CHAPTER I

 I sit alone in a dead world. The wind blows hot and
dry, and the dust gathers like particles of memory
waiting to be swept away. I pray for forgetfulness, yet
my memory remains strong, as does the outstretched
arm of the oppressive air. It seems as if the wind has
been there since the beginning of the nightmare.
Sometimes loud and harsh, a thousand sharp needles
scratching at my reddened skin. Sometimes a whisper,
a curious sigh in the black of night, of words more
frightening than pain. I know now the wind has been
speaking to me. Only I couldn't understand because I
was too scared. I am scared now as I write these
words. Still, there is nothing else to do.

 I don't know where to start, but there must be a
place. A place of love, of hope. He gave me those
things, and others as well. Yes, I will start with him.

 His name was Pepper. That wasn't his real name, of
course. His parents had christened him Paul Pointzel.
He didn't have dark freckles or anything-I don't
know where he got his nickname. But he was Pepper
when I met him, and that's how I think of him. Pepper
and Rox. My name is Roxanne Wells. I'm eighteen, or
rather, I was eighteen. At the moment I'm not going to
get any older. The second hand on my watch will
move forward but won't go anywhere for me. This
moment is all there is.

 We met in high school. He was a babe. I don't know
why he asked me out. I wasn't very nice to him. He
was new to the area, but not that new. I'd seen him
around town for a year or so before he made a move
on me. I'd heard good and bad things about him. One
friend said he was just out for sex. Another said he
was a romantic at heart. What the hell, I thought. I
needed sex and romance in my life. Sometimes I
believe I would have taken one without the other.
Even before Pepper cornered me I decided that, if
given the chance, I would let him get to know me.

 It was lunchtime at school, a hot early April after-
noon. I was sitting by myself on a rock at the corner of
campus staring out at the desert. It was a favorite spot
for me to hang out and eat junk food. School was in
Salem, Arizona, a town built on sand with a lot of
sweat. I had grown up surrounded by an ocean of dust,
yet the sight of the desert never tired me. I was always
glad the city architects had put Salem High at the edge
of town, and not in the center. Downtown Salem was
about as exciting as an empty movie theater. Things
may have been happening in town, but hardly anyone
was there to acknowledge the fact. Even before the
transformation, Salem felt barren.

 Pepper suddenly appeared, standing above me with
his thumbs hooked into the back pockets of his Levi
505s. He was trying to look cool, and not doing a bad
job of it. He was too handsome. By that I mean I
wasn't given any chance to dislike him. Everything
that happened between us had to be. It was inevitable.
His hair was brown and messy. He needed a shave.
His eyes were as dark as blue prairie grass before a
storm. He had a body, every guy does, but his fit him
better than most. But I didn't smile at him, not right
away. I was cool, too.

 "Hey, Roxanne," he said, then paused. "That is
your name?"

 "It had better be." I had to shield my eyes to look at
him. He had the sun behind him, which I think was a
strategic move on his part. "What do you want?"

 "Got a cigarette?"

 "I don't smoke," I said.

 "I've seen you smoke."

 "When?"

 "At the park, at night."

 "Those weren't cigarettes," I said.

 "To each his own. I'm a beer man myself."

 I shrugged, going back to my Honey Bun. "I get
loaded once in a blue moon." I took a bite of my bun.
"And every Tuesday."

 "Mind if I sit down?" he asked, not waiting for my
permission to share the rock. At least now I didn't
have to blind myself to look at him. "What's so special
about Tuesdays?" he asked.

 "Tuesday means Monday's over."

 He glanced back at campus-the lackadaisical
crowd. "You're a senior, aren't you? You'll be out of
here pretty soon. What are you going to do after
graduation?"

 I laughed. "Look at you. We haven't even been
introduced and you want to know what I'm going to
do with the rest of my life."

 He just stared at me a moment. Then he offered me
his hand. "My name's Pepper," he said.

 "That's a weird name." I shook his hand. "Is it a
nickname?"

 "I guess. I hear everyone calls you Rox."

 "Only my friends."

 "What should I call you?" he asked.

 "You don't have to call me anything."

 "You're a real sweetheart, you know that?"

 I smiled sweetly. "Thank you. Is that a personal
observation or is that something else you've heard?"

 "Do you want me to leave?"

 "Whatever gave you that idea?" I asked.

 He stood. "Have a nice lunch, Roxanne."

 I quickly put a hand on his knee. "You may call me
Rox, Pepper."

 He hesitated, then sat back down and stared at the
ground. Guys often do that-I don't know why.
There's nothing there. "I'm not trying to hit on you or
anything," he said.

 "What are you trying to do?"

 He glanced over. "I was just looking for a ciga-
rette."

 "There's a liquor store over on Stills. It sells them.
It sells beer as well."

 That got him mad. "Do you want me to stay or
not?"

 I laughed. "I don't know. Now that I know you're
not going to hit on me, probably not."

 The tension was broken. He laughed, too. "What
are you doing next Tuesday?"

 Like I said, I was game. "Drinking beer with you.
Maybe."

 There was no maybe about it. We went out the
following Tuesday. It was the only day I didn't have to
work, besides Sunday, which was never any good
because it came before blue Monday. I was a seam-
stress in a clothes store. It was boring. I never really
got to make dresses, just sewed the seams. It paid zip,
like every other teen job in Salem. Pepper had a job,
too. I'd seen him at it before we met. He delivered
flowers. What a joke. He rode to work on a motorcycle
at eighty miles an hour in black leather, then put on a
pansy coat and climbed in a van and tooled around
Salem making young and old women alike ecstatic.
He said the tips weren't bad, and the women were
always happy to kiss him.

 We went to a movie and I rode on the back of his
motorcycle. It was a horror film about the second
expedition to Mars called The Season of Passage. At
the end I wanted to cry because it was so sad, but
Pepper was still eating his popcorn. He was stuffing it
into his face, and I found it impossible to weep with
someone eating beside me.
 We went for a malt and fries afterward-a typical
date in Salem. The place wasn't option city. We drank
a couple of beers on a dark bus stop bench. But then,
on the way home, still on the back of his bike, I leaned
my head back and gazed at the stars, bright in the clear
black sky. I said something to Pepper about wishing        
we had a flying saucer so we could leave the planet and
he instantly made a sharp U turn.

 "Where are we going?" I called into the breeze. He
drove fast but smooth, with complete control. On our
next date, though, I had already decided that we'd go
in my car. I liked my hair to look like something
naturally attached to my body when I got to where I
was going. And I knew there would be a second date. I
liked him too much for there not to be.

 "To get a telescope," he answered.

 "Who has a telescope?"

 "Our school."

 We ended up breaking into the science lab. It was
easy-we just went up a tree and through a window. I
had never taken astronomy. I was more the basic
education kind of girl. Give me my diploma and I'd be
gone. The telescope sat on a collapsible tripod. Pepper
hoisted it onto his shoulder and walked toward the
door. He assured me we'd bring it back when we were
done with it and nobody would even know it had been
on a vacation.

 "Where are we going with it?" I asked. I didn't
mind a little adventure.

 "To the reservoir."

 That sounded fine to me except for the obvious.

 "But we're on a motorcycle," I said.

 "It's not that big a telescope, Rox."

 "What else are we going to do at the reservoir?" I
asked, suspicious.

 He cocked an eyebrow. "Nothing you won't enjoy."

 "I'm not that kind of girl."
       
 "They all say that."

 I socked him. "Some of us mean it."

 But I don't know if I was one of them. We didn't
have sex the first night anyway. We had a hard enough
time getting the telescope out to the reservoir. Pepper
complicated matters by roaring through the center of
town so that everyone could see what we were doing. I
almost dropped the damn thing a half dozen times.
 The reservoir was cool, especially at night, when the
water was like glass and the air was filled with space.
You could stand out there alone at night, with the
Milky Way streaming over head, and imagine you
were standing on a moon circling Saturn. Pepper had
never taken astronomy either, so we had a hard time
finding anything specific. Yet, to me, everywhere we
looked there was something. Stars, thousands of stars.
It made me wish I was an astronaut, a Goddess,
anything but a poor girl in a poor town with no future.
I sighed as I removed my eye from the telescope
eyepiece.

 "Do you think there's anyone out there?" I asked
Pepper, my eyes staring straight up.

 "No one human." He came up behind me and put
his hands on my shoulders. I leaned back and rested
my head in the hollow of his shoulder. The night was
magic, the silence perfect. I was happy right then,
really happy, but sad, too, because I knew the happi-
ness wouldn't last. It never does.

 "Would that be so bad?" I asked, my gaze millions
of light-years away, his breath warm and close on my
cheek.
       
 "What do you mean?" he asked.

 "Would it be so bad if they weren't human-as long
as they were kind?"
 He pulled me around gently until I was facing him.
"You're beautiful, Rox. You deserve a sky full of kind
stars."

 I laughed lightly. "Don't talk. You sound stupid
when you do."

 "What should I do then?"

 "Kiss me."

 He kissed me. I made him do it. It was good, too
good.

 He took me back to the reservoir that Friday night
after work. We didn't bring the telescope, but we had
the place to ourselves again. We skinny-dipped in the
cool water. We kissed some more, and I let him touch
my breasts, but we didn't make love. Or maybe we did
make love because I was already in love with him. I
don't know why. The best love never has a reason. I
just had to look at him and there was no reason to look
anywhere else.

 Pepper lived with his aunt and uncle. I lived with
my dad. Dad was never at home. He was a long-
distance truck driver. He drove from New York to
L.A., and back again, every week. We had a peculiar
relationship. I was more his pal than his daughter.
When he was home I cleaned his clothes and fed him,
but the way we talked to each other would have made
a child psychologist cringe. We argued, we swore at
each other, and in the end he usually agreed with me.
But we loved each other, too. His name was Sam.

 I never knew my mother. From the things Sam had
to say, it didn't sound like he knew her very well,
either. She left on a westbound Greyhound bus when I
was forty-eight hours old. Seemed she wanted to be an
actress in Hollywood, or something.
 Pepper's aunt and uncle lived on the other edge of
town from the school, on a miserable farm better
known for its horses than its produce. But like any
farm, good or bad, it had a barn. And it was in that
barn that I lost my virginity after a thorough examina-
tion by Dr. Pepper.

 I don't really remember how the date started. We
ate, I know that, but I can't remember where. Then we
went for a long walk, and in Salem, it's not possible to
walk too far without coming back home. We ended up
at Pepper's place. His aunt and uncle were asleep.
Pepper wanted to show me his horse, Shadowfax,
named after Gandalf the wizard's horse in The Lord of
the Rings. It was a nice horse. It was a nice barn, full of
nice, soft hay.

 But there was something wicked inside that hay that
almost got me killed. When we began to kiss, Pepper
suddenly tickled me, and I fell back and landed on the
hay. I missed impaling myself on a pitchfork by
inches. Pepper was white when I pulled it out of the
straw beside me.

 "Did you set this up?" I asked, the pitchfork in my
hand, pointed at him. "I can see the headlines now.
Poor innocent coed pierced on the eve of greatness."
 Pepper grabbed the pitchfork from my hand and
tossed it aside. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. I
could tell he was shaken. He came and knelt beside
me and spoke seriously.

 "You are great," he said.

 I grinned. Those three little words meant more to
me than those other famous three little words-I
think. He had yet to say those words, and I was
determined not to say them until he said them to me.

 "Why?" I asked. "I'm not pretty. I'm not smart. I'm
nothing."

 Yet I knew I wasn't ugly or stupid. My hair was long
and red, my eyes green and bright-a nice combina-
tion. I was too thin-I had no tits-but even
girlfriends complimented me on my legs. Those same
girls, however, said I didn't smile enough. Melancholy
Rox. I didn't like to smile because of my teeth. They
were crooked, and didn't shine like those of the
actresses on TV.

 I also seldom smiled because I felt haunted and
cursed.

 Like it was only a matter of time.

 But for what I didn't know.

 But in the barn, with my Pepper sitting beside me,
the curse seemed oh so far away-when actually it
had never been closer. Maybe I was stupid.

 "You're something," Pepper said, taking my hand.

 "What?" I asked.

 He moved closer. "What do you want to be?"

 "Happy."

 He snorted, and scanned the hay, perhaps to deter-
mine how flammable it was. "Do you have a ciga-
rette?" he asked.

 "That's what you said when we met. You're not
supposed to say that right now."

 "No?"

 "A cigarette's supposed to be for after."

 He moved close, close enough to kiss. "After what,
Rox?"

 I was looking at the stars in his eyes, the ones I had
put there. And I was looking far away. Like I said, he
was too cute. My determination wavered. I had no
choice but to say what I did.

 "I love you," I whispered.

 The words seemed to worry him, like when I had
missed the pitchfork, which had only made me smile.

I wished so much that he would smile right then.

 "Why?" he asked.

 "Because it makes me happy." I hesitated. "Do you
love me?"

 Now I had put him on the spot. He was really
missing his cigarette. But he didn't look away. He
kissed me instead, lightly, and then sneezed in his lap.
I had to laugh.

 "Never mind," I said.

 He shook his head. "It's not you. It's the hay."

 I lifted my knee and poked him with my foot. "I like
this hay. It's like one giant bed."

 That was a hint he understood. The way he looked
at me changed. It wasn't a lustful look. It was more
like his worry deepened and transformed inside him,
becoming something closer to fear. But being scared
can be fun, and he looked interested, too. He took me
in his arms.

 "What do you want to do?" he asked.

 I brushed his hair back. "What comes easiest."

 "Rox . . ." he began. I closed his lips with my finger.

 "Shh. You don't have to say it."

 "I love you, too."

 "I told you," I began. He closed off my lips, with his
finger.

 "I will love you," he corrected himself. "Is that
good enough?"

 I nodded, feeling the hay at the back of my neck,
sliding down my shirt. "Yeah. Just don't wait too
long."

 "I won't," he promised.

 And then, just before it all began, and the train
raced down the hill to the bottom, I asked him one
question. I didn't want to. His answer stood a fifty
percent chance of ruining everything. But I had to ask
it. I stared at the pitchfork as I spoke, lying so
innocently beside us.

 "Is this your first time?" I asked.

 "Is it yours?"

 "Yes."

 He kissed the side of my face. "It's my first time,
too, Rox."

 I cannot talk too much about the sex. It was better
than ice cream. It was like a summer night before
summer really began, before school let out. For me
anticipation has always been stronger than the reality,
and this was such rich anticipation, so constant, that
it couldn't help but be fulfilled. What I mean is, I was
happy in his arms, like I was that night we were
together in the arms of the stars. I felt so much a part
of him I honestly believed, for a long time afterward,
that I could be a part of everything.

 Did I think of protection against pregnancy? We
only made love that one time. I hardly had a chance to
think anything. I suppose the thought of contracep-
tives crossed my mind after we were done. But that's
the same as thinking about your parachute after
you've jumped. You can think all you want-the
ground doesn't give a damn.

 I suspected I was pregnant two weeks later. I wasn't
late on my period, not yet, but something inside me
had changed. A doctor would have said it was hor-
monal. Maybe, but it was more than that. / had
changed, not just my body. But it wasn't like some-
thing had been added inside, the way new mothers
usually talk. It was more like a part of me had died.
 Then another two weeks went by, and my period
never came. I didn't tell Pepper. I didn't want to
worry him. I went to the drugstore in Lendel-a
nearby town-and bought an early pregnancy test.
Those suckers cost more than I thought-a big fifteen
bucks. I read the instructions carefully. The bottom
line was that if it tested negative, then you could still
be pregnant. They weren't making any guarantees.
But if it tested positive, then you were definitely
looking at a major change in lifestyle. I took the test.

 I failed it. I mean, I passed it.

 I held that pink-colored test tube in my hand and
started shaking. But no matter how hard I shook, the
test tube didn't turn blue or green.

 I was pregnant. God.

 I didn't cry. How could I? It was a miracle. It was a
gift from God. I threw up instead. Then I got out the
Yellow Pages and called a doctor in Lendel. That's
what the instructions inside the test box had said to
do. Just in case your doctor had a different colored
test tube, I guess. I didn't have my own physician. I
seldom got sick, and when I did I just waited it out. I
called Dr. Adams. He was the first one listed. I spoke
to his nurse. She wanted me to have a blood test and a
urine test, even before I saw the doctor. I asked how
much. Seventy bucks, she replied. My baby was
already getting expensive, I thought. I said all right.

 I passed these tests. I mean, I passed them.

 The doctor was finally willing to see me about a
week after I called. He was younger than I thought
he'd be, and better looking, which made me even
more nervous. He didn't make me take off my clothes
and examine me. We just sat down in his office. He
started off by asking how I felt.

 "I'm all right," I said.

 "I didn't mean physically. Are you upset? Are you
happy?"

 "The first choice," I said.

 "Do you have a boyfriend?"

 "I think so."

 "Does he know?"

 "No."

 "Are you going to tell him?"

 "Yes."

 "Do you want to keep the baby?" he asked.

 It was such a normal question for a doctor to ask,
and I know it sounds impossible, but I had never
asked myself that question. "I don't know," I said,
gesturing helplessly. "I've never been pregnant be-
fore."

 He was sympathetic. "How old are you, Roxanne?"

 "Eighteen."

 "You're legal."

 "What do you mean?"

 "You can make your own choice." He paused.
"Have you told your parents?"

 "I only have a father. I haven't told him."

 He studied me. His brown eyes were kind. "You
look like a girl with a head on her shoulders. You know
the choices you have?"

 I nodded. "There aren't that many of them."

 "There's a family planning clinic in Foster. It's a
two-hour drive. If you want to go there, you just have
to give me a call and I'll set up an appointment for
you."

 "I don't want to go there," I said so sharply I
startled us both. He didn't want to say the word, and I
didn't want to hear it, but we were both talking about
abortion. Just the sound of it in my head made me feel
sick. I wished they had given the procedure initials
instead of a name. Like, oh, just going to have a ABT.
Be back before lunch. Then I could pretend it wasn't
much different from ordering a bacon, lettuce, and
tomato sandwich.

 Dr. Adams stood and squeezed my shoulder. "You
think about what you want to do. Talk to your father
and your boyfriend if you wish. But don't let anyone
make the decision for you. OK?"

 "OK. Thank you, doctor."

 I paid the nurse at the front and drove home. My
car was overheating-I had to stop twice and cool the
radiator down with water. It was four in the afternoon
on a blue Monday. I knew Pepper was at work, driving
around town with his bright floral arrangements.
There was no reason I couldn't wait until he was off to
tell him the news. After all, I had already waited so
long. But I needed a friend. I didn't really have anyone
except Pepper. My best friend, Susan Duggin, had
moved to Florida the previous year. I realized right
then how superficial the rest of my friendships were.
My boyfriend was the only one I could imagine myself
talking to about my problem.

 I caught him as he was loading the last of his
deliveries in the van. It was funny-I had never seen
him so happy to see me. He gave me a big hug and a
kiss, and plucked a rose from an arrangement and
fixed it in my hair. All that before I could say a word.

 But then I didn't have to say much. He was staring
at my face now. If he saw half of what I felt he must
have been in shock. I felt sorry for him right then.
Heck, I felt sorry for me. We had our whole lives in
front of us. The last few days he had been talking
about driving to L.A. We'd get a place in Venice by the
beach, he said, and walk by the water every evening. I
just smiled. It sounded so wonderful. But he didn't
even know if he loved me.

 "What is it, Rox?" he asked.

 "I have some good news and I have some bad news.
What do you want to hear first?"

 He hesitated. "The good news."

 "It's yours."

 "What's mine?"

 "The bad news."

 "What?"

 "The baby."

 He sagged a little. "What are you talking about?" he
asked.

 "I'm pregnant." I hastily added, "I'm sorry."

 He tried to swallow. It stuck somewhere in his
throat. Then he just stood there, looking at a distant
spot located off to the left side of my eyes. I had never
seen anyone's tan fade so fast.

 "Are you sure?" he asked softly, finally.

 "I just came from the doctor's." I buried my face in
his chest, hugging him tightly. I fought the tears back,
and it was probably the only fight I had won all day.
Only a few weeks had passed since I had mouthed off
to him at school. How everything had changed. Fall-
ing in love had humbled me to the point of being
pathetic. "Do you hate me?" I asked meekly.

 He put his arms weakly around me. "No, of course
not. Why would I hate you?"

 "Because I screwed up."

 "No, Rox." He pulled me gently off him, and
looked at my face. "You didn't do anything wrong.
We'll get through this together, all right?"

 "All right." I took out my handkerchief and blew
my nose. "What are we going to call her?"

 He chuckled-it sounded forced. "How do you
know it's a her?"

 "I just know," I said. And I did. That should have
told me that something weird was in the air. "How
about if we call her Pebbles? After the baby girl on the
Flintstones? Pebbles and Rox."

 Pepper wasn't smiling. "Are you serious?"

 "We can call her anything you want."

 "That's not what I mean, Rox," he said slowly.

 My voice faltered. "You don't want to keep the
baby?" I asked.

 "Do you?"

 "I'd like to."

 "Why?"

 The question hit me like a slap. It took me a mo-
ment to find my tongue. "Because it would be our
baby."

 He had to think about that a bit, and the passing
seconds were hard on me. It was an absurd place to be
having such a discussion-the dirty back lot of a
florist's. I reached up and touched the flower Pepper
had placed in my hair, but I was clumsy and it fell to
the ground. I knelt to pick it up. Pepper stopped me.

 "It's no good," he said.

 I was on edge. "What's no good?"

 He gestured. "The flower. Leave it. I'll get you
another one." But he didn't reach back into the van. I
had given him too much to think about, and he
couldn't worry about me right then. He continued to
stare of into the distance. I had to break the silence.

 "It's not like it's fatal," I joked.

 "Do you really want to keep the baby?"

 I paused. "I thought you just asked me that."

 "Rox."

 "Do you want to keep it? If you don't, just tell me."

 "I don't," he said.

 I couldn't believe he'd said that. Oh, I knew, of
course, he might want me to have an abortion. But for
him not to consider having the child made me sad. He
didn't even want to sleep on it. But I was no better. I
was the child's mother, and all I cared about was
remaining his girlfriend. I would throw away the price
of love to be in love. My response just came out of my
mouth. It was fate that spoke.

 "All right," I said.

 He held me again. He acted all concerned, but there
was something fake about it and we both knew it. "I'll
help you in any way I can," he said. "I'll go with you.
I'll pay for it."

 Then suddenly I was far away. More words came
out of my mouth, but I know I did not speak these
ones. There was no love in them. There was nothing of
what I really felt for Pepper in them. Yet I said them
anyway. Because they were supposed to be true.

 "I'll get rid of it," I said. "Life will go on."

 But it was all a lie.


CHAPTER II

 THERE is MUCH DEBATE IN THIS COUNTRY OVER ABORTION.
I have always found it puzzling. There are the right-to-
lifers who say that abortion is the equivalent of
murder. Then there are those who say a woman's right
of free choice must be preserved. What has always
struck me as odd is that each side is convinced that
only it is right, and the other is wrong.

 I feel they are both wrong. No one should take away
another person's right to choose. And no one should
kill an unborn infant. Of course I could just as easily
say both sides are right, but I won't. It's a paradox that
can't be resolved. I think it is better to admit that than
pretend there is a resolution.

 But most people want to believe what they are doing
is right. I guess I have always been unique in that
respect. I knew smoking dope was a lousy thing to do,
but I did it anyway. I knew I should study more, but I
couldn't be bothered. I goofed off and got loaded
because I wanted to, and that was reason enough. Yet
it wasn't as if I had no conscience. These things only
hurt me, and I was willing to do them because I could      
take the hurt. I almost preferred it. Now, though, I
had a baby in me. The baby could hurt me. It could
drive my boyfriend away. It could make me work and
slave for the next eighteen years. I could hurt it. I
could kill it. But Dr. Adams assured me it would be a
painless death. Without consciousness, there could be
no agony, and the doctor said that an immature fetus
had zero awareness. I believed him.

 Dr. Adams made the appointment for me at the
family planning clinic on Saturday in Foster. Because
he had already completed all the necessary tests it was
not required that I come in beforehand. All I had to
do was show up for the procedure. The time was set
for five-thirty in the morning. Apparently the sur-
geons liked to get rid of nasty business early so they
could spend the rest of the day saving lives. The cost
for the abortion would be four hundred and sixty-two
dollars. The clinic wanted to be paid up front. Pepper
insisted on covering it all, but I said, no, we'd split it. I
only had three hundred dollars in the bank to begin
with. Condoms would have been cheaper. A heart
transplant would have been easier. All my talk was
just talk. As we drove to Foster the night before,
Friday, I felt I was driving to my death.

 We decided to get a motel in Foster and sleep, but
we ended up talking till it was time to go to the clinic.
My dad was out of town, and Pepper's aunt and uncle
thought he was camping with a friend. The clinic was
located in a small professional office building. It was
still dark as we parked my car and walked inside. A
plump middle-aged woman looked up from behind a      
gray metal desk. She may have been a nurse; she was
all in white. A mole the size of a quarter, complete
with fine brown hairs, occupied the left side of her
generous chin. There were no other women present.

 "Are you Roxanne?" the woman asked.

 "Yes. Are we early?" The place was plainly fur-
nished and smelled of alcohol.

 "A few minutes." The woman was all business. She
reached for a handful of forms. "Fill these out, please.
Will you be paying with cash or check?"

 "I'll just put it on my expense account," I said.

 "Pardon?" the woman said. She had heard me, but
didn't like my sense of humor.

 "Cash," Pepper said sourly, reaching for his wallet.
I knew neither of us had imagined we'd be spending
our hard-earned money this way.

 I filled out the forms. I had the wild thought in the
middle of them that one day I would run for presi-
dent, and that the forms would be dug up by my
opponent, and used to smear my good name. So I
changed a few things about myself, including the
spelling of my last name, and where I lived, and so on.
I mean, it wasn't as if I wanted to receive the clinic's
monthly newsletter.

 Pepper sat silently beside me as I wrote. If it had
been him who was filling out the forms, then I would
have probably helped him. He did worse in school
than I did. Our child probably would have been
retarded, I consoled myself as I finished the papers
and gave them back to the mean woman. I was talking
to myself a mile a minute, the whole rationalizing trip,
but I spoke like someone was listening to me. The
baby, of course-I imagined she could hear my
mental dialogue. And although she remained silent
throughout, I had a sense of how she felt, and the
feeling was not pleasant.

 A man suddenly appeared in the doorway. He was
dressed in a sterile green gown, serious and intimidat-
ing. He was over six and a half feet tall, and seated as I
was, his covered head looked like something in orbit.
He glanced briefly at me before his eyes moved to the
woman behind the desk.

 "I'm ready for our first patient, Carol," he said.

 Then he closed the door, and was gone. The woman
lumbered up from behind her desk. "Come this way,"
she said.

