Read DEMON'S SORROW here FREE

Linda M. Fields

January 18, 1998

A deadly arctic wind howled around the Ford, while in the trunk of the vehicle darkness cloaked Lyndsay like a comfortable old blanket. She was safe from the boogieman as long as she stayed hidden beneath the covers of darkness.

The thump-thump-thump of the man's heart danced with the bittersweet stench of tobacco seeping through the cracks around the car's back seat. The girl felt small comfort in the knowledge that as long as his heart beat, and the cigarette smoke remained. she was safe. Soon he would return to torment and torture her again, or, if she were lucky, take pity and end her suffering once and for all.

Lyndsay couldn’t say why this was happening to her any more than she could identify the man, although surely she knew him, as there were no strangers in Whitefields, and hadn’t she willingly gotten into his car wearing only a thin nightgown and robe, assuming she'd be safe? Just after he'd raped her, a strange shocked sadness seemed to cover the man's face as Lyndsay cried out for her mommy, and at that moment she almost remembered who he was.

She'd stopped shivering minutes, or perhaps hours, earlier as a strange lethargic numbness embraced her bruised and abused body. Shimmering gossamer-ice clung against her pale skin like frosting, as the wind-chill dipped into the double digits below zero, making the thin nightgown worse than useless.

Once, two or three cigarettes ago, a strangely haunting giggle had fluttered in the darkness startling the girl until a loud thud against the rear car seat, followed by a snarled curse, made her realize that the eerie sound had escaped her own cracked lips. That small sound was enough to send her soul tumbling into the blackest depths of Hell.

#

The first major snowfall began at dusk, and with the darkness the full fury of the storm descended upon the land. This storm would be talked about for years to come as the worst storm to hit Whitefields since the “Blizzard of '78”.

Thousands of acres of virgin forest surround the small Michigan town, and when the snow fell, as it was doing this night, the town would be cut off from the rest of the world for days, or weeks, as drifts, high as a man, closed the only two roads into or out of Whitefields.

The weatherman in Lansing promised a slight chance of flurries, but the more knowledgeable residents in town knew from the signs that a big one was coming. In a larger city most people believed what they were told on television, not what they felt in their bones or what they saw in the land around them, but in Whitefields people believed in the signs, and they were ready.

Well before dusk most men, women, and children were tucked snugly in their warm secure homes. No one would venture from that safe haven unless their life or a loved ones life depended on it, and that night only a few people would be foolish enough to face the elements, and one wouldn’t live to tell about it.

About eleven-thirty, a lone figure scurried erratically through the thick forest on the eastern side of town. Lyndsay stumbled and fell, then stiffly pulled herself up against the rough trunk of a maple tree, and tried to move forward.

Her tears had stopped long ago, and now the sixteen-years-old no longer felt the sting of snow pellets against her face. Lost and alone in the blinding white nightmare, Lyndsay mistakenly moved deeper into the forest.

Thankfully the numbing cold had eased the pain between her bloodied legs, and the side of her head didn’t hurt any more either, and one word continually chased it's tail through her mind, nightmare.

“NIGHTMARE,” Lyndsay screamed, then laughed hysterically as a broken tree branch clawed through the porcelain layer of flesh on her right leg. The seeping blood almost immediately stopped flowing, then painlessly changed color from bright red-to-pink-to-frosty white. Content with this new source of proof that she was moving through a nightmare, Lyndsay pushed forward seeking the doorway to reality.

Stumbling, Lyndsay began a slow-motion descent, scraping her cheek against the rough bark of a huge old oak tree as her body, as her mind had earlier, finally surrendered.

Thought of the anguish her parent’s faced tugged Lyndsay's mind from its safe haven. “Mamma, I’m so sorry.” Then, thankfully, her mind once again withdrew into darkness.

A strange sound followed her into the darkness and pulled her back. Slowly her eyes opened, then shut, and open again in surprise.

“My God”, she whispered. Standing before her was the most beautiful being she'd ever seen. A warm shimmering light radiated from the Native American woman, and her white buckskins shone brighter than the crystal snowflakes that swirled a round, and through her.

The woman didn’t speak but held her hand out to Lyndsay, as an encouraging smile danced in her eyes. When the girl tried to reach out the woman shook her head, then Lyndsay heard in her mind, “Leave it, it's of no use.”

“Leave what?” Lyndsay asked, confused as she tried to maneuver a response from her frozen limbs.

“Leave the flesh.”

“But . . . .”

Stepping closer, the woman said, “No. Come now, your revenge shall be your reality.”

Lyndsay's mind reeled back toward the abyss, “But I don’t want revenge, I just want to go home.”

“You can never go home again.”

“Please!”

“No! They have taken it from you and you'll know no peace until he who has wronged you has paid. It is the law. Search your soul and it's memories, and you will know what I say is true. Come now, there is no reason for you to suffer any longer. The sin committed here this night is the responsibility of all your people because they have forgotten the law of this land, but soon you, my Child, and I will remind them.”

CHAPTER 1

April 10, 2000

Tommy Rogers raced along behind Bruiser barely able to keep up with the huge dog. After a long, especially cold winter it felt really good to be able to race through the woods again. Although, he admitted to himself, it had been much more fun last year when Bruiser was just a pup and really had to pump his little legs to keep up with Tommy. Now, Tommy suspected that, if the dog decided to, he could probably even beat Superman in a footrace, which meant Tommy wouldn’t stand a chance of keeping up with the Siberian Husky.

By using his total body weight against the leash Tommy was able to bring the dog to a halt. Bent at the waist with his hands on his knees, Tommy sucked much needed oxygen into his lungs. When he glanced at Bruiser, he was sure the dog was smirking at him, but at the moment all he wanted to do was rest against an inviting tree trunk and wait for a his strength to return. Reluctantly Bruiser settled down beside his little master and seemed content to rest his head in the boy's lap.

Tommy laughed at the expression on the dog's face. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, I can’t help I'm getting old, and can’t run like I used to.”

Bruiser grumbled a reply deep down in his throat.

“Yeah? Well I'm going to be ten next week, and that ain’t no spring chicken,” Tommy countered with one of his mother's favorite cliches.

Suddenly Bruiser stood, his nose pointed into the breeze. The hair down the middle of his back bristled and the noise coming from deep in his throat took on a different tone.

Goose bumps tightened the skin on Tommy's neck, “What? What's the matter, Boy?”

Never before had Tommy heard such a threatening sound. Bruiser would growl if a stranger got too close, but it never sounded like this, and he'd never seen the dog's hair stand straight up either.

“Bruiser, stop it, you're scaring me. Come here,” Tommy demanded trying to pull the dog to him, but Bruiser was fought against the leash, and for the first time Tommy felt a twinge of fear towards his best friend and companion. The dog was stiff and unyielding, his growl lower, louder, and more threatening still. Cautiously Tommy touched the dog's stiff fur, sure that the hairs would be needle sharp.

Moving slowly so as not to alarm the dog Tommy stood, If he's going to bite me I'd rather he bites me on the ass than have him eat my face. Tommy giggled nervously.

Bruiser's afraid! Tommy suddenly realized, but that couldn’t be right, the big dog wasn’t afraid of anything!

