Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Haunted c 1998

2. The Vampire Shortstop c 1999

3. Skin c 1999

4. Dead Air c 1998

5. In the Heart of November

6. The Three-Dollar Corpse c 1998

7. Thirst c 1998

8. Do You Know Me Yet? c 1999

9. Homecoming c 1998

10. Kill Your Darlings c 1998

11. Metabolism c 1998

12. The Boy Who Saw Fire c 1998

13. Constitution c 1999

Afterwords c 2000

INTRODUCTION

How nice of you to come.

It would have been easy to stay away, to leave me where I lay. Yet you came, even though the moon is low and you really should be asleep, safe in your dreams of silk. You came even though your bones rattle with the chill.

I'm so glad you're here. Now we can have that little chat, lost in darkness with nothing between us. No more lying. No eye games, no distractions, no dreaded tomorrows or forlorn yesterdays to hide behind. Just you and me and words.

Trust me. Take my hand.

We're in this together, you and I, in this dance of dust and air.

We will walk in shadows, we will learn to breathe again, we will teach our hearts to beat. Because hope should never surrender, and love should never rest in peace. So let's go, all the way.

And then some.

Farther.

By the way, thank you for the flowers.

HAUNTED

“Do it again, Daddy.” Janie's coloring book was in her lap, forgotten. Darrell smiled and thumbed open the top on his Zippo lighter. He struck the flint wheel and the flame burst to life. The dancing fire reflected in each of Janie's pupils. Her mouth was open in fascination.

“It's pretty,” she said.

“And so are you. Now back to your coloring. It's almost bedtime.” Darrell flipped the silver metal lid closed, snuffing the orange flame.

Janie put the coloring book in front of her and rolled onto her stomach. She chose a crayon. Gray. Darrell frowned and placed the lighter by the ashtray.

Rita tensed in her chair beside him. She reached out with her thin hand and gripped his arm. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

Darrell listened. Janie was humming to herself. The wax of the crayon made a soft squeak across the paper. The clock on the mantel ticked once, again, three times, more. He tried to hear beyond those normal sounds. His hearing was shot. Too much Elvis, Rita always said. Too much Elvis would make anybody deaf.

“From the kitchen,” she said. “Or outside.”

Janie heard the same noise that Rita was hearing. She cocked her head, the crayon poised above the page. She stopped kicking her feet, the heels of her saddle shoes nearly touching her back.

“Mice, most likely,” he said, too loudly. He was head of the household. It was his job to put on a brave face. The expression fit him like a glass mask.

Why didn't the damned dog bark? Dogs were supposed to be sensitive to spirits from the other side. He put down the newspaper, paper crackling. Mayor Loeb and Martin Luther King looked out from the front page. Black and white.

“Terribly loud mice,” Rita finally answered. Darrell shot her a glance, then rolled his eyes toward Janie. Rita was usually careful in front of their daughter. But having those noisy things around had been stressful.

“Sounds like it's coming from the kitchen,” he said with what he hoped was nonchalance. He pulled his cigar from his mouth. He rarely smoked, and never inside the house. But they were a comfort, with their rich sweet smell and tangy taste and the round weight between his lips. He laid the cigar carefully beside his lighter, propping up the damp end on the ashtray so the dust wouldn't stick to it. The ashtray was shaped like a starfish. They'd gotten it on their honeymoon to Cuba, back when Americans were allowed to visit. He could still see the map of the island that had been painted on the bottom of the glass.

Darrell stood, his recliner groaning in relief. He looked down at the hollow impression in the woven seat of the chair. Too much food. Too much food, and too much Elvis.

Can't go back. Can't get younger. Can't change things. He shook his head at nothing.

“Don't bother, honey. The mice won't hurt anything.” Rita chewed at the red end of her index finger.

“Well, we can't let them have the run of the house.” It was their secret code, worked out over the long sleepless night. Janie didn't need to know. She was too young to understand. But the things were beyond anybody's understanding, no matter what age a person was.

Darrell glanced at the big boxy RCA that cast a flickering shadow from one corner of the room. They usually watched with the sound turned down. Barney Fife was saying something to Andy, his Adam's apple twitching up and down like a turkey's.

“Get me a soda while you're up?” Rita asked. Trying to pretend everything was normal.

“Sure. Anything for you, pumpkin?”

Janie shook her head. He wished she would go back to coloring. Her eyes were wide now, waiting. He was supposed to protect her from worries.

She put the gray crayon back in the box. Fifteen other colors, and she almost always used gray. Freud would probably have made something of that. Darrell hoped she would select a blue, even a red, something vibrant and found in rainbows. His heart tightened as she chose black. He walked past her and turned up the sound on the television. Beginning to whistle, he headed across the living room. No tune came to mind. He forced a few in-between notes and the music jumped track somewhere in his throat. He began again, with “I See the Moon.” Janie's favorite. Where was that dog? Always underfoot when Darrell went through the house, but now nowhere to be found. Nothing like this ever happened back in Illinois. Only in Tennessee. He was in the hall when he heard Aunt Bea's aria from the living room: “An-deeeee!”

They used to watch “The Outer Limits,” sometimes “The Twilight Zone.” Never again. They got too much of that sort of thing in real life. Now it was nothing but safe, family fare. Darrell eased past the closet. His golf clubs were in there, the three-wood chipped where he'd used it to drive a nail into the kitchen drawer that was always coming apart. Cobwebs probably were stretched between the irons. Par for the course, these days.

He stopped outside the kitchen. A bright rectangle of light spilled into the hallway. Mice were supposed to be scared of house lights. Well, maybe mice were, but those things weren't. Then why did they only come at night?

There was a smudge of fingerprints on the doorway casing. Purple. Small. Grape jelly. He tried to yawn, but his breath hitched. He checked the thermostat, even though it was early autumn and the temperature was fairly constant. He looked around for another excuse for delay, but found none. The kitchen floor was off-white linoleum, in a Pollock sort of pattern that disguised scuffs and stains. Mice would find nothing on this floor.

The Formica counters were clean, too. Three soiled plates were stacked in the sink. He didn't blame Rita for avoiding the chore. No one wanted to be alone in the kitchen, especially after dinner when the sun had gone down.

A broom leaned against the little door that hid the folding-out ironing board. He wrapped his hands around the smooth wood. Maybe he could sweep them away, as if they were dust balls. Darrell crossed the kitchen slowly, the broom held across his chest. As he crouched, he felt the bulge of his belly lapping over his belt. Both he and his crosstown hero were packing on the weight in these later years.

Where was that dog? A few black-and-white clumps of hair stuck to the welcome mat at the back door. That dog shed so much, Darrell wouldn't be surprised if it was invisible by now. But the mess was forgivable, if only the mutt would show up. A good bark would scare those things away. He parted the curtain on the back door. The grass in the yard had gotten tall and was a little ragged. George next door would be tut-tutting to his wife. But George was retired, he had nothing on his mind but lawn fertilizer. There was a joke in there somewhere, but Darrell wasn't in the mood to dig it up. A little bit of wind played in the laurel hedge, strong enough to make the seat of Janie's swing set ease back and forth. Of course it was the wind. What would those things want with a swing set? The set's metal poles were flecked with rust. He didn't remember that happening. Gradual changes weren't as noticeable, he supposed.

In the dim light, the world looked colorless. Nothing else stirred. If they were out there, they were hiding. He almost expected to hear some corny organ music like they played on the “Inner Sanctum”

radio program.

He was about to drop the curtain and get Rita's soda, and maybe a beer for himself, when he saw movement. Two shapes, wispy and pale in the faded wash of the backyard. Trick of the moonlight. Yeah. Had to be. They didn't exist, did they?

He looked forward to the beer bubbling in his throat. The bitter sweetness wasn't as crisp as it used to be back when he was young. Maybe everything got flatter and less vivid as a person got older. Senses dulled by time and timelessness.

The big General Electric was nearly empty. The celery had wilted. Something on the middle wire shelf had separated into layers. He didn't dare open the Tupperware container to see what was inside. A half-dozen eggs roosted in their scooped-out places. One had a hairline crack, and a clear jewel of fluid glistened under the fluorescent light.

He fished out the drinks and closed the door. There was a hiss as the motor kicked in and sucked the seals tight. A fluff of lint shot from the grill at the base of the appliance. The drinks chilled his palms. Sensation. He pressed a can to his forehead. Great way to cure a headache. Too bad he didn't have one.

He went back to the living room. Janie was still coloring, the tip of her tongue pressed just so against the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were half-closed, the curl of her lashes making Darrell's heart ache. He sat down.

Darrell gave Rita the soda, then pulled the tab on his beer. The can opened with a weak, wet sigh. He took a sip. Flat.

“See any mice?” Rita asked, trying to smile.

“Not a single Mickey Mouse in the place. Saw a Donald Duck, though.”

Janie giggled, her shoulders shaking a little. Her ponytail had fallen against one cheek. Darrell hated lying. But it wasn't really a lie, was it? The lie was so white, it was practically see-through. He settled back in his chair. The newspaper had slipped to the floor and opened to page seven, where the real news was located. More stuff on Johnson's mess in Viet Nam. Right now, he had no interest in the world beyond. He looked at the television.