 I stood, Pepper with me. We hugged each other
briefly. "It'll all be over before you know it," he said.

 "I know." I pressed my mouth to his ear, whisper-
ing, "Love you."

 "Rox-" he began.

 "Best we hurry," the woman interrupted.

 I let go of Pepper. "Goodbye," I said.

 "I'll be right here when you come out," he prom-
ised.

 We entered a different door from the one the doctor
had disappeared behind. The smell of alcohol thick-
ened. The clinic was small. A few steps and we were in
the operating room. The woman handed me a green
gown and told me to undress completely and lie on the
table with my feet up in the stirrups. I could not
believe this was happening. The woman left the room
and I began to unbutton my blouse. What a way to
begin a relationship, I thought.

 I was lying on the table with my legs crossed when
the doctor entered the room a few minutes later. I
wanted to tell him that the table was making my bare
butt cold. I also wanted to tell him that I was basically
a good person who had made a mistake and that I
didn't mean anybody any harm, particularly to the
many tiny babies of the world. But I didn't say
anything. He gently took hold of my feet and placed
them in the stirrups.

 "I'm going to give you a series of shots, Roxanne,"
he said. "It will numb the area."

 "Will they hurt?" I asked.

 "Yes. But only for a moment."

 "I like an honest doctor."

 He reached for a packet on a nearby shelf and
opened it. There was a long needle inside and a small
bottle of clear liquid next to it. He stabbed the needle
into the top of the bottle and slowly filled the syringe,
holding it up to the light. It looked like Excalibur, I
thought, and he was going to stick it into me.

 "Jesus," I whispered.

 "Don't be afraid," he said.

 I chuckled. "It was more fun getting into this
predicament than it is getting out of it."

 He smiled at my comment, but only for a moment.
He wasn't a bad man, but I was just another girl in
trouble to him. He probably saw hundreds a year, if
not thousands. This was business to him, not a matter
of life or death. It was only then I wondered if an
abortion could be dangerous. I remembered one of
the forms I signed had said something about not
holding the clinic responsible in the event I croaked.

 He gave me the shots. They hurt like hell. My eyes
were wet when he finished. Then he started an I.V.
into my wrist and patted my arm and told me he
would be back in fifteen minutes. I could hear a girl in
the adjacent room undressing. It did not make me feel
any less lonely.

 The gown was drafty and the doctor had left the
door open. I tried to pass the time by singing softly.
People told me I had an incredible voice, but I didn't
believe them. I always just sounded like myself. I
quickly had to give up on the ploy. No one had written
a getting-ready-for-my-abortion song.

 Time crept by. Deep inside I felt things going numb.
The doctor finally returned and poked at me with
glove-covered fingers. I told him I couldn't feel a thing
and this made him happy. He was ready to begin the
procedure. He picked up a long sharp silver instru-
ment that glinted in the harsh overhead light. I closed
my eyes.

 He poked me again and then suddenly muttered
something under his breath and left the room in a
hurry. I kept my eyes closed. My guts felt strange, as if
they were made of liquid, and were flowing around
inside me. My thoughts began to float inside my head,
too, like colored pictures projected on puffy white
clouds caught in a gentle updraft. I thought mainly of
Salem, where I had grown up, and how bright the stars
had been the night Pepper had first kissed me.

 But the thought of Betty Sue McCormick also
flashed inside, her face spread across my imaginary
black sky. It was odd that Betty Sue should come to
mind. I had hardly known her. Hers was a sad tale.
She had doused herself with gasoline in an abandoned
gas station at the edge of town, and then she dropped a
flaming match at her feet. The whole place had gone
up, and there hadn't been much left of Betty Sue to
bury. No one knew why she had done it.

 Just the thought of Betty Sue, though, and how she
had thrown away her life, got me thinking about my
baby, and what I was doing to it. My inner resolve to
go ahead with the abortion suddenly turned over
sharply inside me. Why was I doing this? Had I really
asked myself that question? If I had, I had forgotten
the answer to it. Yeah, sure, Pepper wanted me to get
rid of the kid, and I was worried about losing Pepper.
But if he was going to leave me now for this reason, he
would leave me later for another. I had nothing to
lose, I thought, by keeping what was ours.

 I wanted to stop the procedure. I wanted to go
home.

 "Doctor?" I called, opening my eyes. "Are you
there?"

 No answer. I pulled my right leg out of the stirrup,
then my left. I could sense that I was still numb inside,
but believed I could walk. I didn't think I'd changed
my mind too late. The doctor had only worked on me
a few minutes before leaving. I could see no blood,
and suddenly my sensation of dizziness vanished. I
felt good, better in fact than I had since I found out I
was pregnant. I swung my legs over the side of the
table and stood up.

 I called out to the doctor and nurse again. Still no
answer. The green gown was bugging me, so I pulled it
off and quickly slipped back into my clothes. Then I
stepped into the hallway.

 A dizzy sensation overtook me with a bang.

 As I looked down the hall, opposite the direction
from which I had entered the operating room, the
walls suddenly elongated, stretching the hall into what
could have been a pathway into infinity. At the very
end of the hall was blackness. Nothingness. I shot out
my right arm and caught the edge of the door frame
with my hand. I passed the back of my hand over my
eyes and steadied myself. My vision cleared. The
length of the hallway shrunk to normal size. I turned
and walked toward the reception area.

 Pepper jumped up as I came out. He had been
reading a People magazine. The woman at the desk
must have been in the back. We were alone.

 "Are you done already?" he asked.

 "Yes."

 "You weren't in there long."

 "I'm a quick fix." I opened the door to the outside.
Faint blue light shone in the east. "Let's get out of
here."

 Pepper hurried after me. "Are you sure you're all
right?"

 "I'm perfect," I said stepping outside into the cool
morning air. "Give me the keys. I want to drive."

 "Rox, you can't. You just had an operation."

 I paused on the opposite side of the car from him. "I
didn't do it."

 "You didn't have the abortion?" he asked, shocked.

 "No. And I don't want to argue about it."

 "Rox?"

 I put up my hand. "I just want to go home, OK?
Give me the keys."

 He tossed me the keys, reluctantly. We climbed in
the car and drove away. I half expected the ugly fat
nurse to come bursting out of the clinic shouting for
us to stop. But we left in silence.

 And the silence followed us.

 "I think we should talk about this," Pepper said
softly, five minutes later when we were on the out-
skirts of Foster. The town was twice the size of Salem,
but that wasn't saying it was big. Soon we would be in
the desert.

 "I've decided to have the baby," I said calmly. "We
can talk all you want. I think you're right-we should
talk. But I'm not going to change my mind. If that's
not all right with you, I understand. You won't have to
be responsible for raising our daughter. If you don't
pay child support, I won't take any kind of legal action
against you. You'll be free to live your life exactly as
you want."

 He stared at me for a while before responding. I
couldn't see his expression-I could only glimpse him
out of the corner of my eye. I had my eyes on the road.
We seemed to be the only ones leaving Foster that
morning.

 "How do you know it's a girl?" he asked again.

 I chuckled. "I'm not sure-I just know."

 "Nothing I say will make any difference?"

 "Nope."

 He sighed, settling himself in the seat as if he were
about to take a nap. "Then I won't say anything,
except that I'll see you through this."

 I glanced over at him. "That makes a difference," I
said.

 Pepper nodded, and then fell asleep. Men, boys-
they could sleep through the end of the world. Of
course we had been up the entire night before. I never
knew Pepper snored. I thought it was cute.

 When the sun came up an hour later, Pepper was
still asleep. The sun peeked over the horizon directly
in front of me and burned bright into my brain. It was
at that exact moment that I saw a hitchhiker at the
side of the road about half a mile in front of us. It
looked like a girl, but I couldn't have sworn to it. It
might have been a guy with long, red hair, brighter
than mine. The person had on a long dark cape, but
framed against the light of the sun, she was little more
than a silhouette with flaming hair. I debated whether
I'd pick her up. I usually did pick people up.

 I assumed the person was hitchhiking. But as I
raised my hand to shield my eyes from the glare, she
disappeared. There was a cluster of cactuses just off
the road. I assumed she had seen us coming and
ducked behind them. I wasn't going to worry about it.
I had enough on my mind. I drove by the spot she had
been standing without slowing one bit.

 An hour later, about five miles outside of Salem, I
came to a familiar gas station. I glanced down at my
gauge. I was on my last half gallon. I decided to stop
and fill up. Pulling into the station beside the pump, I
reached over and shook Pepper gently. He hadn't
stirred once since we'd left Foster.

 "Hey, sleepyhead," I said. "We're almost home."

 He opened his eyes and yawned. "What time is it?"

 "Almost eight. We need gas. Do you have any
money?"

 He closed his eyes again. "The clinic has all my
money."

 I got out. "Thanks."

 "Just stating the facts, miss."

 Like I said, I knew the station. It was always open.
You could pump your gas before paying. I dug a
mangled five-dollar bill out of my blue jeans. I
wouldn't be filling up, after all. Pepper was snoring
again before I got my four point three gallons in the
tank. I walked up to the window to pay. A faint breeze
played with my hair. The sky was as blue as summer. I
knew it was going to be a cooker of a day.

 There was no one at the window, although it was
open.

 "Hello? Anyone home?"

 No answer. The garage doors were pulled down, but
the cash register was lying open. That was odd, I
thought. Even if the guy on duty had had to go to the
bathroom, he would have closed the cash register.
Immediately I thought the place was being held up.
The help was in the back with a bullet in the brain and
the villain was this very moment returning for the
cash. I backed away from the window three steps, then
whirled around and ran for the car.

 "Pepper," I said quietly. "Wake up. We have to get
out of here."

 He didn't open his eyes or sit up. "The car runs just
as well with me asleep as it does with me awake."

 I opened the car door. "I think this place is being
held up."

 He bolted upright and glanced at the window.

"Why?"

 "I called and no one answered. The cash register's
lying open."

 "The guy could be in the bathroom."

 I climbed in the car. "I don't think so. I have a bad
feeling about this. I want to get out of here." I put the
key in the ignition. Pepper put a hand on my arm.

 "Wait a sec," he said. "If the place is being held up
we should help."

 "We can't help. Only people with loaded guns can
help in situations like this. Let's go!"

 "No," Pepper said. "That wouldn't be cool."

 "I don't want to be cool. I want to be alive. Let go of
my arm!"

 He opened his door. "You stay here. I'll be back in a
moment. If you hear gunshots, drive off."

 I grabbed his arm. "Oh, sure. Oh, great. What a
classic macho attitude. You are coming with me. My
daughter is not going to grow up without a father."

 "It could be a boy, for Christsakes." He shook
loose. "Do as I say-and don't worry."

 "I won't worry," I said sarcastically, sitting back.

 "I'll take these few moments to enjoy a peaceful
meditation." He closed the door in my face. I
pounded the dashboard. "Dammit!"

 I watched as he walked casually up to the window.
One thing about Pepper-he was no coward. He
peered in the window, listened for a second, and then
walked around the side of the building to a door and
disappeared inside. Why did I go to an abortion clinic
and pay them four hundred bucks? I just had to sit
through a holdup and I'd abort. I clasped my hand
over my abdomen and waited. I didn't start the car. If
someone shot Pepper, I thought, they could shoot me
as well.

  He was back a minute later. I was so relieved I
almost started crying. "There's no one here," he said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive. There's no one in the back, the bath-
rooms, anywhere."

  "Why would they just go off and leave the money
lying around like that?"

 Pepper was puzzled. "I don't know."

 I handed him my five-dollar bill. "Well, stick this in
their cash register and let's get out of here."

 Pepper stuffed the money in his jeans pocket and
climbed inside. "Gimme a break," he said.

 "That's stealing."

 "Yeah, well, turn me in when we get to town."

 "You're mad at me," I said.

 "I'm not mad at you."

 "Then why don't you talk to me?" I asked.

 "Because you told me talking to you would be a
waste of time. Then I went to sleep, and I don't talk in
my sleep."

 "You snore, though."

 "I don't snore," he said.

 "Yeah, you do. I don't mind. I know it's beyond
your control."

 "Thank you, Rox. Now can we get out of here. This
place is giving me the creeps."

 I paused. "Why did you say that?"

 "Rox."

 "No." I glanced at the deserted window again.
"There is something creepy about this place. Can you
feel it?"

 "It's just because it's deserted, that's all."

 "But why is it deserted?"

 "I told you, I don't know why. Please, let's go
home."

 I started the car reluctantly. "OK."

 We drove into Salem. There was no one out. It was
no big deal. It was still early. But it was odd. We went
to Pepper's house. He climbed out of the car without
giving me a goodbye kiss.

 "What are your plans today?" I asked him.

 "I want to sleep some more."

 "And after that? Do you want to get together? I have
the whole day free." I'd made sure I had the day off so
I could recover from my operation. I was recovering
all right. In nine months I would be fully healed.

 "Sure," he said without enthusiasm. He turned
away.

 "Pepper?"

 He stopped with his back to me. "I told you, I
understand."

 "I'm sorry."

 He sighed and glanced over his shoulder. "I hope
we're not both sorry."

 "Yeah," I agreed.
 I drove home. On the way I noticed again how quiet
the town was. There should have been someone on the
road. I couldn't even hear a bird singing. Yeah, I
noticed the silence, but it didn't make me wonder. I
was more amazed at how wide awake I felt. It was a
while since I'd slept.

 I parked in the driveway and went inside. Like I
said, my dad was out of town. Yet the moment I
stepped through the door I was struck by how empty
the house felt-as if no one had ever lived there.

 "Dad?" I called. Of course no one answered. I think
I just wanted to hear the sound of my voice. My jitters
from the deserted gas station were still with me. I went
into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. I drank a
dozen cups a day. I would have to learn to cut down.
The caffeine wouldn't be good for the baby.

 While waiting for the coffee, I flipped on the radio. I
had just bought it the previous month. It was a Sony,
and had twin cassette players and excellent reception.

 Only static came out of the speakers.

 I leaned over and checked the dial. It was tuned to
my favorite station-98.7 "Rock You Until You Go to
Heaven." Crazy Harry should have been greasing up
the airwaves by now, I thought. I fiddled with the dial.
The static continued. I switched to another station.
More fuzz.

 "Damn," I muttered. "He told me it was the better
model."

 I turned off the radio. My coffee was ready. I take it
black, with both sugar and Sweet 'N' Low. I mixed
myself a powerful hit and sat in my dad's favorite
chair in the living room, sipping and thinking. Our
house would be nothing to film a movie inside. We
had only two box bedrooms and one bathroom that
would probably be reincarnated as an outhouse. Still,
it was cozy enough. My dad painted in oils in his spare
time, when his back wasn't killing him from all his
driving. He favored mountain scenes copied from
National Geographic photographs. His works covered
the walls around me.

 But the silence, the emptiness-it seemed to seep
into me from the floor. I couldn't explain it. I set my
coffee down and walked over and turned on the TV.

 Static. Fuzz.

 "Like the radio," I whispered.

 I flipped through the channels. Nothing.

 "Oh, no," I said.

 Suddenly I was afraid. Afraid of nothing, that most
awful of fears. Especially when nothing is all there is.

 I strode over to the window and looked out. I
watched for five minutes and not a single car drove by.
My fear deepened as the silence around me seemed to
expand. The only sound was the faint rustling of the
wind on the walls of the house, the desert sand
scratching at the paint, like long nails craving an
invitation inside.

 I sat back in my dad's favorite chair and picked up
the phone. The dial tone was reassuring. I dialed
Pepper's number. It rang and rang. I called a friend at
school, Sandy Hankins. There was no answer. I called
the local supermarket. It was open twenty-four hours
a day. Nobody home. I called my best friend, Susan
Duggin, in Florida. I got her parents' answering
machine. I put down the phone and thought of the
deserted gas station. Even before we got into town . . .

 "Where is everybody?" I asked out loud.

 No one answered me. I almost screamed right then.
I would have but the silence wouldn't allow it. The
silence was too strong. I got up and ran out of the
house.

 The block was deserted. I went to my neighbors-
the Hollens. They had two hyperactive kids and a dog
that barked at its own barking. I banged on the door.

 "Hello.' Is anyone there? Please answer if you're
there. It's an emergency."

 I was talking to a door. I ran to my neighbors on the
other side-the Blaines. No kids or animals but two
loud people who got up early and let the rest of the
world know it. I called to them, too, and injured their
front door with my fists, but they were definitely not
home.

 It seemed no one was.

 What did I do next? I began to move toward the
center of town-six blocks away. I stopped at other
houses, even peeked my head in a couple, but I quit
doing it very soon. There was no one around. The
sight of a corpse would have been welcome to me right
then. A skeleton, sitting at a kitchen table with a fresh
cup of steaming coffee. Sure, let me meet him, I'm
desperate. Anything, even a goldfish. But I was alone.

 I stumbled into the town square and collapsed on
the lawn beside the statue of David Fitzpatrick-the
town's founding father. He was covered with bird
lime, as usual, but there were no birds. They must
have all flown away, into a sky above mine.

 "Help!" I finally screamed. My voice echoed
against the watching buildings, until it became an
echo of an echo, and was lost. I buried my face in my
hands, thankful that they at least had not deserted me.
Tears filled my eyes, and I cried, but only quietly and
to myself because there was no one there to share
them with. I was not merely confused. I was lost. Lost
in a town I had lived in all my life.

 Time did not go by. That would have been a joke.
Time had already packed its bags and left town. But
something passed, and then after a while I became
aware that someone was standing above me. I raised
my eyes. I had to look into the sun to see him. Just like
the first time. Just as I'd looked into the rising sun
when I spotted the lone hitchhiker on the empty
highway.

 "Pepper," I said.

 "Where is everybody?" he asked.

CHAPTER III


 Pepper told me his story. His aunt and uncle had been
out when he'd gone into the house. The fact hadn't
disturbed him greatly, but when he had lain down to
sleep, the creepy feeling he'd felt at the gas station
wouldn't go away. He got up and called me, but I must
have already been out and pounding on the neighbors'
doors. He called a few friends, but no one was home.
He didn't turn on the radio or TV, but started walking
toward the center of town as I had done, calling out
for anyone to answer. Finally, of course, he found me.

 We sat on a bench in the center of the town square
as we caught up on each other's stories. To say there
was a feeling of unreality to our situation would have
been like saying the sun was hot. We sat on a bench in
the shade, but we were perspiring. Both our shirts
were stained with cold sweat.

 "Why would everyone leave?" I asked.

 Pepper grimaced and sat quietly thinking. "The
only thing I can figure is there must have been some
kind of evacuation. Maybe there was a toxic spill in
the area. The National Guard could have been
brought in last night. They might have cleared every-
one out."

 "If that was the case they'd have put up road-
blocks."

 He nodded. "I know. But it's the only explanation
that makes any kind of sense. There were people here
at nine last night when we left. Now they're gone.
There must be a reason. There must be something bad
here. I think we better get the hell out of here."

 "But I told you how I called Susan in Florida. Even
she wasn't home. It's like everybody's disappeared."

 "Are you saying the whole world's deserted?" he
asked.

 "Maybe."

 "That's ridiculous."

 "What's happened here is ridiculous." I stood. "I
want to call more people in more places."

 He got to his feet. "I don't think that's a good idea.
Let's just get out of here. We can call people from
Foster."

 The word hit me like a sharp spike. "I'm not going
back there!"

 He was taken back by my reaction. "I didn't mean,
Rox-"

 "I know," I said quickly. Then I shrugged. "This is
not my day. First I go for an abortion, and then I end
up in the twilight zone." I pointed to Mike's Electron-
ic Repair, next to Baskin-Robbins. "Look, let's make
a couple of calls. Maybe we can reach someone who'll
tell us what's happening."

 Pepper hesitated. "Fine. But let's make it quick."

 The door to Mike's shop was locked. Pepper paused
for a second, glanced up and down the block, and then
kicked in the glass beside the door. I jumped at the
sound. Pepper reached inside and undid the latch.

 "We'll have to tell Mike we did this," I said. I
wanted to add, "If we ever see him again." We stepped
inside. Mike had lived in Salem a hundred years and
there was nothing he couldn't fix-radios, TVs,
refrigerators-as long as they didn't have any
microchips in them. Mike hated any silicon wonders.
He called them microshits. His shop was simple,
crammed with the internal organs of modern conve-
niences. An oil-stained phone sat on his cluttered
workbench. Pepper picked it up.

 "Who should we call first?" he asked.

 "Information."

 "Seriously?"

 "I am serious," I said. "If they don't answer, call the
operator."

 He did as I requested. Information was not there.
He tried the operator. The same thing. He slammed
down the phone. "There must be something wrong
with the lines," he said.

 "Did you get a normal dial tone?" I asked.

 "Yes, I got a normal dial tone."

 I reached for the phone. "I want to call my grand-
mother in Portland. She hasn't left her house since I
was born." I dialed the number from memory. It rang
forever, although I kept praying for it to stop. But I
couldn't take the phone away from my ear. Pepper
finally had to put the receiver down. He was studying
me as if he was worried I was about to lose my mind.
He had every right to be concerned.

 "Rox . . ." he began.

 "There's no one there," I whispered. "The world's
empty."

 "Don't talk like that. There's been an evacuation of
the area. The National Guard-"

 "Screw the National Guard," I interrupted.

 He grabbed me. "Your grandmother's probably still
asleep. Call someone else."

 "No."

 "Do it, damn you! We're not alone!"

 "Yes, we are," a voice said behind us.

CHAPTER IV


 In walked Stan Reese. Short chubby eighteen-year-
old Stan surprised me so bad I almost peed my pants.
Child prodigy. Probable valedictorian of our class.
Good old Stan. Ask him a question about math or
science and if he didn't know the answer, there was
none. His brown eyes were huge because his glasses
were thick. He came in and sat on Mike's favorite
stool. His pleasant plump face was a haven of sanity.
He scratched at his dirty blond hair and sniffled.

 "I hope I didn't scare you guys," he said calmly.

 I let go of Pepper and moved to Stan, hugging him
so tightly I could have hurt him. But Stan didn't
complain. He wasn't only smart, he was cool. He was
the rarest of intellectuals-he never acted superior.
He smiled briefly as I let him go. He reset his glasses
on his nose.

 "It's too bad it took the end of the world for
Roxanne to give me a hug," he said.

 "I'm so glad to see you," I exclaimed, messing up
his hair. I knew Stan fairly well. Our junior year I took
algebra, and because I had the bad habit of ditching
class every other day, the teacher assigned Stan to
tutor me. Stan wasn't in my class, of course. He was
already on his second semester of college calculus, but
he was doing some kind of work-study project. I saw
him twice a week for an hour, and in that time he
taught me more than the teacher could have ever
taught me. I ended up getting a B in the class, and
taking Stan out for ice cream afterward to thank him.
He really liked ice cream. He had a banana split and a
malt. He had a rather major problem with his weight.

 Pepper stepped forward. We had never talked about
Stan, but I suspected Pepper hardly knew him. "What
do you mean, the end of the world?" Pepper asked.
"Has there been a nuclear war?"

 "Not that I'm aware of," Stan said.

 "Then what are you saying?" Pepper demanded.

 "Everybody in the world seems to have disap-
peared," Stan replied.

 "That's insane," Pepper sneered.

 "Tell me about it," Stan said. He sat for a moment
without speaking-we all did. When Stan spoke next,
his voice was curiously intrigued, as if our situation
were nothing but a fascinating scientific problem,
which I suppose it was in a way. "I'm a short wave
operator," he said. "Have been for years. I usually talk
to three buddies of mine in Europe every Saturday
morning. There's one each in France, Germany, and
Switzerland. The one in France is a thirty-year-old
woman, who's been teaching me French for the last six
months. Well, to make a long story short, I tried to get
in touch with them this morning. I couldn't get any of
them. I checked out my equipment. It was perfect. I
tried getting other people I talk to occasionally: a guy
in Australia with chronic insomnia, a priest in India
-these guys are almost always on the airways. I got
zip. I began to scan all the bans. I was receiving fine.
But nobody was transmitting. I turned on a normal
radio, a TV."

 "I did the same thing!" I exclaimed.

 "What did you get?" Stan asked.

 "Static," I said. "Fuzz."

 Stan nodded. "That's what I got."

 "I don't believe any of this," Pepper protested.

 Stan pointed. "Turn on Mike's TV right there. That
one's his-it's not in for repair."

 Pepper did as he was told. He got a screen of fuzz,
no matter how many times he flipped the channel. He
snapped it off. "It proves nothing," he said, angry.

 "It proves a lot," Stan said. "All the networks and
local stations have suddenly stopped broadcasting."

 "Why?" I asked.

 "I don't why," Stan said.

 "But you're Mr. Brain," Pepper said. "You get all
the good grades. Use your brain now. Give us some-
thing."

 Stan sighed. "My first reaction would be to say that
there has been a major EMP high in the atmosphere.
That's an electromagnetic pulse. A multiple megaton
warhead detonated at say, forty miles altitude, could
knock out all our electronics."

 "Then we are at war," I moaned.

 "Not that I know of," Stan repeated. "An EMP
would have killed this TV here. And my short wave,
and your radio. We wouldn't be getting fuzz, we'd be
getting nothing. Plus an EMP wouldn't explain the
disappearance of everybody."


 "Then give us another explanation," Pepper said.
"What about a toxic spill or something like that?"

 Stan spread his hands. "I got up this morning, and
after realizing that there was no one on my radio or
TV, I went to my parents' bedroom. There was no one
in their bed. There was no one in the house. If my
parents had been evacuated in the middle of the night,
don't you think they'd at least awaken me? Ask me if I
wanted to come?"

 "Was their bed messed up?" I asked.

 Stan nodded. "Good question. Yes, it was unmade.
My mother never left a bed unmade more than ten
minutes in her whole life. I think they were in bed
when they left."

 "When they left where?" Pepper asked.

 "I don't know," Stan repeated.

 I felt faint and couldn't think clearly. All the rules
had been changed. Reality had fallen asleep at the
wheel and driven off the road. I had to sit down.
Pepper pounded his leg in frustration.

 "We can't just sit here," he said. "We have to find
out what's happened. I say we get a car and drive to
another town."

 "We might have to do that eventually," Stan said.
"But I wouldn't start our investigation by traveling."

 "Why not?" Pepper asked.

 "What's in another town that's not here?" Stan
asked. "More people? Maybe, maybe not. But we
already know for a fact that most of the people on
earth are gone. I can tell if a radio or a TV's been
damaged. There was nothing wrong with mine. I
doubt there was anything wrong with Roxanne's. That
means that no one, in any part of the world, is
transmitting. And that means this effect is not local-
ized to here."

 "But we have to find more people," Pepper
protested.

 "We may find more people in Salem itself," Stan
said. "We should look here first. People freak out
when the unexpected happens. What's happened to-
day is about as unexpected as you can get. If we go
driving from town to town, we might end up getting
shot at by someone."

