Zack Anderson fell through his bed. He grabbed for his pillow, but the pillow was gone. Instead there was only water above him below him around him in his mouth in his throat in his lungs.

He was in the pond again, sinking and rising.

Mommy, he thought, hurry, Mom.

For an instant Zack saw the sky. Between him and the willow tree, between him and the shore Jacob stood looking down. Jacob screamed at the water.

Zack breathed out, and before he could breathe in again he went down. Jacob was still screaming, but it sounded swooshy, the way things sounded when Zack was in the tub with his ears in the water.

The screaming faded as Zack sank.

Mom would save him. She had saved him before. If only he could stay near the top of the water so she could see him.

He flapped his arms, trying to control them. He didn’t know how to move them right, but maybe he could figure it out.

He needed to go up, to climb. Could he climb up the water?

He tried to grasp a fistfull of water and pull himself up, but it didn’t work.

But it did too work, a little, and then he was sinking again.

Climb!

He grabbed more fistfulls of water, faster and faster.

He wasn’t going to make it to the top. Where was Mommy? Was Jacob coming? That would be bad, because Jacob didn’t know how to swim, either.

But he knew how to row the boat. The boat! If Jacob could bring the boat Zack could grab onto it.

Zack climbed and climbed, but he didn’t know if he was going up. But the water was lighter and clearer and Zack could breathe.

But he knew he only had a second before he would go down again. “The boat,” he said, but it was too weak, not loud enough. Again! “The boat!”

But Jacob was looking the wrong way, toward Mom.

And Mom was laying on the ground. She looked around toward Zack, but she wasn’t coming. What was she doing? Why wasn’t she coming?

Zack opened his mouth to call to her, and he went down.

Climb! You have to climb. They’re not coming. You have to climb!

But he wasn’t climbing, he was sinking.

The dropoff! he thought. Maybe he could walk up the dropoff. If it wasn’t too steep and wasn’t too slippery, maybe he could walk up the dropoff.

He didn’t know how to move forward, toward the shore, toward the dropoff.

Sinking.

If he could get to the bottom, he could walk to the dropoff. Then he could walk up.

He let himself sink down. The fall took longer than he expected and he was having a hard time holding his breath.

When he hit, the bottom of the pond was soft and mushy. His feet sank into the mud and his legs twisted underneath him. He lost his balance and fell to his left. His arm plunged into the muck up to his elbow.

He tried to pull his arm out of the mud, but the weight of his body packed his hand further down. It felt solid down there, but his arm was in mud beyond his elbow and he couldn’t push upward.

He was going to have to breathe soon, but he was a long way down, and he was stuck.

He spread the fingers of his right hand and pressed little by little onto the muck at the bottom of the pond. He pressed harder and tried to pull his left hand out. His right hand suddenly smooched into the mud.

He pulled and his right hand popped out of the mud with a thick “bloot” sound.

He was going to have to breathe soon. Really really soon.

He twisted his hips and felt his right foot move slightly in the much. He twisted again and it moved again. He couldn’t tell if it was coming loose or not. He twisted his body back and forth.

His muscles started to ache. His lungs felt as if someone had stuffing and enormous soft warm blanket into them. the blanket was overflowing his lungs, but it kept pushing.

I’m stuck, Zack thought. Mom, you better come soon.

He couldn’t hold his breath any more. He opened his mouth and his breath rushed out in a huge bubble.

He breathed in and the water was cold. Sometimes he dreamed that he could breathe water. The water in his dreams was always cool, refreshing. That’s what the water in the pond felt like.

It feels nice, he thought. I’ll just stay here.

The pain in his muscles flowed away into the water and he felt very light, as if he were floating lazily through the air, just like in the dreams where he could fly. His arms felt light and his legs felt light and his chest felt cool and light and nice.

It’s nice here, Zack thought, and the words floated away into a beautiful beautiful feeling and the feeling floated away.

Too late, so sorry.

The scream became manifest. Itself was itself. Scream was Faith was itself was the scream was all.

Dan, no! Dan…

Too late. Dying. Don’t want to die. Too late, so sorry.

An electric jolt of white, sustaining and sustaining.

Death is like this?

Thick smell, heavy, pressing inward from all directions. Blurry sweet taste, crawling on her skin. Skin.

I’m alive.

Breathing. Too fast breathing. Gasping.

I am Faith.

Brown and brown, shades of brown. Brown becomes shapes become face. A face, curly dark hair, tanned face, deep brown eyes… Her man… Zoe… Zoe, what’s… what am I…

Dan had shot Zoe, had shot her. It had seemed so real.

“Oh my God!”

Zoe jerked upward, out of her. He looked down, his mouth agape. His hands went to his erection.

A noise from… from somewhere… from… the stairs.

Dan. He had shot Zoe, had shot her. A premonition. It hasn’t happened yet.

Faith whispered, “It’s Dan!”

Zoe blinked at her. “I’m not dead.”

Louder, Faith said, “It’s Dan!”

“What?”

Another sound from the stairs.

Faith said, “He’s coming. I saw it.”

The bedroom door was open, and Dan was coming. She had forseen it.

Faith rolled off the bed, ran to the open door, and slammed it shut. She leaned her weight against the door.

Zoe said, “He shot me.”

“Help me,” Faith said. “We have to keep the door closed.”

“Why am I not dead?”

“It was a premonition. It hasn’t happened yet!”

“What?”

“I had a vision or something,” Faith said. “Help me, for God’s sake. We have to block the door. He has a gun!”

“He already shot me,” said Zoe. “Twice.”

“It wasn’t real! It was just a—” Faith stopped short. In her vision Dan had shot Zoe twice. How did Zoe know that?

“Zoe, did you have a premonition, too?”

“He shot me!”

“But you’re not—”

Something crashed into the door, knocking Faith off balance, tipping her weight away from the door. As she grabbed for the handle a second crash jolted the door open and knocked Faith sideways onto the floor.

Dan stood in the door holding a gun.

This was not how it had happened in her vision.

Dan looked at Zoe. “Zombie Goat means mustache.”

The words no sense, but they sounded familiar. And then Faith remembered her vision.

Dan raised the gun. “Why didn’t you fucking stay dead!”

Zoe ducked behind the bed.

Faith screamed, “This is not how it happened!” and rushed toward Dan.

He brought his left hand up and hit Faith below the chest.

Faith tried to breathe and could not. She fell to one knee.

Dan aimed the gun at her face. “Okay, you first this time.”

Faith could not scream. She shook her head from side to side, exaggerating the motion. No, Dan, no!