Gomer was doing something stupid, and his proud idiot grin threatened to split his head in half. Barney was waving his arms in gangly hysterics. Andy stood there with his hands in his pockets. Television was black-and-white, just like life. But in television, you had “problem,” then “problem solved.” Sprinkle in some canned laughter along the way. In life, there were no solutions and not much laughter.

He took another sip of beer. “You want to visit your folks again this weekend?”

Rita had gulped half her soda in her nervousness. “Can we afford it?”

Could they afford not to? Every minute away from the house was a good minute. He wished they could move. He had thought about putting the house up for sale, but the market was glutted. The racial tension had even touched the midtown area, and middle-class whites didn't want to bring their families to the South. Besides, who would want to buy a haunted house?

And if they did manage to sell the house, where would they go? Shoe store managers weren't exactly in high demand. And he didn't want Rita to work until Janie started school. So they'd just have to ride it out for another year or so. Seemed like they'd been riding it out forever. He put down the beer and jabbed the cigar in his mouth. “Maybe your folks are getting tired of us,” he said around the rolled leaf. “How about a trip to the mountains? We can get a little cabin, maybe out next to a lake.” He thought of his fishing rod, leaning against his golf bag somewhere in the lost black of the closet.

“Out in the middle of nowhere?” Rita's voice rose a half-step too high. Janie noticed and stopped scribbling.

“We could get a boat.”

“I'll call around,” Rita said. “Tomorrow.”

Darrell looked at the bookcase on the wall. He'd been meaning to read so many of those books. He wasn't in the mood to spend a few hours with one. Even though he had all the time in the world. He picked up the Zippo and absently thumbed the flame to life. Janie heard the lid open and looked up. Pretty colors. Orange, yellow, blue. He doused the flame, thumbed it to life once more, then closed the lighter and put it back on the table.

Rita pretended to watch television. Darrell looked from her face to the screen. The news was on, footage of the sanitation workers’ strike. The reporter's voice-over was bassy and bland.

“Do you think it's serious?” Rita asked, with double meaning.

“A bunch of garbage.” The joke fell flat. Darrell went to the RCA and turned down the volume. Silence crowded the air.

Janie stopped coloring, lifted her head and cocked it to one side. “I heard something.”

Her lips pursed. A child shouldn't suffer such worry. He waited for a pang of guilt to sear his chest. But the guilt was hollow, dead inside him.

“I think it's time a little girl went beddy-bye,” he said. Rita was standing before he even finished his sentence.

“Aw, do I have to?” Janie protested half-heartedly.

“Afraid so, pumpkin.”

“I'll go get the bed ready, then you can come up and get brushed and washed,” Rita said, heading too fast for the stairs.

“And Daddy tells the bedtime story?” Janie asked.

Darrell smiled. Rita was a wonderful mother. He couldn't imagine a better partner. But when it came to telling stories, there was only one king. “Sure,” he said. “Now gather your crayons.”

The promise of a story got Janie in gear. Darrell heard Rita's slippered feet on the stairs. Her soles were worn. He'd have to get her a new pair down at the store.

He froze, the hairs on his neck stiffening.

There.

That sound again.

The not-mice.

Where was that damn dog?

He got to his feet, stomach clenched. Janie was preoccupied with her chore. He walked to the back door and parted the curtain, wondering if Rita had heard and was now looking out from the upstairs window.

The moon was fuller, brighter, more robust. Why did they only come at night?

Maybe they had rules. Which was stupid. They broke every natural law just in the act of existing. There, by the laurel at the edge of the backyard. Two shapes, shimmering, surreal, a bit washed out. He opened the door, hoping to scare them away. That was a hoot. Him scaring them. But he had to try, for Janie's and Rita's sake.

“What do you want?” he said, trying to keep his voice level. Could they understand him? Or did they speak a different language in that other world?

The shapes moved toward him, awkwardly. A bubbling sound flooded the backyard, like pockets of air escaping from water. One of the shapes raised a nebulous arm. The motion was jerky, like in an old silent film.

Darrell stepped off the porch. Maybe if he took a stand here, they would take what they wanted and leave his family alone.

“There's nothing for you here,” he said. “Why don't you go back where you came from?”

A sudden rage flared through him, filling his abdomen with heat. These were the things that bothered Janie, that made Rita worry, that was the fountain of his own constant guilt. These things had no right to intrude on their space, their lives, their reality.

“I don't believe in you,” he shouted, no longer caring if he woke Neighbor George. If only the dog would bark, maybe that would drive them away.

The bubbling sound came again. The spooks were closer now, and he could see they were shaped like humans. Noises from their heads collected and hung in the air. The wind lifted, changed direction. The noises blew together, thickened and became words.

Darrell's language.

“There's where it happened.”

A kid. Sounded like early teens. Did their kind age, or were they stuck in the same moment forever?

Darrell opened his mouth, but didn't speak. More words came from the world of beyond, words that were somnambulant and sonorous.

“Gives me the creeps, man.” Another young one.

“Three of them died when it burned down.”

“Freaky. Maybe some of the bones are still there.”

“They say only the dog got away.”

“Must have been a long time ago.”

“Almost thirty years.”

“Nothing but a chimney left, and a few black bricks. You'd think something would grow back. Trees and stuff.” A silence. Darrell's heart beat, again, three times, more.

“It's supposed to be haunted,” said the first.

“Bullshit.”

“Go out and touch it, then.”

“No way.”

A fire flashed in front of one of the shapes, then a slow curl of smoke wafted across the moonlit yard. The end of a cigarette glowed. Smoke. Spirit. Smoke. Spirit. Both insubstantial. Darrell walked down the back steps, wondering how he could make them go away. A cross? A Bible?

A big stick?

“I only come here at night,” said the one inhaling the fire.

“Place gives me the creeps.”

“It's cool, man.”

“I don't like it.” The shape drifted back, away from the house, away from Darrell's approach.

“Chicken.”

The shape turned and fled.

“Chicken,” repeated the first, louder, sending a puff of gray smoke into the air. Darrell glanced up at Janie's bedroom window. She would be in her pajamas now, the covers up to her chin, a picture book across her tummy. The pages opened to a story that began “Once upon a time...”

Darrell kept walking, nearing the ghost of shifting smoke and fire. He was driven by his anger now, an anger that drowned the fear. The thing didn't belong in their world. Everything about them was wrong. Their bad light, their voices, their unreal movement.

He reached out, clutching for the thing's throat. His hands passed through the flame without burning, then through the shape without touching. But the shape froze, shuddered, then turned and fled back to its world of beyond.

Darrell watched the laurels for a moment, making sure the thing was gone. They would come back. They always did. But tonight he had won. A sweat of tension dried in the gentle breeze. He went inside and closed the door. He was trembling. But he had a right to feel violated, outraged. He hadn't invited the things to his house.

He had calmed down a little by the time he reached the living room. A Spencer Tracy movie was on the television. The glow from the screen flickered on the walls like green firelight. Rita was in her chair, blinking too rapidly. “Was it...?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Darrell, what are we going to do?”

“What can we do?”

“Move.”

He sighed. “We can't afford to right now. Maybe next year.”

He sat down heavily and took a sip of his beer. It was still flat.

“What do we tell Janie?”

“Nothing for now. It's just mice, remember?”

He wished the dog were here, so he could stroke it behind the ears. He thought of those words from beyond, and how they said something about the dog getting out. Getting out of what?

He reached for his cigar and stuck it in his mouth. After a moment, he said, “Maybe if we stop believing in them, they'll go away.”

The clock ticked on the mantel.

“I can't,” Rita said.

“Neither can I.”

The clock ticked some more.

“She's waiting.”

“I know.”

Darrell leaned his cigar carefully against the ashtray. He noticed his lighter was missing. He shrugged and went upstairs to read Janie her story. He wondered if tonight the ending would be the same as always. THE VAMPIRE SHORTSTOP

Jerry Shepherd showed up at first practice alone.

I mean, showed , as if he'd just popped into thin air at the edge of the woods that bordered Sawyer Field. Most kids, they come to first practice book-ended by their parents, who glower like Mafia heavies willing to break your kneecaps if their kid rides the pine for so much as an inning. So in a way, it was a relief to see Jerry materialize like that, with no threat implied.

But in another way, he made me nervous. Every year us Little League coaches get handed two or three players who either recently moved to the area or were given their release (yeah, we're that serious here) by their former teams. And if there's one thing that's just about universal, it's the fact that these Johnny-come-latelies couldn't hit their way out of a paper bag. So I figured, here's this spooky kid standing there at the fence, just chewing on his glove, real scared-like, so at least there's one brat who's not going to be squealing for playing time.

I figured him for a vampire right off. He had that pale complexion, the color of a brand new baseball before the outfield grass scuffs up the horsehide. But, hey, these are enlightened times, everybody's cool with everybody, especially since “Transylvania” Wayne Kazloski broke the major league undead barrier back in ‘29. And that old myth about vampires melting in the sun is just that, an old myth. The league powers figured I wouldn't raise a fuss if they dumped an undesirable on me. I had eleven kids on the roster, only five of them holdovers from the year before, so I was starting from scratch anyway. I didn't mind a new face, even if I was pretty much guaranteed that the vampire kid had two left feet. Coming off a three-and-thirteen season, the Maynard Solar Red Sox didn't have any great expectations to live up to.