 Pepper considered. He always had strong opinions,
but logic worked wonders on him, and everything
Stan had said made sense. "All right," Pepper said
finally. "We'll stay here for now. But what do we do
here?"

 Stan paced in front of us. "If there are other people
in town, what would they do first? Once they discov-
ered what had happened?"

 "They'd probably go through all the steps we have,"
I said. "Then they'd leave town."

 "What would they do just before they left town?"
Stan asked.

 "Steal a good car and a sack full of cash," Pepper
said.

 "Ah." Stan raised an approving finger. He had
probably known the answer before asking for our
input. "We all want easy money. What a time to get
it."

 "Let's go to the bank," I said.

 "Right," Stan said, agreeing with me.

 "Let's go," Pepper said, anxious to do something,
anything.

 There were two banks in Salem, on opposite corners
of the town square. We went to the small one first-a
First Interstate. Our break-in tactics had lost their
subtlety already. Pepper simply kicked the door in.
We looked around, called out. No one.

 The next bank-a Security Pacific-was Salem's
main center of commerce. I had been in it only a
couple of days earlier, when I had withdrawn my half
of the abortion money. The teller had asked if I was
going to use the cash for a present or for a vacation
weekend. I had said, "Yeah, right, both." Give me the
cash and mind your own business. It was a big bank,
no doubt full of big bucks. As we approached, we
could see the front door had already been smashed in,
which made us hurry toward it. Stan stopped us
before we could enter, though.

 "Whoever was here has probably already come and
gone," Stan said. "But maybe we should call out
before we enter. We don't want to surprise anybody."

 "Good idea," Pepper said. He stuck his face close to
the hole in the front door. "Hello!" he called. He got
no response. "We must have missed them," he mut-
tered, pulling the door open.

 A glass panel beside the door suddenly shattered
into lethal-looking shards. A loud roar accompanied
the display. Instinctively we threw ourselves to the
sides of the door, pressing against the brick walls. I
was alone on my side, the left side.

 "You should have yelled louder," Stan told Pepper.

 "Or not yelled at all," Pepper grumbled. "Are you
all right, Rox?"

 "Yeah," I gasped. "But maybe we should stop by the
bank later." A warm, sticky sensation on my right leg
got my attention. I looked down and was amazed to
see a dark stain growing through my blue jeans. "I've
been shot," I whispered.

 "We've got to get out of here," Stan said, seeing my
wound.

 "That sonofabitch," Pepper swore. "Can you walk,
Rox?"

 Gingerly I probed my wound. I had never been shot
before. I wanted to be cool like the characters on TV
and just rip off a piece of my shirt and bandage my
wound on the spot. But I felt suddenly nauseous. I had
to brace myself against the wall just to keep from
falling over.

 "I think I've just been grazed," I managed to get
out. "I don't think there's a bullet in my leg."

 "I'm going over to her," Pepper said to Stan.

 "Be quick," Stan advised.
 Pepper leapt across the distance between us. It was a
good thing. A second and third shot disintegrated
what was left of the glass. Pepper put a supporting arm
around me.

 "I'll carry you," he said.

 I brushed him off. "No, I can walk. Let's just get out
of here."

 "I'm getting a rifle and coming back and wasting
this guy," Pepper hissed. He grabbed my hand and
nodded in the direction of some buildings out of the
line of sight of the ruined bank doors. "Let's do it."

 We were just preparing to launch our getaway, when
a voice called out from inside the bank. "Who's
there?" it said.

 Pepper was enraged. "Who's there?" he screamed.
"We're here! Who are you? And why are you shooting
at us?"

 There was a long pause. "Is that you, Pepper?"

 "Yeah!" Pepper yelled back. "Who are. you?"

 "It's Helter."

 Helter Skater, better known as Helter Skelter,
wanted to be a bad dude. He wanted it so bad, and
took on so many of the trappings of toughness, that he
had ended up as a topic of light gossip. He smoked, he
drank, he had tattoos-all the basics. But he also
committed at least one significant act of violence a
month. He did it with such regularity it was as if he
marked it off on a calendar beforehand. In March he
got in an argument with the football quarterback at
school and ended up breaking the guy's jaw. He was
suspended for the act, but only for a couple of days
because the quarterback had thrown more intercep-
tions than touchdowns the previous seasons. In April
Helter got in a fight with a biker at a local bar. It was
true the biker had seen better days in the nineteen-
fifties and was alone and very drunk, but the way
Helter told the story he had taken on a gang of Hell's
Angels with only his fists to defend himself. Now it
was a May stardate and he had just shot Roxanne
Wells in the leg.

 "Are you done shooting at us?" Pepper called out,
furious. Helter was bigger than my boyfriend, and
obviously more practiced at the violent arts, but I
suspected if push came to shove Pepper would have
torn Helter's head off.

 "Yeah, you can come in," Helter called.

 "I'm coming in, all right," Pepper said and kicked
the door open. Stan and I chased after him. I was still
bleeding, but it was going to have to wait. If there were
only four people left alive on the planet, it wasn't
going to do for one to get killed.

 "Pepper," I called after him. "Don't start any-
thing."

 "I don't have to start it," he snapped. "You're
bleeding. That's a hell of a start, already. Where are
you, you yellow bastard?"

 Helter was, of course, back beside the vault, where
all the money was kept. He had obviously blown the
lock off the vault because his black windbreaker
pockets were fat with hundreds, and his pants pockets
bulged with rolled green wads. He carried a mean rifle
in his left hand, and I believe it was still smoking. He
did not point it at Pepper as my boyfriend strode up,
but he shook it a little. Tucked in his belt was a Colt
.45 revolver.

 "Don't mess with me, Pepper," he said. "I didn't
know who it was out there."

 "You just decided when you woke up this morning
that you would shoot at anything that moved, huh?"
Pepper demanded, momentarily halting his advance.

 "If I wanted to hit you," Helter snapped back,
"you'd be dead."

 I raised my hand. "Excuse me, my leg is bleeding.
How come I'm not dead?"

 "Oh," Helter mumbled, chagrined. I could never
decide whether he was attractive in a crude way, or
just plain ugly. His hair was blond, plowed down to
the roots, and his deeply tanned face was surprisingly
featureless. He had two expressions: anger or vague
confusion. I suppose he could look frightened, too,
but I hadn't been around him all that much. He was a
senior like the rest of us, but he moved in different
circles.

 "I should kick in your face," Pepper said.

 Helter put his attitude back on. "What's stopping
you?"

 "I think it's the fact that you're holding two deadly
weapons," Stan observed.

 Helter scowled. "What are you doing here?"

 "Closing out my account," Stan replied. Then he
did a very brave thing. He stepped forward and
plucked the rifle out of Helter's hand. He didn't touch
the revolver, however. Helter was so amazed he didn't
even try to stop him. Stan set the rifle on a nearby seat,
adding, "Let's kiss and make up and get down to
business. All right guys?"

 "It's all right with me," Helter said, trying to act
bored.

 "Just our luck he should have been left," Pepper
muttered. He turned to me. "I want to look at your
leg. Are you in pain?"

 I nodded to all the money in the area. "Yeah. But I
feel a lot better knowing that we're rich."

 Pepper had me sit and felt my cut. He decided that
the bullet had just grazed me. He ripped off a part of
his shirt and tied it tightly over the wound. The
bleeding began to slow immediately.

 "Are you strong enough to walk to the drugstore?"
Pepper asked.

 "Sure," I said. "It's only next door."

 "I can give you a piggyback ride," Helter offered,
guilty at last.

 "No thanks," I said politely. I wasn't really that
mad at him.

 "Could I have a piggyback ride?" Stan asked Helter
hopefully.

 "What a group," Helter growled.

 At the drugstore Pepper made the other two stay up
front at the cash register while I sat down in the back
beside the prescription drugs. I slipped down my
pants so he could clean and bandage my wound. It was
kind of romantic.

 "They do this in westerns all the time," I said as he
taped the gauze to my thigh. I could tell he was
enjoying the sight of my legs; they were good ones.

 "I don't remember any drugstores in westerns," he
said.

 "That's true." I reached down and held his hands.
His eyes met mine. If I was looking for strength, it was
there for the taking. The only thing that made our
situation bearable was that we were together. "What
are we going to do?" I asked.

 "First we have to figure out what's happened and
then I guess we'll do the right thing." He glanced in
the direction of the others. "We're lucky we have Stan
with us. The guy's sharp."

 "You like him, I'm glad. He really is a wonderful
person. But be nice to Helter as well. We'll get
nowhere if we're at one another's throats."

 "I'll tolerate him. I will not be nice to him."
 Pepper finished with my leg and we rejoined the
others. We hardly had a chance to catch up on Helter's
story, and his ours, when blond, beautiful Leslie Belle
strolled through the door. Her eyes were dry but both
her cheeks were streaked. She had on bright blue
pajamas and no shoes.

 "I have a splitting headache," she said flatly. "Any
of you guys got an aspirin?"

CHAPTER V


 Leslie Belle was beauty and success. She got good
grades, starred in practically every play at Salem
High-and she glowed. She was the kind of girl that
girls like myself were supposed to despise. And yet,
though I knew her well enough to know her faults, I
had never been able to dislike her. I believed she
deserved her popularity. Her looks could not be
denied. Her blue eyes were brilliant by day, and
sparkled at night. She had bones and teeth that spelled
sun and fun, and a body that made most guys think
party time.

 But she wasn't loose, at least not from what I'd
heard, and even more remarkable, she wasn't a snob.
Once when I sprained my ankle, and had to hobble
around on crutches, she carried my books to and from
the classes we shared. And she performed the service
without making me feel self-conscious. Of course, she
wasn't perfect. She had a tendency to talk about
herself. She did so quite innocently, as if she honestly
believed Leslie Belle was what you did want to hear
about. The odd thing was, she was usually right. She  
led a much more exciting life than the average Salem
High girl.

 Now, though, she didn't look too excited or excit-
ing. Stan fetched her a bottle of Tylenol and a can of
Coke from the drugstore cooler. She swallowed three
of the pills in one gulp, and then leaned against the
counter, staring blankly at a row of diapers.

 "Does somebody want to talk or should I just start
screaming?" she said finally.

 "Nice pajamas," Helter said.

 "Thanks," Leslie mumbled.

 "Have you seen anybody else beside us?" I asked.

 "Nope," Leslie said. "Is there anybody else?"

 "We're not sure," Stan said.

 Leslie nodded slowly. Then her beautiful face began
to fall to pieces. Her lower lip quivered. Her cheeks
trembled and the tears fell. Pepper was by her side in a
moment, his comforting arms around her. That was
OK, I suppose, though I would have been happy to
comfort her myself.

 "Shh," Pepper crooned. "It's not so bad. We'll be all
right. Don't cry." He drew out a handkerchief. He had
never offered me one before. "Here, blow your nose.
You'll feel better."

 "I just can't find anybody," Leslie moaned in his
chest.

 "What a fox," Helter whispered to Stan, shaking his
head.

 "Let's go get some ice cream," Stan said. "I think
better when I'm eating."
   
 We broke into Baskin-Robbins. Pepper let Helter
kick in the door, much to Helter's pleasure. Stan's
tastes were simple, though immense. He plucked a
five-gallon tub of chocolate chip out of the freezer
chest, grabbed a spoon, and got to work. Helter didn't
even bother with a spoon, the barbarian. Leslie wasn't
hungry. Pepper and I shared a cup of vanilla. The
situation was hilarious. The world had ended and
there we were eating ice cream.

 "Should we have our big talk now or should we go
looking for more people first?" Stan asked, looking
quite happy to sit there and finish the tub.

 "I don't want to talk," Helter said. "I want to get
out of here."

 "And where do you want to go?" Stan asked.

 "Los Angeles," Helter said without hesitation. He
had returned to the bank for his rifle and was keeping
it close, along with his revolver, which he had set on
the table beside his ice cream.

 "Why there?" I asked.

 Helter shrugged. "I've always wanted to go there."

 Pepper snorted. "So have I, but the situation's
changed a bit, don't you think?"

 Helter was not impressed. "L.A.'s a big city.
There'll be more survivors there."

 "More survivors of what?" Pepper asked.

 "Of whatever's happened," Helter said simply.

 "And what has happened?" Pepper asked him.

 "I don't know," Helter said. "Isn't that what Stan
wants to talk about?"

 "We do need to talk," Stan said diplomatically.    
"Leslie, are you sure you don't want any ice cream?
You can have your choice of thirty-one flavors."

 "I'd rather not," she replied, clutching Pepper's
handkerchief to her chest. Her gaze was far off. I
believed she was in shock, and knew that Stan be-
lieved the same thing about her. He set aside his
spoon and reached out to touch her hands.

 "Why don't you tell us what happened to you this
morning?" he asked.

 She stared at him a moment. "Nothing happened."

 "Tell us," Stan insisted gently.

 Leslie gestured helplessly. "I woke up and my
parents were out. I couldn't understand why they
would suddenly leave without telling me or leaving me
a note. I made myself breakfast. I had a bowl of corn
flakes and strawberries. Then I turned on the radio,
but it was broken. I called a couple of my girlfriends,
but no one answered. Then I started to get scared."

 "You felt like you were surrounded by emptiness?"
I said.

 Leslie nodded. "I feel that way still, even with you
guys here. I stepped outside on our porch. There were
no cars on the road, no people. I began to walk up the
street. At first I called out, but no one answered. Then
I just walked without saying anything. I walked for a
long time."

 "You must have been happy to see us," Helter said
gamely.

 Leslie remained solemn. "I don't even know if you
guys are real. Why should I be happy?"

 "We're real," Pepper said. He, too, reached over
and squeezed her hands. It seemed the in thing to do.
No one had squeezed mine in the last half hour, and I
had got shot.

 "About what time did you wake up, Leslie?" Stan
asked.

 "I don't know. The sun was up."

 Stan nodded. "Helter, tell us your tale."

 "Mine's like hers, except I didn't get all freaked
out," Helter said. "I woke up and realized everybody
had split. I figured I'd split, too. I got a gun, I was
getting some bread. I was heading for the Coast. Then
you guys showed up."

 "And you decided to shoot us," Pepper said bit-
terly.

 "You startled me, all right?" Helter said. "I told you
I was sorry."

 "You never said you were sorry," I said.

 "Well, so what?" Helter said. "Who has time to be
sorry with all this weird crap going on?"

 "What time did you get up?" Stan asked Helter.

 "A little after eight," Helter said.

 "You guys said you were out of town this morning
when this change happened," Stan said to me and
Pepper. "Give me more details. Where exactly were
you?"

 "We started off in Foster," Pepper said.

 "What were you doing there?" Stan asked.

 "We were visiting friends," I said quickly.

 "What time did you leave Foster?" Stan asked.

 Pepper glanced at me. "About six," I said.

 "Were your friends up when you left?" Stan asked.

 "Yes," I said, thinking of the doctor and nasty
nurse.

 "You saw them?" Stan asked. "You talked to
them?"

 "Sure, they were awake," I said. "Why?"

 "Have you tried calling them since you left Foster?"
Stan asked.

 "No," I said.

 "Do you want to try?" Stan asked.

 "No," I said. "I mean, I know they won't be home.
They told us they were going out."

 Stan paused. He was sharp. I could tell he suspected
I was hiding something. "What did you do after you
left Foster?" he asked.

 "We drove straight here," I said.

 "Who drove?" Stan asked.

 "I did."

 "What did you do, Pepper?" Stan asked.

 "Nothing. Dozed off."

 Stan was interested. "Did you sleep the whole way
back?"

 "No," Pepper said. "I woke up when we got to that
gas station out on Thirty-seven. You know the one?"

 "Yeah," Stan said. "What time was that?"

 "Close to eight," Pepper said. "There was no one at
the station. We thought it had been robbed."

 "And from there you drove straight into town?"
Stan asked.

 "Yeah," Pepper said. "What are you getting at?"

 "I'm trying to find a common denominator," Stan
said. "Roxanne, was the sun up when you left Foster?"
 
 "No. But there was light in the east."

 "Did you see anyone while driving back?" Stan
asked.

 "No," I said, then paused. "Wait a second. There
was a hitchhiker. I saw her way ahead of me on the
road. She was standing in the glare of the rising sun.
But when I got to where she was, she was gone."

 "What do you mean?" Stan asked. "Did she dash
off the road?"

 "I suppose. Like I said, I had the sun in my eyes. I
just blinked and she was gone. It's funny-at the time
I thought I might have imagined her. But I remember
her hair. It was long and red, bright red in fact. And
she was wearing a long black coat."

 "Where was this?" Stan asked.

 "In the middle of the desert," I said. "Halfway
between here and Foster."

 "Did she look like anybody you knew?" Stan asked.

 "No," I said.

 "This is interesting," Stan said.

 "What?" Pepper asked.

 "Several things," Stan said. "Roxanne was the only
one who was awake when the change occurred. The
rest of us were all asleep."

 "So?" I said. "That could just be coincidence."

 "Maybe," Stan said. "But let me point out some-
thing else that can't be coincidence. Look at the five of
us here. What do you see?"

 "Do we have to include Helter in this question?"
Pepper asked.

 "You just watch your mouth," Helter growled.

 "We're all about the same age," I said, stunned that
I hadn't seen the truth earlier. "We all go to school
together."

 "Exactly," Stan said. "Why? Why is it that the only
five people left in town happen to know each other?
What do we have in common?"

 "I don't get it," Pepper interrupted. "Who cares? I
want to know where everyone's gone. That's the
question we should be asking."

 Stan shook his head. "What if everybody's gone
nowhere?"

 "Huh?" Helter said.

 "Naturally we assume something has happened to
everybody else," Stan said. "But what if we have it
backward. What if something's happened to us?"

 There was a moment of silence-a profoundly deep
silence that could not normally be found on the planet
earth. The only sound was a low whistling of the wind
that we could hear through the open door. Raising my
eyes to the sky I noticed something else.

 "There are no birds," I said.

 "Who cares about the birds?" Helter asked.

 "No, it's true," Pepper said, staring out through the
plate-glass window of the ice-cream parlor. "I haven't
seen a bird since I woke up at the gas station."
 Stan nodded grimly. "I haven't seen any dogs or
cats or even bugs. I suspect if we took a sample of our
skin, we wouldn't find any bacteria."

 Helter looked disgusted. "I would sure as hell hope
not."

 "My point is that all living things have vanished,"
Stan said. "Except for us, and perhaps a few more
people in town. But to tell you the truth, I'm not sure
if anyone's vanished-except us."

 "Are you saying that we're no longer on earth?"
Pepper asked. "That we've been picked up by a flying
saucer?"

 "Maybe," Stan said.

 Pepper snorted. "That's the most idiotic suggestion
I ever heard. I'm surprised at you, Stan."

 "Since we are in an impossible situation," Stan
said, not taking offense, "we must be open to all
possibilities. How many of you have heard of the
Bermuda Triangle?"

 "Are those those new bikinis that show off a girl's
butt?" Helter asked.

 I patted Helter's hand. "I don't think you got that
one right."

 "It's an area in the ocean near Bermuda where a lot
of planes and boats have disappeared," Pepper said.

 "Yes," Stan said. "Until yesterday I would have said
the Bermuda Triangle was impossible. But now I'm
not sure. What kind of world are we in right now? An
empty one? Its emptiness is selective then. There are
no people or animals or insects, but there is food.
There's electricity. This last point is interesting.
Who's running the power stations?"

 "Maybe no one," I said. "Maybe the power's just on
for now, and it will fail later." I shuddered at the
thought. Because now it was day. The sun was out and
we were together. But come night, it could be very
dark, and silent. It was strange how the silence preyed
on my mind more than the emptiness. They weren't
the same, I knew, not at all.

 "That's possible," Stan said. "But my point is we
appear to be in the same world we've always been in,
but with a few important differences." He paused. "I
wonder if we haven't fallen into our own Bermuda
Triangle."

 "You mean, like into another dimension?" I asked.

 "Yes," Stan said.

 "What does 'another dimension' mean?" Helter
wanted to know.

 "In a sense, nothing," Stan said. "You don't under-
stand something just because you give it a name. But I
think it's worth talking this way because I can tell you
right now that we're not going to find a logical
explanation for our predicament. Everyone in the
world simply does not disappear overnight."

 "You're depressing me," Helter complained.

 "Then let me give you some encouragement," Stan
said. "If we've fallen into another dimension, and we
can figure out how, we might be able to climb back
out."

 "Hold on a second," Pepper said. "I'm not ready to
accept this other dimension theory until we've looked
at others."

 "Go ahead," Stan said.

 "I don't know any others!" Pepper said. "You
suggest some."

 "Flying saucers could have swooped in during the
night and beamed everyone aboard except us," Stan
said.

 "Be serious," Pepper said.

 "I am being serious," Stan said. "You're not accept-
ing the fact that this phenomenon is worldwide. That
being the case, all our theories will have to be ridicu-
lous."

 "Could we just be dreaming?" I asked.

 "This is no normal dream," Stan said carefully,
considering the idea. "I certainly feel like I'm awake.
Then again, dreaming people often do."
 "We must be dreaming," Leslie whispered, and
there was suddenly hope in her voice. She sat up in her
chair and there was color in her cheeks. Yet I couldn't
say I preferred her wide-eyed look to the flat one of a
moment ago. "We can just wake ourselves up!" she
exclaimed.

 "Leslie," I said.

 "No, Rox," she said, jumping to her feet. "It makes
sense. We'll all pinch ourselves and we'll wake up in
bed." Her voice cracked as she laughed. "We won't
have to worry about aliens and space ships. We'll just
roll over and turn off the alarm."

 "We could try that, Leslie, if you want," Stan said,
obviously concerned. "But I don't want you to get
upset if it doesn't work. We have to be-"

 "It will work!" she interrupted. "But we have to do
it together. Come on, you guys, let's get ready to pinch
our arms on the count of three. One-"

 "I wouldn't mind pinching other things," Helter
muttered to Pepper.

 "Two-"

 "Leslie," I began again.

 "Three!" Leslie cried, pinching her arm. "Pinch,
pinch, pinch, everyone. Harder. Faster. You're not
doing it hard enough!"

 The four of us watched as Leslie hacked at her arm
for perhaps twenty seconds. Then Pepper stood and
held her-my, that was twice in a row-and helped
her back into her seat. Once there she burst into sobs
and had to be comforted by another of Pepper's strong
hugs. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic. Leslie
was hurting-there was no doubt of that-but he was
my boyfriend. I wished Helter would comfort her. Of
course Helter would probably have tried to get in a
feel in the process.

 "This has got to be a dream," Leslie cried.

 "Leslie," Stan said patiently with great strength in
his voice. "You have to relax. The situation is strange,
but we're not in any danger. We're together, and
together we can solve this puzzle and make things
right."

 Leslie stared at him with a combination of hope and
disbelief. "How do you know we're not in danger?"
she whispered, sniffing.

 "Because if there's nothing, nothing can hurt us,"
Stan said. He considered a moment. "I keep thinking
about Roxanne's story. The change-I don't know
what else to call it-appears to have occurred around
sunrise. And except for Roxanne, none of us was
awake at sunrise." He paused again. "Except for the
hitchhiker."

 "I'm not even sure she was there," I said.

 "But you were able to describe her," Stan said.
"You must have seen her. Are there any other details
you remember?"

 I hesitated. "No."

 "Are you sure?" Stan asked.

 I frowned. "I was just thinking how when I saw her
she looked like a shadow across the sun. It came up
exactly behind where she stood."

 "Another coincidence," Stan said.

 "Stan," Pepper complained. "You're sounding su-
perstitious."

 Stan grinned. "An empty planet could do that to the
most hardened scientist." His grin faded. "She was
wearing a black coat," he muttered to himself.

 "I'm not sure what she had on," I said.

 Stan looked at me sharply. "Her hair was long and
red, bright red you said. Isn't that odd?"

 "I have red hair," I said, not understanding where
he was coming from.

 "Yes, but yours isn't bright red," Stan said. He
thought a moment. "She reminds me of someone. Do
any of you know who?"

 "No," Pepper and Helter replied together. They
turned to each other, surprised. Leslie suddenly sat up
but didn't say anything.

 "Who?" I asked.

 "Betty Sue McCormick," Stan said.

 "Why do you bring her up?" Pepper asked impa-
tiently.

 "She was just a suicidal weirdo," Helter said.

 "And she's dead. She's been dead four weeks,"
Leslie added, and the words sent a shiver through the
length of my body. Because the more I thought back to
the hitchhiker, the more it seemed possible it had
been Betty Sue. That hair-it was as if her head had
caught on fire from the rising sun. And then she had
vanished, like the last traces of night at dawn.

 Of course, it couldn't have been her. No way, Jose, I
thought.

 "She died in a raging fire," Stan said. "I heard there
were hardly any of her teeth left to identify her by."

 The four of us were incredulous. "Are you saying
she's alive?" Pepper asked angrily. Stan raised an
eyebrow at his reaction.

 "What's the big deal?" Stan asked.

 "That's what we're asking you," Helter said.

 "Betty Sue is dead," Leslie said solemnly. "Let's
not talk about her."

 "Yeah," Pepper said. "We're just getting off on
tangents."

 "She was just a bitch," Helter added.

 Stan's eyes narrowed on Helter. Stan wore thick
glasses and was short, but he was no lightweight-
that was clear. "She wasn't a bitch," he said. "She was
my friend."

 "I was just talking," Helter mumbled.

 "She was an unusual girl, though," Pepper said.

 "That's for sure," Leslie whispered.

 Stan turned his attention to Leslie. "You knew her
the best. You grew up practically next door to her."

 "So what?" Leslie snapped. "I told you, I don't
want to talk about her."

 "Why not?" Stan asked. And he stopped her before
she could reply. "Why are all of you fidgeting in your
seats at the mention of Betty Sue's name?"

 "I'm not," I said. "I hardly knew her."

 "But the rest of you knew her, judging by your
reactions," Stan said. "Come on, let's speak our
minds. What's the big deal?"

 "Stan," Pepper said, "we're in a big mess here, and
you're the only one of us who has a big brain. We want
you to help us get out of this mess. We don't want to
talk about a girl who killed herself four weeks ago." I
couldn't help but notice the uneasiness in his voice.

 "Absolutely," Helter said.

 "I agree," Leslie put in.

 Stan was stoic. "What if I want to talk about her?"

 "But why?" Pepper cried. Once more, his reaction
was startling to me. Pepper had never mentioned
Betty Sue-not even at the time of her death. Never
once. He looked over at me and sat back in his seat.
"This is silly," he muttered.

 Stan studied him a moment then sighed. He leaned
toward me. "Roxanne," he said. "Could it have been
Betty Sue on the road?"

 "No," I said. "She's dead."