She felt her throat burst before she heard the gunshot. They’re wrong, she thought, whoever said you never hear the one that gets you.

Amy sat on the edge of the bed and uncapped the bottle of painkillers. The pamphlet that the pharmacist had included with the painkillers said, “may cause drowsiness.” Amy knew what that meant: “Will cause drowsiness.”

That’s what she wanted. Though the pain in her gums had increased over the day—the glass had sliced through the tender flesh beneath her broken teeth—the throbbing was bearable. The events of the past two days were not.

Amy tipped the bottle and three pills dropped into her palm. Three will be about right, she thought. She scooped the pills into her mouth and washed them down with a long drink of water.

She lay back onto her pillow and pulled the covers over her exhausted body. The clock radio’s display was too bright. 9:45. Amy slide a hand along the side of the radio and felt a switch. She slid the switch and the the display dimmed to a less harsh level.

She slid her tongue over her lower teeth. The shapes were slightly wrong—the caps hadn’t matched exactly the shapes of her teeth. She could feel a slight ridge where the natural enamel at the bases of her teeth met the artificial material of the new caps.

Amy knew that her teeth would feel odd for a week or two or three, that she would run her tongue over her teeth dozens of times, hundreds of times, the sensitivity of her tongue amplifying the strangeness of this smallest of differences. And one day in the future she would notice that she had not noticed the strangeness for a while, that the newness of faded, that she had become used to this artificial construction in the most intimate of places.

We can adapt to anything, Amy thought, to the most alien things. We can learn to take almost anything for granted. Even pain. Even the precious life of a beautiful boy.

She hoped the pills would act quickly. She hoped that they would give her a dreamless sleep. She didn’t want another night like the last, dreaming that horrible scene at the pond over and over, feeling her helplessness over and over, seeing that horrible image of her baby’s casket over and over.

After four hours at the dentist, two of which she had spent waiting for the dentist to arrive, she had eaten dinner with Frank and the boys—takeout from a fast food place—in silence.

What could she say to Frank that would make a difference? What could he say to her? Silence had been best. Maybe tomorrow they would find the words that would point a way toward reconciliation, or at least a truce, but tonight silence had been best.

A drink would help right about now. But of course it wouldn’t. More likely it would drive the final nail into the coffin of her marriage.

Amy winced at the metaphor.

When would sleep come? Amy looked at the clock. 9:57. If anything, she felt more awake now than when she took the pills.

She pressed the dream button on the top of the radio and listened to the news. It was “silly season” non-news news. An astronaut on the space shuttle had completed some necessary repair after three space walks over the past two days. Something called the Large Halcyon Compiler had “gone live” after a gazillion dollar, decade-long construction project, and had found something called a Huggs Bozo on its third attempt. Apparently this Huggs Bozo was worth all that money and time, at least according to the reporter.

Halcyon, Amy thought. She could use a halcyon day or two. And right about now she would be satisfied with just one halcyon night.

10:07.

The pills didn’t seem to be having any effect.

Any remembered a trick she had invented a few years earlier by accident. She had heard of some scientist—Feinberg or something like that—who studied how he fell asleep. Every night as he was falling asleep he would try to keep noticing what was happening in his mind. After a while he noticed some internal patterns, so that he could tell whether or not he was close to falling asleep.

Amy had decided to try that, to study herself for a week or so. On the first night she noticed, just before she fell asleep, a kind of barely visible, slowly swirling image of concentric grey circles that filled her internal field of vision. And the image was moving toward her, washing over her. That was the last thing she remembered before falling asleep.

The next night she decided to create that swirling, washing image on purpose, to see what would happen. She conjured up the dim image and set it slowly rotating. After a few seconds she lost the image. She tried a few more times and lost the image each time. Each time, some thought would intrude into her mind and the image would fade.

Then after a few tries, she was able to keep the image swirling and washing toward her and over her. The feeling was warm and gentle and floaty and peaceful, and she drifted easily to sleep.

She had tried the trick a few more times over the years, and it had worked each time. But on her most troublesome sleepless nights—the nights when the trick would have been the most helpful—she forgot the trick.

Tonight she remembered.

10:21.

Amy willed the grey circles into her mind and gently urged them to swirl, like a pinwheel in the lightest breeze. She invited the swirling circles to wash over her, to flow gently over her, to envelop her.

Amy fell. She reached to break her fall, but she didn’t have time to break herself before she hit the ground. Her chest crushed something against her right wrist, something brittle that splintered, Something sharp sliced into her wrist and she jerked her arm out from under her body.

Green with maroon speckles.

Fuck, she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind. I’m dreaming again.

She ran her tongue over her lower teeth. The ridge was gone. Dreaming.

And she was aware that she was dreaming. Green with maroon speckles.

She lifted her head off the ground. The green was grass. The speckles were blood.

Blood trickled onto her hand from a gash on her wrist.

If I know I’m dreaming, maybe I can change the dream.

She willed her arm to heal. It did not heal.

Someone screamed, a long, panicky, wavering wail. Amy spun onto her side.

Jacob stood knee deep in the pond, looking toward Amy, his eyes wide and bulging, his mouth stretched, his lips pulled back over his teeth in terror.

This was not the face of a twelve year old boy, but the face of an infant experiencing some terrible fresh horror that he knows he cannot cope with, cannot even fathom.

NOT THIS DREAM!

Amy pushed herself to a sitting position. The strain ruptured something in her wrist, and the blood began to pulse out. She pressed her left thumb on her wrist above the gash and the pulsing stopped.

Jacob’s wailing paused. Amy looked up in time to see him turn to his right.

A flash of movement caught Amy’s eye, something in the water, splashing.

“Double,” Zack said from somewhere in the splashes. “The boat!”

Jacob began to scream afresh, even more pitifully now—a terrible, terrible sound.

Dan was awakened by the sound of the jail cell door opening.

“Time to go,” said Deputy Worley. He waved Dan toward the door.

Dan stood up, his head still foggy. As he approached the door he looked around as if he were in a hotel room to see whether he had left anything behind. Of course he had not. The officers who had processed his arrival had taken whatever he had on his person.

The duputy led dan to the desk where he had been booked (was that the right word?). A clerk handed the deputy a clipboard, which the deputy tucked under his arm, and a plastic bag that contained Dan’s wallet, his cell phone, his car keys, and some change.

The deputy moved to the glass door that led out of the building, opened it, and waved for Dan to pass through.