All the other players had clustered around me as if I were giving out tickets to see a rock band, but Jerry just hung out around first base like a slow-thawing cryogenic.

“I'm Coach Ruttlemyer,” I said, loudly enough to reach Jerry's pointy ears. “Some of you guys know each other and some of you don't. But on my team, it's not who you know that counts, it's how hard you play.”

At this point in the first preseason speech, you always catch some kid with a finger in his or her nose. That year, it was a sweet-faced, red-headed girl. She had, at that moment, banished herself to right field.

“Now, everybody's going to play in every game,” I said. “We're here to have fun, not just to win.”

The kids looked at me like they didn't buy that line of bull. I barely believed it myself. But I always said it extra-loud so that the parents could hear. It gave me something to fall back on at the end of a lousy season.

“We're going to be practicing hard because we only have two weeks before the first game,” I said, pulling the bill of my cap down low over my eyes so they could see what a serious guy I was. “Now let's see who's who.”

I went down the roster alphabetically, calling out each player's name. When the kid answered “Here,” I glanced first at the kid, then up into the bleachers to see which parents were grinning and straining their necks. That's a good way to tell right off who's going to want their kid to pitch: the beefy, red-faced dad wearing sunglasses and too-tight polyester shorts, and the mom who's busy organizing which parent is bringing what snack for which game.

When I called out Jerry's name, he croaked out a weak syllable and grimaced, showing the tips of his fangs. I waved him over to join the rest of the team. He tucked his glove in his armpit and jogged to the end of the line. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to trip over the baseline chalk. But he didn't stumble once, and that's when I got my first glimmer of hope that maybe he'd be able to swipe a couple of bases for me. He was gaunt, which means that if he's clumsy you call him “gangly,” but if he's well-coordinated you call him “sleek.” So maybe we're not as enlightened as we claim to be, but hey, we're making progress.

I liked to start first practice by having the kids get on the infield dirt and snag some grounders. You can tell just about everything you need to know about a player that way. And I don't mean just gloving the ball and pegging it over to first. I mean footwork, hand-eye, hustle, aggressiveness, vision, all those little extras that separate the cellar-dwellers from the also-rans from the team that takes home the Sawyer Cup at the end of the season. And it's not just the way they act when it's their turn; you get a lot of clues by how they back each other up, whether they sit down between turns, whether they punch each other on the arm or hunt for four-leaf clovers.

By the first run through, ten ground balls had skittered through to the deep grass in center field. But one, one , made up for all those errors. Jerry Shepherd's grounder. He skimmed the ball off the dirt and whizzed it over to first as if the ball were a yo-yo and he held the string. My assistant coach and darling wife Dana grinned at me when the ball thwacked into her mitt. I winked at her, hoping the play wasn't a fluke.

But it was no fluke. Six turns through, and six perfect scoops and tosses by Jerry Shepherd. Some of the other kids were fifty-fifty risks, and one, you'd have guessed the poor little kid had the glove on the wrong hand. You know the kind, parents probably raised him on computer chess and wheat bran. Oops, there I go again, acting all unenlightened.

Another bright spot was Elise Stewart, my best returning player. She only made the one error on her first turn, and I could chalk that up to a long winter's layoff. She was not only sure-handed, she was also the kind of girl you'd want your son to date in high school. She had a happy heart and you just knew she'd be good at algebra.

All in all, I was pleased with the personnel. In fifteen years of coaching Little League, this was probably the best crop of raw talent that I'd ever had. Now, I wasn't quite having delusions of being hauled out of the dugout on these guys’ shoulders (me crushing their bones and hoisting the Sawyer Cup over my head), but with a little work, we had a chance at a winning season. I made a boy named Biff put on the catcher's gear and get behind the plate. In baseball films, the chunky kid always plays catcher, but if you've ever watched even one inning of a real Little League game, you know the catcher needs to be quick. He spends all his time against the backstop, stumbling over his mask and jerking his head around looking for the baseball. Besides, Biff had a great name for a catcher, and what more could you ask for?

I threw batting practice, and again each kid had a turn while the others fanned out across the diamond. I didn't worry as much about hitting as I did fielding, because I knew hitting was mostly a matter of practice and concentration. It was a skill that could be taught. So I kind of expected the team to be a little slow with the bat, and they didn't disappoint me.

Except when Jerry dug into the batter's box. He stared at me with his pupils glinting red under the brim of his batting helmet, just daring me to bring the heat. I chuckled to myself. I liked this kid's cockiness at the plate. But I used to be a decent scholarship prospect, and I still had a little of the old vanity myself. So instead of lobbing a cream puff, I kicked up my leg and brought the Ruttlemyer Express. His line drive would have parted my hair, except for two things: I was wearing a cap and my hairline barely reached above my ears. But I felt the heat off his scorcher all the same, and it whistled like a bullet from a gun. I picked up the rosin bag and tossed it in the air a few times. Some of the parents had stopped talking among themselves and watched the confrontation.

Jerry dug in and Biff gave me a target painting the black on the inside corner. I snapped off a two-seamer curveball, hoping the poor batter didn't break his spine when he lunged at the dipping pitch. But Jerry kept his hips square, then twisted his wrists and roped the ball to right field for what would have been a stand-up double. I'd never seen a Little Leaguer who could go with a pitch like that. I tossed him a knuckleball, and most grown-ups couldn't have hit it with a tennis racket, but Jerry drilled it over the fence in left-center.

Okay. Okay.

He did miss one pitch and hit a couple of fouls during his turn. I guess even vampires are only human. After practice, I passed out uniforms and schedules and talked to the parents. I was hoping to tell Jerry what a good job he'd done and how I'd be counting on him to be a team leader, but he snatched up his goods and left before I had the chance. He got to the edge of the woods, then turned into a bat (the flying kind, not the kind you hit with) and flitted into the trees, his red jersey dangling from one of his little claws. His glove weighed him down a little and he was blind, of course, so he bumped into a couple of tree limbs before he got out of sight.

And so went the two weeks. Jerry was a natural shortstop, even the other kids saw that. Usually, everybody wanted to pitch and play shortstop (both positions at the same time, you know), but nobody grumbled when I said Jerry would be our starting shortstop. Elise was starting pitcher, and Wheat Bran and the redhead were “designated pinch hitters.” I told everybody to get a good night's sleep, because we would be taking on the Piedmont Electric Half-Watts, which was always one of the better teams. I could hardly sleep that night, I was so excited. Dana rolled over at about one A.M. and stole her pillow back.

“What's wrong?” she grunted.

“The game,” I said. I was running through lineups in my mind, planning strategies for situations that might arise in the sixth inning.

“Go to sleep. Deadline's tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I was editor of the Sawyer Creek E-Weekly, and Thursday noon was press time. I still had some unfinished articles. “That's just my job, but baseball is my lifeblood.”

Thinking of lifeblood made me think of Jerry. The poor kid must have lost his parents. Back a few centuries ago, there had been a lot of purging and staking and garlic-baiting. Yeah, like I said, we're making progress, but sometimes I wonder if you can ever really change the human animal. I hoped nothing would come up about his being a vampire.

I knew how cruel Little League could be. Not the kids. They could play and play and play, making up rules as they went along, working things out. No, it was the parents who sometimes made things ugly, who threw tantrums and called names and threatened coaches. I'd heard parents boo their own kids. In one respect, I was glad Jerry was an orphan. At least I didn't have to worry about his parents changing into wolves, leaping over the chain-link fence, and ripping my throat out over a bad managerial decision. Not that vampires perpetrated that sort of violence. Still, all myths contain a kernel of truth, and even a myth can make you shiver.

I finally went to sleep, woke up and got the paper online. I drove out to the ballfield and there were four dozens vehicles in the parking lot. There's not much entertainment in Sawyer Creek. Like I said, Little League's a big deal in these parts, plus it was a beautiful April day, with the clouds all puffy and soft in the blue sky. Dana was already there, passing out baseballs so the kids could warm up. I looked around and noticed Jerry hadn't arrived.

“He'll be here,” Dana said, reading my nervousness.

We took infield and I was filling out the lineup card when Elise pointed to center field. “Hey, looky there, Coach,” she said.

Over the fence loped a big black dog, with red socks and white pin-striped pants. Propped between the two stiff ears was a cockeyed cap. The upraised tail whipped back and forth in the breeze, a worn glove hooked over its tip. The dog transformed into Jerry when it got to second base. A murmur rippled through the crowd. I felt sorry for Jerry then. The world may be enlightened, but the light's a little slower in reaching Sawyer Creek than it is most places. There are always a few bigots around. Red, yellow, black, and white, we had all gotten along and interbred and become one race. But when you get down to the equality of the living and the living dead, some people just don't take to that notion of unity as easily.

And there was something else that set the crowd on edge, and even bothered me for a second. Hanging by a strap around his neck was one of those sports bottles all the kids have these days. Most of the kids put in juice or Super-Ade or something advertised by their favorite big leaguers. But Jerry's drink was thick and blood-red. Perfectly blood-red.

“Sorry I'm late,” he said, sitting down on the end of the bench. I winced as he squirted some of the contents of the sports bottle into his throat.

“Play ball,” the umpire yelled, and Elise went up to the plate and led off with a clean single to right. The next kid bunted her over, then Jerry got up. The first pitch bounced halfway to home plate and Elise stole third. Dana, who was coaching third base, gave her the “hold” sign. I wanted to give Jerry a chance to drive her in.