 "What if she wasn't dead?" Stan said. "What if she
faked her death? What if she did that to throw
everybody off, and then left town for the past month?"

 "And waited out in the middle of the desert until
today?" I asked, more confused by the second. "Until
I drove by?"

 "If you like," Stan said. "Could it have been her on
the road?"

 I hesitated. "It's possible."

 "We have to stop this," Leslie said, and there was a
note of desperation in her voice. "Betty Sue was
nothing!"

 "She was someone," Stan said quietly. He lowered
his head and seemed to be thinking a moment. When
he raised it back up, his expression was dark. "I liked
her." He cleared his throat. "How many of you liked
her?" No one responded. "How many of you hated
her?"

 "None of us hated her," Pepper said impatiently.

 "I hated her," Helter said.

 "Why?" Stan asked.

 "I told you, she was a bitch," Helter said. "At least
to me."

 "She wasn't bitchy to me," said Leslie. "But she was
a spooky girl."

 "What made her spooky?" I asked, curious. Leslie
was coming out of her shock. The mention of Betty
Sue had done it. She was still afraid, but now she had
fight in her, too.

 She leveled her gaze at me. "Just take my word for
it," she said.

 "Stan," Pepper said. "I am going to ask you one last
time. Why do you want to talk about her?"
 Stan shrugged. "I don't know. I just have this
feeling. . . . Maybe she's the common denominator in
this situation."

 "In what possible way?" Pepper asked, exasperated.

 "We all knew her," Stan said.

 "We all knew lots of people," Pepper protested.

"We all went to the same school for Christsakes.
Besides, Rox hardly knew her."

 "But Roxanne is the one who might have seen her
on the road," Stan said.

 "She doesn't know if she saw anybody," Pepper
said.

 "I saw somebody," I whispered. Yet the words rang
false in my ears. I had wanted to say I saw something.
A shadow. A ghost. Stan was right-just the mention
of Betty Sue's name had thrown the others.

 Pepper had given up. "What do you want to do with
Betty Sue?" he asked Stan.

 "I don't want to do anything with her," Stan said.
"But I'd like to find her, if she's alive and in this
neighborhood."

 "I want to find other people first," Leslie inter-
rupted. "I want to drive around town with our horns
blaring."

 "Why don't we just shoot off guns in the square?"
Helter asked. He was itching to play soldier.

 "Because if people are still here, they'll run the
other way," Pepper said. "I say we follow Leslie's
suggestion. At least it's something to do."

 "And if we do this, and we don't find anyone else,"
Stan said, "then can we look for Betty Sue?"

 "Where would we look?" I asked. "The desert?"

 Stan glanced out the window. The wind continued
to blow, and it appeared to be picking up. The town
had been immaculate when we had returned that
morning, but already the square was covered with a
faint coating of sand. It was easy to imagine how, if no
one returned to wipe it away, the town would slowly
be buried.

 "No," Stan said. "We'll stay out of the desert for
now. We'll go to her house. We'll see what's there."

 It was then I realized Stan was keeping something
from us, as Pepper and I had kept something from
him. I hoped it was nothing bad.

CHAPTER VI


 We drove around town for an hour in a car we
borrowed with the horn blaring. We talked little while
we went up and down the streets. The sand bristled
against the windshield the whole time. We found no
one and no one found us. The odd thing was-none
of us was surprised. It was like the gang had been
assembled and that was that. Finally I glanced over at
Stan, who sat in the backseat between Helter and
Leslie.

 "I don't know where she lived," I said.

 "Two thirty-two Chesterfield," Stan said. "Take
Magnolia away from the square and turn right. You'll
see it halfway down on the right, behind a white picket
fence and a hedge of rose bushes."

 "A hedge of thorns," Leslie muttered, putting her
hand to her head as if she was in pain.

 "Why do you say that?" Stan asked.

 "I'm not saying anything," Leslie replied.

 We arrived at the house five minutes later. I had
never been there before, but the others climbed out of
the car with what could best be described as expres-
sions of dread. Even Stan. I kept wanting to ask
Pepper how he knew Betty Sue, but didn't want to do
it until we were alone. One thing for sure-there was
no way he was telling me he hadn't known her. And
pretty good from what I could see.

 "Maybe I should stay outside and stand guard,"
Helter said, shouldering his rifle.

 "What's the matter?" Pepper asked.  "Are you
afraid?"

 "I'm not afraid of an empty house," Helter replied,
kicking at a wooden post on the white picket fence.
The house was much the same as the surrounding
homes: small and boxlike, with a tired green tar tiled
roof and a white paint job that was cracking from
having stared too long at the sun. Yet the house
seemed to be in shadow, and instinctively I raised my
eyes to find the tree that shaded it. But there was no
tree, no shadow. It must have been my imagination, I
thought. Suddenly I wasn't crazy about going into that
house either.

 "I'm not going in," Leslie said.

 "You want to stay out here with Helter?" Stan
asked.

 Helter grinned at Leslie. A troll with acne would
have looked more appealing. "I'll take care of you,
babe," he promised.

 "I think we should stick together," Pepper said, and
I hoped it wasn't because he didn't want Leslie and
Helter alone together.

 "That's all right with me," Stan said. "If we can get
everyone inside."

 "I'm not afraid," Helter said again, his hand drift-
ing to the revolver tucked in his belt. He wiped the
sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. The
day was hot, and that felt real enough.

 "I can't stay out here by myself," Leslie com-
plained.

 "You probably went into this house a million times
while you were growing up," Stan said to Leslie. She
lowered her head.

 "But I haven't been inside in years," she said.

 "Where do you live?" I asked.

 Leslie pointed to a house a couple of houses over.
"There."

 "And it's been years?" I asked. "Did you have a
falling out?"

 Leslie nodded weakly. "You could call it that."

 "Are we going in or not?" Pepper asked. "And what
are we looking for when we get inside?"

 "Evidence," Stan said, leading the way.

 The front door was unlocked. Stan knocked never-
theless, and then even waited for a moment before
stepping inside. "Hello?" he said. We crowded behind
him. The word floated out and died. We all took
another step forward and tried not to breathe. The
place was musty. The furniture could have been cut
out of a textbook depicting the values of lower-class
middle America. The beige wallpaper was a discount
buy, and the glue that had been used to hang it had
been lumpy. Cheap copies of Biblical paintings cov-
ered the walls. We looked at them in wonder because
in every one of them either Jesus, an apostle, or some
saint was bleeding.

 "Her mother's a religious fanatic," Leslie said
flatly.

 "I know," Stan said, and the way he said it-he
knew even more. He pointed down the hall. "Let's go
into her room."

 We moved as a group, bumping into one another,
afraid of the skeletons we would surely find in her
closet. Betty Sue's room was obviously a reaction
against her mother. Here there were no disturbing
paintings of pierced and bleeding saints. No motel
beige. This room was stark ultra modern, painted
in shades of gray and white. A neat wooden desk
sat beneath the sole window. On top of it was a
closed book, like a diary, and a sheaf of loose
notebook pages, held in place by the book. The
window was open part way and the pages ruffled
in the breeze.

 "I haven't been here in a while either," Stan said
softly.

 "When was the last time?" I asked.

 "Four weeks ago. The day she died," Stan said.

 "You saw her that day?" I asked. "How was she?"

 Stan met my gaze. "Happy."

 "Well, we're here. Now can we go?" Pepper said.

 "What's the hurry?" I asked.

 "What's the point in staying?" he asked coolly.

 "I want to look at her papers," Stan said. He
stepped up to the desk. We crowded in behind him.
He picked up what looked like the diary and con-
firmed that it was indeed Betty Sue's secret jottings.
Yet I wondered if that was true-how secret they
were, I mean. It was almost as if the book and pages
had been left there for someone to find. Stan ignored
the loose pages for a moment and flipped open the
diary at random. We read over his shoulder.


  Dear Diary,
  Today we had a party for Leslie. She was ten. I
 am ten. Now we're both ten. We sang and played
 games. Her mom brought out a cake with ten
 candles. We told her to make a wish and she did.
 But she wouldn't tell anybody what it was because
 she said it wouldn't come true. But she smiled at
 me as she said it. She knew she'd tell me. And that
 Fat Freddy would make it come true. He always
 does.
  I think I will go to sleep now and dream about
 Mars. I haven't been there in a long time.


 "Who the hell is Fat Freddy?" Helter growled.

 Stan looked at Leslie. "Do you know?"

 Leslie shook her head slightly, obviously scared.
She had turned the color of the gray carpet. "No," she
whispered.

 "You don't remember?" Stan asked.

 "No," Leslie said, and we all knew she was lying.

 Stan flipped to another page, a later date.


  Dear Diary,
  Boys are beginning to look good. I like their
 mouths and their legs. Mom says that's what
 happens when a girl gets older-she likes to look
 at boys. But Mom says that boys aren't ever as
 nice as they look. In fact, she says most boys are
 bad. I wonder if that's true. I don't think Sam
 Douglas is bad. He talks to me in math and
 always calls me by my full name. I hate when
 people just call me Betty. Steve Kinder always did
 that to annoy me. But Steve has moved away and
 I think he died. I hope so.
  I would like to make Sam kiss me. I wonder if
 he would if I made him.


 "Who the hell was Steve Kinder?" Helter asked.

 "He moved away to Colorado when we were
twelve," Stan said. "I used to know him pretty good."

 "Do you know how he's doing?" I asked.

 "He's dead," Stan said. "He got cancer right after
leaving here." Stan turned to Leslie. "Did you know
him?"

 "I knew him" was all Leslie would say.

 Stan turned forward a few more pages, and we read
some more.


  Dear Diary,
  I am not happy with Leslie. I have done so
 much for her. I made her what she is. But now she
 is kissing Sam, and I am only writing words. I
 want to write harsh words about her. I know she
 would feel them. I might do that. I might make
 her feel like her lips were bleeding whenever she
 thought of kissing the boy I wanted to kiss. She
 had better be nice to me.
  I dreamed of ^a rat last night. It was eating a
 dead man's hand. I think the man was dead. It
 would have hurt if he wasn't. I think he lived in
 England. There's lots of fog there. I like the fog,
 although I've never seen it.


 "Who was Sam?" Helter asked.

 "My first boyfriend," Leslie mumbled, a vacant
look in her eyes.

 "What happened to him?" I asked.

 "I'm not sure," Leslie said. "He moved away, too."

 "What makes you think anything happened to
him?" Pepper asked.

 "It usually did," Leslie said.

 Stan turned to another page. Betty Sue was growing
up before our eyes. Into something most unusual.


  Dear Diary,
  I think dark thoughts and feel warm. I write in
 the unlighted chamber of my existence. I turn as I
 walk alone, and I imagine I see Fat Freddy
 following me. But he left when I changed into a
 young woman and dreamed of sin. He was too fat
 for my tastes and I had him for supper because he
 thought he was bigger than the god who created
 him.
  I'm going to bed now. I'm going to dream now.
 I'm still hungry.


 "We should stop," Leslie moaned.

 "Why?" Stan demanded.

 There were tears in Leslie's eyes and she was
trembling. "It won't get any better," she whispered.

 But Stan turned another few pages, and I saw a
name that I did not want to see.


  Dear Diary,
  Helter took me for a ride in his car tonight. He
 yelled at a boy on a bike that got in our way and
 almost killed him. Helter would have killed him
 if I had let him. Maybe I shouldn't have been so
 concerned. Helter would look nice in striped
 pajamas and the shadow of metal bars. I am
 growing tired of Helter. But he thinks something
 wicked for me, and I want to see what it is. I am
 curious. I will imagine this a little further.
  Pepper called me tonight. He has a nicer mouth
 than Helter and his nails are clean. I think he
 wants to kiss me. I think I will let him.


 Pepper snapped the diary from Stan's hands. "I've
had enough," Pepper said. "We're not going to read
any more. This girl is dead for Godsakes. Let's just
leave her alone."

 I held out my hand. "I want to read some more."

 "No," Pepper said, clasping the diary to his chest.

 "He's right, let's just get out of here," Leslie said,
and she sounded close to hysterics.

 "Did you kiss her?" I demanded of my boyfriend.

 "No," Pepper said. "I only went out with her once."

 "When?" I asked.

 "A long time ago," he said, and I think he was lying.
"It was nothing."

 "What about you?" Stan asked Helter.

 "I only went out with her once too," Helter said
quickly, and he was scared as well.

 "It says in her diary you went out several times," I
said.

 "It doesn't say that," Helter said.

 "It implies it," I said.

 "I don't care what it implies!" Helter snapped.

 "Why can't we read the rest of the diary?" I
shouted, grabbing for it. Pepper backed off. But it was
Stan who put his hand on my arm.

 "Calm down now, everyone," Stan said. "We won't
read any more of the diary right now." He gestured to
the loose pages on the desk. "We'll read her papers
instead. Is that all right with everyone?"

 "What if they're about us?" Leslie said softly as if
she couldn't imagine anything more awful. Stan
picked up the stack and thumbed through it.

 "It just looks like a bunch of short stories to me,"
Stan said. "A page or two for each one."

 "Stories," Leslie whispered.

 We began to read.


     LATI BALL PUTS ON A MASK

  Lati Ball dressed for the costume party with
 relish. She wanted to look pretty. She wanted to
 look mysterious. She took a mask from the closet
 of witches and tied the lace bow around her sweet
 head. "My," she said as she stared into the
 mirror. "How happy we are to be the best. The
 men will ask me to dance. The men will forget the
 rest."
  Lati Ball went to the dance. The mask fit tight
 on her soft face. The people did not recognize her,
 but said she was the best. "Oh, who is this
 woman?" they cried. "She walks like an angel and
 floats like a swan?" And the men lined up and
 asked for her hand. She was swept around the
 floor into another land.
  The party went late and the night grew tired.
 Lati Ball had to stop and rest between dances.
 Then the clock rang twelve times and a cake was
 brought out. A cake of twelve candles. And Lati
 Ball wondered whose birthday it could be, and
 hurried to hear. The hostess of the party laughed
 and said, "The cake is for you! The cake is for the
 best! Take this knife now and cut some for the
 rest!"
  But before Lati Ball could cut the cake, she
 wanted to make a wish. She leaned over the
 candles and said to herself, "I want always to be
 the best, better than the rest." Then she blew at
 the candles and blew at the cake. But the cake was
 made of wood and caught fire. It burned her
 mask. It burned her face. Then the mask was part
 of Lati Ball's face, and she looked like death.


 Leslie let out a scream as we read the end of the
story and grabbed the papers from Stan's hand.
Before anyone could stop her, she had run from the
room. We chased her into the kitchen. Pepper was
the first to reach her. But she had already turned on
the gas burners and thrown the story of Lati Ball
into the flame. It had immediately caught. Fire licked
at the sick words and smoke billowed around Leslie
like a dark aura. She was crumpling up the next story
when Pepper reached out to stop her. She grabbed the
diary from Pepper and dropped the stories on the
floor in the process. She showed the diary no mercy.
She pressed it directly down on the blue flames on the
stove. Pepper tried to pull her back and was rewarded
with a hard kick to the shin. He bent over in pain.
Leslie was determined. She was possessed. She pulled
the book open on its side and let the fire slip into the
cracks. The pages could have been soaked in gasoline.
There was a flash of light and the room choked with
another blast of black smoke.

 "Stop!" Stan shouted. He leaped forward and
knocked the diary off the stove and onto the floor. He
began to stamp out the fire as Leslie also dropped
down to the floor. She was after the pages again, and
she had them in her hands in a second. Pepper
grabbed at her once more. This time she poked him
directly in the eye. He let go of her and screamed.

 "You bitch!" I shouted at her, hurrying to Pepper's
side. Leslie wasn't listening. She made a beeline for
the back door, and was out in the yard before we could
regroup. Stan was still trying to stomp out the burning
diary. Helter was anxiously fingering the revolver in
his belt and being about as helpful as a side of frozen
beef.

 "Are you all right?" I asked Pepper.

 He grimaced. "I think so, dammit," he replied, his
right hand over his left eyes. "Somebody stop her.
She's going to hurt herself."

 "Let her hurt herself," I said. I wanted to get a
better look at Pepper's eye. I was worried. We didn't
exactly have a lot of medical experience between the
five of us.

 "Get her," Stan said, close to extinguishing the
diary, or what was left of it. "Get the stories."

 It was up to me, I supposed. Giving Pepper a
reassuring pat, I dashed out the back door. Leslie
stood in the middle of the overgrown yard, tearing the
pages into rough rectangles and sailing them on the
wind, which had picked up considerably since we had
entered the house. Leslie sang like a demented child. I
didn't try to tackle her or anything. I didn't care that
much for the stories anyway.

 "Why are you doing this?" I asked in a bored voice.
The scraps of paper blew over the fence and out of
sight. They belonged to Salem now. Leslie stared at
me gleefully.

 "We're safe now," she babbled. "Betty Sue can't get
us."

 "Betty Sue's dead," I said. "She was never going to
get anybody."

 Leslie had finished with her shredding job. "That's
what you think."

 The guys appeared in another minute, Stan holding
the tome of ash. Maybe a few pages of the diary had
survived. Pepper had taken his hand down from his
eye. It was horribly red, but not bleeding. Helter stood
twitching beside them, trying to look important.

 "Where are they?" Stan asked Leslie. She gestured
to the sky.

 "Gone," she said.

 Stan was furious. "I told you to stop her," he said.

 "Why?" I asked. "I didn't want to read any more of
that crap." I glanced at Pepper. "I was more interested
in her true life experiences."

 "I only went out with her once," Pepper said again
defensively.

 "Why did you destroy the stories?" Stan asked
Leslie.

 She studied him as if he were slow. "You were her
friend, too," she said. "You knew what she was."

 "I didn't know her as well as you think," Stan said.
"Why did the story of Lati Ball make you berserk?"

 Leslie shook her head violently. "I can't talk about
it. I'm not going to talk about her. I'm going to leave
this town." She stared at Stan defiantly. "Don't try to
stop me."

 Stan shrugged. "Whatever you want."

 Leslie turned to Pepper and tilted her head back,
sizing him up. I hated her in that moment. I knew
what she was going to say. The trouble was, I didn't
know what my boyfriend would answer.

 "Do you want to go with me?" Leslie asked Pepper.

 Pepper glanced uncomfortably at me, and then at
the ground. "Do you want to go, Rox?" he asked.

 "No," I said, my voice cold. "But don't let me
influence you."

 Pepper's head snapped up. "I told you, I'm with
you," he said.

 "Tell her then," I said.

 "Sorry," Pepper said to Leslie. His response sur-
prised her. She shook off the rejection with a toss of
her beautiful blond hair. She eyed Helter next.

 "How about you?" Leslie asked. "Want to come?"

 Helter was interested. The empty world was giving
him a sexy blond all to himself to play with. "What
would we do?" he asked.

 "Go to L.A.," she said. "Have fun."

 Helter nodded vigorously. "I'm in. This place sucks
anyway."

 "And what will you do in L.A.?" Stan asked.

 "We'll live," Leslie said crossly. "Which is more
than I think you'll do here."

 Stan took a step toward her. "You have to tell us
what you think is going on here. We have to work
together."

 Leslie was resolute. "No."

 "Can't you at least tell us why these stories scared
you so much?" Stan said.

 Leslie smiled at the question. It was a curious smile
because it was full of despair, without a hint of joy in
it. She hung her head then and her hair fell forward,
casting a shadow across her blue eyes. The ones that
had sparkled in the dark.

 "You'll find out," she said simply.


CHAPTER VII

 Stan and Pepper and I sat across from the gas station
where Leslie and Helter were making their final
preparations to leave. They had found themselves a
brand-new Ford Bronco. They had stocked it with
guns and food and clothes. Now they were topping off
the gas tank-and a spare tank they had wrestled into
the back. They were afraid fuel might be short on the
road, but I didn't believe it would be a problem.

 "You know," I said to Stan and Pepper. "I freaked
out this morning when I realized everyone was gone.
But then I adjusted. I began to accept the idea. You
two helped me. Maybe we did fall into another
dimension. Maybe the saucers came and dumped us
on the planet Zeon. I could handle all that. But now
I've got another problem I can't handle. I feel like
screaming."

 "What is it?" Stan asked. The three of us were
sitting on a curb-the three stooges, me in the mid-
dle. Stan continued to clutch the ravaged diary. Fifty
yards away Helter and Leslie were doing their best to
ignore us. They would be gone within minutes. Helter
had the gas pump set on automatic and was busy
checking the air pressure in the tires. Leslie was
fiddling with something in the back of the Bronco, a
cigarette in her mouth. I had never seen her smoke
before. She had changed out of her pajamas and into
black jeans and a tight red blouse.

 "Well," I said. "We seem to have a strange girl-
who happens to be dead-who grew up with exciting
characters like Fat Freddy, and who put a hex on every
boy who wouldn't kiss her. In fact, this same girl-
who I might have seen hitchhiking this morning in the
middle of nowhere-seems to have had a big effect on
everyone who knew her intimately. A big bad effect." I
paused and took a deep breath. "I was just wondering
what the hell is happening and why isn't anyone
telling me about it?" I smiled sweetly at Stan. "Do you
see my problem?"

 Stan nodded casually. "I don't know what the hell is
going on either. Maybe we should both start scream-
ing."

 "But you, at least, have your suspicions," I said.
"You're the one who dragged us straight to Betty Sue's
house. Why? And forget what you told us in the
ice-cream parlor. You wanted to go there from the
word go."

 Stan shrugged as if he were embarrassed. "I had this
dream."

 "What dream?" I asked. "When did you have it?"

 "Four weeks ago, the night Betty Sue died," Stan
said. He frowned. "It was in the middle of the
night-it might have been just when she died."

 "What was it about?" I asked.

 "I was walking around town," Stan said. "It was
late and it was dark. The town was deserted, and I had
a feeling it had been empty a long time. The wind was
blowing in from the desert and sand was collecting on
the streets, slowly burying them. I felt terribly lonely,
but no matter how long and how far I walked I
couldn't find anybody. Yet, at the same time, I had a
constant feeling that I was being watched. I'd sud-
denly whirl around and catch a glimpse of a black
shadow. But when I focused harder, there would be
nothing there."

 "How did the dream end?" I asked.

 "It didn't end," Stan said. "It seemed to go on and
on. That's what I remember most clearly-its time-
lessness. When I woke up it was still with me. Then I
heard the news about Betty Sue." He shook his head.
"Yeah, I guess that's what made me link our situation
now with her. Good old Betty Sue."

 "Let's get this straight," I said. "Do you think she
was a witch or what?"

 Stan seemed surprised. "Not that I know of. She
was a writer."

 "That we know already," Pepper said without en-
thusiasm.

 "No," Stan said. "She was a wonderful writer. She
showed me some of her stories. They were a lot better
than that Lati Ball story."

 "Did people always die in them?" I asked.

 "Sometimes," Stan said. "Sometimes not. They
were about all kinds of things: talking appliances,
intelligent butterflies, time travelers from other gal-
axies." He paused and scratched his head. "But that
Lati Ball tale was a strange one. It was short, and yet it
kept repeating itself, almost as if she meant it more as
a song."

 "Or a chant," I said.

 Stan nodded. "It had that kind of feel to it."

 I rubbed my hands together impatiently. "You
know, all the questions we've asked ourselves today,
and all the answers we've come up with, have ulti-
mately said nothing. So, let's get down to it. What was
so special about Betty Sue? And what did she have to
do with our predicament?"

 "I honestly don't know," Stan said.

 "How well did you know her?" I insisted.

 He hesitated. "I was her friend. We were in chemis-
try together."

 "Did you ever go out with her?" I asked.

 "Not on a date." Stan gave a wry smile. "I'm the
class nerd. Nerds don't go on dates. They're just
happy if a girl wants them to help them with their
homework."

 "Did you help Betty Sue with her homework?" I
asked.

 "No," Stan said. "I let her copy off my test papers.
It saved us both a lot of time. But don't get the wrong
impression. She wasn't stupid. In fact I would say she
was probably the only truly brilliant person in our
class."

 "You're that person," I protested.

 Stan shook his head. "I'm clever, I'm not brilliant.
True geniuses are rare. Betty Sue was a genius. You
read only a sample of her writing. It was by no means
her best stuff. But you must have felt the magic in it.
When she wrote something, it was alive." Stan paused
again, and now he was troubled. "It was almost as if
her words had power."

 "Leslie sure seems to think they do," I said, glanc-
ing over at our two would-be explorers. I wondered
for a second what they'd find in L.A. I wondered if
they'd even make it that far. Stan hadn't exactly said
so, but I knew he believed there was no one left in the
entire world except us.

 "I wish she'd talk to us," Stan said, referring to
Leslie.

 "Maybe if we went with her she would," Pepper
answered. He caught my eye and shook his head.
"Whatever," he muttered.

 "We still have to talk," I said.

 "I have nothing to talk about," Pepper said flatly.

 "I can leave," Stan volunteered.

 "Don't," I said. "It's all right. It looks like we're all
going to have plenty of time to talk, alone or to-
gether."

 "That reminds me," Stan said. "I think you know
what I'm going to ask."

 "About this morning?" I asked.

 "I don't mean to pry," Stan said carefully. "But
these friends of yours in Foster . . ."

 "We have no friends in Foster," I said. "Pepper and
I were there on private business is all. But everything
else was as I described."

 "Did you talk to people there this morning?" Stan
asked.

 "Yes."

 "You don't want to tell me who?" Stan asked. "I
understand if you don't."

 I smiled at Stan, although I didn't feel much like
smiling. I trusted him. I should have just told him the
truth and been done with it. But I didn't know how
Pepper would react. "I'm glad you understand," I
said.

 Stan nodded. "That's fair."

 "Would it be fair if I asked more about your last
visit with Betty Sue?" I asked.

 He thought a moment. "I'm going to have to ask for
your understanding."

 "It looks like Helter's ready to say goodbye to us,"
Pepper said, pointing. Armed and combat-ready for
the enemy, Helter was lumbering across the road to
pay his final respects. I continued to follow Leslie out
of the corner of my eye. She had climbed out of the
back of the Bronco and was trying to squeeze a few
final drops into the main gas tank.

 "You guys having any second thoughts?" Helter
asked.

 "Are you?" Pepper asked.

 Helter pointedly glanced back at Leslie. "Hell, no.
She's a babe. I would never have got a piece like her if
there were people around."

 "What if you meet other people?" I asked. "Other
guys? Do you think Leslie's going to stay with you?"

 Helter obviously hadn't thought of that. He fingered
his jaw. "I guess I'll just have to impress her with my
charm before we get to L.A."
 "Are you taking Highway Ten?" Stan asked.
 "I suppose," Helter said.
 Stan checked the time. "It's three o'clock, and the
sun seems to be crossing the sky at the same speed as
           90
       

usual. It'll be dark before you get there. Be careful on
the road. There could be cars sitting right in the
middle of the highway. It might be better if you didn't
drive at night."

