwell

Burke with Manuel Torres before he was killed." "I thought we were going to drop it? i "Fine."

They sat for a moment in silence, Rich looking down at the table tracing water rings with his finger, Robert chewing on his ice.

Robert glanced out the window, then back at his brother. "So Wheeler's claiming he saw Jesus, huh?" Rich looked up sharply. "What?"

"You didn't hear? I thought Corrie was working for him."

"She is. But she never said anything about that." "Apparently he's telling his flock that Jesus spoke to him in a dream, and then in person, and told him to rebuild his dhurchm"

"Where did you hear this?" : "One of my men goes to his church."

Rich glanced toward Anna, who was watching another girl work the joystick of the video game. "How come Cortie didn't say anything about this?"

"She probably knew you'd react this way."

"Well, how would you react?"

"The same." Robert tore another strip from his napkin. "I thought maybe you hadn't heard. That's why I told you." He sighed. "I don't like Wheeler. If I thought he was just an opportunist, I'd hate him and be disgusted by him, but I think he's a true believer, and that scares me. He probably really does think he's seen Jesus. We have enough problems around here right now without someone like that working people into a witch-hunting frenzy." "Is that what he's doing?"

"It's only a matter of time. Murder victims drained of blood? Grave desecration? You think he's not going to bring God and Satan into this? My job's hard enough wit out having to deal with that shit."

Rich took a deep breath. "The thing that concerns n is that she takes Anna with her to his church."

"Corrie? That doesn't sound like her."

"She's been behaving differently lately."

Robert looked over at Anna. "I'd put my foot down that if I were you."

Anna?"

"I wouldn't want her hearing that stuff."

"She's not going to that church anymore." Rich stared at his daughter.

"But what exactly is Wheeler telling them?

That Jesus told him to remodel his church and that it? Or that this is supposed to be the Second Coming?

"I could find out."

"That's okay. I'll look into it. I'll talk to Corrie."

"What about Anna? What are you going to say to her'. I don't know."

The waitress arrived with the pizzas and plates. Robe went to the fountain to get drinks, and Rich walked ov to the video game to get Anna. He tried to pretend like nothing was wrong, but he watched her carefully as that. ate, listened to her, and worried.

By the time they arrived home, Corrie was back. S! was angry, sitting in the living room with the TV off a only the table lamp on, but she did a good job of hidi, her anger as she took Anna to bed, helped her daught change into her PJs, and tucked her in.

Her demeanor changed completely when she returm to the living room.

"where the hell were you?"

"You know where we were. I left a message on the machine and I heard Anna tell you just a minute ago."

"why did you go out for pizza when we had plenty

,: . food in the refrigerator? It's a school night." didn't feel like cooking. Now the question is, weren't you here?" ,

"I told you. I had to work late." "Yeah, I guess the Second Coming does involve a lot of preparations."

She'd been moving toward him, but she stopped, the words she'd been about to speak dying in her throat.

"Yes, I know about it." He stood, approached her. "You thought I wouldn't find out?"

"I didn't think you needed to know."

"Oh. Your boss is telling ever) one that Jesus has been resurrected and has dropped by Rio Verde for a visit, and I didn't need to know?"

"I knew how you'd react."

"Really? And how's that?"

"The way you're acting right now."

"You don't think I might be a little concerned because you're working for a man who claims he's engineering the Second Coming? You don't think I might be worried because you're taking our daughter to church and exposing her to this?"

"Did Anna tell you?" ;. Why? Did you tell her not to? Did you bribe her?" He glared at Corrie. "Or did you threaten her?"

She stared at him, then pushed past him and stormed out of the living room into the kitchen. He followed her, watched her take a can of Diet Dr. Pepper out of the refrigerator and slam the door. She whirled on him. Her eyes were red and wide, her mouth a small thin trembling line. "How dare you say something like that!"

He held up his hands. "Okay. I'm sorry. I was angrym"

Corrie glared at him. "When I went for that mammogram two years ago, I had to drive myselfl"

He frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with our relationship and the way you treat me["

"What?" :: : :: ": ::

"I didn't tell you about Jesus because I knew youo wouldn't understand.

You never understands, anything "How can you say that? You know Ira" ii "Yeah, like the mammogram?"

"I don't know why we're even arguing about this. You know I offered to drive you're"

"Offered, not insisted." :,=" :

"The paper was coming out the next day. You told me to finish it up, you'd go to the doctor by yourself, you'd be fine."