The next pitch was a little high, but Jerry reached out easily with the bat. The ball dinged off the titanium into center and we were up, one to nothing. And that was the final score, with Elise pitching a three-hitter and Jerry taking away a handful of hits from deep in the hole. Jerry walked once and hit another double, but Wheat Bran struck out to leave him stranded in the fifth.

Still, I was pleased with the team effort, and a “W” is a “W,” no matter how you get it. The kids gathered around the snack cooler after the game, all happy and noisy and ready to play soccer or something. But not Jerry. He had slipped away before I could pat him on the back.

“Ain't no fair, you playing a slanty-eyed vampire,” came a gruff voice behind me. “Next thing you know, they'll allow droids and other such trash to mix in. Baseball's supposed to be for normal folks.”

I turned to find myself face-to-face with Roscoe Turnbull. Sawyer Creek's Mister Baseball. Coach of the reigning champs for the past seven years. He'd been watching from the stands, scouting the opposition the way he always did.

“Hey, he's got just as much right to play as anybody,” I said. “I know you're not big on reading, but someday you ought to pick up the U.S. Constitution and check out the 43rd Amendment.”

The Red Sox had never beaten one of Turnbull's teams, but at least I could be smug in my intellectual superiority.

“Big words don't mean nothing when they're giving out the Sawyer Cup,” Turnbull hissed through his Yogi Berra teeth. He had a point. He'd had to build an addition onto his house just so he could store all the hardware his teams had won.

“We'll see,” I said, something I never would have dared to say in previous years. Turnbull grunted and got in his panel truck. His son Ted was in the passenger seat, wearing the family scowl. I waved to him and went back to my team.

We won the next five games. Jerry was batting something like .900 and had made only one error, which occurred when a stray moth bobbed around his head in the infield. He'd snatched it out of the air with his mouth at the same moment the batter sent a three-hopper his way. I didn't say anything. I mean, instincts are instincts. Plus, we were winning, and that was all that mattered. The seventh game was trouble. I'd been dreading that line on the schedule ever since I realized that my best player was a vampire. Maynard Solar Red Sox versus The Dead Reckoning Funeral Parlor Pall Bearers. Now, no self-respecting parlors were selling the blood that they drained. But there had been rumors of underground activity, a black market for blood supplies.

And Jerry had slowly been catching the heat, anyway. The grumbles from the stands had gotten louder, and whenever Jerry got up to bat or made a play in the field, some remark would come from the opposing bleachers. Oh, they were the usual unimaginative kind, like the old “Kill the vampire,” the play on the resemblance between the words “vampire” and “umpire.” The other common one was “Vampires suck.” And these were the parents, mind you. They wonder where kids get it from. The cruelest one, and the one that caught on the fastest, came from the unlikely mouth of Roscoe Turnbull, who'd made a habit of bringing his son Ted to our games just so they could ride Jerry's case. Jerry had launched a three-run homer to win in the last inning of one of our games. As he crossed the plate, Turnbull yelled out, “Hey, look, everybody. It's the Unnatural.” You know, a play on the old Robert Redford film. Even I had to grudgingly admit that was a good one. Now we were playing a funeral parlor and I didn't know where Jerry got his blood. I usually didn't make it my business to keep up with how the kids lived their lives off the diamond. But Jerry didn't have any parents, any guidance. Maybe he could be bribed to throw a game if the enticements were right. So I was worried when Jerry came to bat in the sixth with two outs. We were down, four-three. Biff was on second. It was a situation where there was really no coaching strategy. Jerry either got a hit or made an out.

He had made hits in his three previous trips, but those were all in meaningless situations. I couldn't tell if he was setting us up to lose. Until that moment.

“Come on, Jerry,” I yelled, clapping my hands. “I know you can do it.”

If you want to, I silently added.

Jerry took two strikes over the heart of the plate. The bat never left his shoulder. All my secret little fantasies of an undefeated season were about to go up in smoke. I started mentally rehearsing my after-game speech, about how we gave it all we had, we'll get ’em next time, blah blah blah. The beanpole on the mound kicked up his leg and brought the cheese. Jerry laced it off the fence in right-center. Dana waved Biff around to score, and Jerry was rounding second. I didn't know whether I hoped Dana would motion him to try for third, because Wheat Bran was due up next, and he'd yet to hit even a foul tip all season. But the issue was decided when their shortstop, the undertaker's kid, rifled the relay throw over the third basemen's head as Jerry pounded down the basepath. We won, five-four.

“I never doubted you guys for a second,” I told the team afterward, but of course Jerry had already pulled his disappearing act.

Dana was blunt at dinner as I served up some tastiwhiz and fauxburger. I'd popped a cork on some decent wine to celebrate.

“Steve, I think you're beginning to like winning just a little too much,” she said, ever the concerned wife. I grinned around a mouthful of food. “It gets in your blood,” I said. “Can't help it.”

“What about all those seasons you told the kids to just give it their best, back when you were plenty satisfied if everyone only showed a little improvement over the course of the season?”

“Back when I was just trying to build their self-esteem? Well, nothing builds character like winning. The little guys are practically exploding with character.”

“I wish you were doing more for Jerry,” she said. “He still doesn't act like part of the team. And the way he looks at you, like he wants you for a father figure. I think he's down on himself.”

“Down on himself? Down on himself?” I almost sprayed my mouthful of wine across the table, and that stuff was ten bucks a bottle. I gulped and continued. “I could trade him for an entire team if I wanted. He's the best player to come out of Sawyer Creek since—”

“—since Roscoe Turnbull. And you see how he ended up.”

I didn't like where this discussion was headed. “I'm sure Jerry's proud of his play. And the team likes him.”

“Only because the team's winning. But I wonder how they would have reacted, how their parents would have reacted, if Jerry had struck out that last time today? I mean, nobody's exactly inviting him for sleep-overs as it is.”

“He's just quiet. A lone wolf. Nothing wrong with that,” I said, a little unsure of myself.

“Nothing wrong with vampires as long as they hit .921, is that what you mean?”

“Hey, we're winning, and that's what counts.”

“I don't know,” Dana said, shaking her pretty and sad head. “You're even starting to sound like Roscoe Turnbull.”

That killed my mood, all right. That killed my mood for a lot of things around the house for a while. Lying in bed that night with a frigid three feet between us, I stared out the window at the full moon. A shape fluttered across it, a small lonely speck lost in that great circle of white. It most likely wasn't Jerry, but I felt an ache in my heart for him all the same.

At practice, I sometimes noticed the players whispering to each other while Jerry was at bat. I don't think for a minute that children are born evil. But they have parents who teach and guide them. Parents who were brought up on the same whispered myths.

I tried to be friendly toward Jerry, and kept turning my head so I could catch the look from him that Dana had described. But all I saw were a pair of bright eyes that could pierce the back of a person's skull if they wanted. Truth be told, he did give me the creeps, a little. And I could always pretend my philosophy was to show no favoritism, despite Dana's urging me to reach out to him. Dana was a loyal assistant regardless of our difference of opinion. She helped co-pilot the Red Sox through the next eight victories. Jerry continued to tear up the league's pitching and played shortstop like a strip of flypaper, even though he was booed constantly. Elise pitched well and the rest of the kids were coming along, improving every game. I was almost sad when we got to the last game. I didn't want the season to end.

Naturally, we had to play the Turnbull Construction Claw Hammers for the championship. They'd gone undefeated in their division again. Ted had a fastball that could shatter a brick. And Roscoe Turnbull started scouting his draft picks while they were still in kindergarten, so he had the market cornered on talent.

I was so nervous I couldn't eat the day of the game. I got to the field early, while the caretaker was still trimming the outfield. Turnbull was there, too. He was in the home team's dugout shaving down a wooden bat. Wooden bats weren't even used in the majors anymore. Turnbull could afford lithium compound bats. That's when I first started getting suspicious.

“I'm looking forward to the big game,” Turnbull said, showing the gaps between his front teeth.

“Me, too,” I said, determined not to show that I cared. “And may the best team win.”

“What do you mean? The best team always wins.”

I didn't like the way he was running that woodshaver down the bat handle.

“You getting all nostalgic?” I asked, tremblingly nonchalant. “Going back to wood?”

“Good enough for my daddy. And my great-great-grandpaw on my mother's side. Maybe you heard of him. Tyrus Cobb.”

The Hall-of-Famer. The Georgia Peach. The greatest hitter in any league, ever. Or the dirtiest player ever to set foot on a diamond, depending on whom you asked.

“Yeah, I've heard of him,” I said. “That's quite a bloodline.”

“Well, we've always managed to win without no low-down, stinking vampires on our team.”

“Jerry Shepherd deserves to play as much as any other boy or girl.”

“It ain't right. Here this—” he made a spitting face—" creature has all these advantages like being able to change into an animal or throw the hocus-pocus on other players.”

“You know that's against the rules. We'd be disqualified if he tried something like that. There's no advantage.”

“It's only against the rules if you get caught.” Turnbull held the tip of the bat up in the air. It was whittled to a fine, menacing point. “And sometimes, you got to make your advantages.”

“Even you wouldn't stoop that low,” I said. “Not just to win a game.”