 "You might want to stop and check into a motel," I
said.

 Helter grinned wolfishly. "Hey, as long as they don't
ask me for a credit card we should be OK." He held
out his hand to Pepper. "I'm sorry I shot your
girlfriend. I'd like to part friends."

 Pepper was surprised. He shook Helter's hand.
"You listen to what Stan said," Pepper told him. "And
when you get there, call my number. It's five-six-
seven-nine. Just remember you start at five and you
skip the eight. Leave a message if I'm not in."

 "I'll call tonight and tell you what's out there,"
Helter said. He offered me his hand. "Rox."

 "Helter," I said. And I don't know why, but I stood
up and hugged him. "Don't go shooting any other
pretty girls."

 "Only if they shoot first," he said, giving me a
strong squeeze. He let go and turned to Stan last. But
Stan seemed preoccupied. He was watching Leslie
intently. He didn't even hear when Helter said his
name.

 "Huh?" Stan mumbled finally.

 "Saying goodbye," Helter said.

 Stan blinked at him, then glanced back at Leslie.
"Don't go just yet," he said.

 Helter snorted. "We've talked about this till we're
blue in the face. We want to go now while the sun's
still up. Leslie won't spend another night in this
town." He offered Stan his hand. "We'll talk on the
phone, if they keep working."

 Stan held on to Helter's hand and didn't let go. He
was suddenly uneasy. "Helter," Stan said. "Listen to
me. Something's wrong-I can't quite place it. You
have to give me a minute."
 Helter laughed and shook him off. "You're a great
guy, but you think too much, Stan. Me and Leslie are
going to have some fun. We're going out on the town."
He turned away. "Stay healthy."
 We watched him go. Stan especially. He kept his
eyes locked on Helter, and Leslie, and the gas station.
And I followed his lead. The Bronco tank had to be
overflowing by now, I thought. Leslie pulled the
nozzle out of the tank and started to place it back on
the pump. But she still had that goddamn cigarette in
her mouth, and as far as we all knew, she didn't smoke
that much. It was a dirty habit anyway. It ruined your
lungs. It gave you cancer. It cut short your life. It made
you cough. Particularly when you were just starting to
smoke again.

 Leslie coughed as she hung up the dripping pump.

 The cigarette popped out of her mouth.

 It fell on the ground and rolled out of sight.

 Stan leapt to his feet.

 "Leslie," he cried and started running toward the
station, toward tough dude Helter and Salem High's
all-American beauty. Stan was fifteen feet from Helter
and seventy feet from the gas station when the orange
flame suddenly snaked up Leslie's side of the Bronco.
It looked like no big deal at first. Just a little fire and
smoke. But the snake was in a hurry. It had places to
go. Leslie watched it crawl right up to the opening of
the gas tank. I knew she shouldn't have overfilled the
thing and splashed so much around. The fumes are
what ignite. Leslie stared dumbfounded, then jerked
her head over in our direction.

 Right then Leslie's world exploded.

 The tank in the Bronco went first. An orange ball of
death shelling out glowing mangled steel. It was
enough as far as Leslie was concerned. The shock
wave slammed her into the pump and the flames and
metal ripped through her torso. Just like that her story
was over. Eighteen years of school and acting and the
best shampoo. Just wasted. Smoke. God.

 Stan was smart. He saw what was coming. He
slammed into Helter and they both fell to the ground
just as the huge tank beneath the burning pump met
the flames. This fire ball was atomic. The shock wave
hit Pepper and me like the hammer of Thor. We were
knocked off the curb and on to our backs. For a
moment thought was blown from my mind, and I
could hear nothing. I don't know how long I lay there.
I know my eyes were closed as Pepper pulled me to my
feet. My eyes popped open.

 "Are you all right?" he shouted. I knew he was
shouting, even though he sounded far away. My ears
weren't really ringing-it was more like I was under-
water.

 "Yes!"

 "What?"

 I nodded. "Yes!"

 He nodded. "Good!"

 We turned toward Helter and Stan. They were
getting up slowly. The shock wave must have hit them
really hard. If Helter had been standing, he would
have died. We all stared at one another for a minute,
our faces as blank as those of fish dragged into the
open air with hooks in their mouths. Why look over
anyway? So we could see what was left of Leslie, if
anything? But people are sick. I know I am. I looked,
we all did.

 We saw hell. We saw an eviscerated Ford Bronco.
Gas pumps that fumed like stumps of sulphur. Billow-
ing flames that rent the air like angry whips. The
shattered concrete was a volcanic fissure. But did we
see Leslie? Maybe a part of her. It lay beside a melting
tire, smoking. This is too sick. It might have been a
leg.

 "I would never have got a piece like her if there were
people around."

 Helter had just been being Helter.

 But still-I couldn't bear it.

 I turned away and gagged on vomit that never
passed my lips.

 I heard Stan speak behind me, from far away.

 "Lati Ball blew out her candles," he said.

CHAPTER VIII


 We sat in the center of the town square. Half an
hour had passed since the cremation of Leslie Belle.
Off to the south, in the direction of the gas station, the
smoke continued to rise. The station was somewhat
isolated and Stan believed the fire wouldn't spread.

 Stan sat with the charred diary of Betty Sue resting
on his lap. He turned what was left of the pages
carefully. Pepper and Helter sat and did nothing.
None of us had spoken in a while. I figured I might as
well be the first.

 "I hope she didn't feel anything," I said.

 "She didn't know what hit her," Stan said.

 I remembered her stricken expression as she looked
over at us. "She knew," I said.

 More silence. More wind. It blew out of the south.
The direction had not changed since the day had
begun. South-the general direction of Foster and the
abortion clinic. The wind brought the sand, and the
sand scratched at my skin like invisible pelting rain. I
could smell the smoke from where we sat. The gas
station also lay to the south.

 I didn't know how to grieve for Leslie. I hadn't
known her that well. I had liked her-in our other
world. But in this world, this place with no people, her
death seemed somehow surreal. Or perhaps it was the
reverse. It had seemed quite natural that she should
have gone. I know that sounds terrible, but it was true.
The silence was so alive-it was as if it couldn't
tolerate any living things disturbing it.
I wondered if the silence would come for more of
us.

 "This thing is really hard to read," Stan said, his
face close to the diary.

 "Can you read any of it?" I asked.
He nodded. "Bits." He glanced at Helter and Pep-
per. "Not much."

 "Does she always sound crazy?" I asked.

 "Yes and no," Stan said. "She was definitely unusu-
al." Stan set the diary aside. "I'm more interested now
in reading the stories that were on those loose pages."

 "Why?" I asked.

 Stan shrugged. "If I tell you what I think, you'll
think I'm crazy."

 "Try us," Pepper said.

 Stan looked at the distant smoke. "Leslie died like
Lati."

 "No, she didn't," I said. "It was totally different."

 Stan shook his head. "It was the same. The story
was a metaphor for Leslie."

 "I don't see the connection at all," I said, lying.
What he was saying spooked me like nothing that had
happened since that morning. And I think it was
because he had finally touched upon a "truth."

 "Did you know Leslie when she was young?" Stan
asked us all.

 "I didn't live here," Pepper said.

 "I'd see her around town," I said.

 "I knew her," Helter said. Of all of us, he was the
most upset over what had happened to her, and I
don't think it was just because he had lost his source
of sexual delight. He had wept as the flames streamed
before us. He just kept saying over and over again,
"She was so beautiful. She was so beautiful." But not
in a crude way. I believe the possibility of going off
with her had meant more to him than any of us could
imagine.

 "I knew her," Stan said. "She wasn't nearly as cute
as she was later on."

 "So?" I asked. "That's common. People blossom."

 "She blossomed a lot," Stan said.

 "Yeah," Helter said, showing interest. "She was
ugly when she was a kid. I used to throw rocks at her."

 "Wait a second," Pepper interrupted. "I want to
stop this before it goes any further. Betty Sue had
nothing to do with Leslie being pretty."

 "I don't think he's saying that," I told my boy-
friend.

 "Maybe I am," Stan said. "Remember what she
said in her diary. 'I have done so much for her. I made
her what she is.'"

 Pepper got up and paced in front of us. "I cannot
accept any of this. Everyone has disappeared-all
right, that's weird. Logic can't explain it. But to make
a suicidal young woman into some kind of sorcerer is
ridiculous."

 "Sorcerer," Stan said. "That's an interesting choice
of words."

 "She was no sorcerer!" Pepper said.

 "I'm not saying she was," Stan said. "Except to say
she was very unusual. But let's talk a bit about Leslie,
and Lati. Helter can tell you, Leslie was unattractive
up until she was about fourteen. Now I know she was
going through puberty, and I understand about the
whole hormone thing. But the change in her was
extraordinary. Leslie hit fourteen and suddenly
glowed."

 "I often thought that about her," I said.

 Stan nodded. "Leslie was the closest of us to Betty
Sue. They grew up together. They shared secrets-the
diary says that much. In fact, it sounds like they
shared peculiar secrets. Of all of us, Leslie was the
most terrified of Betty Sue. She was terrified of what
Betty Sue had written. It was as if she knew Betty Sue
had power."

 "What power?" I asked.

 "Isn't it obvious?" Stan asked. "To make things
happen."

 "Stop!" Pepper pleaded.

 "Did you ever see any demonstration of her pow-
er?" I asked.

 "Not exactly," Stan said.

 "What does that mean?" I asked. "Did you or
didn't you?"

 Stan fingered the burnt diary, his touch almost
loving. It struck me then that Stan had cared for Betty
Sue a great deal, perhaps even loved her. "I would go
to see her for no reason on the spur of the moment,"
he said. "And she would always be there, waiting for
me. She'd smile and say she brought me there."

 "Anybody can say anything," Pepper said.

 Stan shook his head sadly. "I wouldn't really want
to go but I would anyway."

 "Why wouldn't you want to go?" I asked.

 "Maybe because I was afraid of her, too," Stan said.

 "What was she like?" I asked. "From what I remem-
ber she was always alone."

 "She was shy and soft spoken," Stan said. "That
might be hard to believe from what you read of her
diary, but people can write at length about things they
wouldn't even think around other people. She was
polite. But there was something about her ..." He
stopped.

 "What?" I asked.

 Stan slowly made a fist, his gaze focused in the far
distance. "I don't like talking about things like this
now."

 "You think it might be dangerous?" I asked.

 He looked at me. "Yes."

 "Tell us your big story," Pepper said impatiently.

 Stan glanced up in surprise. "It's not a big story. It's
really a small thing what I was going to say. But I guess
it's revealing." He took a breath. "Once when I went
to see her, she was in the backyard, collecting butter-
flies in big glass jars. There were a lot of flowers in her
yard and butterflies gathered there. She would hum a
song-it seemed to bring them nearer to her. Then
she'd trap them in her jars, and screw on the lids, and
leave them alone."

 "That doesn't sound particularly cruel," I said,
imagining that he was going to tell us that she stuck
needles through their bodies, or something ghoulish
like that. He swallowed uneasily before he continued,
however, and I realized in that pause that Betty Sue
would never have been so obvious.

 "The lids had nail holes punched in them," Stan
said. "There was plenty of air for the butterflies. She
had dozens of jars. She would collect dozens of
butterflies. But then she would leave the jars out in the
backyard and just sit and watch the butterflies die."

 "Why would they die?" I asked.

 "Because she would leave them in the sun," Stan
said. "You're all familiar with the greenhouse effect.
The air inside the jars would slowly heat up and kill
the butterflies. But that wasn't what would get me. It
was the way she'd talk as she watched them die. 'You
see, Stan,' she'd say, 'butterflies are dumb. They don't
even know when they're in a glass jar. They can see
everything just the same. And because of that, they
think they can fly wherever they want, like always. But
inside my jars they're only allowed to fly in tiny
circles.' Then she leaned over and smiled at me and
said, 'People are a lot like butterflies, don't you think,
Stan?'"

 "What did you say to her?" I asked, feeling sick to
my stomach.

 "I said what I thought," Stan said. "That butterflies
and people had little in common that I could see. That
made her laugh. She said, 'To you maybe. But not to
me.'"

 "Is there a moral to this story?" Pepper asked.

 Stan spoke firmly. "Leslie was a plain girl with zero
charisma. Almost overnight she became a beautiful
young lady. I believe Betty Sue gave her that beauty. I
don't know how. I don't know why. And I also believe
Betty Sue took away that beauty. I believe Betty Sue
killed Leslie."

 "Betty Sue is dead!" Pepper shouted.

 "She may be dead," Stan said. "Or she may be alive.
We can't be sure. Her body was never positively
identified. But in either case, her work lives on."

 "Her stories?" I asked, trying to put this all to-
gether.

 "Yes," Stan said.

 "And you believe all this just because you'd go over
to her house even when you didn't want to?" Pepper
asked sarcastically.

 "That's just one of the reasons," Stan said. "But
look at her story of Lati Ball. Notice the initials are
the same as Leslie Belle's? That story was about
Leslie, and Leslie knew it. That was why she was so
anxious to destroy it. She knew the power of Betty
Sue's pen. Betty Sue gave Leslie a mask so that she
could be the best. That was Leslie's beauty. Then
Betty Sue destroyed the mask with her 'candles.' Did
any of you ever see Leslie smoke before? Of course
you didn't. Leslie didn't smoke. She only started
today because she had to."

 "What do you mean, she had to?" I asked. "Was she
commanded?"

 "I believe so," Stan said.

 "I hope she didn't write a story about me," Helter
said. From the quaver in his voice he was obviously
buying everything Stan was laying down. I wasn't. I
mean, I felt Stan had insight into the situation, and I
didn't think he was making stuff up just to scare us.
But he had turned Betty Sue into a Jedi Knight who
had gone over to the dark side. If I bought that
scenario, I thought, then I might as well go wait in the
car for her to come and drive me off the side of the
planet.

 Yet looking around at an empty planet made it
impossible for me to dismiss Stan out of hand. The
more he spoke, the more I felt like I was falling into a
silent void where gravity wasn't the only thing pulling
me down. Maybe the car would come to pick me up,
after all, and Betty Sue would be behind the wheel.
Smiling.

 "Lati Ball," I whispered. "I wonder what she called
each of us?"

 "We'll never know," Pepper said in dismissal. "And
it doesn't matter."

 Stan stood. "We can know. We can try to find the
pieces of paper that Leslie tore up and fit them back
together."

 Pepper grabbed Stan. "You're going too far."

 Stan just looked at him. "She was strange, Pepper.
She was almost more strange than a dead planet."

 "But you liked her?" Pepper said.

 Stan nodded. "She was childlike inside, too. I liked
that part of her."

 Pepper regarded him closely. "What did she do for
you?" he asked.

 Stan sighed. "Nothing, I hope."


CHAPTER IX

 We started at Betty Sue's house, in the backyard,
where Leslie had stood dancing in the sun earlier and
singing about how the wicked witch couldn't get us
anymore. The wind had died down somewhat-
perhaps out of respect for our search. There were a
few scraps of paper caught on the back fence and Stan
gathered those up first and studied them closely. But
they were too little and too few to tell a tale. We had to
move on to the next backyard, and into the next
street, searching for bits of the notebook pages. Yeah,
we all thought Stan had gone way out on a limb with
his Betty Sue obsession, but we were going to search
for those pieces of paper as long as the sun was up.

 And maybe even into the night.

 'Cause there was nothing else to do.

 The madness began around five-thirty. We had
talked so much about Betty Sue that maybe only our
minds' eye saw it. I am only sorry that it had to be me
who screamed first.

 I did see her, though. I saw Betty Sue.

 I think.

 We were moving around a house, Pepper and I. Stan
and Helter were across the street, picking through the
bushes. It was only after I saw what I did that I
realized we were circling Leslie's house. Maybe it was
a coincidence.

 Anyway, Pepper had just spotted a scrap of our
paper stuck on a branch in a tree and was reaching up
to free it when I turned toward the bathroom window
of the house. It was one of those fat fuzzy windows
that make you look disfigured no matter how beautiful
you are. I stared at it a second, blinking, because I
thought I saw something move behind it. There was
nothing there. A moment later it appeared again, a
head of bright red hair swept across the glass. No one
in Salem, except Betty Sue, had had hair that color.
The image was just there for a second.

 I should have screamed then. But I wasn't sure what
I'd just seen. I didn't want to make a fool of myself. I
glanced over at Pepper. He was preoccupied. I de-
cided to take a closer look. I should have known
better. I'd seen enough horror movies to know that
the absolute worst thing you can do is to go off and
investigate on your own. But that's what I did. I
stepped around the back of the house and turned the
knob on the door. It was open. I stepped inside. The
late Leslie Belle's house.

 "Hello?" I called.

 Deep silence. Betty Sue's calling card. A silence so
sharp it could cut. I moved forward, through the
kitchen and into a hallway that I instinctively knew
led to the bathroom. I felt something tighten around
my throat. A garrote of silver wire spun from a
nightmare recorded in black ink on a page of white
notebook paper. But the feeling was only in my mind.
Betty Sue's stories were only in her mind. Why should
her mind have the right to overlap with mine? I hardly
knew her, I thought. What was our common denomi-
nator?

 Then I stood in the bathroom before a drawn
shower curtain. The thick fuzzy window stood behind
the curtain, and beyond that was the outside, where
there were trees and sunshine. I lined up the order of
things in my mind so that I would know if there was
something in between them that wasn't supposed to
be there. Like a dead girl.

 I pulled back the curtain.

 There was nothing.

 Nothing but a whisper-at my back.

 I whirled. But there was nothing.

 Except a shadow in the bathroom mirror.

 A moving shadow of red and black. Moving out of
sight.

 Was it Betty Sue? I don't know. I didn't care.

 I screamed.

 That brought the guys. Pepper found me first, but
before I could get my voice back, Helter and Stan were
in the hallway as well. I must have screamed pretty
loud.

 "What is it?" Pepper demanded.

 I pointed a shaky arm. "She was here."

 "Who?" Stan said.

 "Her," I gasped.

 "Who's her?" Pepper asked.

 "The witch," I said. I stared at each of them. "I saw
her."

 "Are you sure?" Stan asked me.

 I nodded. "I saw something, I swear it." I grabbed
Pepper's arm with one hand. My other hand was
stuffed full of scraps of Betty Sue's notebook pages.

 "God, she's alive."

 Helter cocked his rifle. "Let's get her."

 "No, wait," Stan said. "We're not going to shoot
her."

 "We're not," Helter said. "I am. Pepper, are you
coming?"

 "Where am I coming?" Pepper asked. "Where is
she?"

 "Don't go," I told him. Pepper let go of my arm.

 "I've got to," he said. "Now where did you see
her?"

 I gestured helplessly. "Just here. Through the win-
dow. In the mirror. I don't know."

 "She's dead meat," Helter swore, scanning the area
with beady eyes.

 I turned to Stan. "Stop them," I pleaded.

 "We'll look for her together," Stan said. "No vio-
lence."

 We left the hallway for the front of the house.
Leslie's place was a simple two story, about twice the
size of Betty Sue's. Helter's trigger finger was sweat-
ing. He ran ahead of us and up the stairs out of sight,
Pepper not far behind. Stan had lost control of the
group.

 "Who the hell let that guy carry a gun?" Stan
cursed, his extra weight slowing him down.

 As if in response, a shot was fired.

 "Oh, no," I moaned.

 We caught up with Helter and Pepper in an upstairs
bedroom. Double doors leading onto a small balcony
were lying wide open. There was a bullet hole through
the center of the right door. "I almost got her," Helter
cried, peering out the side of the door. Pepper
crouched by his side.

 "Did you see her?" Pepper asked.

 "Sure," Helter said. "Didn't you see her?"

 "I don't know," Pepper said. "I saw a red and black
blur."

 "That was her," Helter said.

 Stan strode straight to the balcony door and looked
straight out. "I don't see anything," he said.

 "She was here," Helter exclaimed. He jumped out
onto the balcony and surveyed the length of the street.
"She must have ducked into another yard."

 "Are you sure you saw her?" Stan asked.

 "Do you think I'm seeing things?" Helter asked,
insulted. He was breathing hard. Sweat stained his
shirt, and he had a wild-eyed, vacant look, as if no one
was home. That vacantness had begun with the explo-
sion at the gas station.

 "I think it's possible," Stan said. "How did she get
off the roof?"

 "She climbed down," Helter said. He shook his
head in confusion and disgust. "You're the one who's
been telling us all along that she's a witch. Well, I
believe you now! We've got to get her before she gets
us." He shielded his eyes from the twilight sun low in
the sky and peered across the street. Then suddenly he
jumped up and pointed. "There she is! Right there!
Come on, Pepper."

 Helter and my boyfriend dashed downstairs, anx-
ious to slay the evil monster. I didn't see anybody
across the street, but I had started to chase after them
when Stan put a hand on my arm to stop me.

 "Let them go," he said. "There's nobody there."

 "But I already saw her," I protested.

 "I believe you," Stan said.

 "Then what are you saying?" I asked.

 He gestured to the scraps of paper I had collected. I
had Pepper's pile as well now. I handed them over.
Stan stared at them a moment and then indicated we
should follow the guys after all. We went downstairs
and outside. Stan still had the burnt diary, tucked into
his belt. "Maybe I can piece together a story or two in
the meantime," he said.

 The guys had disappeared into a neighbor's back-
yard. Stan and I were halfway across the street when
another shot rang out. My heart jumped into my
mouth. Stan remained calm. In the distance Helter
howled in disgust.

 "She could be here," I said. "If half of what you say
is true."

 "Oh, she's here," Stan said, studying the scraps as if
they were pieces of a puzzle, which indeed they were.
"But she's not going to be caught by Helter and his
gun. This is her story."

 "You're talking about how she was able to make
things happen by writing about them?"

 "Yes."

 "Did she write us into this empty world?"

 Stan stopped for a moment as he fitted a piece
against another one. "That's what I believe."

 "Why?" I asked anxiously. I couldn't say I agreed
with him, but I no longer disagreed with him, which is
about halfway toward belief-I guess. Something bad
moved inside the bathroom window, and it had had
red hair.

 "Do you mean, why us?" Stan asked. "Or why do
this to anybody?"

 "Both questions."

 "Except for you. we all knew her," Stan said, still
fiddling with the pages. "We all must have done
something to hurt her. Let's take Leslie for example.
It's not hard to figure out how she pissed Betty Sue off.
When they were young they were best friends. But we
saw in the diary how when Leslie grew up, she stole
the boys Betty Sue was interested in away from her."

 "What about the rest of you?" I asked.

 "Just a second, I might be able to give you some-
thing specific." Stan stopped again. This time he sat
on the curb and arranged his scraps on the asphalt and
held them together with tape he had taken from Betty
Sue's room. Down the street I could see Helter and
Pepper running and shouting to each other, jumping
fences and pointing. Perhaps it was because of what
Stan had just said, but I suddenly had the strong
impression that they were behaving like puppets.

 "I think we now have a story about Helter," Stan
said, taping the last of the scraps together.

 I came around and peered over his shoulder. I had
to squint; Stan had sat in the shade and the sun was
falling toward the western horizon. Less than two
hours and it would be dark. For the moment the wind
had died down to the gentlest of breezes. The scraps
belonged together-the page was complete.

 "Before we read it all the way through," Stan said.
"I want to tell you something about Helter and Betty
Sue's relationship. I gleaned this from what was left of
the diary. Because of all the damage, I can't give you
exact details. But I'm quite sure I'm correct."

 "Correct about what?" I asked.

 "Helter raped Betty Sue."

 "God. Are you sure she didn't make him do it?"

 Stan nodded. "You're beginning to think like me.
And there could be some truth in what you're suggest-
ing. I think Betty Sue taunted him toward committing
the act. But then, I think he caught even her by
surprise. Her tone, in the bits and snatches I could put
together, was very angry."

 "Then she can't be all powerful," I said. "If she
couldn't control Helter."

 Stan glanced toward the lowering sun. When he
spoke there was nothing but despair in the sound of
his voice. "She couldn't control the butterflies," he
said softly. "Until she put them in her jar."

 I sat beside him and shivered. It was ironic that here
we were in the midst of a mystical discussion and
down the street Pepper and Helter were locked in
what they thought was a life-and-death pursuit. I just
hoped Helter didn't accidentally shoot Pepper. I
lowered my head.

 "Let's read her story," I said.

 We read in silence.


        HOLT SKATER TAKES A WALK

  Holt Skater lived beside a stone wall that was
 both wide and tall. He would look up at it each
 day as he walked to his farm field. And he would
 say to himself, "It is not so tall that I could not
 climb it. Not this wall." Holt did not like the field
 where he had to work and toil in the mud and
 soil. He did not like it at all and wanted to escape
 over the tall wall.
  One day he noticed a tree beside the wall, a tree
 that was very tall. And he climbed the tree and
 jumped onto the wall, and glimpsed the other
 side. There he saw streams and fields, where the
 food would be easy to pick for frequent meals.
 But at the foot of the wall he saw thorn bushes
 instead of fields, and he could not climb down
 and walk beside the streams. Then he said to
 himself, "I will walk along the wide wall until I
 come to a tree that is tall." He thought then he
 could climb down onto the other side, and forget
 his work and hide.
  Holt went for a long walk along the wall. He
 walked and walked and forgot the other side of
 the wall, and the tree that helped him up, the tree
 that was tall. But the thorn bushes did not
 stop and he began to grow hot. He had walked so
 far without a hat, and he wished he could go back.
 But he looked and the thorn bushes were now on
 both sides, and he knew if he jumped into them
 they would tear his hide. He turned around, and
 tried to go back along the wall without a hat. But
 the wall stayed tall without staying wide. And
 soon the wall was so narrow it was like a walk on a
 dangerous ride. The wall got narrower and nar-
 rower and he said to himself, "I do not under-
 stand how I could have turned around and not
 gotten back."
  Holt was now scared and he began to shake. He
 knew if the wall got too narrow he would fall off
 and the thorns would get him like a rake. He
 turned back again, the other way, and the wall
 narrowed more so that he was now sure he would
 fall and be sore. Then he turned once more and
 the wall became like a razor and he began to cry
 for someone to be his savior. But it was too late
 for Holt, who had brains that were like steel bolts.
 The wall was now a razor that could cut like laser.
 And Holt finally slipped, one leg this way, and
 one leg that way. And what happened to him is
 not easy to say. He fell and fell and prayed to
 Jesus. But in the end he was just a bloody mess
 made up of two pieces.

 "Sick!" I cried when we finished.

 "Helter Skelter," Stan said. "Holt Skater."

 "What's going to happen to him?" I asked, and
there were tears in my eyes. I didn't believe any of it.
Witchcraft, sorcery, curses-it was all B.S. But Betty
Sue's stories-the way they were worded, the rhymes,
the endings-they had gotten inside me. And I
couldn't get them out, any more than a butterfly could
get out of a sealed jar.