Dan stepped outside, where a large bus was parked. The bus looked like an ordinary long-haul bus, except that it had no windows behind the driver’s area. It also had no brand name painted in large letters on the side. The only markings on the bus were a few rows of small block letters and numbers—registration codes of some kind, Dan presumed—painted in black beneath the driver’s side window.

The sun was low in the sky to Dan’s left, to the west.

Two large men in forest green uniforms stood beside an open door in the midsection of the bus. The names stitched above their right breast pockets identified them as Orris and Parker. Dan wasn’t sure whether these were their first names or last names. The stitching above their left breast pockets said that they worked for a company called TranSecure.

“He’s all yours,” the deputy said. He handed the bag of Dan’s belongings to Parker and the clipboard to Orris.

Orris studied the form for a moment, then looked at Dan. “Roberge?”

“Yes.”

Orris slid a pen out from under the clip of the clipboard, signed the form, tore off a pink copy, and handed the clipboard back to the deputy.

“Let’s go,” he said, and climbed the three steps into the bus. He stepped toward the rear and and turned toward Dan. Dan started up the steps and Parker fell in behind him. Orris gestured toward the front of the bus.

Dan looked toward the front and saw a small caged area of the bus with four small padded benches, two on each side, one of each pair facing forward ant the other facing backward. At the front of the caged area was an unpainted steel wall. A caged door opened toward where Dan stood.

Dan looked to his left. A similar caged area extended to the rear of the bus.

Between the caged areas on the side away from the door were two comfortable looking black leather chairs bolted to the floor, separated by a counter on which sat a radio with a microphone, and below which was a steel cabinet secured with a heavy duty combination lock.

Orris said, “You’re seated in our first class section to the front of cabin.” He gestured again.

Dan stepped through the cage door and looked back toward Orris.

“Any seat you like. We don’t have any other passengers, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip.”

Dan took the seat that faced backward toward the door he had entered. This gave him the best view of where the two guards would be seated. He couldn’t see outside and he had nothing better to do on the trip, os he might as well watch the guards.

Orris closed Dan’s cage door and locked it. Parker opened the locked cabinet beneath the counter. He placed the plastic bag of Dan’s possessions inside, then closed and locked the cabinet. Parker took the seat toward the rear of the bus, and Orris took the one nearest to Dan’s cage.

Orris picked up the microphone, depressed a switch on its side, and said, “Let’s move.” The bus began to vibrate.

Dan looked around for a seat belt.

“Don’t bother to look for a belt,” Orris said. “They don’t install them in the cells. Some passengers try to strangle themselves or others.”

The bus jerked into motion, then jerked to a stop.

Suddenly an audience’s cheer burst from above the guards.

Dan jumped. Parker burst out laughing and Orris rolled his eyes.

Mounted in the ceiling above the guards was a pair of speakers. A twangy guitar began a riff that he recognized he couldn’t quite place, joined almost immediately by drums playing a country train beat. Country, Dan thought. Something old.

The bus jerked into motion again.

The Johnny Cash began to sing. “I hear the train a comin’; it’s rollin’ ‘round the bend…”

Dan looked at Orris. “Oh, Jesus, you didn’t. ‘Folsom Prison Blues’?”

Now Orris started laughing, too.

“You guys are going to be a real hoot,” Dan said.

This set Parker howling, and Dan couldn’t help laughing himself.

After a moment Parker settled down and wiped the tears from his eyes. “It always gets ‘em. Every time.”

The laughter stopped for a while, then Parker began laughing again. Orris looked at him and said, “Hey.”

Parker mocked a poker face.

“Folsom Prison Blues” ended.

“Folsom Prison Blues” started again.

Parker burst once more into howls of laughter, and this time Orris lost it, too.

“You fuckers,” Dan said through laughter of his own. “Is this going to play all the way to Sacramento?”

But the word “Sacramento” sounded more like “Uhbacramento.” His mouth felt twisted, as if it had opened or closed or shifted or spasmed.

The interior of the bus was suddenly brighter, and the light was coming from behind him. Had someone opened a window behind him? He hadn’t heard anything. He now heard silence.

Even with all the light Dan couldn’t see the bus. Where Orris and Parker had been sitting, howling with fits of laughter, was now an unfathomable pattern of green, first lighter, then darker, repeating from somewhere down to somewhere up. The pattern was crystal clear, he could see it perfectly, but it made no sense–it had simply appeared in the bus.

And the bus had swapped right to left. He had sat with the cage wall to immediately his left, and the unoccupied part of the cage to his right. Now there was a wall to his right, and empty cage to his left.

Except that it wasn’t the cage. It was… it was… the word didn’t come.

Something wrong, Dan thought, and his legs collapsed. In the long, long few microseconds before he hit the ground he had time to think, But I’m sitting down. How can my legs give out?

A word came into Dan’s head: Stairs.

What did that mean?

The pattern of alternating lighter and darker green didn’t change, but Dan suddenly knew what it was. It was stairs. How had he not recognized stairs?

A stroke, Dan thought. I’m having a stroke.

Somewhere beyond the top of the stairs a woman screamed. Then the her voice was modulating, pausing, changing quality.

I know what that is. That’s talking. Yelling. Someone is yelling.

“Dan, no!” the voice said. “Dan… Zoe, what’s… what am I… Oh my God!”

It was Faith’s voice, the voice of his dead wife.

Something fell out of Dan’s hand onto the stairs in front of him (but I wasn’t holding anything) and for a second or a minute or an eternity he didn’t know what it was but he did know what it was but he didn’t know what it was.

Then Dan’s understanding caught up with data his senses were sending him.

The object on the stairs was his gun.

Amy heard Frank’s car drive up the driveway. After breakfast he had taken the kids to their friend Winston’s house for the day. Amy hadn’t wanted the boys out of her sight just yet, but they—and Frank—had insisted.

‘They need to get back to normal,” Frank had said. “Don’t make this such a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? Frank, Zack nearly drowned. For Christ’s sake, I can’t get the image of his casket out of my mind.”

“He’ll get over it. Kids bounce back from that kind of stuff.”

“Oh? What kind of near-death experience did you bounce back from when you were ten years old?”

Frank had insisted. “He’ll get over it.”

All the while Frank was gone Amy had sat on the living room couch, shaking, imagining the progress of their trip. Now they’ve reached the end of Long Marsh Road. Now they’re topping the hill into town. Now they’re at the stop light. Now they’re turning onto Great Works Road to follow along the river. Now they’re turning into the Price’s long, winding driveway. Now Winston is waving to them.