Okay, if something out there is bad enough to make Bruiser afraid, then it's bad enough to make me afraid, “Okay boy, you convinced me, let's get the hell out of here!”

Tommy was sure his arms were at least three inches longer because when he turned to run the dog decided to take off in the opposite direction. He almost let go of the leash, unwilling to face whatever was scary enough to frighten the bravest dog in the whole world. Out there in the thick green forest waited Frankenstein, or Dracula, or at the very least The Wolfman. “No Bruiser! Let's go home!”

When the dog turned his icy-blue stare on Tommy the boy felt more than just a tinge of fear this time.

“Okay Bruiser, I'm not going to argue with you, because I know you can bite my arm right off if you wanted to, but please, let's go home, Boy. You’re my best friend in the whole world, and I don’t want nothing bad happenin' to you, so please . . . please come home with me.”

Big wet tears streaked down Tommy's cheeks, and Bruiser only wanted to protect his little master from the bad smell coming from the forest. Bruiser looked from Tommy to the deep woods then back to the boy again. Before either of them knew what was going to happen, Bruiser lifted his big head towards the heavens, and a long low howl floated out into the crisp spring air.

“Jesus Bruiser, you sound like a ghost! Let's get out of here!” Tommy turned and ran, and the dog quickly took the lead as though his eerie howl had frightened him as well.

When Tommy felt he’d put a safe distance between himself and whatever was back there, he slowed his pace enough for a quick peek over his shoulder. For a heart stopping second, thought he saw a shimmering figure dart between the trees, but then it was gone, and Tommy knew he imagined the figure because there weren’t any real Indians around anymore.

#

Anna Rogers poured another cup of coffee as she agonized over her current novel. This use to be fun, she thought scanning the page of uninspired script. Well, it definitely wasn’t fun anymore. Hell, it's too much like work to be fun.

Rereading her hero's latest escapade, Anna sighed disgustedly. Just how many exciting adventures could a three-legged turtle have? At this point in her career Anna was ready to feed the soup-pot fugitive to a nice fat owl.

“Mom!” Tommy bellowed as he crashed through the kitchen door right behind her.

“Jesus Tommy, don’t yell, I'm not deaf . . .yet.”

“Can Bruiser come in the house, Mom? Please?”

Anna noticed the quiver in her son's voice and turned to look at him more closely. Ever since the trouble with Tommy's father, (she no longer thought of him as her husband) the boy was nervous and easily frightened. If that worthless son-of-a-bitch is sneaking around again I'll kill him!

“What's the matter, Honey. You look like you saw a ghost.”

Tommy flinched. “A ghost? Why'dja say that?”

She was aware of him watching her, his little boy face etched with the fear she'd come to know and hate, “ Just a figure of speech, Honey, now what's the matter?”

Tommy had just spent the last fifteen minutes as he ran home, trying to think of a way to explain to his mother what happened in the forest, and why Bruiser just had to stay in the house, even though the dog barely tolerated being inside even in the winter.

He reluctantly decided nothing he told Anna would make sense because it didn’t make sense to him and he was there. What had really happened? Nothing, except Bruiser had growled and howled at something that could have been a rabbit, deer, or nothing at all.

Maybe the silly dog was just singing his I'm-glad-it's-summer song. Of course Tommy didn’t believe that because he'd never been scared of his own dog before, but nothing else made any sense either.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mom, but can Bruiser come in for a while? We're kind of tired of playing outside, it's boring.”

Anna almost gave in, but the manuscript beckoned. “No.”

“But Mom . . .”

“Tommy, its seventy-five degrees outside, and the last thing I need is buffalo dog leaving clumps of fur all over.”

“But . . . ”

“No! N - 0. Fix yourself a sandwich and go outside and play with Bruiser, but you're not going to play in the house, either one of you, got it?”

Tommy grumbled under his breath, but Anna chose to ignore him. Tommy took bologna, pickles, Miracle whip, and cheese from the refrigerator, then reached back and grabbed the grape jelly. From the cabinet be brought out peanut butter, bread and a bag of chips. Anna watched, her stomach protesting as her son piled everything between the slices of bread even the chips.

“Silly sandwich, huh?” She asked, amazed at the boy's cast-iron stomach.

“Yeah, want one?”

“Ah, no, but thanks anyhow.”

Tommy glanced thoughtfully out the window over the kitchen sink at the forest, and suddenly his face lit up. “Mom, are there bears in the woods?”

Anna's stomach flipped. “Bears? Why? Did you see a bear?”

Tommy's eyes brightened. “You mean there are bears around here?”

“I . . . ” Are there bears around here? Hadn’t she noticed more deer and rabbits lately? There seemed to be more raccoons and skunks, even a couple coyotes too, but bears? Maybe, why not?

“I haven’t heard of any bears around here, why, do you think you might have seen one?”

Tommy watched Bruiser through the window. The dog hadn’t moved an inch. I wish he wouldn’t keep staring at the woods like that.

“Tommy?”

“Huh?”

“Do you think you saw a bear?”

Tommy glanced at Bruiser again before turning back to his mother. “Nah, I didn’t see anything, but Bruiser was acting really weird like maybe he saw something.”

“Well, maybe he saw a deer, or smelled a skunk.”

Tommy thought about this for a moment then shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so ‘cause he howled really weird, kind of spooky like.”

“Howled, huh?”

“Yeah, you know like OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH.” Tommy did his best to imitate the dog.

Anna laughed. “Huskies do that.”

“They do?” Tommy frowned.

“Yeah, just like they kind of talk to you? You know how Bruiser does that? Well, other dogs don’t talk to you like that, and they don’t howl like Huskies do either.”

“How come I never heard him do it before?”

“He usually does it late at night, after you're asleep. He does it really low too, like he knows if he's too loud he'll wake you up.”

“You mean you've heard him do it?” Tommy asked skeptically.
Anna ruffled his hair. “Lots of times.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

#

Tommy woke sometime in the early hours of morning. An eerie sound pulled him from the comforting depths of sleep.

“Bruiser,” Tommy whispered into the night as a shiver crept up his spine. Tommy's first thought was of monsters in the forest, then his thoughts shifted to memories of another night not so long ago when his father crept up the stairs, the night his nightmare became real.

Tommy remembered his father's voice sounding especially loud that night. He’d tried to block the sound of their argument, but when Anna's cry of pain was cut short by a loud thump, Tommy was out of bed, and racing blindly to his parent’s bedroom.

His mother was on the floor, knees drawn to protect her face and stomach from the blows his father rained upon her. Dads face was red with rage as he drew his foot back to deliver yet another brutal gift, at that moment something in Tommy snapped and he attacked. His small hands beat air as his father held him by the hair at arm's length.

Tommy heard his mother's screams, but, before she could react, his father surprised them all by picking Tommy up and, screaming curses at the boy, threw him across the room into the bedroom wall.

Before darkness claimed him Tommy thought proudly, at least I got him to stop hitting Mommy.

Outside Bruiser continued to howl softly. Mom said it was because he was related to wolves, which Tommy thought was pretty cool, and everyone knows wolves howl at the moon. Turning his head slightly, Tommy saw the full moon shining through his bedroom window.
Cool or not, the sound was still a little scary, so he pulled the covers over his head. Dad couldn’t come back because Mom had something called a piece-of-bond on him, and he wasn’t allowed near Tommy, or Mom, or even near the house 'cause the cops would put him in jail if he did.