"I didn't think you'd actually listen to me! I expected you to argue, to insist that you drive me. I wanted some support. But you were only too happy to worm out of your responsibility and hide at the paper and leave me to face it all alone. I thought I had cancerl I thought I was going to die, and you weren't even there!"

Rich said nothing .... "Sometimes what people say they want you to do and what they really want you to do are two different things.

Sometimes you have to feel what's happening and not just listen to the words. Sometimes you have to dig beneath the surface to find the meaning. You've never understood that. I keep waiting for you to take the initiative, to understand how I feel without me having to spell everything out for you, but you never do." She slammed the Dr. Pepper can down on the counter. "That's why I didn't tell you about Jesus!"

She shoved him against the door frame and strode through the living room into the hall. He heard the door to their bedroom slam shut.

He stared after her, unmoving. He felt cold and empty inside. It was obvious to him that she bought Wheeler's story, that she really believed Jesus had talked to the preacher, but he wondered how that was possible. Corrie was neither stupid nor gullible; she had always been more of a leader than a follower, and she was not easily persuaded by smooth talkers. She was religious, but her faith had always been based on the Bible, not the words interpretations of others.

Until ' now.

Was he partially responsible for pushing her into religious zealousness, into Wheeler's church? The thou disturbed him. He didn't want to think about it, but could not push it from his mind and could not disco its possibility. The things she'd said hit close to the be and the anger he'd felt at her had fled, leaving him feel curiously drained.

He hoped Anna hadn't heard their argument.

But he knew that she had.

Walking slowly, feeling fired, he moved through the ing room and into the hallway, where he opened the closet. He took out a pillow and two sheets and walked back into the living room to make up the couch for bed.

Aaron looked over at his date, the perfect smoott skinned features of her beautiful face lit in soft focus the bluish moon and the green dashboard lights, and realized that this was at once his biggest triumph and h biggest mistake.

He looked in the rearview mirror, tried to see his ow face, but from this angle could only make out the hug slab that was his nose and the dark spot in the center his nose that was a pimple.

What had ever made him think that Cheri Stever would go out-with him?

She had gone out with him, though.

That was the weird part.

He had admired Cheri from afar for years. Since se' enth grade, to be exact, when he'd first started to girls. She'd been in his beginning band class, had played aye the clarinet, and even then had had that sophisticate sort of sexiness that, until that point, Aaron and h friends had seen only in girls on the screen. He'd watche her become a Song-And-Yell girl, a cheerleader, and the head cheerleader. She was smart, too, in the high achievement classes, and it was in those classes, which they share together, that he got an opportunity to view her close u! Of course she had not noticed him at all. From the ginning, her interest had been in older boys, ninth graders, and her appeal soon spread beyond that. As an eighth grader, she'd gone out with a senior in high school. The captain of the basketball team, no less. Aaron still could not believe that she had agreed to go out with him. She'd gone through a lot of guys over the years, from jocks to cool kids, all of them studs, and he had only asked her out because she was between boyfriends, and he had been dared to do so. Phil Harte, the friend who had dared him, who had promised to fork over fifty bucks if he asked her out and she said yes, had tried to convince him that most beautiful girls spent their Friday nights alone because guys were too intimidated by them to ask them out. Aaron knew that was not the case with Cheri--he'd heard the bragging of jocks in the locker room who had gone out with her--but he'd gathered up his courage anyway, licked his lips and ignored his pounding heart, and asked if she'd like to go to a movie with him .... She'd turned those eyes on him, that smile, and said yes.

Now they'd gone to the movie, and the time had come to decide what to do next. He was beginning to think he'd made a big mistake. Of course, the evening had been great so far. His friends, sitting together in a group in the movie theater, dateless, had seen him with Cheri, hand in hand, arms around each other. And a lot of people he didn't like, boys and girls, had seen them together as well.

But now the movie was over, the crowds were gone, and they were alone, cruising. He found himself wondering if he wasn't being set up, if Cheri was only going out with him in order to humiliate him, perhaps as part of a dare by her own friends. He'd seen it before, in movies.

Beautiful girl goes out with nerdy guy, gets him in a compromising position, takes pictures or videotape, friends jump out laughing. An extended practical joke. April Fool's in October. : .: , :

Was that what was going to happen here?

He didn't know, but somehow he didn't think so. He was scared, nervous, but he had to admit that the relationship between them had seemed pretty natural so far.

She hadn't treated him like God's gift to girls (the way she would if she was planning to set him up), and she hadn't acted like he was a charity case either. The two them might be social unequals, but mentally they were fairly compatible, and they had found plenty to talk about, the long and awkward silences he'd feared and dreaded never materializing.