Now Zack and Jacob are out of the car.

Now Frank is pulling away…

Her mind drifted to the caskets. All night she had dreamed of caskets. Sometimes two caskets, one large and one small. Sometimes just one casket, leaking brackish water onto the offensively inoffensive beige carpet of Tanguay’s Funeral Home.

She had awoken exhausted and shaken.

Why hadn’t she gone with Frank and the boys? Instead, she spent forty five minutes alone, lonely, and shaking on the couch. Forty five minutes visualizing their progress.

Now, several minutes after Amy had imagined it, Frank had pulled into the driveway.

Amy closed her eyes. Now he’s opening the front door…

The door opened. The door slammed.

From the hallway Frank yelled, “Where the fuck are you?”

Oh, Jesus. What now?

“Amy!”

Amy began to shake again. This surprised her. She hadn’t realized that she had stopped shaking.

Frank turned and saw her on the couch. He stopped and pointed a finger at her. “You were drinking!”

“Frank, what-”

“You stupid bitch. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t drunk, Frank.”

“He could have drowned. They both could have drowned. And you, too, for that matter.”

“I wasn’t drunk. I swear it.”

“Oh,” he said, “that’s such a fucking relief to hear, And I guess I’m supposed to believe you?”

“It’s the truth. Believe what you want. You’re going to, anyway.”

“Even if you believed it, am I supposed to trust your judgment about whether you’ve had too much to drink?”

“I’m telling you—”

“Jacob said he saw you pouring vodka three or four times. How many time did he miss, Amy?”

Three or four times was all she had poured. But there was no point arguing further. Frank was in no state to hear what she was saying. “I don’t know what you want to hear, Frank. You weren’t there-”

“Apparently you weren’t there either.”

Amy pulled her feet up onto the couch and tucked her knees under her chin. “You think I’m to blame for what happened.”

“You’re god damned right I do. You were supposed to be the adult.”

“This morning it was no big deal.”

“That was before I knew you were drunk while you were supposed to be watching our sons.”

“I wasn’t drunk!”

“And this morning you insisted that it was a big deal. Make up your mind. Or is that too much to ask? Are you a little foggy right now?” Frank pointed at Amy’s glass on the coffee table. Her glass of vodka and orange juice.

“That’s orange juice,” Amy said, and reached for the glass.

Frank moved toward her. “Let me smell it.”

Amy jumped to her feet and began to back away from Frank. She tipped the glass to her lips. But she was moving, and the glass was too full for her to swallow all of the damning evidence in one gulp. Some of the orange juice spilled out of her mouth and down her chin.

Frank swung an open hand and struck the glass.

Amy heard and felt the glass smash into her lower front teeth before it flew spinning out of her hand, pinwheeling a spiral of orange juice across the living room. She screamed, and pieces of her broken teeth flew out of her mouth.

“Hold still,” Frank said. He grabbed her by the hair with both hands and pulled back, angling her face upward. He bent his face toward hers.

Amy spat in her husband’s face. The saliva was pinked with blood.

Frank released Amy’s hair and wiped the spit off his face with one hand. He looked at his wet fingers for a long moment.

Amy took the opportunity to step back away from him.

“Holy shit,” Frank said. “Holy shit. Are you okay?”

She tested her lower teeth with her tongue, then with her finger. “I think two of them are broken.”

“Jesus, Amy, you have to get help.”

“Well, where am I going to find a dentist on a Saturday?”

For a moment Frank looked as if he hadn’t understood her. Then Amy realized why he was confused.

“You weren’t talking about my teeth, were you?”

“You can’t leave them alone at the pond like that. Not until they learn to swim.”

Amy glared at Frank for a moment. Her lower gums were throbbing.

“I’m going out for a while,” she said. “You can clean up my vodka and orange.”

She walked into the hall, picked up her purse off the narrow hall table, and left the house.

I didn’t like the arrest scene I wrote earlier. Dan was too passive and mushy. So here is a replacement.

This being NaNoWriMo, I’m keeping both versions in my draft, and including both in my word count. And who knows, I may be able to use the earlier version somewhere else the book.

 

The sign on Interstate 80 said ENTERING LOVELOCK, NEVADA. A second sign, partially obscured by the first, said SPEED LIMIT 25 MPH.

Dan saw the second sign too late to slow down from highway speed.

“Shit,” he said. Then he saw the Pershing County Sheriff cruiser.

The lights on the cruiser flashed red and blue. Dan considered punching the gas and trying to outrun the cruiser, but he knew that was crazy. What lay beyond Lovelock, as far as he knew, was nothing more than Interstate 80 through 600 miles of flat, shimmering desert.

He had been so careful with his driving up until now, trying to avoid notice. Now he had fucked up. He hadn’t expected a major interstate highway to turn suddenly into Main Street, Anytown, USA. And yet it had, and he hadn’t noticed in time.

He pulled his car to the side of the street. He removed his wallet from his pants pocket, rolled down his window, and waited for the Sheriff.

Seventeen hours earlier he had left the house on Anton Court, the house in which his dead wife’s blood had not yet congealed, and driven, without consciously choosing a direction, eastward on Interstate 80.

As he wound his way up the Sierra Nevada foothills, he had decided to stop in Reno for the night. Beyond Reno were only small towns for hundreds of miles. He did not want to spend the night in a small town where he, being a stranger, might be more easily noticed. Better to stop in Reno where he would not be noticed and where nobody would ask the out-of-towner any nosy questions.

He had slept poorly, woken early, and set out at 5:30 am. Half an hour later he passed through Fernley. Half an hour after that the sun rose directly ahead of him. And for the next half hour, the half hour that brought him to Lovelock, he had driven into a blinding sun.

The sun was three diameters off the horizon now, three diameters above Main Street. Dan closed his eyes against the glare.

“This is a residential area.”

Dan opened his eyes. The sheriff was tall. Dan glanced at the sheriffs chest. Not a sheriff. Sheriff’s Deputy Anton Corey.

Anton Corey? Where had Dan heard that name before? Then he recognized it. Not Anton Corey, but Anton Court. Zombie Goat’s house.

Oh, Jesus. Not a good omen.

“Yes, sir. I didn’t see the–”

“License and registration.”

Dan removed his license and registration from his wallet and handed them to Corey.

Corey examined the documents. “You know, Mister Roberge, there could be kids playing in the street.”

“Yes, sir. The sun was in my eyes and–”

“Yeah, that’s a real problem this time of day.” Corey looked to his left, toward the rising sun. “You know what a lot of folks do when the sun is in their eyes?”