CHAPTER 2

Alex Rogers threw the screwdriver against the garage wall. Six times he drove the screw into the hole, and six times it went in crooked. Damned thing has to be drilled crooked, he thought, twisting the cap off another Budweiser.

He kicked the scattered parts that, once together, would supposedly be a shiny new ten-speed bike. He already figured out that a person had to be a genius to assemble the damned thing, or at least have a degree in engineering.

The bike was suppose to be a peace offering for Tommy's birthday, but at the rate he was going the boy would be forty years old before Alex got it together.

He drained half the beer in one gulp, thinking about that night a couple of months ago. Guilt over the incident drove him to buy the bide, but anger over the guilt kept him
from getting it put together.

Then there was Anna. Getting her to let him see Tommy was something he wasn’t looking forward to. A Peace Bond for God sake. Well he hoped she realized that if he really wanted to see her or the boy he'd by God see them, bond or no bond.

The problem with women and kids today was their lack of respect for the husband and father. A man worked his ass off, even if he doesn’t make as much money as she did with her stupid books, and so what if he stopped occasionally with the boys for a couple of beers? Did she appreciate him? No, she whines about being tired. What the hell did she have to be tired about, when all she does all day is sit around on her fat ass making up baby stories?

A husband had to stand up for his rights, and that was all he'd been doing the night the little twerp lost control and attacked him. Shit, the kid deserved what he got, and more.

Since the night of the incident Alex had many nights of inner conflict. Rarely he blamed himself for what happened, hence the bike, but most often the blame lay with his wife and son. She was turning the kid into a little sissy mama's boy.

Pushing newspapers to the floor Alex dropped to the couch, twisting open a new beer. He thought about Anna. She was still a beautiful woman, as slim and desirable now as the day he'd married her. She was good in bed too. Too good, he thought, rubbing a hand roughly over his crotch. She's she’s still my wife, bond, or no bond. I could make her realize what she's missing. Sure, she might fight it at first just because she's so damned stubborn, but in the end she'd thank me. One more beer and maybe I'll take a little drive out to my house, and climb into the sack with my wife.

#

Tommy woke hours later without remembering Bruiser's late-night howls. He faintly remembered having a bad dream in which Dad picked him up and threw him through the air with such force that Tommy sailed right out the window and far, far over the forest. The strangest part of the dream was the cold. It was so cold in the woods Tommy felt his fingers and toes turn into icicles. He just kept sailing through those old dark woods until he hit a big tree and slid right down its trunk and instantly went to sleep, which Tommy thought was kind of funny since he was already asleep.

“Hi, Honey”, Anna said over her second cup of coffee of the morning.

“Hi, Mom.”

“You feel Ok?”

Tommy shrugged, “Guess so.”

“Bruiser wake you with his howling last night?”
Tommy started. “Yeah, I think I remember hearing him. I was dreaming about Dad, and I got scared 'cause I thought he was coming back to get me.”

Anna felt her heart climb to her throat. “Oh Baby, come here.”

Tommy walked slowly to his mother. He didn’t want to feel like a baby and wished he hadn’t mentioned the dream.

Wrapping her arms around her son and pulling him close, Anna felt such hatred course through her body for her husband that if he walked through the door Anna knew she could pick up a knife and run it right through his heart without a second thought. How dare that monster cause all this pain to her baby? Sometimes, Anna half wished Alex would come back to the house. This time she had a little surprise for him. She kept a loaded .38 hidden beneath her mattress. It was one thing for him to pound on her, but by God he was never, ever, going to touch her son again.

“Honey, I told you Dad can’t come around here any more, the Judge told him he has to stay away, remember?”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah, you have a 'piece of bond' for him.”

Anna laughed, “Peace Bond. It's a paper that says Dad has to stay away from us or go to jail, and your father doesn’t want to go to jail.”

“Yeah, he couldn’t get all drunk if he did.”

“Oh Honey, I'm so sorry.”

Pulling away from his mother Tommy, stated simply, “Dad should be sorry for hitting you all the time. You shouldn’t be sorry, you never hit anyone.”

“Sometimes your dad doesn’t know what he's doing, Baby. He's sick.”

Tommy considered this. “Then why doesn’t he go to the doctor and get a shot so he'll get better?”

Tommy remembered his mother more than once begging his father to get help. She said they had places where he could go and they'd cure his demon. Tommy hadn’t been sure what a demon was, but he thought it was something like a monster, because when Dad got drunk he acted like a monster. Tommy learned a long time ago that the only thing he had to be afraid of in the dark was the demon living inside his father.

One day his dad said, “I can quit drinking any time I want to,” and to prove he was right he didn’t drink for five days. It hadn’t helped his father get rid of his demon, 'cause he was just as mean, as ever, the only difference was the demon kept his red eyes hidden. When Alex wasn’t drinking he was home, and those turned out to be the longest days of Tommy's life. He was almost happy when Dad announced, “I'm running down the street”, because that meant he was going to Jake’s 1 – 4 The Road bar, and it would be quiet around the house for a few hours while Dad fed his demon.

Tommy wasn’t sure exactly what his feelings for his father were. Sometimes he remembered playing ball, or going on hikes in the woods with his parents, and he missed his father. Mostly he remembered the bad times when the demon made Dad hit Anna over and over until blood covered her face. Those times Tommy hid in his closet, because if he saw anymore blood his mind would just fly away and never come back, and then who would take care of Mom and Bruiser? Tommy figured he might love his father, but he hated the demon, and if that demon ever came around and tried to hurt his mother again he'd get the gun Mom had hid, and shoot his father right through the demon's eyes.

“He doesn’t think he has a problem,” Anna said softly.
Tommy replied coldly, “No, he just likes his demon better than he likes us.”

Anna flinched at the venom in her son's voice. Not for the first time she realized the hatred he has for his father nearly equaled her own. Ok Anna, time to change the subject.

“Well Sport, what exciting plans do you and Bruiser have for the day?”

“Don’t know, maybe we'll just hang around here today.”

“Seems a shame to waste a beautiful sunny Sunday hanging around the house, especially since it’s back to school tomorrow.”
Although he decided never to go into the woods again, Tommy soon gave way to boredom and curiosity. He'd been roaming the woods since he was old enough to walk, first with his parents, then last year it became just him and Bruiser. There was nothing there that would hurt him, especially with Bruiser at his side.

#

Karl and Sue Abbott returned home from church at 11:53. As Sue entered the kitchen door she felt the familiar emptiness of the house. It was almost as if the house itself died with their daughter, Lyndsay’s, disappearance. Sue hated the feel of their home now, it felt alien and foreboding. Used to be at least the house made noises, like houses were suppose to do, but for some reason Sue felt as if her home were holding it’s breath, waiting for something to happen.

Karl stopped behind Sue, and, as one, their heads turned toward the answering machine on the kitchen counter. The light remained constant, no calls.

Right after Lyndsay's disappearance neither one of them would leave the house in case their daughter called. Then if one of them went out the other stayed home, just in case Lyndsay called. Finally they got the answering machine, not because Lyndsay might
call, but because the police might call with information about Lyndsay. Although neither would admit it either out loud or to themselves, both had the same nagging little voice haunting their thoughts, Lyndsay's dead.