A thin stream of saliva shot from his mouth and landed on the infield dirt. He smiled again, the ugliest smile imaginable. “Gotta keep a little something on deck, just in case.”

I shuddered and walked back to my dugout. Turnbull wasn't that bloodthirsty. He was just trying to gain a psychological edge. Sure, that was all.

Psychological edges work if you let them, so I spent the next fifteen minutes picking rocks from the infield. The kids were starting to arrive by then, so I watched them warm up. Jerry was late, as usual, but he walked out of the woods just as I was writing his name into the lineup. I nodded at him without speaking.

We batted first. Ted was starting for the Claw Hammers, of course. He was the kind of pitcher who would throw a brushback pitch at his own grandmother, if he thought she were digging in on him. He stood on the mound and practiced his battle glare, then whipped the ball into the catcher's mitt. I had to admit, the goon sure knew how to bring it to the plate.

Half the town had turned out. The championship game always drew better than the town elections. Dana patted me on the back. She wasn't one to hold a grudge when times were tough.

“Play ball,” the umpire shouted, and we did.

Elise strode confidently to the plate.

“Go after her, Tedder,” Turnbull shouted through his cupped hands from the other dugout. “You can do it, big guy.”

The first pitch missed her helmet by three inches. She dusted herself off and stood deeper in the batter's box. The next pitch made her dance. Ball two. But she was getting a little shaky. No one likes being used for target practice. The next pitch hit her bat as she ducked away. Foul, strike one. Elise was trembling now. I hated the strategy they were using, but unfortunately it was working. The umpire didn't say a word.

“Attaboy,” Turnbull yelled. “Now go in for the kill.”

Ted whizzed two more strikes past her while she was still off-balance. Biff grounded out weakly to second. Jerry went up to the plate and dug in. Ted's next offering hit Jerry flush in the face. Jerry went down like a shot. I ran up to him and knelt in the dirt, expecting to see broken teeth and blood and worse. But Jerry's eyes snapped open. Another myth about vampires is that they don't feel pain. There are other kinds of pain besides the physical, though, and I saw them in Jerry's red irises. He could hear the crowd cheering as clearly as I could.

“Kill the vampire,” one parent said.

“Stick a stake in him,” another shouted.

“The Unnatural strikes again,” a woman yelled.

I looked into the home team's dugout and saw Turnbull beaming as if he'd just won a trip to Alpha Centauri.

I helped Jerry up and he jogged to first base. I could see a flush of pink on the back of the usually-pale neck. I wondered whether the color was due to rage or embarrassment. I had Dana give him the “steal”

sign, but the redhead popped up to the catcher on the next pitch.

We held them scoreless in their half, despite Ted's getting a triple. My heart was pounding like a kid's toy drum on Xmas Day, but I couldn't let the players know I cared one way or the other. When we got that third out, I calmly gave the kids high fives as they came off the field. Sure, this was just another game like the Mona Lisa was just another painting.

So it went for another couple of innings, with no runners getting past second. Jerry got beaned on the helmet his next trip up. The crowd was cheering like mad as he fell. I looked out at the mob sitting in the bleachers, and the scariest thing was that it wasn't just our opponent's fans who were applauding. There was the sheriff, pumping her fist in the air. The mayor looked around secretively, checked the majority opinion, then added his jeers to the din. Biff's mother almost wriggled out of her tanktop, she was screaming so enthusiastically. A little old lady in the front row was bellowing death threats through her megaphone.

I protested the beaning to the umpire. He was a plump guy, his face melted by gravity. He looked like he'd umpired back before the days of protective masks and had taken a few foul tips to the nose.

“You've got to warn the pitcher against throwing at my players,” I said.

“Can't hurt a vampire, so what's the point?” the umpire snarled, spitting brown juice towards my shoes. So that was how it was going to be.

“Then you should throw the pitcher out of the game because of poor sportsmanship.”

“And I ought to throw you out for delay of game.” He yanked the mask back over his face, which was a great improvement on his looks.

I squeezed Jerry's shoulder and looked him fully in the eyes for the first time since I'd known him. Maybe I'd been afraid he would mesmerize me.

“Jerry, I'm going to put in a pinch-runner for you,” I said. “It's not fair for you to put up with this kind of treatment.”

I'd said the words that practically guaranteed losing the game, but I wasn't thinking about that then. The decision was made on instinct, and instinct is always truer and more revealing than a rationalizing mind. Later on, that thought gave me my only comfort.

I signaled Dana to send in a replacement. But Jerry's eyes blazed like hot embers and his face contorted into various animal faces: wolf, bat, tiger, wolverine, then settled back into its usual wan constitution.

“No,” he said. “I'm staying in.”

He jogged to first before I could stop him.

“Batter up,” the umpire yelled.

I went into the dugout. Dana gave me a hug. There were tears in her eyes. Mine, too, though I made sure no one noticed.

Jerry stole second and then third. Wheat Bran was at the plate, waving his bat back and forth. I knew his eyes were closed. Two strikes, two outs. I was preparing to send the troops back out onto the field when Wheat Bran blooped a single down the line in right. Jerry scored standing up. Elise shut out the Claw Hammers until the bottom of the sixth. She was getting tired. This was ulcer time, and I'd quit pretending not to care about winning. Sweat pooled under my arms and the band of my cap was soaked. I kept clapping my hands, but my throat was too tight to yell much encouragement. Their first batter struck out. The second batter sent a hard grounder to Jerry. I was mentally ringing up the second out when someone in the stands shouted, “Bite me, blood-breath!”

The ball bounced off Jerry's glove and went into the outfield. The runner made it to second. Jerry stared at the dirt.

“Shake it off, Jerry,” I said, but my voice was lost in the chorus of spectators, who were calling my shortstop every ugly name you could think of. The next batter grounded out to first, advancing the runner to third.

Two outs, and you know the way these things always work. Big Ted Turnbull dug into the batter's box, gripping the sharpened wooden bat. But I wasn't going to let him hurt us. I did what you always do to a dangerous hitter with first base open: I took the bat out of his hands. I told Elise to walk him intentionally. Roscoe Turnbull glared at me with death in his eyes, but I had to protect my shortstop and give us the best chance to win. Ted reached first base and called time out, then jogged over to his team's bench. Roscoe gave me a smile. That smile made my stomach squirm as if I'd swallowed a dozen large snakes. Ted sat down and changed his shoes. I didn't understand until he walked back onto the infield. The bottom of his cleats were so thick that they resembled those shoes the disco dancers wore after disco made its fourth comeback. The shoes made Ted six inches taller. The worst part was that the spikes were made of wood.

I thought of Ted's ancestor, Ty Cobb, how Cobb was legendary for sliding into second with his spikes high. I rocketed off the bench.

“Time!” I screamed. “Time out!”

The umpire lifted his mask.

“What now?” he asked.

I pointed to the cleats. “Those are illegal.”

“The rule book only bans metal cleats,” he said. “Now, batter up.”

“Second baseman takes the throw on a steal,” I shouted as instruction to my fielders.

“No,” Jerry shouted back. He pointed to the plate. “Left-handed batter.”

Shortstop takes the throw when a lefty's up. The tradition of playing the percentages was as old as baseball itself. Even with the danger, I couldn't buck the lords of the game. Unwritten rules are sometimes the strongest.

I sat on the bench with my heart against my tonsils. The crowd was chanting, “Spike him, spike him, spike him,” over and over. Dana sat beside me and held my hand, a strange mixture of accusation and empathy in her eyes.

“Maybe the next batter will pop up,” she said. “There probably won't even be a play at second.”

“Probably not.”

She didn't say anything about testosterone or my stubborn devotion to the percentages. Or that Elise was getting weaker and we had no relief pitcher. Or that we had to nail the lid on this victory quick or it would slip away. I knew what Dana was thinking, though.

“I'd do it even if it was my own son out there,” I muttered to her. I almost even believed it. They tried a double-steal on the next pitch. It was a delayed steal, where the runner on third waits for the catcher to throw down to second, then tries for home. Not a great strategy for the game situation, but I had a feeling Turnbull had a lower purpose in mind.

Biff gunned a perfect strike to Jerry at second. The play unfolded as if in slow motion. Ted was already leaning back, launching into his slide.

Please step away, Jerry, I was praying. The runner on third was halfway home. If Jerry didn't make the tag, we'd be tied and the Claw Hammers would have the momentum. But I didn't care. I'd gladly trade safe for safe.

Jerry didn't step away. His instincts were probably screaming at him to change into a bat and flutter above the danger, or to paralyze Ted in his tracks with a deep stare. Maybe he knew that would have caused us to forfeit the game and the championship. Or maybe he was just stubborn like me. He gritted his teeth, his two sharp incisors hanging over his lip in concentration. Ted slid into the bag, wooden spikes high in the air. Jerry stooped into the cloud of dust. He applied the tag just before the spikes caught him flush in the chest.

The field umpire reflexively threw his thumb back over his shoulder to signal the third out. But all I could see through my blurry eyes was Jerry writhing in the dirt, his teammates hustling to gather around him. I ran out to my vampire shortstop, kneeling beside his body just as the smoke started to rise from his flesh. He gazed up at me, the pain dousing the fire in his eyes. The crowd was silent, hushed by the horror of a wish come true. The Red Sox solemnly removed their hats. I'd never heard such a joyless championship celebration. Jerry looked at me and smiled, even as his features dissolved around his lips.