He turned to her now, tried to make his voice casual.

"So what do you want to do now? The night's still young.

We don't have to go home yet. We could grab a bite to eat orw"

"The river," she said. "Let's go to the river..... The river? This was better than he had hoped for in even his most wildly optimistic moments. He studied face out of the corner of his eye. Was this for real?

It looked like it was.

,

"Okay," he said. He turned around in the Radio Shack parking lot and headed back through town, passing the theater, passin her street, passing the turnoff to his house. In a few rain. minutes the lights of Rio Verde were behind them, only darkened trailers and occasional run-down houses discernible in the darkness along the highway. Just before the bridge. he turned onto the dirt road that led to the river.

The car bumped over ruts and potholes, the road slopin sharply down to the water. There were other cars and pick. ups parked here, between the trees and bushes, the ange glow of cigarettes visible through some of the windows, and Aaron continued on until he found a secluded spot far past the last parked car.

He shut off the car engine, the radio and air-condifionin dying at the same time, and suddenly there was silence. H, could hear his own breathing in the closed car. And hers. He rolled down his window, smelled the skunkweed, heard the water, the cicadas.

He was not sure what to say, what to do, so he looked over at Cheri.

She was leaning her head back, her eyes closed, breathing deeply. "I love the water," she said.

He tried to talk, couldn't, cleared his throat. "Me, too." She opened her eyes. "Let's go skinny-dipping."

He blinked, thinking that she was joking, quickly realizing that she was not. Panicked, he tried to think of an excuse, a way to get out of it, but he had never been good at thinking on his feet, and he could only stammer, "I, uh, don't think we should."

"Why not?" she said teasingly. "Embarrassed?"

Yes, he thought, but only smiled wanly.

She opened the car door, got out. "Come on. It'll he fun." She began making her way through the brush and down the low bank to the water.

He got out of the car and followed her. He started down the slope, and his shoes slipped on the dirt. He grabbed a branch to keep from falling, and lowered himself to the shore.

Cheri was standing in front of the river, facing him, smiling, her features soft and clear in the moonlight. "Let's do it."

This is where they come out laughing, he thought. I take off my pants, and the football team rushes out and grabs them, and I have to go home in my underwear.

But no one emerged from the bushes as Cheri pulled the T-shirt over her head, and he could hear only his own breathing and the rush of the water as she reached around to unfasten her bra.

"Are you sure?" he began.

"Come on. It'll be fun. Don't worry." :

Her bra was off now, joining her T-shirt on the sand, and her breasts were perfect: large enough that they made her look like a woman but small enough that they did not droop even a centimeter once freed from the confines of the bra.

He forced himself to look away. ""Did you ever wonder why they named this town Rio Verde? Rio Verde means "Green River' in Spanish. It makes it sound like it's in the middle of some lush valley, but it's just an old desert town with this pathetic little river running by it.

And the river water's brown, not green." He was babbling and he knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. "Maybe it's like Greenland, you know? They named Greenland "Greenland' to attract people, even though it's really not green at all."

Cheri unzipped her pants, pulled them down. He looked back at her. Her panties were white and lacy. Through the transparent material he could see the thick triangular darkness of her pubic hair.

She grinned at him. "Your turn, bud. Drop 'em."

She's done this before, he thought. With Matt and Mike and Steve. Guys with bodes. How can I hope to compare? But he was already taking off his shoes, his socks.

He began unbuttoning his shirt. What if she laughed? What if she told all her friends that he wasn't.." big enough?

She put a tentative toe in the water, shivered. "Cold!" "Maybe we should skip it."

"Never." Laughing, she leaped into the water.

He quickly took off his pants and jumped in after her before she could see him. The water was indeed cold, unexpectedly so, and his penis shrunk instantly. He quickly reached between his legs and pulled on it, trying to make it grow, trying to make it big enough not to embarrass him, but his body wouldn't cooperate, and his organ remained soft and small. The river was shallow at this point, enough for them to stand, but they remained floating, and Cheri swam over to him. Her wet hair looked muddy in the moonlight, but he thought that she was most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Her breasts brushed against his arm, soft and givi and she put a hand around his neck and gave him a s kiss on the mouth before laughing and swimming a His penis sprang instantly to life, his erection strong e in the cold water, and he paddled after her, feeling pier, more alive than he could remember having ever before. He no longer worried about her past, was longer concerned about being compared to other she'd known.

Tonight she was here, with him. And was happy.