Dan knew. And he also knew that the officer was going to play with him for a while, giving him every opportunity to say the wrong thing, to justify the deputy asking him to get out of the car, to put his hands on top of the car and spread his feet.

Dan said, “They slow down.”

“Oh,” Corey said, “so you do know. That’s good, I guess, but now something is bothering me. I can see how someone who isn’t very bright might not know to slow down. But you, Mister Roberge, even though you know better, you keep driving at full speed even when you can’t see a clearly posted speed limit sign. Can you help me understand why a smart guy like you would do something like that?”

Dan knew what words were going to come out of his mouth, and he knew they were a mistake. But he couldn’t think of anything else to say, and he couldn’t stop himself.

“That speed limit sign was hidden behind the Lovelock sign. It wasn’t clearly–”

“Are you trying to piss me off, or is it just a natural outcome of your squirrelly personality?”

“Squirrelly …?”

“I’ve given you every opportunity to man up here, Dan, to admit your mistake. But damn near every time you open your mouth you give me a new lame-assed excuse. Do you know how many lame excuses you’ve tried to shovel at me, Dan?”

Dan was trapped. He had no idea how to get out of this with only a speeding ticket.

“Uh, two?”

“I count three,” Corey said. “So far. First you said you didn’t see the sign, which I know is a crock because then you said you did see it. Then you try to blame the sun, when you know full well that the thing to do when the sun’s in your eyes is to slow… the fuck… down. And now you’re blaming… well I don’t know who. The highway department, I guess. You see what I mean, Dan? Squirrelly.”

“Yes, sir, I can see what you mean now.”

“Do you know what the posted limit is back there?” Corey pointed westward, the direction from which Dan had come.

“Sixty five.”

“That’s right. And do you know how fast I clocked you at?”

Of course Dan knew. He had been very careful, up until he entered Lovelock, to make sure he never crept above the posted speed limit.

“Yes, sir. I was going sixty five. Or maybe a bit less.”

“My radar said sixty five. Do you see the problem, Dan?”

“Yes, the limit here is twenty five.”

“No, that’s not the problem. Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought you was. You want to try again?”

“I…” Dan had no idea what the deputy was getting at. “I don’t know what you mean. I honestly don’t.”

“Well it’s good that you’re finally being honest with me, Dan. But the problem is this. That posted speed limit is a maximum. And it’s for when conditions are ideal.” Corey looked toward the sun, now four diameters above Main Street. “Do you think conditions are ideal this morning, Dan?”

“No,” Dan said. “No, sir, I don’t.”

“The law says that when the conditions are other than ideal, you have to slow down to a safe speed. Do you think it’s safe to travel at the full posted speed limit when the sun is shining full in your eyes like that?”

“No, I guess not.”

“You probably didn’t know about that part of he law, did you, Dan? The part about how the speed limit is only for ideal conditions?”

“No, actually, I guess I did know. But I forgot.”

“Well, it’s easy to forget some of the finer points of the law. But now that I’ve reminded you, would you say that you were within the law back there, or that you were breaking the law?”

There were only two answers, Dan knew. One bad, and one worse.

“I’d say I was breaking the law.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I was worried for a while that you were going to be a problem for me. Now I can see that you’re a reasonable man. I think I’ll be able to let you off with just the two speeding violations.”

“Two!?”

“Well, one for back there, and one for here in town. Given what you’ve told me about you breaking the law, doesn’t that seem reasonable?”

Dan closed his eyes. Maybe this would be over soon. Maybe not.

“Yes, sir, you’re being very reasonable with me.”

“Do you have a checkbook handy?”

“What?”

“A checkbook. To write checks.”

“A check?”

“It’s an efficient way of working. I’ll give you a form to sign admitting your guilt, you write a check for six hundred dollars made out to Pershing County Nevada, and you can go on your way. Or if you prefer a court appearance, we can send you a court date for a month or so from now, and you can drive back here–within the speed limit, of course–and talk it over with Judge Corey.”

“Judge Corey?”

“I’m demonstrating my good will by leaving the choice in your hands. What’s your preference, Dan?”

“I’ll write you a check.”

“Now that’s bordering on insult, Dan. I’m not inclined to take bribes.”

What the hell do I have to do to put an end to this, Dan thought. “Officer– Deputy Corey, I didn’t mean to–”

“Relax, Dan, I’m just fucking with you.”

Dan puffed out a short breath.

Corey said, “You wait here. I’ll just go run your license and registration, then you’ll write me a check–excuse me, you’ll write the county a check–and we’ll be done in three minutes. Okay?”

“Thank you, Deputy Corey,” Dan said.

Corey walked slowly back to the cruiser.

Dan had been pulled over a dozen or so times in his life. The length of time between the officer taking his license and registration to the cruiser and returning had never taken less than ten minutes, and sometimes took twenty or more. He didn’t know whether the delay was due to how long the record searches actually took, or merely one more form of intimidation. He suspected the latter, and given Corey’s clear enjoyment of toying with him, Dan expected this wait to be a long one.

So he was surprised when, noticing movement in his side mirror, he saw Corey returning almost immediately. For a split second he was relieved. But then he realized that Corey had had far too little time to run his license and registration.

Then Corey made some odd, twisting motions with his hand at his holster, and flipped the security strap off his weapon.

Corey stopped behind Dan’s door. “Keep your hands where I can see them and get out of the car.”

Dan raised his hands high enough so that Corey could see, then lowered his left hand cautiously and unlatched the door. He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the street.

“Hands on top of the car.”

Dan put his hands on the car.

Corey patted him down, then gripped one of Dan’s wrists and twisted it behind Dan’s back. Dan lowered his other hand so that his wrists were together.

He felt the handcuffs clamp around his wrists.

“Come on,” said Corey, and tugged at Dan’s elbow.

Dan walked with Corey to the cruiser. Corey opened the back door and nudged Dan toward the back seat.

Dan ducked his head, stepped in, and plopped onto the seat.

“Don’t you have to read me my rights now?”

Corey looked at Dan and squinted. “You watch too much TV.”

By the way, I’ve driven through Lovelock, Nevada twice. The first time took about a half hour longer than I’d intended. I wrote the check.

Dan woke with a start. Someone was pounding on the hotel room door.

He looked at the clock. Three thirty in the morning.

“Mr. Roberge, this is the police. Open the door.”

That was fast. Or slow. He wasn’t sure.

Dan hadn’t brought a change of clothes, and had fallen asleep in the clothes he had been wearing yesterday. He sat up on the bed.