“We won, Coach,” he whispered, and that word “we” was like a stake in my own heart. Then Jerry was dust, forever part of the infield.

Dana took the pitcher's mound, weeping without shame. She stared into the crowd, at the umpires, into Turnbull's dugout, and I knew she was meeting the eye of every single person at Sawyer Field that day.

“Look at yourselves,” she said, her voice strong despite the knots I knew were tied in her chest. “Just take a good long look.”

Everybody did. I could hear a hot dog wrapper blowing against the backstop.

“All he wanted was to play,” she said. “All he wanted was to be just like you.”

Sure, her words were for everybody. But she had twenty-two years of experience as Mrs. Ruttlemyer. We both knew whom she was really talking to.

“Just like you,” she whispered, her words barely squeezing out yet somehow filling the outfield, the sky, the little place in your heart where you like to hide bad things. She walked off the mound with her head down, like a pitcher that had just given up the game-winning hit.

So many tears were shed that the field would have been unplayable. People had tasted the wormwood of their prejudice. They had seen how vicious the human animal could be. Even vampires didn't kill their young, even when the young were decades old.

There was no memorial service. I wrote the eulogy, but nobody ever got to read it, not even Dana. There was talk of filing criminal charges against the Turnbulls, but nobody had the stomach to carry it through. What happened that day was something that people spent a lot of time trying to forget. But that victory rang out across the ensuing years, a Liberty Bell for the living dead in Sawyer Creek. Vampires were embraced by the community, welcomed into the Chamber of Commerce, one was even elected mayor. Roscoe Turnbull has three vampires on his team this season. That Sawyer Cup still sits on my mantel, even though I never set foot on a diamond after that day. Sometimes when I look at the trophy, I imagine it is full of blood. They say that winning takes sacrifice. But that's just a myth.

Still, all myths contain a kernel of truth, and even a myth can make you shiver. SKIN

Cold.

But that was wrong.

Should have been hot.

Fire lick orange. That was the last thing Roger remembered, until now. Along with the chill, other sensations seeped into the murky pool of his thoughts. Pain. A sheet of razors and barbed wire across his chest, an iron maiden mask closed on his face, sixty volts of electricity running through the fluids in his veins. Ground glass in his trachea when he tried to breath. Behind his eyelids, jagged lime and lemon shapes slicing at the jelly of his eyeballs.

“Moo fwing okay?” Words from somewhere above his seething cauldron of agony, muffled by what?

The upholstery of his coffin? The idea of being dead made Roger panic, and he tried to open his eyes. A wedge of brightness cut across his vision like a saber. Tears welled, and the salt made his face erupt in fresh hurt.

A moist cloth descended and wiped softly at his eyelids. Cold. He shivered.

“Welcome back.” A shape now, fuzzy, large, pale. Over him. He blinked twice and saw her. A woman in white, her face an oval blur.

Roger started to ask her where, what, why. But he could only gurgle weakly. There was a tube in his throat. He tried to push his tongue out to his lips, but the meat in his mouth was swollen.

“Take it easy, Mr. Fremont. You're going to be just fine.” The words were as soothing as a vanilla milkshake.

Nurse. She was a nurse, not Grandma Cuvier. So he wasn't dead after all. He felt a draft, saw another shape join the first. Another woman, this one wearing a drab turquoise apron.

“He's awake,” said the first. The new arrival bent over him. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of his cooked flesh.

“Hello, Mr. Fremont,” she said, and her words were frosty, clotted, like a daiquiri. “I'm Dr. Ghalani. You're a very lucky man, though you might not think so at the moment. But we'll have you back on your feet in no time.”

He tried to speak again, and this time managed a grunt.

“Save your strength. Burns take a long time to heal, so the best thing for you to do is learn how to be patient.”

Patient. Burns. Doctor. The fire.

“I'm sorry we can't give you any painkillers,” said the female voice. “Unfortunately, the systemic injuries are so severe that we can't risk burdening your respiratory system. But maybe in a day or two...”

Day or two? How long had he been lying under this sharp sheet? That meant somebody else was running the restaurant, probably skimming money from the register. Or else the insurance company was ripping him off by finding some obscure clause in his fire coverage. Roger tried to raise himself off the bed. His body was a water balloon. The effort undulated uselessly down to his lower limbs, awakening dormant nerve endings. The waves rebounded and raced to his brain, carrying fishhooks and shark's teeth and sharp broken coral in on the tide. This time his throat and tongue worked, but the scream was gargled and weak.

“Don't try to move,” Dr. Ghalani said. “You'll heal faster if you stay still and let your body do its work.”

Roger wept again, but this time no wet cloth came to his rescue. He didn't trust women. Grandma Cuvier said they were leeches, wanting only blood and money. And a woman doctor was worst of all. Dr. Ghalani turned to the nurse. “It's time for another scraping, then we can change his bandages.”

Roger heard a sound that was unmistakable to someone who had cooked for fourteen years: the rattle of cutlery on stainless steel. He felt a tug on his abdomen, and a liquid tearing noise reached his ears a split second before the pain hit. Sparks of fluorescent custard yellow and vivid red jumped the wires in his brain. They were flaying him.

He tried to turn his head, to scream, to run, but he was beached, bloated. He saw another shape in the corner, and his last thought was that the medical team had called in an extra hand to help shred his flesh from his bones. Then he passed out.

* * * *

The fire.

He should have known better than to throw water on a grease fire. But the grill and deep fryers and stoves were all fueled by propane. If the fire reached the tank...

Explosion.

His eyes snapped open. The dull greenish striplights above stared back without pity. How long? He shifted his gaze to the window. Black, so it must be night.

The shape in the corner. A doctor? Nurse? Roger tried to call out, but his vocal chords were still knotted.

The shape moved. Was he injured so badly that he required constant supervision? This was going to cost him a bundle. Grandma Cuvier said that modern medicine was just highway robbery without the highway. Chicken blood and bone powder and a little prayer were the best cures. He shivered, his body icy. That didn't make sense. How could you be cold when you were burned? And why did his body feel so thick? He'd always been lean, despite the lure of an endless supply of available food. Now the thought of food sliding down his raw throat almost made him want to vomit, and if he vomited when he couldn't turn his head, he might choke. Even if his stomach were empty, just the convulsions jarring his body would be a hellish torture.

He wished the shadow-person would come to his bedside and murmur some placating words. Even if they were lies. He wouldn't mind having his eyelids wiped. And now that he was fully awake, he became aware of the itch.

Not just a single itch. A thousand feathertips were at his flesh, tickling, quivering, probing. He was lying on straw. He was dressed in burlap, with fiberglass insulation stuffed down his collar and cuffs. He wished the person would scratch him, plow his skin with a weedrake. He managed a groan, hoping the noise would bring the caregiver closer. No luck. What kind of hospital were they running here? No painkillers, no attention, and probably a hefty daily charge for all the needles and tubes that were jabbed into his body.

Itching. Waiting. The night didn't move. Neither did the shadow-shape. He thought of the years he'd spent working his way from dishwasher to restaurant owner, how everybody had wanted a piece of him, a handout. Well, he only wanted what was his. And the hospital officials and the insurance company were probably working together to make sure they took everything from him. The anger added to his discomfort and kept him from sleeping. After what seemed to be years, the window grayed, then brightened. Morning. The corner where the shadow had been was now empty. Dr. Ghalani came into the room.

“And how are we today, Mr. Fremont?” She sounded like a bird, cheery, happy. She wasn't the one who was suspended in sawdust and wool and nails and shrapnel. He wheezed a complaint.

“Don't try to speak.” She looked at the machines above the bed, wrote some numbers on a clipboard.

“Your blood pressure is up. You're on the mend.”

She peeled back what felt like a carpet's-thickness of Roger's flesh, though surely it was only the gauze she was lifting. He squeaked like a rat caught in a trap.

“Looks like the graft is taking.” The doctor sounded pleased with herself. Graft? She must have seen his eyes widen.

“Skin graft. To allow your own skin a chance to grow back. You might feel a little itching, but it's only natural.”

Roger guessed she'd never been a burn victim herself. There was nothing natural about his “little itching.”

What did she care? She was getting paid the same whether he lived or died. He licked his lips and felt ragged tissue. There were bandages on his face. How much of him was burned? Did he have eyebrows?

Was his face damaged? He hadn't been the most handsome guy around, but he'd grown accustomed to the slab of skin and cartilage that had stared back at him from the mirror all his life. And what was a guy besides his face?

It figured. Grandma had warned that the world was out to get them. He'd developed a tough hide, but maybe not tough enough.

A moan rose from his heavy chest. Dr. Ghalani patted him gently on a part of his body that must have been his arm. She didn't wipe his tears. “Don't worry. We'll have you good as new before you know it.”

Someone else came in the room. A nurse, different from the first one. “His respiration and EKG are strong enough now that we can give him some morphine in his drip,” Dr. Ghalani said to the nurse. Dr. Ghalani was reeling off some dosage instructions, but Roger had shifted his attention across the room, to the shadow in the corner.

It wasn't medical personnel. The shadow wasn't wearing white. The shadow was red, the color of a peeled tomato. A visitor? Why would anyone visit him, unless it was to borrow money or steal his wallet?