Neither said a word as Sue began a pot of coffee and Karl walked out to the road to get the Sunday newspaper. The day would pass like the day before and the one before that, each lost in his own thoughts, each wondering if perhaps there wasn’t something they could do or should have done.

After lunch, as had become their custom, Karl retreated to his den, paper in hand. He read and reread every word, trying to see beyond the obvious, to read between the lines, in the hopes of finding any tiny clue to his little girl's whereabouts.

Sue washed and dried the lunch dishes then moved slowly through the house to Lyndsay's bedroom. There she would sit and stare into space until it was time to prepare dinner. Sitting in the rocking chair she relived Lyndsay's life from the moment of conception until the moment Cindy Milner called asking to speak to Lyndsay.

“Ah, Mrs. Abbott, could I please talk to Lyndsay?”
Somewhere deep in her heart something cried, some little voice, a premonition.

“Cindy, Lyndsay isn’t home from your place yet. What time did she leave?”

(Silence.)

“Cindy? Are you still there?”

“Ah, yeah, I'm still here. Ah, Mrs. Abbott, Lyndsay left here last night. She didn’t spend the night after all.”

There it was, the words spoken, not simply fear now, but full-blown terror. A voice no longer whispering but screaming that their life was about to change, that a nightmare was moving in with them to occupy their daughter's room.

Gripping the towel tightly, Sue tried to remain in control. Lyndsay could be anywhere. She might have gone to Brenda's, or even to Jimmy's. Just because Lyndsay wasn’t home didn’t mean something bad happened to her, but in her heart and soul she knew that was exactly what it meant.

“Cindy, I'm going to hang up now. I'm going to call Jimmy's house and see if she's there.”

“She . . . she's probably not there, Mrs. Abbott. That's what we had the fight about, and she was pretty upset with Jimmy . . . and me.”

Of course Cindy was right Lyndsay wasn’t at Jimmy's or Brenda's, or at any of the other places she could have been. Sixteen-years-old Lyndsay Abbott disappeared in a small town where the occasional family dispute was considered big crime.

Karl Abbott tried to remain calm those first few days. He drove around town for hours, claiming the police weren’t really concerned. They hinted that Lyndsay, like so many young people, got on a bus and left town, a runaway. Karl knew his daughter, and, if Lyndsay had problems, she would have gone to her mother with them. Lyndsay and Sue shared everything, and, if Lyndsay had been upset with Jimmy, she would have come home to talk it out with Sue. That was the way it had always been, Besides in a town this size no one went or did anything without most everyone in town seeing, or at least, knowing about it. The night Lyndsay disappeared it was snowing, nearly a blizzard, and, if any one saw Lyndsay out in that kind of weather they would have either given her a ride home, or insisted she come into their home until the storm passed, that was the way of Whitefields. Lyndsay would have called home so her parent’s didn’t worry; she'd always been thoughtful like that, never wanting them to worry.

Someone in town knew what happened to their daughter, there was no doubt of that in Karl's mind. Someone he'd known his whole life, maybe even called friend, knew what had happened to his only child, and there was only one reason they wouldn’t talk.

CHAPTER 3

“Come on, Bruiser, let's go over by the creek.” Tommy pulled on Bruiser's leash to keep him from going any farther into the woods. Bruiser hadn’t started acting crazy yet and Tommy didn’t want to encourage him to start.
“Come on Boy, we'll just stay nice and close to the house,” Tommy rubbed his dog's ear.

Tommy kept Bruiser on a leash for several reasons. That it was the law wasn’t one of them. If Bruiser met up with a porcupine he'd probably end up with a nose full of quills, and besides that, Tommy really hated to hear the sound small animals made when they died, like the rabbit Bruiser accidentally killed last summer.

Tommy didn’t think he could stand hearing that sound again, it’d given him nightmares for weeks.

“Wow, look at that?” Across the stream a mother raccoon and two kits played on the grassy bank. Bruiser tugged gently on the leash, wanting to get closer. “No, Bruiser, you can’t play with them. Their mother would get really mad and probably bite your nose off. We've got to stay here and be real quiet, and just watch.”

Bruiser lay down next to Tommy in the grass. A gentle breeze blew from behind them, and suddenly the mother coon rose on her hind feet, nose in the air. Chattering madly she quickly herded the babies into the forest behind her.

“Shoot, she must have smelled us, Bruiser. Well, come on, let's see if we can catch some tadpoles.”

Tommy and Bruiser spent the next hour splashing through the shallow stream. Tommy waited patiently for the tadpoles to come out of hiding only to have Bruiser pounce on them.

“No, Bruiser!”

“Hi.”

The voice startled Tommy so much that he lost his balance and flopped on his butt in the cold stream. Bruiser froze, staring at the stranger, a deep growl rumbling from his chest.

“Hi,” the girl said again, moving slowly toward Tommy.

“You better not come any closer.

My dog doesn’t like strangers.”

Tommy got to his feet and moved to the opposite side of the narrow stream. He knew to keep the dog safely way from anyone he didn’t know.

Tommy stopped and looked more closely at the girl. She looked familiar, but he couldn't remember where he saw her before.

“My name's Tommy, Tommy Rogers, and this is Bruiser.”

The girl looked at the dog for a moment then back at Tommy. “Hi Tommy. Hi Bruiser.”

Bruiser stopped growling, lowered his head, and whimpered. The whimper embarrassed Tommy. Sheesh, was the silly dog afraid of a girl?

The girl spoke from her side of the stream. “It’s Ok Bruiser, it's Ok.”

Bruiser looked at the girl again then did something that really scared Tommy. He raised his head and howled.

Tommy knelt beside the dog and whispered, “It's OK Bruiser, it's only a girl.”

The dog's muscles quivered beneath Tommy's arms. Bruiser was really scared, and that confused Tommy. When he glanced back at the girl he was surprised to see she'd started across the stream.

“Ah, I wouldn’t come too close right now. My dog is acting really weird, and he might bite you.”

The girl stopped, and Tommy thought she must be standing on a rock, because her feet looked like they were on top of the water.

“Tommy, I won’t hurt you.”

Tommy thought that was a funny thing for her to say, especially with Bruiser at his side howling that scary howl, but because she had said it Tommy began to worry. He stood and slowly stepped backwards.

“Please,” the girl whispered.
After another step back, Tommy thought he knew how the mother raccoon felt earlier because he wanted to run off into the forest now. He didn’t like the way this was going, and wouldn’t Bruiser ever quit howling?

“I've . . . I've gotta go home now. Ah, my Mom's probably looking for me right now, so, ah, I guess we'll be going. Come on Bruiser.”

Tommy glanced behind him, so he wouldn’t trip stepping out of the stream, then quickly back at the girl. She was standing back on the other side of the stream. How did she do that?

“How . . .?”

“Please Tommy, I need your help.”

Tommy strained to hear over Bruiser's racket.

As if reading his thoughts the girl looked steadily at the dog and said, “Bruiser, stop.”

To Tommy's surprise, Bruiser stopped howling and actually wagged his tail.

“Tommy?”

She was talking to him again, and Tommy shook his head in amazement, “That’s
the weirdest thing I ever saw him do. He never wags his tail at strangers.”