 "Helter raped Betty Sue," Stan said. "I'm sure she's
thought up something special for him."

 "When you thumbed through the pile of papers on
Betty Sue's desk, the story of Lati Ball was on top.
What story was second?"

 "I believe it was the one we just read," Stan said.

 I jumped to my feet. "Let's get Helter. Let's not let
him out of our sight."

 Stan got up slower. "Do you believe me? What I
said about her?"

 I hesitated. "Yes."

 He seemed relieved for a second, but then his face
fell. "What difference does it make?"

 "It does make a difference. We have to know what's
going on. Only that way can we prevent it." I paused.

"We can stop it, can't we?"

 He smiled at me. He had a nice smile. He was a nice
guy. I had just reassured him and now I was asking for
his reassurance. "I'm sure there must be a way," he
said. He held up the remainder of the scraps of papers
we had collected so far. "We need to get the rest of
these stories together."

 "Let's get Helter first," I said. We started up the
street in the direction of the boys. But I stopped after a
minute. "Stan? Was there any more mention of Pep-
per in Betty Sue's diary?" I asked.

 It was Stan's turn to hesitate. "Yes."

 "What did she say about him?"

 "I could only pick out bits and pieces," he said.

 "Come on. What did he do to her?"

 Stan was stubborn. "I don't know. Ask Pepper.
He'd know."

 "Yeah," I said thoughtfully. "I suppose he would."


CHAPTER X

 We caught up with Helter and Pepper as they were
nearing Salem High. They were excited. They had
caught sight of Betty Sue three times. Sort of. She
moved fast, they said. The way they talked, she must
have been riding a broom. Stan tried to reason with
them.

 "Why haven't you been able to catch her?" Stan
asked.

 "She's too slippery," Helter said, his eyes practical-
ly bulging out of his head. He still had his rifle and
revolver. Obviously he wasn't about to share his
weapons with Pepper.

 "She went into the school," Pepper said with con-
viction. He pointed toward the administration build-
ing at the front of the campus. Between the building
and us was the teachers' parking lot, an asphalt square
a hundred feet away.

 "Honey, she's not really there," I said.

 Pepper had gone from being a skeptic to a believer
quick. But I could understand that. There had been
something between him and Betty Sue. His guilt had
confirmed that long before Leslie died. He had tried to
deny it as best he could-while there was a chance.
But now that Betty Sue had appeared he wanted her
silenced immediately. He pointed at the teachers'
parking lot.

 "Do you see those footprints?" he asked.

 The wind had swept a quarter inch of sand onto the
lot. It would have been impossible to cross it without
leaving tracks. Perhaps Betty Sue couldn't do the
impossible or maybe it was just part of her plan. In
either case footprints stretched all the way across the
asphalt to the front steps of the school.

 "Those don't belong to you guys?" Stan asked, and
even he seemed amazed.

 "They're hers, dammit," Helter said. He cocked his
rifle. He was forever cocking it. I think it was a macho
thing to do. "Let's get her."

 "You are not going to shoot her," Stan told him.

 "I'll take her alive," Helter said grimly. "If she lets
me."

 We started forward. I couldn't believe what was
happening. Perhaps that would keep me from seeing
her-my lack of belief. But I could see her footprints
clearly enough. I traced them as I walked, and from
the distance between them it didn't appear that Betty
Sue had been in a hurry as she crossed the parking lot.
 Pepper was wrong about Betty Sue having gone into
the administration building. A fine coat of sand
covered the entire campus. It was clear her steps led
around to the back of the campus. It was so easy to
follow her, it made me suspicious. I wondered if she
was leading us into a trap.

 My suspicions leapfrogged near the gymnasium
when the tracks suddenly split and went in two
separate directions. We stared at them dumbfounded.
One veered toward the back of the gym, the other
toward the girls' showers.

 "How did she do that?" Helter asked.

 Stan squatted and studied both sets of prints in the
sand. "These were made by someone wearing boots,"
he muttered.

 "So?" Pepper asked. "Who cares?"

 Stan looked up. "She had boots on when she died."

 I chuckled. "So? We know now her body in the fire
was a hoax."

 Stan stood. "It was a real body."

 "Look," Helter said, agitated. "Let's talk later.
She's getting away. Let's split up. Pepper, you and Rox
follow the prints leading to the gym. Stan and I will
search the girls' showers."

 "We shouldn't split up," Stan said sternly.

 "We have to split up!" Helter shouted. "Let's just
do it."

 I put my hand on Helter's shoulder. "We can split
up if I can go with you," I told him.

 "Rox?" Pepper said.
 "It's nothing personal," I said, catching Stan's eye.

 "I don't care who comes with me," Helter said,
raising his rifle and striding forward. "As long as they
don't get in my way."

 "This is a mistake," Stan said, resigned to the
decision.

 I followed Helter, but had to jog to keep up with
him. We chased the impressions in the sand to the
green metal door leading to the showers. They
stopped there, of course. The door was unlocked but
closed over. Helter pulled it back. There was no sand
inside. No wind. It was dark and cool, and my skin
cringed as the door slowly closed behind us. I had
never liked gym. I hated exercise. I hated to shower in
front of other girls. I hated gym teachers. I got very
poor grades in the class.

 "Do you hear anything?" I whispered to Helter.

 "Shh," he said. He touched my hand and scanned
the rows of lockers. "She's here."

 "How do you know?" I asked.

 He drew in a shuddering breath. "I feel her." He
looked at me. "I feel what I felt at the gas station
before Leslie died."

 "What was that?"

 "Evil," he said.

 We continued forward. The dark was damp, and the
faint smell of sweat that hung in the air was like a
memory of carefree times. An open bathroom door
yawned black on our left, the closed gray lockers
stretched out on our right. I indicated the bathroom
and Helter shook his head. I was relieved. I didn't
want to go in there either.

 We were beside the gym teacher's office when Helter
made me halt. "What is it?" I asked.

 He leaned his head to the side. "Did you hear that?"

 "What?"

 "It was the sound of wood bumping against wood."
He paused. "I think she's in the equipment cage."

 "I didn't hear anything."

 He put a finger to my lips. "You stay here. I want to
investigate."

 I brushed his finger aside. "We have to stick to-
gether."

 He leaned in close and spoke in my ear. "I know
she's in there, Roxanne. I know why she's there. I hurt
her once, now she wants to hurt me. I can't take you
with me."

 "She made you hurt her," I said, grabbing his arm.
"Listen to me, we shouldn't even be in here alone.
Let's go get the others. We can be out and back in two
minutes."

 He let his hand slide down to the trigger on his rifle.
He was petrified-that was obvious-but he also
appeared to be resolved to face whatever lay around
the corner. "No," he said.

 "She'll kill you," I hissed. "Your story was next."

 His eyes met mine. The news didn't seem to sur-
prise him. "We'll see who gets killed." He gently
pushed me down onto one of the long wooden
benches that ran in front of the lockers. "Stay here."

 I let him walk away. I don't know why. I shouldn't
have. Yeah, actually I do know why. I was scared.
Helter vanished in the dark.

 I sat there feeling like a coward, so I got back up. Yet
I didn't feel like chasing after Helter, or entering the
equipment locker. I was afraid he might accidentally
shoot me. I decided to swing around the back of the
locker room, through the showers to see what was
there.

 I sneaked up the narrow aisle on my toes. The pale
twilight coming in through the high dirty windows
was of small help. Once I stumbled and banged my
shin. The shock made me recoil in pain. I had almost
forgotten about the bullet wound in my right thigh.

 The showers waited for me in shadow. I stepped
hastily inside and hugged the tile wall as I scampered
toward the far end. I could hear my heart pounding,
my breath coming in ragged gasps, and nothing else. It
seemed to take forever to reach the far end. I think the
main reason was because as I walked, I was burdened
with memory.

 A memory of Betty Sue.

 There was no mystery why it came to me right then
and there. My only real encounter with Betty Sue had
occurred in these showers. We didn't have gym class
together, and I still don't know why she was playing
volleyball with us that day. But she must have had a
reason-maybe she was making up a class. Anyway,
she was good at the game. A slender and tall girl, she
had quick reflexes and excellent coordination. She
was on my team, and she was the main reason we won.
But her skills didn't make her popular. The whole
period, I doubted if the other girls said five words to
her. I know I hardly even looked at her. I hated being
out there on the volleyball court when I could be lying
on my bed at home listening to the radio.

 But the few times I did glance over at her I
remember wondering how she got her curly hair so
bright. The color certainly didn't look natural.

 Then class was over and we went inside to shower.
Betty Sue and I were the last two girls to get under the
water-the gym teacher had made us collect all the
balls and put them away in the equipment locker. She
took a shower not far or close to mine. Once more, I
hardly looked over at her. I didn't want her to think I
was queer or anything. But I did see enough of her to
know she wasn't simply thin, but bony-almost to the
point of starvation. She was also extremely pale.

 She finished with her shower first, but didn't walk
out the way she had come in. She deliberately walked
past me, and handed me a bar of soap. I grunted
"thank you" and paid the gesture little heed, until
Betty Sue was out of sight; then I glanced down at the
soap. I could hardly believe what I saw. A baby, a
crying baby, in exquisite detail had been carved into
the face of the bar. It could have been an artist's
square of ivory she handed me.

 I had known Pepper about a week then, and I was
pregnant, although I didn't know it. Betty Sue would
be dead in less than a week.

 I walked out the same way Betty Sue had vanished. I
wanted to ask her where she had gotten the soap. It
appeared to be a one-of-a-kind item; the figure of the
baby had clearly not been preformed with the bar, but
had been carved in later. I peered around the edge of
the showers and saw Betty Sue drying herself in front
of a mirror. At least that's what I thought she was
doing at first. I stopped myself from speaking when I
saw she was drawing on the naked reflection of herself
in the mirror with another bar of soap. This bar was
dyed red. In fact, the soap was the same shade of red
as Betty Sue's hair when her hair was wet. Mixed with
water, the soap dripped off the mirror like running
blood.

 I didn't say anything. I just dropped my bar on the
floor and walked away, sick to my stomach. Betty Sue
had been soaping her reflection in the area of her
stomach.

 And that's what I remembered as I paused in the
dark. To my left was the mirror where Betty Sue had
colored her reflection. It was dark, and my own
reflected image was even darker. Betty Sue had stood
out as a silhouette against the sun this morning, and
now that the sun was going down I stood as a shadow
of that day almost five weeks earlier. I could distin-
guish the faint outline of the dyed soap on the mirror
still. Betty Sue had drawn a jar around her reflected
belly. What did she pretend to fill this one with, I
wondered?

 Helter screamed. A shot rang out.

 "Oh, no," I cried.

 I spun and ran in the direction of the noise. Another
shot tore the dark, followed in quick succession by
two others. And all the while Helter screamed as if an
alien monster with claws and tentacles and teeth as
long as knives was bearing down on him. Coming at
him without a pause. Impervious to his shots.

 He screamed like someone dying.

 But when I finally saw him, he was all in one piece.
He'd had his rifle out and was blasting away. In the
flash of the bullets I saw and heard glass shatter at the
far end of the building. In an instant I realized what
was happening. He had glimpsed his own reflection in
the big primping mirror by the exit and spooked
himself.

 "Helter!" I called.

 He shrieked. He didn't hear me. He fired once
more, and his bullet ricocheted dangerously. Then I
heard the clicking of his empty trigger as he tried to
unload shells that were no longer in the chamber. He
stumbled backward, as if before a towering beast.
Then he fell and landed on his butt and squirmed
back against a bench that wasn't going to move out of
the way for him. Desperately he reached for the
revolver in his belt.

 "Helter!" I screamed. "She's not there!"

 Too late. He grabbed the revolver. Too soon he fired
it. He must have been out of his mind with fear. He
grabbed the revolver and the trigger and accidentally
shot himself while the gun was still in his belt.

 "Ahh!" he cried.

 The revolver fell from his hand onto the concrete
floor as he rolled into a ball of agony. I was at his side
in a moment. I tried to hold him, to comfort him, but
he kept thrashing. The door flew open behind me and
remained open. It was Stan and Pepper. A shaft of
evening light shone down on Helter through the open
door. The top of his pants was soaked dark red. I
couldn't help but remember Stan's prediction.

 "Helter raped Betty Sue. I'm sure she's thought up
something special for him."

 Helter had shot himself in the groin.

 "Oh, Jesus," I moaned, my hands already soaked
with his blood. "Help him."

 Stan and Pepper ran to Helter's side. Stan tried to
roll him over on his back so that he could figure out
the extent of the injury, but Helter was in too much
pain. He kept shaking violently.

 "It's no good," he cried. "It's no good."

 "You're going to be all right," Stan said, and there
wasn't a whisper of truth in the words and he knew it.
Helter clawed Stan's hand, the veins on his neck
bulging like wires, his contorted features drenched
with sweat. He was crying and I was crying and it was
horrible.

 "Kill me," Helter begged Stan.

 Stan shook his head, shocked. "We're going to help
you. We're not going to kill you."

 Helter started to sob. "Do you know where I've
been shot? You have to kill me. I'll die anyway." He
reached feebly for his revolver but Stan pulled it away.
"Please," Helter pleaded.

 Stan put his arms around Helter and held him as if
he were an injured child. When he spoke next, he
sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

 "We'll go to the drugstore," Stan said. "We'll get
medicine. We'll put you to sleep and we'll get the
bullet out. You'll live. You'll be fine."

 Helter's voice cracked. "I want to die. I can't live
like this in this horrible place." A spasm of pain shook
his frame and his spine arched as he let out a
deafening howl. "Stop it! Somebody stop it!"

 Stan stared desperately at Pepper and me. "What
can we do?"

 Pepper was the color of chalk. "I don't know.
There's nothing we can do." He shook his head and
bit his lower lip. "We should do what he wants us to
do."

 Stan looked faint. "We can't just kill him. I can't."

 Pepper was panting. "I can't either."

 "No," I cried. "Let's not talk this way. Do some-
thing to help him."

 "That's the problem," Stan yelled, still hugging
Helter. "We can't help him. No one can."

 A bloody hand reached out and touched my hand.
Helter screwed his face up at me, his breath coming in
burning gasps. He spoke to me as if I was a god.

 "Make it end, Roxanne," he whispered.

 I held his eyes a moment. What did I see? What he
saw in the mirror when he shot at it in terror? Perhaps.
Certainly I saw something that had been shattered
beyond repair. Maybe that's what Betty Sue really
was-a walking wave of destruction. You could not
get out of its way. You could only bow before it. I came
to a decision.

 "Leave us alone," I said flatly.

 "What are you going to do, Rox?" Pepper asked.

 "He's hurt real bad," Stan said.

 "I know," I said and squeezed Helter's hand. "Go
now, the two of you. I'll be out in a minute."

 They stared at me in amazement. Then Stan eased
out from under Helter and let him lay on the floor.
Stan stood beside Pepper, staring at Helter, at me. I
don't know which frightened the two of them more.
They backed away practically holding on to each
other, and vanished. I turned back to Helter.

 "What a screwed-up day this has been," I said.

 He nodded. His breathing had become a bit steadier
and he was no longer shaking, but he was still in
terrible pain. There was no reason it should go on.

 "I wish I hadn't woken up," he gasped.

 "I know the feeling." I picked up the revolver,
surprised at its weight. I had never cared for guns.
They were only good for one thing, which was a bad
thing. Helter watched me as I cocked the hammer.
"Was she that strange to be with?" I asked.

 He nodded weakly. "She was like a worm. You
would hold her, but when you let go you felt like she
had slipped inside your guts, and started to grow." He
glanced down at his pants and whimpered. "She was
bad."

 "Why did you go out with her?" I asked.

 "Because she would." He coughed. "She would do
anything."

 "Did you rape her?"

 He shook his head, and he was so sorry, it broke my
heart. "I don't know what I did. It was one of those
nights where I felt her inside my head and I couldn't
get her out. That's why I was afraid when Stan started
talking about her. She knew how to get inside. She
knew all the right doors. 1 was just trying to get her
out." He coughed again. "I guess I did rape her. I wish
I had killed her."

 "I wish you had, too, Helter," I said gently. I raised
the gun to his forehead. "Close your eyes. I'll close
mine."

 He nodded. "Thank you, Roxanne."

 "It's no problem."

 I pulled the trigger. I killed him. I never knew I
could kill someone. But then I remembered I had gone
for an abortion only that morning. Maybe it had
prepared me.

 I dropped the gun and stood up. I could feel his
blood all over me, but I had yet to open my eyes. I
turned and walked in the direction where I believed
the door was. I was not sure I would find it. Maybe
Betty Sue had changed its location, I thought. She
knew all the right doors.

 I felt like I had just passed through a major door.
Now I would find out whether I had taken the wrong
one.


CHAPTER XI

The sun was saying goodbye to the sky when I
stepped outside. The wind blew particles of sand that
stung my skin. My hair whipped behind my head and
I felt drops of Helter's blood shake loose. I took a deep
breath and thought how good it was to be alive. Then I
laughed like a sick drunk. I think I was losing my
mind. It was about time.

 I was in shock. It was as if the bullet had gone
through my own brain and out the other side. I felt a
part of me that had been good and moral was forever
gone.

 The guys were standing beneath a tree in front of
the gym. Pepper shuddered visibly as I approached.
Stan stared at me like he was seeing a stranger.

 "Hi," I said.

 "Did you do it?" Pepper asked.

 "Sure," I said. "Why not? It was probably in the
script."

 "We have to find the rest of the stories," Stan said.

 I laughed again. "Why? Tearing them up didn't do
any good. Nothing's going to do any good. Why don't
we just go sit in one of the classrooms and write our
own stories? Who knows? Maybe Betty Sue will be
pleased and give us a passing grade."

 "We have to know what's going to happen next,"
Stan said.

 "Nothing will happen next unless we make it hap-
pen," I said. "I say we plant ourselves in a field and act
like corn stalks. Let the storm pass."

 "That might not be a bad idea," Stan said. "But
we're not going to do it." He gestured back the way we
had come. "We'll get flashlights and look for more
pieces of paper."

 Pepper stopped him. "Shouldn't we bury Helter
first?"

 Stan shook his head. "Helter will have to wait."

 We got flashlights, fresh batteries. I changed my
shirt. I had whole stores to choose from. It was
wonderful-a shopper's dream. I left on my bloody
pants. They had become a part of me.

 We started again near Betty Sue's house and worked
our way downwind. We walked unarmed, like good
little campers. The task should have been hopeless
from the start, but it was amazing how many pieces of
notebook paper we collected. By the time we neared
the square, we had pocketfuls. Stan made us stop. He
tried to put some of them together. More puzzles, I
thought. It was now entirely dark, but the lights in the
square were still working and we were grateful for
small favors.

 "What if we don't put them together?" I asked as
Stan taped in the beams of our flashlights. "What if
they don't work unless we read them?"

 Stan glanced up. "I doubt Steve Kinder read his
story."

 "Which one was he?" Pepper asked.

 "The boy who got cancer after he moved away from
here," I said. I waved my hand at Stan. "Go ahead."

 Stan had been working for maybe ten minutes when
he stopped and frowned. "I think we've got only two
stories here, not three."

 "I hope it's me she left out," Pepper muttered. He
looked over at me. "Just kidding."

 "I hope she did leave you alone," I told him
solemnly, kneeling beside him. In the soft light he was
even more handsome than usual. I thought back to
our first date then, and put my head back to stare up at
the stars. A part of me turned cold and died.

 "Do you think there's anyone out here?"

 "No one human."

 There were no clouds in the sky, no haze, no smoke.
And there was no stars either. Betty Sue must have
failed to write them in. She probably knew how much
I loved them. A strangled cry escaped my lips, and
Pepper had to reach over and catch me because I no
longer cared if I fell. He cradled me in his arms, and
stared into my eyes. Then his own gaze lifted to
the sky and he, too, began to shake. I heard Stan's
voice.

 "We have to believe her now," he said.

 I climbed out of Pepper's arms with difficulty and
scooted over beside our class genius. "If she can take
away the universe," I said. "She can do anything."

 Stan seemed beaten. "I have no answers for you."

 I touched Stan's knee. "Could she kill us tonight,
and bring us back tomorrow? Could she kill us over
and over? Forever?"

 Stan put a hand to his head. "I don't think she can
bring back the dead."

 "Why not?" I asked.

 He sat still for a moment, then twitched involuntar-
ily. "Let's see what the stories can tell us."

 Stan worked for another few minutes. He could
have worked for hours, I wouldn't have cared. I had
stopped being aware of time. Who was to say there
would be a tomorrow? The sun was only a star, after
all, and maybe Betty Sue could have moved it as far
away as she wished, into another dimension if she so
desired.

 Finally Stan Reese had a story for us to read.

 It was about him.

     SODA RADAR GOES TO SLEEP

  Soda Radar was court jester to Queen Beetle.
 Soda would tell his queen stories while she sat on
 a magnificent chair and sewed with her needles.
 She sewed dresses and cloaks, and sometimes
 they ended up on the fire and turned to smoke.
 Queen Beetle was wonderful and Soda Radar was
 sometimes disrespectful. She told him, "Your
 stories have no rhyme, no sense of time. And that
 is the worst of crimes." Then she sent Soda into
 the woods to think of a story that would deliver
 the goods. She told him he had best get better or
 she would tickle him with a feather.
  Soda picked up a stone, and turned over a
 bone. He looked at all the things of the woods to
 make a story, but came no closer to true glory.
 Then he said to himself, "Queen Beetle is not so
 smart. I will tell her a story from the past, from a
 time that has not been marked. She will think it is
 mine. Then she will treat me kind." He returned
 to the court of Queen Beetle, and went to her
 private chamber while she sat sewing with her
 needles.
  "I have brought you a story of wonder," Soda
 said. "A tale that will ring in your soul like
 thunder." Then he told her about Salt and Pepper
 and the plate of late dinner. The story of kids and
 the end of time and cold winter. Queen Beetle
 smiled as he spoke, but inside her clasped hands
 she readied her needles for a poke. Soda did not
 know this and finished happy, thinking he had
 presented himself in a tone that was both clear
 and snappy.
  "I can see I kept you from being bored," Soda
 said. "I am happy you are pleased, and now I
 want my reward."
  Queen Beetle stood and her height was good.
 She said, "From day one you hovered near me
 like flies. You sing and dance but really you
 think of it all as lies. Your story is not new, but
 old. And I have decided it is time you were
 sold."
  Then Queen Beetle took her needles and
 grabbed Soda's arm and began to do him great
 harm. But he cried aloud and said, "Do not do
 this to me your slave. I apologize and promise
 never again to misbehave."
  Queen Beetle laughed and gave him her needle.
 "Poke yourself so that you bleed," she said.
 "Then I will take what is left of you, and give it to
 someone who is in need."
  Then Soda took her needle and stuck it hard
 into his heart. His blood poured onto the floor,
 and after some time he had to close his eyes, and
 inside it grew dark.


 "Cheery," I said.

 "I love the upbeat endings," Pepper agreed. He
patted Stan on the back. "None of it has to happen."

 But Stan was ashen. "I used to think of her as my
queen," he whispered.

 "Why?" I asked.

 "Because she was so powerful," he said.

 "And you visited her whenever she wanted you to?"
I asked.

 He nodded miserably. "I had no choice."

 "That witch," I said.

 Stan stood. "Excuse me. I have to get something
from the drugstore."

 I jumped up. "What?"

 "I have a headache," he said. "I need some aspi-
rin."

 "We'll go with you," I said.

 He stopped us. "It's not necessary. I'll be back in a
couple of minutes." He handed us the remainder of
his notebook scraps. "See if you can piece together the
final story."

 It was my turn to stop him. "You're OK, aren't
you?" I asked.

 He smiled. Such a nice guy. The best really, of all of
us. "Sure," he said.

 "Don't go picking up any needles," I said. "I'm
serious."

 He nodded, but there was no life to the gesture. "I
understand."

 Stan slowly walked away in the direction of the
drugstore, the one beside the bank. Just before going
inside he stopped at a newspaper rack. He fished
inside his pocket for change and bought himself a
paper. Then he went inside the drugstore.

 "I think I should go with him," I fretted to Pepper.

 "You might want to stay with me," Pepper said. He
was already on the ground, fiddling with the scraps
Stan had left behind. The wind was hassling his
efforts. There was sand in his hair and I brushed it
out.

 "Why do you need me now?" I asked.

 He glanced at me. "Because, in case you didn't
notice, I was mentioned in Stan's story. And I can
already see that this last story's got my name all over
it."

 "Oh."

 He paused. "Why do you hate me, Rox?"

 I was annoyed. "I don't hate you. Why do you say
something stupid like that?"

 "You haven't been particularly nice to me today."

 "Well, I'm sorry, it has been a kind of bad day." I
popped my hands on my hips, a gesture I never
normally used. "You haven't been nice to me either."

 Pepper tried to lean over to touch me, but I was
standing just out of reach. "What is it?" he asked.

 "Why don't you tell me?"

 "Tell you what?"

 "About your relationship with Betty Sue for one
thing," I said. "I know you had one. Your name is all
over her burnt diary."

 He was obviously worried, which did wonders for
my confidence in him. "What did it say?" he asked.

 "Does it matter? I want to know what you have to
say." I took a step closer. "We used to tell each other
everything, Pepper. Tell me now about her. I don't
know how much longer we'll have to talk."

 He stared at his feet, sitting perfectly still for a
minute. He closed his eyes, keeping his hands pressed
on top of the scraps of the last story.

 "I went out with her a few times," he said finally.
"She had a mystery about her that I found fascinating.
But we didn't do anything interesting." He opened his
eyes and shrugged. "We went to a couple of movies,
ate dinner a few times."

 "Did you kiss her?"

 He hesitated. "Yes."

 "Did you have sex with her?"

 He faced me straight on, his dark eyes wide. "No,
Rox."

 "Did you go out with her after you went out with
me?"

 "No." He raised his hand. "I swear to God I
didn't."

 I took a deep breath. The world had come to an end.
The stars had been vanquished. Yet I felt so relieved. I
leaned down and gave him a tight hug. "You sure
know how to pick 'em," I said.

 "Are you referring to yourself or to her?" he asked.

 I let him go and stood straight. "Both." I glanced at
the drugstore. "Stay here a second and put the rest of
the story together. I want to check on Stan."

 Pepper started to get up. "Don't you want me to
come with you?"

 Once more I was breaking the cardinal rule of real
life horror. But I answered without hesitating. "No."

 I passed the newspaper stand as I approached the
drugstore. The Salem Herald-circulation four thou-
sand and fifteen, if something was happening in town.
The bin was empty. I wondered if Stan had taken the
last copy. I opened the door to the drugstore and went
inside.