“Yeah, just a minute.”

“You have twenty seconds.”

Dan rubbed his eyes as he walked to the door. He flipped back the security catch, then twisted the deadbolt.

“Do you have a gun?”

“Yes,” Dan said, “but it’s on the dresser. Ten feet away from me.”

“Open the door slowly.”

Dan opened the door. In the hallway stood two police officers, and man and a women, with their hands resting on their holstered but unstrapped weapons.

Dan raised his hands slowly in front of him, palms upward to show that he was unarmed.

The man said, “I’m Officer Andollo, and this is Officer Yonce.”

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

Andollo laughed. “What do you mean so soon? It’s been twelve hours.”

Yonce unhooked a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around.”

Dan turned around and held his hands behind him at his waist. He felt the cold rings clamp around his wrists. He said, “You’re usually faster than twelve hours?”

“When they make it as easy for us as you did? Yeah.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, tattered card. “Daniel Roberge, you are under arrest for the murder of Faith Roberge and Zorem Bigote.”

“Yes,” Dan said. “I made it to easy for you?”

Officer Yonce said, “From the moment we entered the bedroom it was obvious what had happened.” She glanced at Andollo pointed beyond Dan into the room.

Andollo walked into the room pulling thin plastic gloves onto his hands. Dan’s gun, wallet, and cell phone lay on the dresser. Andollo picked them up one at a time and placed each in a separate plastic bag.

He turned to Yonce. “Let’s go.”

Dan said, “Don’t you have to read me my rights?”

Andollo laughed. “You watch too much TV.”

Amy Anderson poured two ounces of vodka into her glass of Diet Pepsi. She screwed the cap on the vodka bottle and set it back into the cooler, in two inches of ice water that had melted in the oppressive, muggy heat that defined August in Maine.

She glanced up to see whether Jacob and Zack had seen her pouring the vodka. They stood waist deep in the pond, and were dunking their faces into the water and making motor boat noises.

“That water must be disgusting,” she said.

Zack waggled his face in the water, then pulled his head up and said, “Yum! I love bloodsucker soup!”

Two years ago the area had been nothing more than a swamp, a marsh sloppy nuisance on the edge of the hay field.

Then Frank had had an idea to turn it into a pond. He hired Joey, a kid from the farm next to the Anderson’s, to bulldoze layers and layers of muck out of the swamp. Joey had been only too eager to help. He had just started his excavating business, and jumped at any opportunity to plow his new bulldozer, backhoe, and tractor through the ground.

Frank had negotiated a good deal with Joey. Too good, Amy thought. Frank had taken advantage of Joey. Not that that was hard to do. As Joey himself put it, “I ain’t too smart, but I can push dirt around!”

And that he could. In two weeks Joey had hollowed out an acre of mushy topsoil, which he had sold for too little money to local farmers and gardeners as prime loam.

The three or four small springs that had fed the swamp slowly filled the empty acre to form a kidney shaped pond.

Early int he summer Frank had somehow convinced the State of Maine to stock the pond with bass. The fish were too small to catch, but the boys liked to row out from the beach in an old rowboat–which was now mired in swamp grass just off the shore about forty yards from the beach–to cast their Sears fishing poles with childish hope. They hooked themselves or each other more than they hooked fish. They didn’t seem to mind catching fishhooks in the hand or arm or back. They healed.

Frank had bought three dump truck loads of beach sand from somewhere. Joey had spread some around the shallow edge of the pond and plowed he rest as far out into the water as he could.

The resulting beach was pleasant, if small. Frank had finished the landscaping with a small weeping willow tree. It didn’t throw enough shade to block the late afternoon sun, but it was pleasant to look at as its long drooping branches swayed in the meager breeze. And in time it would grow.

Amy’s boys splashed in the water.

She took a sip of her vodka and Pepsi. It was already warm, and gave no relief from the heat.

“I want you guys to get out of the water soon. It’s almost time for dinner.”

She picked up her People magazine and lay back onto the lounge chair. Next time she would have to bring a parasol. And more ice.

She opened the magazine. Some young actress–or maybe every young actress–was in trouble with the law and battling a soon-to-be ex-husband for custody of the kids or the dog or the potbellied pig.

“Mom,” Jacob said, “He’s out too far.”

Amy looked up. Zack was in water up to his lower lip, shouting, “Hey, look how high I am!”

“Zack, come in toward the shore, sweetie.”

Zack’s body rose up until the water reached only to the middle of his ribs. He jumped up and down. “Hah, had you both fooled.”

Then he sunk down again, chin deep.

“Zack, stop that. You should get ready to come out now. We have to go soon.”

Zack jumped up, then sunk down again. “Look how high I am!”

Jacob said, “Stop it, bug spit. Mom says we have to go.”

“It’s over my head!” Zack said, and disappeared below the water. A minute later his head bobbed up and he laughed.

“Five more minutes,” Amy said. “And don’t go out over your head.”

She turned back to her magazine. Jennifer somebody had adopted a teenager from Chicago.

Zack spashed in the water.

“Mom, he keeps doing it.”

“Well then, just keep an eye on him.”

Zack’s head bobbed out of the water. “Double,” he said, and went back down.

Double? Amy looked at Jacob, who was halfway between her aind Zack, waist deep in the water.

“What did he say?”

“I don’t know.”

Zack popped up again, this time his face barely breaking the surface of the water. “Double,” he said again, and went back down.

Amy jumped up out of the lounge chair. “Jacob, I don’t think he’s kidding.”

As Amy started toward the water, Jacob turned and looked stupidly at her.

“Jacob, go and get him!”

Jacob turned and pushed through the water toward where Zack had last surfaced.

Just for an instant hand poked out of the water. Then the top of Zack’s head.

Amy had reached the water now, but she was still fifty feet from Zack. She dove and began to swim.

Jacob was ten feet away from Zack, pushing through water, now shoulder-deep. Suddenly Jacob dropped below the water.

Amy swam faster.

Jacob was under the water for maybe ten seconds, and then he reappeared, panic on his face as he slowly pulled his head above water.

“Mom, there’s a dropoff! It goes way down! I think he’s a long way down! I couldn’t get him!”

Amy passed where Jacob was standing. The water below darkened as the beach sand sloped steeply downward.

She pivoted her hips and angled downward.

The water was murky and Amy could not see her drowning son. She pulled her arms through the water, driving her downward.

There he was! Zack twisted wildly in the water, neither sinking further nor rising.

Just another few feet.