“It's because he trusts me, and I hope you will too, because I really need your help Tommy.”

Tommy frowned, he was only ten-years-old, well almost ten, and she was a big girl, probably from the high school, so how could he help her? The only way he’d be able to help her is if she was lost, he knew the woods as well as the inside of his own home.

The girl's eyes seemed to brighten. “Yes, yes Tommy, I'm lost, and my Mom and Dad are really worried because I've been lost for a long time. Will you help me?”

Feeling important and proud for being able to help someone a lot older than himself, Tommy nodded happily. “Sure, come on, I'll take you to my house. You can call your Mom and Dad and they can come and get you. Come on, I know the way out!” Tommy turned and started away.

“Wait Tommy! I can’t go with you!”

Tommy stopped, turned, and frowning at her asked, “Why not? If you're lost I'll take you to my house.” Girls sure were dumb sometimes. Just like that silly Carrie in his class at school. She did some of the dumbest things sometimes. His friend Billy said it was because she liked Tommy, but he didn’t think so, 'cause he wouldn’t glue someone's gym shoes to the floor when they weren’t looking if he liked them.

The girl seemed to be thinking about something, and Tommy sure hoped it was how stupid she was acting.

After several seconds she sighed, and said, “Tommy, you're going to have bring someone here, because I can’t leave the forest right now. Won’t you go get your mom or dad and have one of them come get me?”
Now Tommy was really confused, because if he was lost and someone wanted to take him to use his or her telephone he'd go. Unless it was a bad person, and then he wouldn’t even talk to him, but he wasn’t bad, he was just a kid, and she couldn’t be afraid of his mom, not if she wanted him to bring Mom into the woods to get her. Tommy shook his head. Girls!

Maybe she was sick or something. She did look kind of pale, like she'd been sick a long time.

“Yes Tommy, real sick. Someone has to come here and get me.”

“Hey! How'd you know I was thinking that?” Tommy asked wide-eyed.

“Please, will you help me?”

“I guess,” Tommy shrugged. “You stay right there, and I'll go get my mom.”

“No, not here! I'm not . . . I mean I won’t be here.”

Tommy was starting to get angry. “Well how am I going to bring my mom to you
if I don’t know where you’re gonna be?”

Suddenly the girl started to cry, and that got Bruiser howling again, and that caused Tommy feel like a real jerk for hollering at the girl.

“I'm sorry, please don’t cry.”

“Please Tommy, I just want to go home.”

“Ok, I'll help you, but where will you be? How will I find you?”

The girl moved forward, and Tommy took two steps backwards, because when she moved it didn’t look like she was moving her legs, but sort of floating towards him.

Stopping, the girl said, “Remember yesterday when you were way back in the forest and Bruiser started howling and scared you?”

“Yeah,” Tommy answered weakly.

“I'll be back there, just a little farther into the forest. You'll see a great big oak tree in a clearing; there's a clump on white birch next to the oak. I'll be by the oak tree, tell your mom to look for me, Ok Tommy?”

Tommy's eyes grew large. If there was anyplace he most definitely did not want to go it was that scary place in the forest.

Something bad was there. He knew it, and so did Bruiser.

“Wh. . . why there?”

“Because that's where I am, ah, I mean where I'll be. Please Tommy, won’t you do that for me? Nothing there will hurt you or Bruiser. It was me that Bruiser was afraid of yesterday, that's how I knew you were there, I saw you. I wanted to talk to you then, but you ran off.”

Tommy thought about this bit of information. It made sense, especially considering the way Bruiser acted a bit ago when the girl first showed up. What made Bruiser howl like that? She was just a girl, and girls weren’t anything to be afraid of.

Finally, his mind made up, Tommy yanked the leash, and Bruiser moved to his side. “Ok, the big oak tree with the white birch by it. See ya in a little bit. Hey, what's your name?”

“Lyndsay. Please hurry Tommy.”

“Ok, see ya in a little bit Lyndsay.”

#

Sandy the three-legged turtle poked his head into the cold water. Where had Barney the Bass gone?

Anna sighed. “Where did Barney the Bass go? Sorry Sandy, he's probably in some fisherman's iron skillet turning golden brown.”

After twelve Sandy The Three-Legged Turtle books Anna was ready to boil the little troublemaker in a pot. What started out as a simple story for Tommy turned into a deadline for Anna. Never would she have believed that one of the stories she made up to entertain her son would end up being published and read to thousands of other women's children, but that's exactly what happened. Seven years earlier Anna's sister, Donna, talked to her about sending one of the stories to a publishing house.

“You're nuts Donna. Why on earth would anyone want to read the stories I make up for Tommy? I'm sure if a mother wants a story for her children she'll just make up one of her own.”

“Anna, Honey, people don’t just make up stories for their kids, they buy them already made up.

That way after a long hard day at the office they can pick up a book and read the little ones to sleep without even using their brains.
Read the other day that publishers are begging for kid's stories. It's suppose to be one of the easiest areas of writing to get into.”

It took Anna almost two years to actually get the first story written and mailed. She couldn’t believe she'd actually done it. She knew they (whoever they were) were going to laugh at her. It was a stupid idea, a stupid story. (Something to amuse her three-year-old son, never meant to be read by anyone else.) She fretted and worried for weeks, then began to relax after a month went by and she hadn’t heard anything. Thank God, at least they hadn’t sent her a nasty for wasting their time with such stupid nonsense.

After a couple of months passed Anna nearly forgot about it, except to wonder why her manuscript hadn’t been returned in the self-addressed, stamped envelope she'd made sure to send with her story.

She would never forget the day the letter arrived. Instead of telling her how upset they were with her for wasting their time, the envelope contained a contract and a very nice letter asking for more. Now here she was, years later, trying to think of something new and adventurous for a three-legged turtle to do, and she had only two weeks left to finish the story. Not for the first time she wondered if it wasn’t time to retire Sandy and try her hand with someone new, but fear of the unknown held her back. Right now she
needed the income Sandy provided.

“Mom! Mom!” Tommy burst through the kitchen door. “Mom, there's a girl in the woods and she wants you to come and get her.”

“Tommy, stop shouting, and slow down, I can’t understand a word you're saying.”

Tommy tried to contain his excitement. “A girl, in the woods. She wants you to come and find her.”

Exasperated, Anna announced, “Tommy I don’t have time to play with you and
your friends now. I've got two weeks to finish this story and get it to the publishers, I’m sorry I can’t stop now.”

“But Mom, she's lost, and she wants you to come and find her.”

“She's hiding?”

“No, she's lost.”

“Tommy, if she's lost then why didn’t she just come home with you?”

“She . . . she said she couldn’t. We have to go find her by a big oak tree.”

“Tommy, tell your little friend that I'm sorry, but I just don’t have time to go looking for her right now. Maybe in a couple of week, after this is in the mail and I've got some extra time we'll play, but not now.”

“But . . .”

“No buts. Out. Go get your friend and see if she wants to come back here and have lunch with you. You can make some Silly Sandwiches, and have a picnic in the backyard. But first go change those wet clothes. Go on right now.”

“Mom, I told you, she can’t come here.”

Anna's temper neared the breaking point. “Then make your sandwiches and take them with you, have your picnic down by the stream.” Anna watched as the words on the paper began to swim around the page.