 The lights were out. Stan had not bothered to turn
them on. But enough illumination came in from the
square lamps to keep me from bumping into things.
Stan sat on the counter near the front, his legs
dangling down, leaning back on his arms. One page of
the newspaper rested on his lap.

 "Hi," he said softly;

 "How's the headache?" I asked;

 "Better."

 "Did you take something?"

 "Yeah."

 "Good." I sat down on the floor at his feet, looking
up at him in the silent dimness. He appeared more at
ease than he had a few minutes earlier, and that made
me relax. "So, what's new in the news?" I asked.

 He nodded with his head for me to take the paper
off his lap. Apparently he was too comfortable the way
he was sitting to move.

 "It's only the first page," he said.

 "Is it today's paper?" I asked, reaching out for it.

 "Tomorrow's."

 I froze as I touched the paper, afraid to take it.
"How's that?"

 "It has tomorrow's news in it," Stan said.

 "Have you read it?"

 "Yes."

 "Is it bad?"

 "Yes."

 I sat back on my butt. I had the single sheet in my
hand-just the one. I turned it over without reading
the headlines. Blank. Betty Sue had not wanted to
waste ink. I turned to the front. The headlines.
Destiny.

     TRAGEDY STRIKES FIVE LOCAL TEENS

 Beneath the caption were five small pictures. Senior
pictures that would be in the yearbook when it came
out in a month or so. Leslie's picture. Helter's and
Pepper's and Stan's. Mine, too-I wasn't smiling as
the others were.
 "Should I read the article?" I asked:
 "There's only the first half of it," Stan said. "But it's
interesting."
 "Interesting," I muttered. I began to read.

  Five Salem teens died yesterday: Leslie Belle, 
Helter Skater, Stan Reese, Paul Pointzel, and
Roxanne Wells. Each death appears to be an
isolated incident, unconnected to the others. But
local authorities are not dismissing the possibility
of a "group suicide pact," although not all the
deaths were apparent suicides.

 Leslie Belle died in her garage at approximately
two in the afternoon when the gas tank of her car
exploded. Her parents were out at the time. It
appears Leslie was trying to pour extra gasoline
into her tank from a can of fuel her father
reserved for supplying his lawnmower. There is
speculation that she had a cigarette in her mouth
at the time of the incident, although her parents
deny that she smoked. It is thought that she died
instantly. Nobody else was injured in the explo-
sion.

 Helter Skater died at Salem High when he
either intentionally or accidentally shot himself
in the groin and the head with a Colt .45 revolver.
His body was found in the girls' shower room
Saturday evening. Authorities don't know how he
came to be there.

 Stan Reese's body was found at approximately
ten last night in his bed. His parents were home at
the time, but didn't know there was any problem
with their son. Police are saying Stan was a
probable suicide because both his wrists had been
slit, but there was no note, as is usual with
suicides. His parents felt that Stan was still dis-
traught over the suicide of Betty Sue McCormick,
who only four weeks earlier doused herself with
gasoline and lit herself on fire.

  The fourth victim to be found was Paul
Pointzel, who died at-(Please Turn to Page
Three: TRAGEDY).

 "She would end it just there," I complained.

 "I don't know," Stan said softly. "Maybe she didn't
write it. Maybe it's the way it will be written."

 I set aside the page. Actually, I dropped it, and it
floated slowly to the floor. "So we know the truth at
last. We're dead. We don't have to worry anymore. It's
over."

 I felt like crying right then, but my tears were used
up. Did I believe my own words? I hoped not. Death
couldn't feel this awful, I thought, not if there was a
God. But what if there wasn't? What if the soul did
survive for eternity, but in a careless chasm where no
divine will reigned supreme? That truly would be hell.
We would be forever at the mercy of Betty Sue's
wicked games.

 "Maybe we're not dead," Stan said. "And not alive.
Maybe we're somewhere in between."

 "Is that possible?"

 "I don't know."

 I forced a chuckle. "One thing for sure, I'm not
letting you go near your bedroom."

 He yawned. "That's too bad. I feel like a nap right
now."

 I stood up and stretched. "Pepper's trying to piece
together the other story. Maybe we should get back to
him."

 "Would it be OK if we sat here a little longer?" he
asked.

 He sounded so sad, I didn't have the heart to say no.
I sat back down. "Sure. Whatever you want. Do you
have any new ideas on what we should do next?"

 "Explore the truth," he said.

 "What do you mean? What truth?"

 He sighed and let his head roll back on his neck. His
arms were still behind him, supporting him. He was
breathing hard, but I figured it was because the
stillness inside the drugstore was claustrophobic. Of
course so was the night air outside, beneath the
starless sky.

 "Betty Sue called me over to her house the last day
of her life," Stan said in a dreamy voice. "It was not
one of those times when I felt I had to go see her. Still,
I wanted to say no to her. She sounded strange, even
for her. But she said I had to come. She needed my
help."
 "What was her problem?" I asked.
 Stan grimaced in the shadows. "She was pregnant.
She told me the minute I walked in her bedroom. She
said she had to get rid of the baby and she had to do it
that day."
 "Do you know who the father was?"
 Stan thought a moment. "No."
 "Did the father know she was pregnant?"
 "I think so."
 "Go on," I said.
 Stan's head came forward and hung over slightly.
He seemed weary to the bone. His breathing was
definitely labored. "This is the thing I didn't want to
tell you about," he said. "She was playing with me.
Maybe she was already playing with all of us."

 "She wasn't really pregnant?"

 He shook his head. "She was and she wasn't. She
had already started to get rid of the baby-at least
that's what she said."

 Even before I asked, and he answered, I felt sick to
my stomach. "What do you mean?" I whispered.

 Stan sighed. "I don't know the gory details, thank
God. But she said she had done something to her
insides. When I got there she was hemorrhaging
internally. She looked fine, at first, but then she told
me what was happening. Then I saw stains on her-I
don't even want to say it. I believe she was telling me
the truth. She wouldn't let me take her to the hospital.
She wasn't scared. Like I told you earlier, she was
happy. She told me she had an exciting evening
planned."

 I pressed my hands to my ears. "I can't listen to
this."

 Stan was sympathetic. "I understand. I begged her
to let me help her, but she refused. She said she
knew how to take care of herself. She said she was
going to make herself invincible, so that nothing
could ever hurt her again. Then she would come
back in style."

 "Come back?"

 "Spooky, yeah. But first she said she had to take
care of some unfinished business. She wanted me to
get her a few things."

 "What kind of things?"

 "Pictures of Helter and Leslie and Pepper and you.
She also wanted a picture of me."

 "She needed them to make voodoo dolls?" I asked.

 "I never thought of it that way. Yeah, in a sense. Her
stories are like those dolls."

 "Why did she want you to get the pictures?" I asked.

 "I was probably her only friend. And I was on the
yearbook staff. It was easy for me to obtain the
pictures. I got her copies of the ones you just saw on
the front page of the newspaper."

 "Why did you do it?" I asked.

 "I didn't know she was planning next month's
news." He shrugged. "I don't know if I had a choice in
the matter."

 "Why didn't she get them herself?"

 "That's an interesting question. I believe she
wanted me to know what she was up to so that when
we ended up here-wherever we are-I would sus-
pect that she had something to do with it."

 "Did she say anything else that led you to believe
she could work such a major miracle?"

 "Two things. She told me just before I left that her
butterfly jar could be any size she wanted it to be." He
sat up straighter, and it was a major effort. He was
dozing as he spoke. "That's why I didn't want you to
try to leave town. 1 didn't think you'd be able to."

 "You thought we'd run into a glass wall?"

 "Something like that." He coughed. "All day long
we've been flying in tiny circles. And dying." He
added, "It's been hot today."

 "What was the other thing she said?" I asked.

 He raised his head as if it weighed a ton, and met
my eyes. "You went to Foster this morning to get an
abortion, didn't you?"

 I was shocked that he'd know. "Did Pepper-'

 "No," he interrupted. "I knew because she told me
that there would be another like her, and that she'd
use this other to screw tight the lid on her jar."

 "What does that mean?"

 "Since we're talking about Betty Sue, I'd venture to
say she needed you and your situation as an important
ingredient in her curse."

 "But I didn't get an abortion. I couldn't go through
with it and got up and left in the middle."

 Stan's head jerked at the remark. "In the middle?"

 "Before the procedure got started." I clasped at my
abdomen. All day long I had had no ill effects from
what the doctor had done to me. I felt safe that I had
changed my mind in plenty of time. Yet now, ever so
faintly, I felt a cold liquidy sensation in my guts. It
crept from the right to the left, like an icy finger across
my intestines.

 I shook it off. It was probably just Stan's story, I
reasoned. It was enough to make anybody's stomach
turn.

 "I didn't mean to pry into your private business,"
Stan said.

 "No problem. Did you see her again after you left to
get the pictures?"

 "No. She didn't want to see me. She wanted me to
get the pictures, put them in an envelope, and slide
them under her bedroom door. And that's what I
did."

 "How come you didn't tell Betty Sue's mother what
was wrong?"

 "She wasn't around."

 "You should have told someone."

 Stan gestured helplessly. "She didn't want me to."

 "Was Betty Sue in her room when you returned
with the pictures?"

 "Yes. I called to her, but she didn't answer. I think
she was writing. Probably these stories." Stan raised
his head once more, and I was surprised to see tears
streaming down his cheeks. "Oh, God," he whispered.

 "Stan?"

 He sniffed. "You know everyone thought I was
pretty smart. I was a nerd but I had respect. People
didn't make fun of me. They liked me, and I liked
them. My life was pretty good."

 "It was a great life."

 Stan shook his head sadly. "It couldn't be great
because deep down inside I was a coward. I knew
what was right and I knew what was wrong. I knew
everything connected with Betty Sue was wrong. But I
did what she said because I was afraid of her." His
voice cracked. "I should never have brought her those
pictures."

 "It wasn't your fault." I got up and stepped to his
side. "Come on, let's get out of this drugstore. It's got
bad vibes. Let's go see Pepper. The night's young.
We'll think of something to do. It'll be OK."

 Stan refused to budge. "I can't go," he mumbled.

 "Come on," I said, tugging at his arm. "We'll make
a plan. We'll. . ."

 I stopped. I had stepped into a dark puddle. It was
coming from the back of the counter, through the
druggist's walkway. A whiff of a sickly copper odor
touched my nostrils and stabbed right into my heart. I
leaned around where Stan sat and saw that the puddle
formed from twin trickles pouring off the counter.
And following the course back a bit further, I realized
that Stan had slit his wrists and was bleeding to death
right now.

 "Stan, no," I moaned.

 "I'm sorry," he whispered as he sagged into my
arms. I caught him before he could fall. He was cold to
the touch. He continued to weep. "I had to do what
she said."

 "But why?" I cried.

 "I don't know why. It's always been this way." He
coughed some more, and buried his face in my chest. I
believe I felt his heart flutter in his chest. It was
probably low on blood to pump. It was amazing Stan
was even conscious. The puddle soaked the entire
space behind the counter. "I wanted to save you and
Pepper from her," he said pitifully.

 I hugged him tight. "You did your best." I kissed the
side of his face. "Can't we try to stop the bleeding?"

 "It's too late." He sat back slightly, wrapping his
bleeding arms around him, shivering. "I'm so cold."

 "Why is she doing this to you? You were her
friend."

 "Maybe that made me her worst enemy. I was the
only one who knew her secrets and still liked her. I
had to be gotten rid of."

 I ran my hand through his hair. "Is there anything I
can do for you?"

 He nodded. "Put me in my bed when I'm gone."

 I began to cry. "Then it will be just like the paper.
Then she will have won everything."

 He cried with me. "She has won."

 "No! I won't let her!" I grabbed his shoulders and
he shook in my hands like a rag doll. "You can't die
yet! You have to tell me how to stop her!"

 But I had apparently waited too long for my emo-
tional plea. Stan tried to speak but collapsed in my
arms. I laid him back on the counter. He gasped for
air. His skin was white as marble. The vampiress had
claimed another victim, damn her to the deepest hell.
He gestured me closer. I pressed my ear to his lips to
catch his last words. He smiled weakly.

 "I always had a crush on you," he said. "I'm glad
you passed your math class."

 I buried my face in his chest. "I always had a crush
on you, Stan."

 But I don't know if he heard me. He didn't answer,
and when I sat back up, his eyes were open, staring at a
distant ceiling that covered the invisible stars. I closed
his eyes for him and folded his arms across his chest.

 "Goodbye, old friend," I said.


CHAPTER XII

Pepper took the news hard. Can't say that I blamed him.
Once there were five and now there were two. I
couldn't bear to think which one of us would go next.

 "We have to get out of here," Pepper said desper-
ately.

 "I don't know if we can," I said, thinking of the
glass jar. Pepper held me by my shoulders. He looked
ten years older than he had that morning. I hadn't told
him about the newspaper. I suppose I didn't want to
worry him.

 "We can't stay here," he said. "Her power may not
extend beyond the limits of the city."

 I nodded. I had no strength left to argue. "We can
leave as soon as we move Stan's body to his bed-
room."

 "Forget it!" Pepper said, letting go of me. "Every
second we stay here is dangerous. Stan's dead. We
can't help him."

 I turned toward the drugstore. "It was his last wish.
I'm going to move him to his, bed with or without your
help."

 Pepper grabbed me from behind. I had never seen
such fear, and I had seen a lot of it that very day. "We
have to leave now. I read the last story."

 "What did it say?" I asked. Stupid question. He
pulled a handful of paper scraps from his pocket.

 "It says that I'm going to die," he replied, thrusting
the mutilated story in my face. I sat down and put it
together. Another voodoo doll.

     SALT AND PEPPER FOR SUPPER

  Salt and Pepper were a happy couple. They
 laughed and kissed, and when they were apart it
 was as if something was amiss. But they were only
 spices. All they had were flavor and a few misera-
 ble vices.
  It came to pass one day that Salt and Pepper
 met Fat Freddy. He said to them, "I will take you
 to my queen. Are you keen?" Salt said, "I do not
 know her name. I do not know if the one I think
 of is the same." But Pepper said, "I know this
 great queen. I have heard she never gets mean."
 So Fat Freddy took Salt and Pepper to meet
 Queen Beetle, and they found her sewing in her
 secret chamber with her needles.
  Queen Beetle said, "I know this Pepper. He
 kissed me once but then he left and never wrote
 me a letter." Then Pepper was afraid and clung
 tight to Salt. Pepper was so afraid he would not
 tell Salt it was all his fault. But it was time for
 Queen Beetle's dinner, and because she was never
 rude, she invited them to stay. Salt and Pepper
 said fine, thinking they were hungry and might
 dine. But they did not know Queen Beetle's hate,
 and when they looked away she snatched them
 both and set them on her plate.
  The Queen said, "Do not scream, or I will
 certainly cut you like a bean." But Salt protested,
 "Why are you doing this, why do you hate?" To
 which Queen Beetle laughed. "It is not simply
 hate. It is much more honorable. It is fate."
  Then Queen Beetle picked up her knife and
 fork, and reached for her bottled wine and pulled
 the cork. "A toast!" Queen Beetle exclaimed.
 "For the flavor Salt and Pepper give to my roast!"
 Then Queen Beetle stretched out with her knife
 and fork, and Salt was so angry at Pepper that she
 pushed him onto the Queen's pork. There Pepper
 caught the Queen's fork, and it pierced his chest,
 and he died like a foolish dork.


 "Lovely," I said. I looked up at Pepper from the
curb where I was sitting and reading. The wind
howled. The sand blew. Our flashlights rocked. Such a
scene, this cruel night. "Was this all your fault?" I
asked.

 "What are you talking about?" Pepper asked.

 I thought of the story Stan had told me. Betty Sue's
last day. "Never mind," I said flatly.

 Pepper knelt anxiously at my side. "You're not
angry at me, are you?"

 I touched his face. "No."

 He glanced down at the story. "Please don't get
angry at me."

 I let go of the scraps of paper, and the wind carried
them off into the night. "I understand," I said.

 We took care of Stan. We put him in the backseat of
my car and drove to his house. We carried him into his
bedroom and eased him under the blankets. I wanted
to bandage his wrists, but Pepper wouldn't let me. I
left the light on in the bedroom. I turned in the
doorway and peeked at him one last time.

 "At least he looks peaceful now," I said to Pepper.

 "The dead always do," Pepper muttered.

 I thought of Helter, what was left of his head. "I
don't know about that."

 Then we were outside again, in the dark windy part
of Betty Sue's universe. My car had gas in it-we had
got five bucks in it that morning at the deserted
station. We took Highway 37 out of town, the same
road we had taken to Foster for the abortion. But this
time we headed north on it. I insisted on it. Pepper
didn't mind. He talked as we drove.

 "We'll get to L.A. tomorrow morning," he said.
"We'll go straight to the beach. We can be walking
beside the water when the sun comes up."

 "That sounds wonderful." 1 stared out the window
as Salem shrank behind us. The wind was worse than I
could remember all day. Pepper had to fight to keep
the car moving in a straight line. We were being
sandblasted. By the time we'd reach the other end of
the desert, there wouldn't be a speck of paint left on
the exterior.

 "You know it's possible there might be other people
in L.A.," he said. "I respect the things Stan said. I'm
sure Betty Sue was a weird chick. No one can argue
with that. But Stan might have taken the thing with
her too far. We might find people everywhere."

 "I hope you're right." Of course I didn't believe a
word of it. But if the talk made Pepper feel better,
then I wasn't going to argue with him. The front of the
car swerved dangerously in a strong gust. "We should
slow down."

 "I'm only doing forty-five," Pepper said.

 "Do thirty-five."

 Pepper nodded and slowed. "At least in L.A. we
won't have to worry about affordable housing. We'll
be able to stay anywhere we like." He glanced over at
me. "Where would you like to stay?"

 "Beverly Hills." '

 "Why there?"

 "It sounds rich," I said.

 "How about Malibu? It's rich, too, and it's by the
ocean."

 "Malibu would be fine with me."

 "We could go see all the sights," Pepper said. "It
might even be better that everyone's gone. We won't
have to wait in any lines. Hey, we could go to
Disneyland! We'll have the whole park to ourselves.
Won't that be a trip?"

 "How will we get the rides to work?"

 "It can't be that hard to turn them on. We'll
probably just have to push a button or something."

 I nodded, enjoying the fantasy. It was all we had
left. The wind was getting stronger and stronger,
coming at us straight on now. Pepper had to keep the
gas floored to maintain a meager speed.

 "I want to go on Space Mountain first," I said.

 "You know the name of the actual rides?" he asked.

 "I know lots of them. There's Space Mountain,
Pirates of the Caribbean, Thunder Mountain, and the
Haunted Mansion."

 Pepper laughed. "Maybe we could skip the Haunted
Mansion."

 I laughed, too. "Yeah. We have Salem for that."

 Pepper shook his head. "Can you believe the stuff
that happened to us today?"

 "Nope. I hope when I wake up tomorrow it's all
forgotten."

 "So you think we might just be dreaming?"

 The car swerved again harshly. "Careful!" I cried.

 "I am being careful." Pepper leaned forward and
tried to peer through the sandstorm. Our visibility
was almost nonexistent. Our speed was down to
maybe ten miles an hour. "This is unreal," he mut-
tered:

 "Can you see?" I asked anxiously.

 "I see what you see."

 "Maybe we should try to leave tomorrow."

 "No," he snapped.

 The noise of the sand rained in my ears like a
meteor storm in outer space. "But if we crash, what
good will it do us?"

 He was adamant. "We're not going back. We'll die if
we go back."

 Ten minutes went by. In that time we didn't talk
about Disneyland or Beverly Hills. We sat in silence,
because we both realized what was happening. The
power of the wind was growing in direct proportion to
our distance from Salem. Pepper had the accelerator
floored and we were barely creeping forward. Outside
the windshield was a wall of moving brown dust.

 "We're beginning to overheat," Pepper said.

 "Our glass jar," I whispered.

 "What?" Pepper yelled over the racket.

 "We have to go back."

 He shook his head. "No!"

 "Then just stop the car and we'll sit here." I grabbed
his arm. "Pepper, it's no use!"

 He took his foot off the gas and stopped the car. We
sat for a minute in the loud darkness. It was ironic-
all day I prayed for the silence to lift, and now that I
had noise, it was driving me crazy.

 "We can't just sit here," Pepper said finally.

 "Turn around."

 He touched my knee. "You won't get mad at me if
we go back?"

 "Why would I get mad? I'm the one who said we
have to go back."

 He let go of my leg. "I just wanted to get that
straight."

 We turned around with difficulty but once we were
pointed toward Salem we could have returned without
any gas. The wind pushed the car happily along, until
the town became visible. That's when the storm-no
big surprise here-suddenly eased. As we crossed the
city limits a feeling of despair swept over me, like that
of falling into a bottomless well, where no matter how
long you dropped, you never hit bottom. Never feel
the icy black water seep into your black heart. Still,
you knew it was there for you-eventually. Like
oblivion. Death.

 Pepper looked over at me. "Where would you like
to spend the night?" he asked.

 I smiled sadly. "Disneyland Hotel."

 "Where else?"

 "Your place," I said.

 But who spoke? Who made us choose that place?

 I believe it was her.

 Pepper's house stood silent and black at the edge of
town. We parked in the driveway but we didn't go
inside. By unspoken agreement we took each other's
hands and walked to the barn. The cozy hay. Our love
nest. God, that night seemed like a million years ago.

 Indeed, suddenly, it seemed as if it had never
happened. At least not to me. It was as if Pepper had
been holding another girl that night, when he was
supposed to be holding me.

 Many things came clear to me as we stepped inside.

 They came clear to me in darkness.

 Yes, it's true, something swept over me all right.
Perhaps the wind brought it. I cannot explain the
power of it except to say it was profoundly subtle. So
subtle I didn't know at the time it wasn't of my own
making. I experienced a clarity of a cruel kind.

 Pepper lit a lantern and hung it on a brown wooden
beam. I sat in the loft of hay and lazily swung my legs.
Up and down, back and forth. I was thinking. I wished
I could stop. Our thoughts had been our enemies all
day. If we'd just decided to lie down and take a long
nap when we met at the ice-cream parlor, we would
have all been alive still. But perhaps that was not our
fate. Pepper sat beside me and put his arm around my
shoulder.

 "What's the matter?" he asked.

 "Nothing."

 "You look sad?" he said.

 "I am. Very sad."

 He nodded. "At least we're together."

 I looked at him. The blue green prairie in his eyes.
The sunshine in his mouth. My Pepper. I looked at a
stranger.

 "Did you sleep with Betty Sue?" I asked.

 He blinked. "No."

 I took his arm off my shoulder and stood, staring
down at him. "Did you have sex with her?" I de-
manded.

 He got up also, and stood in front of me, up on the
loft. On the soft hay in the soft light of the warm
lantern. "No," he said.

 I chewed on my lower lip. I tasted blood. It tasted
like it had been mingled and polluted with another's
blood. That was true in a sense, I thought. I was
carrying Pepper's child. What blood would pump in
the veins of that child? It made no difference to me
right then that the fetus hadn't even grown a heart yet.
I felt as if I was no different from the undeveloped
baby. Suddenly my heart was not working. All I could
do was think of Pepper in the arms of Betty Sue, both
of them naked, both of them having fun. My boy-
friend. My true love. Honest to God, if I hadn't loved
him so much it couldn't have hurt so much. But that
is, I believe, why God gave us love. So that we could
feel pain. It made us that much more mortal. It made
us that much less than God. In the end, all love did
was bring pain to me. Goddamn the way things are, I
thought.

 I took a step closer to Pepper. "You're lying to me."

 He shook his head quickly. "No, Rox. I ..."

 "You're lying to me!" I screamed. "You screwed
her! You got her pregnant!"

 Pepper froze. The life simply fell out of his face.
Then he raised his hands to cover his face. And I was
glad. I didn't want to have to look at him. It disgusted
me when he began to weep.

 "I'm sorry," he moaned. "I didn't want to tell you
because I didn't want to hurt you." He shrugged. No,
he shook. He trembled as if the blood in his veins had
become ice. "It was just something that happened. I
didn't plan it. I didn't care for her at all."

 I pulled his hands down from his face. I screwed my
face up into his and breathed fire on his shame. "All I
want to know," I said with deadly calm, "is whether
you screwed her before or after you screwed me? Tell
me the truth. Don't lie to me. If you lie to me, I'll get
angry. And we both know how dangerous that can
be."

 He twitched. "Before."

 I sucked in a breath and slowly reached up and
grabbed him by the collar. "And after?" I asked.

 He twitched again and swallowed hard. "Just
once," he said.

 I let him go. "I see," I said.

 Then I shoved him backward. Not all that hard. But
he fell, I watched him fall over the wooden railing, off
the loft, and onto the soft hay below. No big deal. I
had done almost the same thing the night we made
love. But I should have remembered that night better.
It hadn't been that long ago, that close call. I should
have at least remembered Betty Sue's story. Queen
Beetle and her fork digging into her peppery pork.

 The pitchfork was in the hay. It was hidden, just
barely, beneath the light brown straw. Worst of all, it
was pointed up. Pepper landed on it on his back and
in an instant all six blades pierced his chest. I saw
them pop out the front. Red steel going through the
cotton shirt I had bought for his birthday. Blood
mushroomed over his front. I saw him open his mouth
and try to scream but blood poured from around his
teeth and drowned him out. God, there was so much
blood.

 "Pepper," I said as I stared down at him from the
loft. I didn't know what else to say. I couldn't very
well say I was sorry, although suddenly I was more
sorry than I had ever been in my life. The power of the
spell had been broken, at last. I understood that's
what my anger had been. Leslie had taken up smoking
because she was under a spell. Helter had fired repeat-
edly into his own reflection because the curse was
working on his mind. Stan had slit his wrists open
because she had told him to. In my own way, I had
done what I was told.

 Pepper gagged.

 I climbed down from the loft and knelt by his side.
Betty Sue had lined us all up and now she was almost
through knocking us down. This was the third time in
one day I had knelt beside a dying friend. It wasn't
getting any easier-oh no. I looked at him, struggling
like a pinned butterfly trying to free itself of a painful
needle, and I could not understand. I just refused to
understand such horror. I thought that if I did I would
know the universe's worst secret.

 What a joke-I knew it already.

 No matter how bad things got, they could always get
worse.

 "Pepper," I said and took his trembling hand. He
couldn't lay still, couldn't lay back. The damn thing
had him propped up in severe discomfort. I watched
the red liquid soak down from each individual gleam-
ing knife. It wouldn't be long, I thought. Pepper
looked over at me like a sad boy who had lost his
mommy. I would have yanked the pitchfork from his
back and thrust it through my own chest if it would
have eased his sorrow the tiniest bit. But it would have
done nothing so I did nothing. "I'm sorry," I said.