Her hand touched Zack on the shoulder. She reached for his hand and tried to move next to him to put her arms around his waist.

Suddenly Zack grabbed her arms with his. He pulled himself forward and wrapped his arms around her. He squeezed, pinning her arms to her sides.

Amy tried to break free. Zack gripped his wrists tightly and pulled, locking his arms around her.

Zack, no! Amy thought. Her lungs felt heavy and she wanted desperately to breathe. She kicked her legs, trying to swim upward, but she did not move.

She tried to twist out of Zack’s grip, but he held too tightly, his strength amplified by panic.

Amy blew out a gush of breath. She needed air. She tried to focus on swimming, on kicking toward the surface, but she could think only of her tightening lungs.

I need air. I need air. Oh God, Oh Zachary, oh honey, I need air.

Amy inhaled, and water filler her lungs. Her body spasmed and she coughed out the water, then inhaled more.

Amy’s mind filled with a cold, still image. A matching pair of caskets, one small and one large, sat side by side at the front of the viewing room at Tanguay’s Funeral Home.

Oh my baby. Oh my boy. My boy.

Amy spasmed again, expelling water. She began to retch in the water, her body convulsing uncontrollably as she struggled to take in air and cough out water.

Zack’s grip loosened and he went limp.

Amy spun and reached one arm around his chest. She pumped her free arm and kicked with both legs.

Almost immediatly she broke the surface of the water. She gasped and rolled onto her back.

Someone was screaming, screaming. Jacob, screaming, shrieking. Words. She heard words. “Don’t drown, Zack, don’t drown!” Over and over. “Don’t drown, Zack!”

Amy pumped with both legs toward the shore. She rolled Zack so that his face was out of the water. He wasn’t breathing, wasn’t trying to breathe, wasn’t gasping for air.

In her mind, Amy saw a single casket.

“Don’t drown, Zack!” Jacob screamed. “Please don’t drown!”

Amy stopped kicking and righted herself in the water. She dropped down, reaching with her toes until… There. Gritty beach sand.

She put one arm around Zack’s back and the other behind his knees, and lifted. She waded toward the shore.

Zack’s body cleared the water, then Amy’s knees cleared the water. In a few more steps she reached the shore.

She tied to drop gently to her knees to set Zack down, but her legs buckled and she collapsed on top of him. She pulled herself up onto her knees. Zack’s face was a terrible shade of white, his lips blue.

“Mom, is he okay?”

“Just stay there, honey,” Amy said. She arranged Zack with his feet toward dry land and his head toward the water, so that the slope of the beach would help to empty his lungs.

She tilted his head to the side. Water drained out of his mouth and nose. His belly was stretched taught. She pressed gently and a gush of water spurted out of his mouth and nose.

“Come on, honey,” Amy said. “Come back to us now.”

Zack opened his eyes. He started to say something, but only gurgled. He caughed, gasped, and caughed again. He inhaled and the sound was sloppy and stuttering.

He began to cry, a hitching, halting, wet, slushy wail.

He propped himself up on his elbows, turned onto one side and vomited a huge gout of water and undigested hot dog chunks onto the beach sand.

Zack began to shift onto his back.

“Stay on your side,” Amy said. “If there’s anything left it will come out easier.”

Zack was quiet for a minute, then said, “You saved my life. Thank you, Mommy.”

Zack reached out, took Amy’s hand, and shook it.

Amy laughed. She couldn’t help it. Then the tears came.

“Oh, Zack, we thought we’d lost you.”

Suddenly Zack looked alarmed. “Where’s Jacob?” he said, and quickly looked over his shoulder.

Jacob was there, covering his mouth with his hands.

Zack said, “And thank you, too, Jacob. You saved my life.”

Jacob’s face turned red. “No I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t reach you.”

Zack said, “I saw you try. You went over the edge, too.” He coughed, and more water trickled out of his.

Amy said, “Zack, honey, just relax. Do you need to cough any more?”

Zack shook his head. His eyes narrowed and he looked at Amy. “Why didn’t you get the boat? I kept yelling for you to get the boat.”

That’s what he had been saying. Not double, but the boat.

“The boat,” Amy said. “Not ‘double.’”

“What?”

“It was hard to hear you in the water like that. I thought you were saying ‘double.’”

“Why would I say ‘double?’”

Jacob said, “I thought you were just kidding around and saying ‘blub blub.’”

“You thought I was kidding?”

“Well you had been faking how high you had been.”

Zack said, “What an idiot.”

“And you,” Jacob said, “are a stink pipe.”

“Hey,” Amy said. “It’s good that things are back to normal. But we should go now.”

Zack unsteadily to his feet, holding Amy’s arm for support.

Amy said, “How are you doing? Okay?”

Zack nodded. “I think so. What’s for dinner?”

“Mac and cheese.”

“No, it’s not macaroni and cheese” Zack said, “it’s Kraft Cheese and Macaroni!”

Jacob looked at the mess at Zack’s feet. “Thank God we’re not having hot dogs.”

I’ve posted Chapter 1, Scene 1.

Sixteen of us started writing at midnight in the back room at Java California in Dixon. We had “reserved” the room for two hours, and most of us stayed and wrote until 2am.

I finished my first scene exactly at 2am. I’m delighted with what I wrote (though I probably can’t trust my judgment at 3:45am). And my word count is 1504, which is just about my usual for a two-hour session.

A bunch of us will meet tonight from 7–9pm at a local coffee shop for the first of our weekly Thursday night write-ins. I expect that my next scene will take the full two hours and net another 1500 words or so. We’ll see.

So far, so good!

Still no sign of a plot…

Dan Roberge stood in the middle of Anton Court and looked at the house in which his wife was fucking some shit heel. The sun was a few hours past its meridian in Sacramento, and the temperature on this Friday in early August was over 100 degrees.

In front of the house sat two cars, one of which was the powder blue Ford Fusion he had bought for Faith two years ago on their tenth anniversary. Fusion, he thought. The act of combining. Coupling.

A car entered the court a hundred yards away. Dan’s hand went almost unconsciously to his pocket; he caught himself and disguised the gesture by rubbing his palms on his slacks as if to wipe off perspiration. He realized that he looked conspicuous standing in the middle of the street, and began to walk toward the shit heel’s house.

The car turned into the first driveway at the end of the court.

As Dan reached the sidewalk he heard the car door open. He turned to see an old lady creaking out of her car. She saw him and straightened up. He waved. She cocked her head without waving. Dan thought he saw her squint, but she was too far away for him to be sure.