Grandma Cuvier would visit him, to mumble prayers and rub potions on his feet. But she was dead. The only person he could ever trust. The only person who hadn't wanted a piece of him. He tried to focus on the visitor, but his vision blurred. Then he was soaring in ice water, swimming in blue sky, swelling like a summer cloud, riding a rainbow sled into unconsciousness.

* * * *

The tube was gone from Roger's mouth when he awoke. The window was black, meaning he'd slept through the day. The pain was nothing but a dull steady throb, like the itching, both merely background noise to his buzzing brain. He could move his arms a little under the sheet. They felt like sausages. Roger raised his head and looked in the corner. The red shadowy visitor was there, standing. Probably a claims agent from the insurance company, come to give him the shaft while he was too weak to fight back. Roger tried his voice.

“Heeeey,” he wheezed. His lungs raged with the effort of drawing air. The red shadow shifted a step closer, almost into the full glare of the fluorescent lights. The door to the room swiveled open, blocking Roger's view of the shadow.

The nurse came in, the one who had spoken to him when he first regained consciousness in the hospital. He remembered how she had wiped around his eyes with the damp cloth. He tried to smile at her, then realized that he probably had no lips.

“Well, hello, Mr. Fremont,” she said. “I hear you're coming along just fine.”

“Huh ... hello,” he whispered.

“So we're talking now. That's wonderful.” She checked the machines. Roger smelled her perfume, and it was a pleasant change from the days or weeks of smelling his own barbecued flesh and the burn ointments. Then he remembered the visitor in the corner.

“The vultures can't ... wait,” he said. His throat was dry but he was overjoyed to be able to make words again. Now he could tell those doctors and lawyers and crooks what he thought of them.

“Sutures? They'll be out soon.”

She'd misunderstood. He tried to raise his hand and point, but she lightly touched his arm. “Now, now, mustn't stretch the grafts, Mr. Fremont. The new skin is still trying to make itself at home.”

Home. He'd read about how they took skin from a different area of a person's body for transplants during plastic surgery or burn treatment. But he didn't have enough healthy skin left to provide his own. His entire upper body was encased in bandages, along with his face. They'd probably given him the most costly treatment ever invented.

“Swollen.” He had trouble enunciating the labials.

“It's your body's way of fighting off infection. Your immune system is sending plasma and antibodies to the injured areas. Nothing to worry about.” She lifted a bandage from his chest and peered at the burns.

“Nu—'nother nurse?” He rolled his eyes to the place where the shadow had been.

“No, there's not another nurse. I'm afraid you're stuck with little old me tonight.” She checked his drip, and Roger felt the first stirrings of disorientation. “Rest easy now,” she said, walking toward the door. Roger wanted to call her back, to tell her not to go, he itched, he was in pain, anything to make her stay. But already his tongue felt thick and alien in his mouth, as if he were sucking on cotton. The door swung closed.

The red shadow was silent in the corner. It stepped forward. Roger was glad he still had eyelids. He clamped them down and tried to remember how to pray. He thought of Grandma Cuvier, how she knelt beside his bed when he was young, clutching her beads and crosses in her gnarled fingers. What were her words?

He almost remembered by the time he finally fell asleep.

* * * *

“You're much improved, Roger,” Dr. Ghalani said. She was calling him by his first name now. To Roger, that was a sign that he'd been in the hospital far too long.

“The burns,” he said. “How bad?”

“Unfortunately, some were third degree, meaning the damage reached the fat and muscle. Other areas weren't as severely affected.”

Roger could raise his bandaged arms now. He looked like a mummy in an old Universal movie, one of the goofy ones with Abbott and Costello. The skin under the wraps was trying to merge with his meat. He had to know.

“Where ... the skin for the grafts.” Needles and razors were in his throat. “Whose was it?”

“Donor skin. Ideally, we would use your own skin, but in this case, the injuries were too widespread.”

“Donor?”

Dr. Ghalani pursed her thin lips as if coming to a decision. “Taken from cadavers.”

So he was inside another person's skin. The person who was standing in the corner, the wet shadow, the thing that was watching with bright wide eyes.

Because he remembered one of Grandma Cuvier's stories. About how a person couldn't get into heaven unless they had all their body parts, because God wanted His angels to come inside the Pearly Gates all beautiful and whole and perfect. And those that lost a part were doomed to walk the earth until they were able to reunite their bodies and thus their souls.

Dr. Ghalani must have seen the fear light his eyes. “It's perfectly safe. The skin is tested for infectious diseases before being removed. It protects your body until your own epidermal layers have a chance to rebuild themselves.”

Roger trembled under his sheet.

“Cold? Your regulatory system is still trying to regain its ability to control body temperature. I'll have the nurse turn up the thermostat.” She gave a professional smile. “I believe you're scheduled to begin your physical rehabilitation today. I'll bet you're looking forward to getting out of that bed for a while.”

Roger gulped some sharp air and looked at the red thing in the corner. No, it wasn't in the corner anymore. It was closer, near enough for Roger to see the gleam of its teeth against the pink of the gums. Its eyes were naked glass. The lack of lips gave the thing a gleeful grin.

“I've got to finish my rounds, Roger,” the doctor said. “See you later.”

She whirled and stood face-to-face with the red shadow. She didn't scream. She walked through it and out the door.

The thing drifted closer. Roger could smell it now, a decaying corruption mingled with the coppery odor of blood. Stipples of red fluid stood out from the bands of gristle.

“Go away,” Roger whispered. Grandma's stories were just old folk tales. Ghosts weren't real. “You're not real.”

The red corpse's grin deepened. It was ten feet away now.

The door swiveled open. A short man with muscular hairy arms came in the room. “Hi, Roger. Ready to get back on your feet?”

Roger was more than ready. He wanted to regain the ability to run.

“We'll take it slow today,” the therapist said. “Maybe get you down for a workout by the end of the week.”

The corpse watched as the man eased Roger out of bed. Roger watched back. As the therapist waltzed Roger and worked his limbs, Roger had the feeling that the corpse also wanted a spot on his dance card. Night came, as always, too soon. The ward was quiet, not even the squeak of stretcher wheels in the hallway outside. The red thing had maintained its vigil. Now it sat in a chair beside Roger's bed. Sweat moistened Roger's bandages in the places where the skin was undamaged enough to exude liquid. Roger felt much better. He had a new theory, one that made more sense than Grandma's strange beliefs. It was the drugs doing it, making him have hallucinations. Good, expensive drugs. A low-voltage shock of worry tingled in the back of his mind, about how the corpse had appeared before the drugs were administered. But that period was hazy, just a long agonizing fog. Pain was probably just as much of a mental trickster as drugs. Sure, that was it. He might as well amuse himself, to help pass the time.

“H—hello,” Roger said. The corpse only slumped lower in the chair. Strips of tendon and muscle stretched over the red thing's skeletal frame. The corpse wasn't entirely skinned: it looked as if it were wearing gloves. As if whoever had performed the butchery avoided the areas that were too troublesome to peel.

“I know why you're here,” Roger said. The corpse grinned wetly, showing too many teeth.

“I'm sorry about what they did,” Roger said. He tried to roll over, but his body was too weak to respond. Dr. Ghalani said he was getting better. Then why was he so tired?

“It was on me when I regained consciousness.” Roger was pleading now, whining. The raw face with its too-wide eyes leaned closer. One of the skin-gloved hands reached out to Roger's chest. Roger tried to duck away, but the metal rails kept him imprisoned in the bed. He screamed, but no sound came from his throat. Only a bad dream, he told himself. Only a bad dream. That's why the scream didn't bring hospital staff running.

The hand was on him now, its fingernails probing into the moist bandages. The funk of rot mingled with the smell of salve. The cold hand was now in contact with Roger's chest, Roger's skin. No, not my skin, Roger thought. His skin.

A rattle of cutlery.

There was no pain as the blade sliced into the flesh. Roger heard the scraping noises even over the pounding of his heart in his ears. The scalpel slid lower, across Roger's stomach, the thing's other hand scooping and clawing as it followed the instrument. Then the hand went up, around the sides, to the edges of the healthy skin.

Roger tried to scream again, but his mouth was cloth, his tongue cotton. He closed his eyes, but the snick-snick of the flaying only grew louder. And the fingers were on his neck. The blade raked a seam up to Roger's chin, then to his mouth.

Roger looked at the red thing's eyes. They were lifeless, without pity, but a grim determination shone in the tiny pupils. The hand worked its way along his cheek. Silver flashed as the blade scraped up to his temples and across his forehead.

Roger tensed as the instrument stroked near his eyes. If the thing wanted revenge, it could choose a hundred places. His face, his exposed lips, his ears. Claim a scalp. Or down below, things at lower regions.

But the corpse only peeled up to the beginning of Roger's hairline, to the point where the skin grafts stopped. Then Roger knew. It wanted its skin back. Skin that it needed before it could move on to the next plane, to heaven or hell or wherever else that wholeness was required. Roger brought his own bandaged hands up and feverishly raked at his chest and neck, heedless of the pain as he peeled and clawed at the foreign matter clinging to his body. He grunted as he shed himself of the invading skin that clung to his own newly-grown cells. He wanted nothing that belonged to a dead person. He wanted freedom, just as this walking nightmare sought its own release. A long minute's clumsy rending, and the work was done. The dead thing gathered the loose skin in its arms and stepped away from Roger's bed. It stood for a moment under the fluorescent lights, its gleaming flesh in contrast to the pile of pale material clasped to its chest. Its eyes met Roger's, and there was no relief or gratitude in them. Nothing.