 "Rox," he gasped.

 I leaned closer, placing his hand on my heart.
"Yes?"

 "I'm sorry, too," he whispered. "You were . . . first.
Only . . . one."

 I nodded. I understood. He hadn't lied to me, not
really. "You were my first and only."

 He glanced down at the red blades protruding from
his chest. Blood trickled out the side of his mouth.
"No escape," he moaned.

 I put my free hand on his forehead. He felt warm,
and for a second I worried he was catching something.
Silly me. I had always wanted to take care of him.
Always and forever.

 "There is an escape," I said. "We've already taken
it. We escaped when we fell in love at the reservoir.
The spaceships came for us and carried us away up to
the stars." I kissed his face. "I'll be with you soon,
sweetie. We'll go to the stars together." I began to cry.
I didn't want to. I wanted to be strong for him, as he
had been strong for me these last few months. I
pressed a bloody hand to my eyes, but my tears just
ran red and wouldn't stop. All the things that had
happened to me so far-they were nothing compared
to this. They were like the dream, and this was the
painful reality. My life hadn't really started until
Pepper had entered it. Now I felt my life ending, even
before Betty Sue could get her hands on me. "Wait for
me," I cried. "Please?"

 He looked at me with exhausted eyes. "Rox . . .
love you."

 I nodded vigorously, sobbing uncontrollably. "Yes,
Pepper. I love you, too." I hugged him, my arms going
around him and the metal prongs. I think it was all
right to squeeze him tight. I had done it before. I used
to squeeze him so hard I'd pretend I was squeezing his
soul into my soul. But right then I didn't have to
pretend. I felt it was real this time. His soul, his
love-so warm, so sweet, so soft-it was like I could
touch it directly. All of Betty Sue's lies had washed off
me. Thank God I'd had a chance to love this guy, I
thought. It had made all the pain worthwhile.

 "Thank God," I said, opening my eyes and seeing
his eyes closed. His pain was over. He was dead.
"Thank God," I repeated.

CHAPTER XIII

 I buried him in the hay. There was only one hard
part-pulling the pitchfork out of his back. I folded
his arms across his chest as I had Stan's. And like
Stan, Pepper also looked peaceful.

 Then I went for a long walk through the night. The
lights had finally failed and the darkness was irrevoca-
ble. I walked in Stan's prophetic dream. Yet I never
turned to see if I was being followed. I didn't care if I
was. My pain and sorrow were so great I was shat-
tered. In a way I was happy the streets were deserted,
and that I had no one I had to talk to. The town's
emptiness fit my soul. Both were black and filled with
agony.

 I ended up at Betty Sue's house. Perhaps it was
because it was where it had all begun. I felt no special
danger. There was no one left to kill me. I wasn't going
to arm myself. I wasn't going to smoke around a
gasoline pump. I went inside and sat at Betty Sue's
desk. There were pen and paper in her desk drawer.
And a candle and a match. I lit the candle and opened
the window wide so I could feel the wind and sand on
my face and arms. Outside I could barely see the
street. The sand was sweeping Salem away. I picked
up the pen and began to write.

 'Cause there was nothing else to do.


  I sit alone in a dead world. The wind blows, hot and
 dry and the dust gathers like particles of memory
 waiting to be swept away . . .


 So I wrote this story, and now it is done. I don't
know if anyone will ever find it and read it. I don't
know if I care. I just hope that Betty Sue is really dead,
and never returns to the land of the living. If she does
return, I don't know what could stop her.

 My hand is tired. I wish to put my pen down and
rest. But I don't dare close my eyes. I don't know what
I'd awaken to-if anything. I suppose she could make
it so that I die in my sleep.

 What is that? I hear a sound. It must be the wind.
Yet it doesn't sound like the wind.

 It sounds like footsteps. Approaching. Oh, God.

 Someone is opening the front door of Betty Sue's
house.

 She stands in the doorway of her bedroom and
stares in at me. She hasn't spoken, but has indicated
that I am to keep writing. She is taller than I remem-
ber, but then I notice her high black boots. Her coat is
long and dark, made of soft leather-it is really more
of a cape. Her incredible red hair shines like fire. Her
lips are almost as red, set in a line that I cannot
fathom. She is amused by me, that much is clear, but
she also seems rather melancholy. There is no mistak-
ing the power that radiates from her. This is her place
and she knows it.

 She approaches and sits on the bed.

 "Write as I speak," she says. "Record everything."

 "All right," I say. I write down the words. Her green
eyes follow me closely. That is another thing we have
in common, besides red hair. I could stare in a mirror
and see her eyes. Except hers are deeper than mine,
and colder.

 "Is there anything you want to ask me?" she asks.

 "Yes," I say.

 "Go ahead."

 "Are we dead?"

 The question brings a smile to her lips. Her face is
so pale, I fear the smile will crack it. But it doesn't.
Perhaps Betty Sue can still feel joy. I don't know.

 "We are born dead," she says. "It is just a matter of
time before we realize it." She touches her belly. "The
rare one realizes it even before emerging from the
womb."

 "I don't understand?"

 "I was the one in your womb. I came back for you.
You were pregnant with me." She pauses and her
smile shrinks. "Mother."

 "You came back to kill me?" I ask.

 "Yes. But to do that, you had to kill me first."

 "I had to decide to have an abortion?"

 "Yes. You had a choice not to. Your choice opened
the door."

 "And sealed tight the lid?"

 "Yes," she says.

 "But I didn't have the abortion. I stopped it."

 "Did you?"

 Her question brings ice to my guts. "Yes. I know I
stopped it."

 She does not want to argue the point. "Why?"

 "I thought of you," I say. "What a waste it was that
you threw your life away. It made me change my
mind."

 "You thought of me because I was with you then."

 "Why do you want to kill me? What did I ever do to
you?"

 She pauses. She has to think and that scares me. Her
thoughts are dangerous. "How many times have you
been in love?"

 "Once," I say.

 "Would you believe I could be in love?" she asks.

 "No."

 My answer does not offend her. She lowers her
head. Her smile is now entirely gone. "I loved Pep-
per," she says.

 "Why?"

 She shrugs. "Why did you love him, Roxanne?"

 I shiver as she says my name. I know she can curse it
just by speaking it out loud. She does not need her pen
and paper. "I don't know."

 She nods. "It is that way with the best of things, and
the worst of things." She gestures around us, to the
wind and the sand, the starless sky. "This is all a
mystery."

 "Even to you?"

 She chuckles softly. "Not so much to me."

 "Who the hell are you? What are you?"

 She sits still, her back straight. "I am a storyteller."
She looks out the window at the black night. "God is a
storyteller."

 "We've been calling you a witch all day. Are you a
witch?"

 "I am human. But a human can be many things. A
human can be a witch. A sorcerer. A saint. A god."

 "What are you to me, right now?"

 "I told you. Your child." She pauses again. "You
made me who I am."

 "How? What did I do?"

 A shade of sorrow returns to her face. "I went to
visit Pepper the night you two were in the barn. I saw
you in each others arms."

 I have to swallow. "I didn't know."

 She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I
think I lost my mind right then. I felt such pain." She
looks at me. "You felt that same pain just before you
pushed him onto my fork, and afterward." She grins
suddenly. "And that's how you made this situation.
Do you understand?"

 "No."

 She gestures again to our empty surroundings.
"What would this world be if one child who was born
had never been born? Would it be the same world?"

 "It would be pretty much the same, I would think,
unless the kid was supposed to be president or some-
thing important."

 Betty Sue speaks strongly. "No. That's not true.
That is the mystery. It would not be the same at all. It
would be nothing." She pauses and points to her
papers and pens. "This world belongs to me alone. It
would have been nothing if I had not been born. I sat
here and created it. I wrote your story. I let you finish
it. All my thoughts of you and Helter and Pepper and
Stan and Leslie-they were inside my head. I could
make them any way I wanted. I could make you any
way I wanted."

 "That wasn't true until today."

 She nods. "I had to capture you in my jar." She
speaks seriously. "I am the author. I am the storytell-
er. I am all that there is."

 I am offended. "But you're not God?"

 She throws her head back and laughs. "Maybe I am.
Or maybe I am the devil. What's the difference to
someone like me?" Then she shakes her arm slightly
and suddenly, like magic, there is a long silver knitting
needle in her right hand. She holds it up to the
quivering candle. The sharp point glistens like a
deadly star.

 "Queen Beetle," I say, and I am so scared.

 She nods. "You changed your mind too late,
Roxanne."

 "No." I clasp my abdomen. Inside the cold aches.
"No."

 "Yes." She leans toward me, her needle in her hand.
"The procedure was already underway. Now you are
bleeding. You are hemorrhaging. The doctor is wor-
ried. He fears he is about to lose you. And he is right,"

 "That's not true," I cry. But the cold in my guts is
getting worse. It spreads like an evil flame from a
black abyss. My internal organs shudder. I am having
trouble breathing. It is a strain to keep writing. But I
fear if I stop writing, my story will be over. She will
poke me with her needle. She nods as I think this.

 "If you set down the pen," she says. "I will stab you
in the belly."

 "But I can't keep writing," I protest.

 She wets her lower lip with her tongue. "That is the
difference between you and me. You had only one
story to tell." She stops and grins once more. "I have
millions."

 "No!" I cry.

 She doesn't wait for me to drop the pen. She takes
me by surprise. She stabs me with her needle. It goes
through my shirt, deep into my belly, into my child.
Blood gushes around the wound. I feel the cold inside
my heart, the pain. It is a numbing pain, and it
spreads. The outside wind begins to die down. I no
longer feel the sand on my face. The candle flickers;
the room grows dark. I have to put down my pen. The
last thing I see is Betty Sue's green eyes, looking at me.
There is cruelty in them, and compassion. I don't
know which is worse.

 Suddenly I am very tired.


EPILOGUE

Paul Pointzel, better known as Pepper, sat in the
waiting room of the clinic with the mean nurse and a
copy of People magazine. The nurse wouldn't talk to
him or look at him. She obviously hated all the men
who brought in their knocked-up women. The People
magazine was ancient; several of the celebrities who
babbled in the pages about how cool they were now
that they had kicked drugs and booze were now
appearing on game shows trying to earn extra bucks.
Pepper hoped he never got in People magazine. He
worried it might bring him bad luck.

 But Pepper was worrying anyway. He loved
Roxanne and he hated bringing her to this horrible
place at this horrible time of the morning. A dozen
times at the motel they had just come from he had
almost told her to call the whole thing off. Let's keep
the baby, he had wanted to say. It will work out. Who
knows? He might grow up to be President of the
United States.

 Of course, Roxanne was convinced she was carrying
a girl.

 Pepper couldn't believe his bad luck. Roxanne was
the second girl he had gotten pregnant in the last two
months. Betty Sue McCormick had been the first, and
boy had that been a mistake. The weird thing about
the whole mess was that he hadn't even liked Betty
Sue. Yet he had gone out with her a dozen times and
had slept with her twice, once before he was involved
with Roxanne, and once after. The second time had
been the real killer. He had had no intention of even
talking to her again. He was no two-timer, never had
been. But then she had called and told him to come
over, and before he knew it he was on his motorcycle,
flying down the streets. She was home alone and
wasted no time in taking off her clothes and his. But
afterward he got out of there as fast as he could. He
went home and showered for half an hour. Just the
smell of her on him had made him feel unclean.

 She had laughed as he left. She said, "I've got you
now."

 Then a week later Betty Sue came up to him at
school and told him she was carrying his baby and was
a few weeks pregnant. She must have conceived the
first time they made love. She looked so happy that he
was sure she would insist on keeping the child. But
then she cackled when he asked her about her plans.
"Don't worry about Salt, Pepper," she said. "She's
not going to live to a ripe old age."

 He hadn't understood that she meant to kill herself
along with the fetus. But she committed suicide that
very night, and whatever guilt he felt about her death,
he felt twice as much relief. Sleeping with her had
been like snuggling with a maggot. She was bad news,
that Betty Sue. Their child would probably have
grown up to be a serial killer.
 The tall stern doctor who was performing
Roxanne's abortion suddenly appeared in the door-
way. "Call Dr. Kline," he ordered the nurse. "Imme-
diately. Tell him it's an emergency. I want him here in
five minutes."

 Pepper jumped out of his seat. "Is something wrong
with Rox?"

 The doctor threw him a weary look. "There are
complications. Wait here. We'll take care of it."

 The strength went out of Pepper's legs and he had to
sit down. The People magazine fell off his lap and onto
the floor. Something else Betty Sue had said to him
the last time they had spoken came back to him right
then. He didn't know why. Surely it had nothing to do
with Roxanne, and her situation. Yet just the memory
of it was enough to curl Pepper into a helpless ball of
fear,

 "Your seed is like a disease inside me," Betty Sue
had said. "It's a catching disease. I might cough and
give it to someone else. I might do that on purpose.
I'm sure whoever catches it next will die."

 "Please, God," he whispered. He thought if
Roxanne died, he would die with her. She meant that
much to him,

 He never knew how right he was.

 For Roxanne Wells, better known as Rox, the doctor
had been gone only a little while. Not the long time
she imagined before. But what was that before, she
asked herself? Suddenly there was something in her
mind she couldn't quite put her finger on. A memory
that was more than a memory, and somehow less.
Something long and complex. How odd that she
should forget it altogether, especially when it had just
come to her. It was as if she had gone to a movie and
then been asked immediately afterward what the
movie had been about. And she responded, "I can't
remember." Not a single scene. All she would know is
that she had seen a show.

 It must be the shots they gave me, she thought. I am
not losing my mind. It is not the end of the world.

 Ah! Something about the end of the world. That's
what her strange dream had been about. She remem-
bered then that Leslie, Stan, Helter, and Pepper had
been in it. Plus Betty Sue. Poor Betty Sue. She should
never have killed herself. What a waste of life, she
thought. Life was so precious.

 But this time Roxanne did not notice anything
peculiar in the fact that she could contemplate the
sanctity of life while simultaneously cutting short the
life of a fetus. The strange liquid feeling in her guts
continued to grow stronger. It wasn't painful, just
odd-like her dream of the end of the world. All these
things could have been happening to another
Roxanne. She was just lying there on her back with her
legs up in stirrups-watching colored images on the
fluffy white clouds that drifted by. She didn't feel like
a direct participant in the drama.

 But the drama was just getting started. The doctor
returned and he looked worried. He began to work on
her again, and when he lifted his hands to collect
another surgical instrument she was surprised to see
that his plastic gloves were soaked with blood. He
swiftly strapped a blood pressure wrap on her arm and
pumped it up. His black eyes grew big.

 "Roxanne," he said. "How do you feel?"

 She yawned. "Dreamy. Am I almost done?"

 He reached for a bottle of solution and a fresh
needle. "Have you ever had any trouble with excessive
bleeding?"

 "Like a hemophiliac?"

 "No." He stabbed the tiny bottle with the needle
and then stuck the needle into the I.V. "You can't be
one of those. Hemophilia only affects males." He put
a hand to his head. "This has got to have a reason."

 "Huh?"

 "Just relax."

 "All right." She couldn't be bothered talking any-
way. She felt too sleepy. A nice nap right now sounded
wonderful.

 Then she felt a stab of pain deep in her guts. It's
suddenness was matched only by its fury. It was as if
someone-a witch maybe with long red hair and bony
fingers-had taken a knitting needle and poked her
right through the belly button. Roxanne felt her heart
skip as the pain throbbed from her midsection into
her head. She let out a bloodcurdling scream. The
doctor jerked upright. The mean nurse came running
through the door.

 "Where is Dr. Kline?" the doctor snapped.

 "He's on his way," the nurse said. "Is she going to
be all right?"

 "Not if we don't stop this bleeding." The doctor
reached for a swab of cotton balls. He picked up a
scalpel. "We have to prepare for anesthesia. I'm going
to have to open her up."

 Open me up, Roxanne thought? That didn't sound
good. But at least her pain was receding swiftly, as
quickly as it had come. She didn't know if it was
because the doctor had pumped more medicine into
her I.V. or because whatever it was that was wrong
inside had already burst open and the pressure had
been relieved. She just hoped the river running from
the broken dam was not filled with her blood.

 For the first time, she wondered if she was going to
die.

 And just that thought was enough to crack open the
entire world of death. Betty Sue whispered in her ear.
You can get up now, Rox. You can walk out into the
waiting room and drive back to Salem with your
Pepper and pretend that you never tried to murder
your baby. But you will find few people there, only
those who have displeased me. Those who are already
as good as dead. Then you will watch them die, one by
one. Until I come to you again in the black night in the
form of Queen Beetle, and put my needle in your
belly, and make you bleed again, and again, and again.
Until you realize that I am a devil so powerful even
God leaves me alone to play as I wish.

 Roxanne sat up and pulled her legs out of the
stirrups. The doctor and nurse did not mind. They
continued to work frantically with a reclining bloody
mess that seemed to have little to do with her.
Roxanne scooted off the table and reached for her
clothes. Her green medical gown was filthy with dark
stains and she was happy to be rid of it. Once dressed
in her own clothes, she felt much better. She stood up
and walked out of the room, without even a glance
back. But she thought she heard the doctor saying
something to the nurse like, "We're losing her." She
didn't care. She was remembering what had happened
the last time she had changed her mind about having
the abortion. Suddenly she remembered the whole
story. She had written it all down, after all, and never
mind what that bitch Betty Sue thought.

 Pepper was sitting huddled over in his chair when
she opened the door to the waiting room. He was
crying, and at first she thought he was upset about a
story he had read in the People magazine that was
lying at his feet. But then she realized that Pepper
never cried. Not unless . . .

 It was then she understood that he was crying about
her.

 Roxanne whirled around and looked down the hall,
back the way she had come. Off to her left she could
see the doorway that led to the operating table, where
she knew the doctor and the nurse continued to work
frantically on her. But straight down the hall, near the
end, the walls had begun to elongate, stretching the
hall into what could have been a pathway into infinity.
The way vanished into an awesome blackness. She
glanced back and forth, between her weeping boy-
friend and the unknown void, and it would have been
easy to step into the waiting room and take Pepper's
hand and return to Salem. But she knew Salem would
not be there, at least not as a city filled with people. If
she chose that route, she would once more step back
into Betty Sue's wicked reality. Yet there was nothing 
in the void that drew her. In fact, its sheer awesome-
ness frightened her. She wavered at the doorway,
uncertain. Something Betty Sue said came back to her
right then. Words in Betty Sue's bedroom, at the end
of the story.

 "That is the difference between you and me. You had
only one story to tell. I have millions."

 Betty Sue would just torture the five of them all over
again, Roxanne thought. The witch would mix up the
plot, and the suffering would come at them from
different and unexpected directions. It was a hopeless
path to go to Pepper, she saw, much as she wanted to.
Yet she desperately needed to talk to him, just once
more, if only to say goodbye. But she knew she
couldn't without great risk. She knew if she so much
as stepped into the waiting room, as she had done
before, they would both be caught in Betty Sue's web.
There was nothing to be done, and it was so terribly
sad.

 "Goodbye, my love," she whispered to him. She
had said too many goodbyes for one day. Her heart
heavy, she turned and walked back down the hallway.
She scarcely paused as she passed the operating room.
The doctor had exhausted all his skills. The nurse was
calling out the poor girl's blood pressure readings. The
numbers were sinking fast. Blood soaked the floor in
dark puddles. The doctor stopped and stepped back
from the table as if he were afraid that whatever
inexplicable fate had struck his patient would strike
him next. He ripped the surgical mask off his face and
wiped at the sweat pouring into his eyes. The numbers  
went flat. The girl's eyes were closed, her face com-
posed.

 "She's gone," the doctor said solemnly.

 "I am going," Roxanne said. She walked forward,
and the first steps were the hardest. She thought of all
the things she was leaving behind, and was almost
tempted to retreat, to go around the circle one more
time with Pepper and her friends, even if it meant
unimaginable suffering. But then suddenly, unexpect-
edly, the darkness softened. As she reached the sup-
posed end of the hall, and passed beyond it, she was
encompassed in a wonderful light, where she saw
many rich colors and heard many wonderful sounds.
Sounds that had nothing to do with the hymn that
Betty Sue had sung to catch her unfortunate butter-
flies. In that moment Roxanne felt as if she had
stepped into the center of all things, where the light of
the stars shone bright, and the ending of every story
was joyful

 Pepper heard Roxanne's scream of pain but re-
mained in his seat, praying feverishly. He did not
understand how things could have gone bad so quick-
ly. Everything he read about abortions had said it was
a relatively easy procedure. Once more he cursed
himself for putting Roxanne through such torment.
He swore when he got her out of there he would make
it up to her if it took him the rest of his life. He was
very serious about her. From the first night they had
gone out he had thought she would one day be his
wife.

 Several minutes crept by. They could have been
hours. Then Pepper thought he heard Roxanne's
voice. Even more strange, as he glanced up, he
thought he saw her standing in the doorway that led
back to the operating rooms. But it couldn't have been
her because he could see right through her. When he
blinked she was gone. Yet the sound of her voice hung
softly in the air. So soft that he heard it in his heart
and not with his ears. A whisper of love. A whispered
goodbye.

 "Rox?" he called.

 Goodbye my love. Be wary of the witch.

 Pepper got up and hurried through the door. He
didn't care what the nurse and doctor said. He had to
find out what was happening to his girl.

 He found out all too soon.

 She rested on the operating table, her legs down
from the stirrups, her lower body covered with white
towels that slowly turned dark red as he looked on.
Her face was pale beyond belief and she lay as still as a
fallen statue.

 "Is she dying?" Pepper cried and stepped into the
operating room.

 The doctor looked over at the nurse. "What is he
doing here?"

 "Come on, son," the nurse said, taking him by
the arm. "You cannot be in here. The doctor is work-
ing."

 Pepper shook her off and stepped forward. The
doctor wasn't working anymore. He had already given
up. He was covering Roxanne's face with a sheet now.
Pepper reached out and stopped him. He touched her
red hair, the side of her cold face. She lay on her back
with her eyes closed. Pepper leaned over and listened
at her lips for the faintest sound of breath. But he
couldn't even catch a whisper of life.

 "Oh, baby," he moaned and put his arms around
her, and hugged her, and kissed her. But she didn't
stir. "Oh, Rox, what have I done to you?"

 The doctor put his hand on Pepper's shoulder. "I'm
sorry, son," he said with feeling. "I don't know what
happened. She just started bleeding and I couldn't
stop it. I've never seen anything like it."

 Pepper stood up straight and looked at the man.
"She wanted to keep the baby, you know. I talked her
out of it."

 The doctor nodded. "I understand how that must
make you feel, but you couldn't have known this
would happen."

 Pepper thought of Betty Sue. How she had also died
after being with him. An unseen curse was at work
here, he thought. It would come for him next. He only
prayed it didn't wait long. He deserved to die. He
glanced one last time at Roxanne. She had been the
best thing that had ever happened to him.

 "Yes, I should have known," Pepper said.

 Pepper walked out of the operating room and left
the clinic. He got in Roxanne's car and drove home. It
was early, still pretty dark. He drove fast and didn't
see anyone on the highway until sunrise, when he
spotted a hitchhiker standing beside the road in the
middle of the desert. It was a young woman, with long
red hair and a black cape that reached to her feet. He
didn't want to stop for her. The loss of Roxanne lay
heavy on his heart, like a mountain of frozen lead. But
the girl was alone, and he feared she could be in
danger once the sun was in the sky and the tempera-
ture rose. He pulled the car over to the side of the
road. He watched as she collected a black bag at her
feet and slowly walked toward him.

 "Can I have a ride?" she asked, leaning in the open
passenger side window. She was attractive. Her red
hair shone like a torch and her green eyes danced as
she spoke. It was funny, he thought, she even looked
familiar, although he was sure he had never seen her
before. He would have remembered someone like her.
She smiled a mouth full of white teeth. "Please?"

 "Sure." He leaned over and opened the door for
her. She climbed in and set her black bag on the car
floor between her black boots. "Where are you head-
ing?" he asked.

 "Salem," she said.

 He put the car in gear and they rolled forward.
"That's where I'm from. I can give you a ride there, if
you'd like."

 "Oh, I'd like that very much."

 "How did you happen to be out here in the middle
of nowhere? Did your car break down?"

 "No." She giggled. "It caught fire. I was barely able
to get out alive."

 "That's a shame." He fought back a spasm of grief.
He was not going to cry in front of a complete
stranger. It was going to be hard having company right
now. He forced himself to offer his hand, and he had
to fight to keep it from shaking. "My name's Pepper."

 She squeezed his hand. Her touch was cool and
slimy. He assumed she had recently rubbed some kind
of lotion on her skin. "I'm Beetle," she said.

 He took his hand back quickly. "Is that a first name
or last?" Not that he cared.

 She grinned. "It's both." She opened her black bag
and began to take out an assortment of odds and ends.
She lay them on her lap: a cigarette, two bullet shells,
an open razor, and a stainless steel fork. Pepper
followed her actions out of the corner of his eye. She
picked up the fork and played with the metal prongs
with the tips of her fingers.

 "You know," she said. "I appreciate your giving me
this ride. I'd like to make it up to you somehow." She
paused and stretched her body into a more upright
position. "Could I cook you dinner tonight?"

 Pepper shook his head. He knew he wouldn't be
eating today, or tomorrow for that matter. He
couldn't imagine doing anything for the rest of his life
except thinking about Roxanne. What was he going to
tell her father?

 "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm busy."

 She nodded, then smiled, as if he had said yes
instead of no. Then she reached over and poked him
in the side with her fork. It hurt, and he jerked the
wheel and almost sent the car off the road.

 "Hey!" he said. "Stop that."

 "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. Then she was silent
for a moment, before saying, "Are you sure I can't talk
you into it?"

 He wished he hadn't picked her up. "I am quite
sure."

 She smiled again, unconcerned. Once more he was
struck by how familiar she looked. That brilliant red
hair-there was something he was missing here. He
was confident in time he would remember where he
had seen her before. He watched as she picked up her
things and put them back in her black bag.

 "And I am quite sure I will change your mind," she
said sweetly.

 They drove toward Salem.


           ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Christopher Pike was born in Brooklyn, New
York, but grew up in Los Angeles, where he lives to
this day. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked in a
factory, painted houses, and programmed computers.
His hobbies include astronomy, meditating, running,
playing with his nieces and nephews, and making sure
his books are prominently displayed in local book-
stores. He is the author of Last Act, Spellbound,
Gimme a Kiss, Remember Me, Scavenger Hunt, Final
Friends 1, 2, and 3, Fall into Darkness, See You Later,
Witch, Die Softly, Bury Me Deep, and Whisper of
Death, all available from Pocket Books. Slumber
Party, Weekend, Chain Letter, The Tachyon Web, and
Sati-an adult novel about a very unusual lady-are
also by Mr. Pike.