She could sense Tommy hovering behind her, “Go
on Tommy, I've got work to do, and you know I can’t concentrate with you hanging over my shoulder. Now scoot.”

“But Mom.”

“Thomas!”

“Sheesh.”

#

“Lyndsay! Lyndsay where are you?” Tommy moved deeper into the forest. Bruiser, at his side, was more interested in what was in the brown bag that Tommy carried than where they were going.

“Lyndsay! My Mom can’t come right now! Where is she, Bruiser? Girls! They're so weird sometimes. Lyndsay!”

“I'm here Tommy.”

“Aghh! Don’t do that!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Tommy saw that Lyndsay looked like she was about to cry again. He hated to see girls cry, especially since he saw his mother cry so many times.

“Aw, you ain’t gonna cry again, are ya?”

“I want to go home, Tommy. I need to go home. You said you'd help me.”

“I tried, Lyndsay, but Mom's writing a story, and said she can’t come right now because she has to get her work done. It’s a story about this little turtle,” Tommy hurried
on, hoping to distract Lyndsay long enough to make her forget about crying again, “and he's only got three legs 'cause one got chewed off by this mean ol' red fox and . . .”

“Tommy, you're the only one who can help me. There is no one else. Won’t you please try harder to convince your mother?”
Tommy sat on a large tree trunk that had fallen next to the path. “Here, have a sandwich while we try to figure out how I'm going to convince Mom that she has to come and get you. She thinks you want to play hide and seek.”
Suddenly the girl giggled “That's the most disgusting sandwich I've ever seen. What on earth do you have on it?”

If Mom hadn’t said the exact same thing about Tommy's sandwiches many times before he might have been offended. Instead he proudly pulled off the top piece of bread so Lyndsay could get a better look.
“Well first you take a piece of bread, spread on some butter, and Miracle Whip, then peanut butter and some grape jelly, then baloney, cheese, pickles and crumble some chips on top, then butter the other piece of bread and Tada, a Silly Sandwich.”

“Gross.”

“No it's not, it's good.” Tommy was comfortable discussing something he'd become an expert on. “Don’t you like peanut butter and jelly?"

“Sure.”

“Baloney and cheese?”

“Yeah.”

“Pickles and potato chips?

“Of course.”
“Well?”

“Not all together, yuck!”

“Why not? They all end up together in your stomach, don’t they?”

Tommy felt pretty good now that he could talk to the girl about something that wouldn’t make her cry.

“Here, just try a bite. I made us both one.”

“Thanks anyhow Tommy, but I'm really not hungry.”

“Why not? You said you've been lost out here in the woods for a long time. You probably haven’t had anything to eat, have you?”

“No, but . . .”

“Well that's probably why you're sick. You haven’t eaten anything. Mom always says that if you don’t eat right you'll get sick, and I'll bet that's what's wrong with you.”

Lyndsay laughed, “I don’t think so Tommy.”

Offended Tommy retorted, “Mom says that, and she's pretty smart. She writes
books, and if she says you'll get sick because you don’t eat right then that's the truth!”

“I believe you Tommy. I believe your mom, and I'll bet she is smart, and she really does know what's right. I just can’t eat, sorry.”

Tommy frowned. “Will you throw-up?”

Lyndsay laughed again, “If I ate that I would!”

“Ah, it ain’t that bad, besides it taste better than it looks.”

“It'd have to,” she giggled again.

Tommy chewed his sandwich thoughtfully a minute then asked, “How come a big girl like you got lost in the woods, Lyndsay?”

“It's a long story.”

“You must not live around here, or you wouldn’t get lost. Everyone in town knows these woods just as good as I do.”

“I did live here Tommy.” Tommy looked up, fearful of seeing tears in her diamond dust eyes.

As he tossed the last bite of sandwich to Bruiser, Tommy asked hesitantly, “You move away?”

The girl shook her head, and Tommy marveled at how the sun danced through her long golden hair.

“Then how come you don’t know your way around?”

“I do know my way around.”

Frowning Tommy said, “Then how come you're lost?”

“Not all of me is lost. This part of me knows where I am.”

“Huh?”

“Bruiser understands, don’t you boy?” The dog whimpered and Tommy wasn’t sure he liked his dog knowing more than he did.

“Well I sure don’t understand, just how many parts of you do you think there are?”

The girl sighed, and to Tommy it sounded just like the spring breeze rustling through the leaves.

“Can’t you, please, try your mom again?”

“Nah, she was getting pretty mad at me for bothering her. When she's writing she doesn’t like anyone to even talk to her.”

“Ok look, this is our last chance. If this doesn’t work I guess I'll just have to show you, and I sure don’t want to do that, because I really like you, Tommy, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to make you have any more nightmares. Go back home,” she continued before Tommy could reply, “and tell your mother that my name's Lyndsay Abbott, and I've been missing since January 18th. Can you remember that Tommy?”

#

Tommy mumbled to himself as he trotted back to the fallen tree where he left Bruiser with Lyndsay. His mother hadn’t given him a chance to tell her much of anything before swatting him on the butt and threatening to ground him until he was thirty-two if he didn’t stop interrupting her, Mothers sure could be infuriating sometimes.

Lyndsay was sitting near the fallen tree where he left her. Bruiser lay near by, but not too close to Lyndsay, as though he liked her well enough, but didn’t quite trust her. When he heard Tommy coming through the woods, he leaped to his feet and started grumbling excitedly in Husky talk.

“Hi boy! Hey Bruiser, you miss me?” Tommy called to the dog more to put off telling Lyndsay the bad news than anything else. He didn’t want her to start crying again, but mostly he didn’t want to find out what it was that she was going to show him that would give him nightmares. His dad gave him enough nightmares he didn’t want or need any more.

“Didn’t work, huh'?”

He shook his head, wrapping his arms tightly around Bruiser's thick neck. “Sorry, she threatened to ground me until I was an old man if I said one more word, and she almost made me go to my room and leave Bruiser out here with you. She thinks you're one of my 'little friends.'“

Tommy picked a piece of bark off the fallen tree. He didn’t know what to do, or even what to say to help the girl. He even tried to sneak in the living room to call the police, but that's when Mom had cracked him hard across the butt. He really wanted to help Lyndsay get home to her mom and dad . . . her mom and dad!

“That's it!” he yelled suddenly, jumping up and down as he told her, “I'll call your mom and dad, and have them come and get you? They know you're lost, so they'll believe me, and all you have to do is give me your phone number so I can call them, and then they can come and get you!”

Lyndsay shook her head. “They won’t believe you.”

“Why not? Just because I'm a little kid?”

“Partly. Partly because I've been gone over three months.”

“That long, huh?”

“You remember when Christmas was?” Lyndsay added, hoping to make the time period a little more understandable for a ten-year-old.

Tommy's eyes widened. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well it was only about three weeks after Christmas when I . . . I got lost. Do you remember the night we had big snowstorm?”

“Yeah?” Tommy looked at her doubtfully. “And you been lost out here in the forest since then?”

“Yes.”

“With just that funny sleep-thing on, in snow and freezing cold?”

“My nightgown, yes.”

“How come you didn’t freeze . . . never mind, I don’t think I want to know.”

“You have to know Tommy. It's the only way you’re going to convince anyone you've found me. You have to know the truth. Come on, I want to show you something.”