Let’s hope she’s as blind as she looks, Dan thought. Eye witness testimony means nothing if the eyes are bleary.

Dan walked slowly toward the house. He looked over his shoulder toward the old woman, who seemed to be intent on navigating the stone walkway to her own house.

He reached the door, and turned again. If he had to force the door he didn’t want a witness. He saw the woman slip into her house and close the door. He was sure that if he watched he would see the blinds part slightly on her picture window. And who knew how many other people were home at this hour, peering out at a man who didn’t belong here, acting oddly.

Dan reached for the door knob and turned. It turned easily. He rested his other hand on the door and pushed gently. The door slid quietly open, and a rush of cold air chilled him from the air conditioning inside.

Who the fuck leaves their door unlocked in the middle of the day?

The answer came immediately: People in a hurry to get their pants off.

Dan stepped in, turned, and closed the door as softly as he could. He slowly let the door knob twist itself back into place.

He looked around. The living room smelled of a mixture of old cigarette smoke and old sweat. The furniture fit the smell. It reminded him of hotel furniture, sturdy, plain, and fouled by the bodily fluids of a hundred anonymous occupants.

A stairway led up. The stairs were carpeted. Good.

Let’s see what kinds of bodily fluids they’re depositing up there.

He rested his foot lightly on the first step and gradually increased the pressure until it bore his whole weight. No creaking. Good. He continued up the stairs, holding the rail to balance his weight.

As he reached the seventh stair he heard Faith’s voice. “No,” she was saying. No, that wasn’t it. “Slow,” or something like that. But that wasn’t it either. He reached the top stair, and now he could hear her more clearly. She was saying, “Oh, Zoe, oh, Zoe.”

What kind of name was Zoe? It sounded like a woman’s name. Was Faith with a woman? Wouldn’t that be just fucking peachy.

Dan moved quietly onto the landing, offering thanks to a God he didn’t believe in for his silent passage so far.

He could see through the open bedroom door. The shit heel was on top of her on the bed. Definitely a man. Dark curly hair. Dark tan. Muscular back that were being caressed by Faith’s small, pale hands.

Dan reached down and slowly drew the gun from his right front pocket. Again he thanked the non-existent God, this time for giving him the grace not to blow off the front of his leg or, worse, his right nut.

The adulterers fused on the bed, oozing bodily fluids onto the sturdy, serviceable bed.

Again, Faith moaned, “Oh, Zoe.”

Dan said, “What the fuck kind of name is Zoe?”

Faith jerked. Her forehead smashed Zoe in the nose, and he yelped. He rolled off her, away from Dan, and sat upright on the bed, his legs crossing over hers.

Dan pointed the gun at Zoe. “Stand up,” he said.

“Dan, what are you doing here?” Faith said, predictably.

Dan knew his line. “No, sweetie, what are you doing here?”

Zoe was still sitting.

Dan said, “I told you to stand up.”

Zoe looked at Faith and slowly stood on the bed. His penis was stiff, glistening with Faith’s wetness.

Dan said, “The next guests won’t want to know what you’ve been dripping on that bed.”

Faith blinked and pulled the sheet up over her breasts. A wisp of her long red hair slid off her shoulder.

“I asked you a question,” Dan said, looking at Zoe. “What did she call you? Zoe? What kind of name is Zoe for a handsome young man like you?”

Zoe said, “It’s Spanish.” Then he said something that sounded to Dan like zombie goat.

“Zombie goat? What the fuck is that? I don’t speak much Spanish.” Dan waved the gun again. “You shouldn’t either while I’m pointing a gun at your… pene.”

Faith said, “It’s his name. Zorem. Zorem Bigote.”

“Bigote? Doesn’t that mean mustache in Spanish?”

“Yes,” Bigote said. “Mustache.” He wagged his finger in front of his upper lip.

Dan laughed. “I like Zombie Goat better. Do you mind if I call you Zombie Goat, you horny old billy?”

Bigote’s dropped to Dan’s gun. “Please put that down, okay?”

Dan reached out and slid the safety off. His hands shook.

Faith screamed.

Bigote crouched suddenly and held out a hand like a traffic cop.

Dan aimed for Bigote’s genitals and pulled the trigger.

The explosion from the small gun was louder than Dan had expected, and the kick was milder.

“No more mustache rides,” he said.

Bigote fell behind the bed out of Dan’s sight.

“Stand up,” Dan said, then realized how foolish that sounded. His mind flashed on a scene from a hundred movies and TV shows, where some guy (it was always a guy) shouts after a car thief, “Come back here with my car!” He laughed out loud.

Faith’s screams began to sound like words. “Dan, stop! My God, Dan, what are you doing!”

Dan moved around the end of the bed. Bigote was curled up on the floor, his head under the bed. His arms scrambled as if he were trying to get under the bed, but his curled up legs wouldn’t fit.

Dan grabbed Bigote’s ankle and yanked.

Bigote kicked at Dan but missed. Dan could see that his aim had been high. He had hit Bigote in the belly, and blood was running from a quarter-sized wound.

Faith rolled off the other side of the bed.

Dan aimed again at Bigote’s genitals and fired. This time his aim was true, and splayed the goat’s penis.

Bigote howled and curled tighter, his head emerging from under the bed.

Dan shot him in the top of the head.

Bigote straightened and began to spasm.

Dan turned toward Faith. She scrambled across the floor toward the open door.

Dan fired, hitting her in the base of her spine. Her arms and legs slackened and she thudded onto her belly.

“No more mustache rides for you and the Zombie Goat.”

“Dan, stop,” Faith said in a strange low voice. “Hurts.”

“Fusion,” Dan said, and shot again, hitting Faith in the back of the head. “Together forever.”

For a moment he looked at his wife, at the bodily fluids seeping out of her. Then he backed up a few steps and sat down on the bed.

He felt it in his belly first, a chaos of bodily sensations that spread upward to the skin of his chest and arms, and downward to his scrotum. For the last week he had felt nothing but a vague, thick numbness. Now the numbness tore open and released what felt like a hive of bees under his skin.

The gun slipped from Dan’s hand and thumped onto the carpeted floor. He closed his eyes and focused on the chaos in his body. He nearly screamed, but a dead part of him cut it off. He didn’t want to attract the neighbors.

Christ, he thought, as if the gunshots wouldn’t attract the neighbors. Time to get it together, Dan.

The dead part enveloped him, squeezing the bees down to a single point in his gut.

He picked up the gun, stood, and walked out of the bedroom.