As it turned and shuffled back into the shadows, Roger realized that the naked corpse had recovered only a portion of its skin, that it still wasn't dressed for the afterlife. It would have to make other stops. Roger closed his eyes and tried to remember how to pray.

* * * *

“Very good.” Dr. Ghalani put the bandages back in place. Another doctor stood beside her, tall and with a thick mustache. He looked and smelled expensive. Two doctors for the price of three, probably.

“Good?” Roger thought she would notice that the skin grafts were gone.

“Yes. Your own skin is growing back. The graft is sloughing off.”

“Sloughing?”

“The body always rejects foreign skin. It's only a temporary cover to give you time to heal.”

Foreign skin. If that was good news, why wasn't she smiling? Did the insurance bills not clear?

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine.” Much better, now that the corpse was gone. Now that he had only his own skin to worry about.

“Except I'm a little tired.”

Dr. Ghalani frowned. “Yes. Something showed up in your tests.”

“Tests?”

“The metabolic strain from the burns. Your regulatory system was severely damaged. We've moved fast on this. You're luckier than most.”

Roger tried to swallow, but felt as if a pill the size of a football was lodged in his throat.

“I'm afraid there's been permanent liver damage.”

Roger looked from Dr. Ghalani to the new doctor.

“This is Dr. Wood,” she said. “He's here to talk to you about your transplant.”

Roger's scream awoke a donor's gutted corpse six hundred miles away. DEAD AIR

I leaned back in my swivel chair, my headphones vice-gripping my neck. The VU meters were pinned in the red, and Aerosmith had the monitor speakers throbbing. I turned down the studio sound level and pressed the phone to my ear, not believing what I'd heard.

“I've just killed a man,” she repeated, her voice harsh and breathless.

“Come again, sister?” I said, pulling my feet off the console. My brain was a little slow in catching on. I was two hours into the graveyard shift, and the before-work beers were crashing into my third cup of cold coffee like Amtrak trains.

“I've just killed a man,” she said for a third time. She was a little calmer now. “I just wanted to share that with you. Because I've always felt like I could trust you. You have an honest voice.”

I potted up the telephone interface and broadcast her live to my loyal listeners. All three of them, I chuckled to myself. In five years at WKIK, The Kick, I'd come to accept my humble place in the universe. The only people tuned in at this hour were hepped-up truckers and vampire wannabes, the unwashed who shied from the light of day. I'd long ago decided that I might as well keep myself amused. And now I had a nutter on the line.

I flipped my mic key and the red “ON AIR” sign blinked over the door.

“Yo, this is Mickey Nixon with ya in the wee hours,” I said, in the slightly-false bass I'd cultivated over the course of my career. “I've got a talker on the line, she's there to share. Go on, honey.”

“I just want everybody to know that I killed someone. This man I've been dating got a little bit too aggressive, so I blew his damned brains out. And it felt good,” she said, her words pouring out over the monitors through the warm Kansas air.

My finger was poised over the mute button in case I needed to censor her. By station rules, I was supposed to send all live call-ins through the loop delay. But since I got so few callers, I usually took my chances. Plus I liked the razor edge of spontaneity.

“I want to tell you that the steam off his blood is still rising. He's lying here on his apartment floor with his pants around his knees and his brains soaking into the shag carpet. If any of you guys out there think date rape is a laughing matter, I'm sharing this little story so you'll think twice.”

I gulped. This was really wacky stuff. I couldn't have written it in a million years. I'd paid friends before to call with outrageous stories, but they always sounded a little too rehearsed. Now here was some dynamite, and it was exploding at no charge.

“Wait a minute, woman,” I said, playing the straight man. “You mean to tell us you're standing over a warm body right now with a phone in your hand, confessing murder?”

“It's not murder, it's self-defense. I may be a woman, but I've got my rights. Nobody touches me unless I let them. Besides, I've done this before, I've just never felt like talking about it until now.”

“So maybe it's what you would call a ‘justifiable’ homicide. Have you called the police?”

I was starting to get a little nervous now. If this girl was acting, she was too good to be stuck in a Midwestern cow town like Topeka. She was starting to sound too weird, even for me. Her voice was as sharp and cold as an icicle, but with a touch of sexiness all the same.

“That's why I called you, Mickey. I've listened to your show for a long time, and I just knew you'd understand. You think the boys in blue would believe me?”

I was almost flattered, but a reality check rose like stomach acid. Sure, years ago I was a morning star in Los Angeles drive-time, but a little FCC controversy knocked me down faster than a Mike Tyson punch. I'd bounced around a few AM stations and tried my hand at ad sales, but now I was just riding the board until the years of chemical abuse caught up with me.

“Honey, I'm here for you,” I said, getting back in the game. “We love you here at the Kick, and Mickey Nixon is not one to judge other people. Live and let live, I always say ... to coin a phrase.”

Now I could see a row of green lights blinking on the telephone board. Four callers were waiting to be punched in. I'd never had more than two, and that was when Lefty from Promotions had fingered me a couple of White Zombie tickets to give away. This girl, whoever she was, had the audience stirring.

“Mickey, men have always disappointed me. They talk sweet and walk straight until they get what they want. Then they treat you like a rag doll or worse. Well, I'm fed up. Now, I'm the one on the prowl for easy meat. Just ask Chuck here...”

There were a couple of seconds of dead air.

“Oh, sorry. Chucky can't come to the phone right now. He's got other things on his mind, and they're called my feet. Well, Mickey. I've got to go. It's been real, and I'll be in touch.”

I could hear sirens in the background just before she hung up.

“If you're still out there, remember that you can talk to me. I'll never do you wrong,” I broadcast to the sleepy world. I punched up caller number two, trying to keep some momentum.

“Hey, Mickey, that tart's gone out of her mind. Did you pay a friend of yours to call in or something?” a drunken voice slurred.

“Yeah, just like I did with you, upchuck breath.” I cut him off and punched up the next caller.

“I just killed a beer myself, and I want you to know your show rocks, man.”

It sounded like a college student who had seen “Wayne's World” too many times. But I wasn't choosy and I doubted I'd be lucky enough to get anyone as interesting as my death-dealing diva as an on-air guest. What was I expecting, Howard Stern or the ghost of Orson Welles?

“That chick was really wild, man,” the caller continued, adding a couple of “uhs” into the mix. This show was billed as the “Talk-n-Toonage Marathon,” but the talk never seemed to keep rolling.

“Thanks for the input, ‘dude.’ Gotta go.” I sighed, stabbed the button on the cart machine, and AC/DC

started ringing “Hell's Bells.”

* * * *

The next afternoon, I rolled out of bed and belched stale coffee. I stumbled through the dirty clothes and back issues of Rolling Stone that served as the carpet in my one-room bachelor's paradise and elbowed open the bathroom door. I showered and even screwed up my resolve enough to shave. I felt displaced and alienated, as if I'd just come back from a long drug trip. At first, I couldn't figure out what was different. Then it hit me. I actually felt rejuvenated, as if last night's caller had given me something to look forward to.

I drove my ragged Honda down to the station and parked at the far end of the lot. All the other jocks had personal spaces. I guess the station GM figured one day I'd just disappear and she didn't want me around badly enough to invest ten bucks in a lousy plywood sign. Well, no love lost. I went inside and checked the shift schedule, then headed for the staff lounge. I was just about to scarf a couple of donuts when I saw the newspaper open on the table. I picked it up and searched the front page. No headlines screaming bloody murder.

I was turning to the crime section when Pudge, WKIK's answer to Benito Mussolini as well as Program Director, walked in. His eyes glared from under the caterpillars of his brows. He didn't bother saying hello. He had a marketing report in his hand and he waved it like an ax.

“Your numbers are down, Mick. You know the only reason we stay on during the graveyard shift is because it's cheaper than locking up and paying security for a few hours. But I want to lead in every time slot, and you're not up to speed.”

Pudge was on a mission to inflate his own ego until his head could no longer fit through doorways. He gobbled up credit like it was free pizza, but when it was time to dish out the blame, he had a list as long as his belt, and his name was on the last notch. College communications courses taught me that radio was a personal medium, but Pudge must have skipped those. At every staff meeting, he argued for total automation of WKIK.

I rubbed my cheek and felt the first blossom of stubble in the weedbeds of my cheeks.

“Well, Pu—um, Andrew, if you'd give my slot a little promotion, it might do something. Besides, I've got a loyal audience.”

“Well, your audience's demographic doesn't coincide with the one our advertisers want to reach. Even at your low wage, this ‘Talk-n-Toonage Marathon’ is barely breaking even. I'm tempted to change your slot to a satellite feed.”

I was barely listening because I was transfixed by the flapping of his plump lips. He bored me faster than a dinner date with Andre. I muttered something appropriately offensive and incoherent and left with the newspaper and a pair of chocolate donuts. The Honda whined a little before starting, but I coaxed it home so that I could rest before the night's shift.

As I gnawed a three-day-old slice of anchovy pizza, I thumbed through the paper. On page two of the local news section, I found my item.

* * * *