“I don’t . . . “

“Come on Tommy, pleeeaase.”

“Oh sheesh.”

Tommy and Bruiser followed the pretty girl with the shiny golden hair and the funny nightdress through the forest, and Tommy tried not to think about the way the leaves beneath her feet never moved as she passed over them.
When Lyndsay stopped, Tommy and Bruiser stopped, keeping a safe distance from the strange girl whom was about to make him have nightmares.

“I'm sorry Tommy. Go around to the other side of that big tree there, and you'll know the truth.”

Tommy looked at the tree she indicated. It reminded him of a tree he'd seen in the spooky movie, Poltergeist he'd seen last Halloween. In the movie that tree tried to eat the boy!

“Lyndsay,” Tommy said looking toward Lyndsay, but she wasn’t there. Tommy turned quickly one way then another. Where did she go? A horrible thought then, what if the tree ate Lyndsay!

“Lyndsay?” In the clearing around the massive oak, forest life continued as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. The birds chirped happily, two squirrels chattered madly as they chased each other through the white branches of the birch clump. It was as though boys and their dogs came to the clearing every day searching for strange floating girls who disappear in the blink of an eye.

Tommy didn’t like this at all, no-sir, no-way, and no-how. I want to go home, and I don’t care if Mom grounds me for a hundred years. Anything's better than walking around that tree, and I ain’t gonna do it.

“Bruiser!” Tommy yelped as the dog started dragging him toward the oak tree.

“No Bruiser, no!” He heard Lyndsay crying softly, and all his fear vanished. Lyndsay needed him, he alone could help her.
Like a sleepwalker, Tommy began to circle the tree.

CHAPTER 4

Anna stared into space. Sometimes it seemed as though a motion picture screen played the newest release of Sandy The Three-Legged Turtle. She'd watch with her inner eye as Sandy and his woodland friends scampered around from one adventure to another.

Then there were other times when the inner screen played just old memories from Anna's past.

Today seemed to be one of those days as Anna tried repeatedly to erase the screen, the one showing her and Alex on their wedding day, and tune in Sandy. Sandy needed to be here now, and it frustrated Anna that she couldn’t bring his image in.

“Damn,” she shouted at herself walking arm in arm down the long aisle with her father, her wedding gown trailing behind.

“Not today! I don’t need to see that today. Today I need Sandy. Come on Sandy where are you? Please?”

Suddenly the picture in her mind went blank, and there was Sandy staring out at her from beneath a large gnarled root. Anna sighed with relief as she watched the turtle's small-bullet shaped head poke out from his shell. Sandy looked one way then the other. His small body seemed to stiffen, and he quickly darted back into his shell.

“Come on Sandy. Don’t be shy, come on out and play,” she coaxed.
Slowly Sandy's head popped out again. This time he neither looked one way or the other but began climbing from his nest. Anna's fingers flew across the keys of her old typewriter, recording Sandy's every move.

In the distant Sandy heard sounds. He knew the sounds but not the meaning. Sometimes he heard these sounds in his head telling him to move, to stop, to wake up and do something. Today he heard two sets of sounds, the one inside his small head urging him out and the one from the forest beyond. The outside sounds frightened him. There was a quality to them that made him want to retreat to his hiding place beneath the old oak tree, but the voice inside his head ordered him to advance into the adventure unfolding around him.

#

Anna watched in her mind as the little turtle moved slowly through the leaves on the forest floor.

Anna often cursed herself for imagining the turtle with only three legs. Sometimes waiting for the little beast to get into trouble took more time than the actual writing of the story.

Sandy stopped, raised his long neck as high as it would go and stood on the toes of his two front legs. Something is coming Sandy-Anna knew. More than one something too. Before the turtle could duck safely into his shell a large black and white animal with icy blue eyes came into the clearing. A rope was hooked to the dog's neck, and attached to the end of the rope was a young human. Anna instantly recognized Tommy and Bruiser. Strange, she thought, Tommy and Bruiser have never been in any of my stories before, but maybe it's a good idea. Time for a change.

Sandy-Anna watched as the boy and dog stopped just into the clearing. The boy turned and spoke to someone Sandy-Anna couldn’t see. Then suddenly the dog pulled on the rope and Sandy-Anna thought he'd spotted the turtle, but the whimper of terror Tommy emitted convinced Sandy-Anna that it wasn’t the turtle at all that held the boy’s attention. The boy reluctantly followed as Bruiser pulled him toward the oak tree and Sandy.

Fear knotted its angry fist in Anna's stomach. This was her imagination working and it horrified her that she could even imagine of something so terrible as to put such
a death-camp look on her son's face. Quickly Anna began thinking pleasant thoughts, picturing Tommy laughing with delight as he spots the three-legged turtle of his childhood waiting to be discovered. "Tommy, find Sandy!" She willed him. Sandy, hearing those thoughts tried to pull his head into his shell, but Anna held control of the little creature. Watch them, she demanded, and the turtle reluctantly obeyed.

As the boy and dog approached Sandy his little body stiffened. They're going to hurt Sandy, his little brain warned, but they passed without even noticing him.

Anna willed the turtle to follow as quickly as he could, which even for a turtle was so slow Anna wanted to scream.

A new sound filled the forest one Sandy was familiar with, but not Anna. It was two sounds in one, and it took her a moment to realize one sound was Bruiser howling like a crazed banshee, the other sound was coming from Tommy. Her son was shrieking louder than the dog.

“Tommy!” Anna shouted, pushing herself away from the typewriter, breaking the terrifying image.

Sandy felt immensely relieved and quickly pulled his little head and legs as far into his shell as he could get them. It didn’t make the outside noises go away, but it muted them and thankfully the inside voice was gone now. Both those sounds at the same time made Sandy want to go find that mean ol’ red fox and feed himself to it.

#

Anna poured herself some of the Black Velvet left from Alex’s time in the house. She hated whiskey, but at this point just about anything that calmed her jangled nerves was welcomed.

“What the hell happened?” She asked the typewriter as though she'd find the answer miraculously written on the pages of her manuscript. Why did I see Tommy and Bruiser like that? What did it mean? A premonition? No, that's dumb, there's no such thing. Tommy and Bruiser are fine; it's me who needs help for even imagining Tommy being so frightened. They're fine just playing in the forest with their little friend. “What was her name?” Tommy said they were playing hide-and-seek. “No, he said she was lost. No, no, she couldn’t be lost, because I told Tommy to bring the girl to the house, and he said the girl wouldn’t, or couldn’t come. So they were playing . . .” and I'm talking to myself, “but what did Tommy say her name was? Lori? Lisa . . . no, Lyndsay, that's it Lyndsay.” Anna shivered, and gulped the whiskey, making her eyes tear as she gasped for breath.

What was it about that name that teased Anna's memory? “Lyndsay.”

Anna sat down slowly, trying to pry into the depths of her mind for the meaning behind the illogical unease the child’s name invoked. Her internal screen tried to show more of what was happening in the forest, but she couldn’t stand to let her morbid imagination take over again. She didn’t want to make-up any more scary things. Tommy is fine, he's playing, and Bruiser is with him. Bruiser would never let anything happen to Tommy. But that name . . . Lyndsay.