He swam across the river toward her, chasing her, she squealed and pushed off from the opposite heading upriver, away from him. He sped after her, paddling furiously, and caught her near an overhangin[ ton wood grabbing her right foot. She laughed, tri twist away, and he saw the white smooth skin of her tocks. He held onto her foot, and she stopped tryi, escape, righting herself. She stood, he stood, and kissed, his tongue slipping easily and effortlessly into her mouth, tasting warm mint and fresh breath.

They drew apart as quickly as they had come to8 both breathing heavily.

He had felt her breasts him again. He wondered i she had felt his erect io hoped she had. :.

She looked away from him, looked up, and looked up as well. Above them, the cottonwood branches were moving, whipping to the left as if propelled unusually strong wind.

But there was no wind.

The temperature changed, instantly dropping ten degrees. Goose bumps popped up en masse on bare shoulders, and she shivered, hugging her warmth. Should he be hugging her? Should he be keeping her warm? He didn't know, and he didn't have make a decision one way or the other because she suddenly looked behind him, past him, and yelped in surprise.

:"L,.:

Her eyes widened in horror. "Daddy!"

Her father!

Oh, God. How was he going to explain this? His penis shriveled to nothing, and he turned around, looking toward the opposite bank. But it was not her father. He could not tell who the figure was--it was too dark to see much of anything--but he knew that it was not her father. Because it was not human.

The form, big and black and shadowy, slid smoothly down the dirt and into the water.

In the second before it entered the river, he saw lips and teeth and wavy watfley arms.

He and Cheri both began paddling simultaneously and desperately toward the opposite shore, toward their clothes and car and safety.

"It's not what you think, Daddy!" she was screaming, but she did not slow down in her effort to escape, did not make an effort to confront the creature.

Oh, God, Aaron thought. What if that thing really was her dad? What if she was some sort of haft-human creature, and now her father had caught her with a real human being and was going to punish her?

And him.

Cold slime slid against the bottom of his feet, pressed against his lower leg. In the dark water his fingers touched flesh the consistency of Jell-O. He stopped swimming, stopped paddling, stood. He saw humps of jet break the water, saw a black tentacled hand reach out and grab Cheri by the shoulder.

"No[" she screamed. "Daddyl"

There was a syncopated crack, then a squishy sound, as of wet pages being torn from a waterlogged book. Cheri thrashed wildly in the water, going down, another dark deformed hand grabbing her blond head.

She was jerking crazily, hands, head, and feet flailing in furious counter rhythms as though the parts of her body were all controlled by different and competing brains. Desperate screams came in staccato bursts between splashes, and Aaron remained rooted in place, unable to move, unable to scream, hoping that one of the other parked couples could hear them, hoping that he was dreaming and this wasn't really taking place.

He smelled gas and excrement, and then he noticed that the thrashing had stopped, the screams had been silenced. Chef and the creature were gone.

Then the hideous black shape emerged from the river, drawing to its full height, making a strange whistling, sucking sound that was quiet but could somehow be heard over the rush of the water. A dark, irregular object bobbed in front of the creature, floating down the river toward him, and Aaron saw immediately that it was Chefi---only her breasts were gone, her arms had shriveled, and as she floated past him he noticed with horror that she had the wdnlded crone face of an old woman.

The creature splashed through the water toward him. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move. He tried to run, tried to swim, but his muscles wouldn't obey his brain, and he remained frozen in place as the creature advanced, whistling, hissing, splashing. Water flew into his face, and then aJell-O hand wrapped around his shoulder and pulled him into the water toward a mouth that had far, far too many teeth.

"We used to swim here, too. Remember that?" Rid looked over at his brother, who nodded thoughtfully.

Rich watched the water flowing past his feet, swirlin! around the exposed cottonwood roots at the edge of that bank. ""So what do you think happened?"

"You really want to know?" ,. Rich didn't answer. :;-" :

"I think it's time we admit it. We've got ourselve, vampire here."

"Come on," Rich said, but his voice had no heart it.

,i "Look, Rich, I'm a cop. I deal in facts. I don't spe my time trying to jigsaw the facts so they jibe with my of things. I don't give a shit about preserving the integn of my philosophy. The fact is, we have two more hod drained of blood. That's pretty convincing evidence in book." ' "Don't give me that "I'm a cop. I deal in facts Who do you think you are, Joe Friday?"

"Fine. Have it your way." Robert walked away from brother, toward the two sheet-covered bodies on the b Beneath the thin cloth, the angular outlines of the for looked like skeletons.