Anna shot to her feet. “Lyndsay . . .Lyndsay Abbott. The girl who disappeared a few months ago!”

Anna hit the back door at a run. Something was wrong. Lyndsay Abbott, Lyndsay
Abbott, she kept thinking repeatedly. She stopped at the edge of the forest, and screamed her son's name into the still afternoon sunshine.

“TOMMY!” Please God let him answer!

Tommy knew he always had to be within shouting distance. That was the rule, and Tommy always obeyed the rules, so why doesn’t he answer? Anna called again, still nothing. Try Bruiser, she thought. Dogs have better hearing. “BRUISER!”

She listened to the sounds of spring humming around her. Next door the sound of heavy footsteps crossing the wood deck let Anna know that at least someone had heard her calls.

“Anna? Is something wrong?”

Anna turned, only then realizing she was crying. She must look like someone just
died. No, don’t even think that!
The man stood several feet away as though he thought whatever upset Anna might be contagious. Her neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, were just past retirement age and spent most of their time working in, what seemed to Anna, acres and acres of flower beds, which was one of the reasons Bruiser was kept in his kennel when he wasn’t with Tommy. They were a nice couple, and Anna knew they would become even closer if she hadn’t kept it from happening. First because of Alex, she didn’t want anyone to see the way he treated her and Tommy, then it just got to the point where being alone was easier.

As Anna took a step in Mr. (call me Ted) Jenkins' direction, the man took a step back, startled. “What is it Anna? What's wrong? Is it . . .Alex? Has he come back?”

“Alex?” Anna asked confused. “No, not Alex.”
She took a deep breath, trying to control herself. The poor man probably thought she had finally gone off the deep end, and she couldn’t blame him as she realized how she must reek of whiskey.

“Mr. Jenkins,” she said slowly, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Mr. Jenkins, do you remember anything about that girl, Lyndsay Abbott, who disappeared a few months ago?”

Ted stood staring at her so long Anna thought he'd forgotten the question, and was about to repeat it when he said, “No, just what I read in the paper. Why?”

“Well, Tommy came in a while ago and said there was a girl in the forest, and he wanted me to go with him to get her, he said her name was Lyndsay, Mr. Jenkins.”

Mr. Jenkins cleared his throat and the sound embarrassed Lyndsay, made her feel foolish. “Well Anna, I'm sure there must be other children around here with that name, unless Tommy specifically said Lyndsay Abbott. Did he?”

Anna thought back, then shook her head. “No, maybe, oh, I can’t remember, I didn’t pay much attention, but I think he just said Lyndsay.”

“Well, there you are.” Mr. Jenkins smiled, looking out toward the forest, his thin face etched with concern. “Maybe you shouldn’t let him play in the woods by himself. You never know what might happen.”

In spite of her inner fears Anna laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right about the girl's name, I jumped to conclusions, and Tommy's been playing in those woods all of his life. Nothing will happen to him, especially with Bruiser with him.” She mentally crossed her fingers to ward off a jinx.

Far off in the distance a dog barked. The sound evaded Anna until it turned into a long eerie howl.

“Oh my God!” Anna screamed as she turned and raced into the woods.

Her neighbor stood watching after her, Maybe I should go with her. Ah, to hell with it. Kids are always looking for trouble, and usually finding it. With a shrug of his scrawny shoulders Ted returned to his begonias. “Well, how are Daddy's pretty little girls today?”

Bruiser met up with Anna about a quarter of a mile into the forest. Her voice was little more than a raspy whisper from screaming for her son as she called to the frantic dog. “Bruiser, come,” she croaked as the dog leaned away from her toward the heart of the forest.

He seemed unable to move and Anna approached carefully, not sure of his strange behavior. She realized then that his leash had caught on a fallen tree trunk, and the dog was staining with every ounce of strength he possessed to get free. When he realized Anna was there Bruiser whimpered his tail battering not only saplings growing near by but also Anna's bare legs as well.

“Easy Boy, I'm here now. Come on Bruiser settle down. That's a good boy, hold still so I can get you untangled.”

The dog quieted slightly, enough so Anna could work the lead from around the gnarled trunk. “Ok Bruiser, now where's Tommy. Go to Tommy,” she commanded, holding tightly as the dog bound through the thick underbrush. She’d never been this far
into the forest and didn’t want to lose track of the dog for fear she not only wouldn’t find her son, but be unable to find her way back home.

Bruiser, didn’t have to be told to find Tommy, and was pulling Anna towards her son even before she'd finished the command. Bruiser knew exactly where Tommy was and was just as anxious to get to the boy as Anna.

The dog ran so fast Anna had a hard time holding the leash and once actually tripped and dropped it, but Bruiser came back to her and whined impatiently as he waited for her to regained her footing and retrieve the leash.
A thousand thoughts went through Anna's mind as she hurried behind the dog. Tommy, something bad happened to Tommy. She pictured him ripped apart by a big black bear, buried beneath quicksand with only his little hands sticking up. She saw him dead in a hundred different ways and each time had to scream at herself to stop before she drove herself crazy. She had to keep in control, for Tommy's sake she had to remain calm, no matter what.
Her breath came in ragged burning gasps, and she briefly wished Alex was there for her and Tommy, but quickly dismissed the idea as totally ridiculous. Alex's answer for any crisis was always the same, drink until he was too numb to care.

Bruiser stopped just inside a clearing. Anna's shocked gaze scanned the clearing as in a slow motion dream. A large oak tree dominated the center of the clearing, and off to one side stood a large clump of white birch. Tommy was sitting facing the oak tree. On his lap a three-legged turtle poked it's small bullet-shaped head out and twisting around looked knowingly at Anna.

Tommy neither moved nor made a sound, and his eyes were glassy and unseeing. Bruiser, his leash free of Anna's grasp, moved to snuggle up against his little master.

An eternity seemed to pass. No one moved, and no sound penetrated the silence. Anna stared at her son, who stared at something on the other side of the tree. The turtle stared at Anna as if waiting for her to tell it what to do next, and Bruiser slowly raised his head toward the heavens and sang his mournful song.

#

The call came at 3:05 p.m. Karl was standing at the window looking out at the street where several of the neighborhood kids were playing some game of cops-and-robbers. He remembered when Lyndsay and her friends used to play the same kind of games.

Sue stood staring into the freezer, trying to decide what to fix for supper. Neither she nor Karl ate much these days, but it gave her something to do.

When the phone rang neither Karl nor Sue moved to answer it. On most days the ringing phone brought them racing, but today they knew this time the news wouldn’t be good.

Slowly, as walking in a dream, Sue crossed the kitchen to the phone. Karl stood in the doorway, watching her.

A tear rolled down the side of her cheek as her hand grasped the receiver and lifted it slowly to her ear. “Yes.” just that one word, nothing more, but Karl knew. In his heart, he knew. Someone had found Lyndsay.

CHAPTER 5

After finding Tommy, Anna's only thought was to get her son out of the forest and tucked into his nice safe bed. She didn’t want to leave Tommy alone with that . . .that dead thing, but, to her dismay, her son had grown, and carrying him as she had when he was a baby was unrealistic.

Finally Anna gave up and ran from the forest to call for help. Bruiser watched her leave and moved closer to Tommy, his large body adding warmth to the boy's. Slowly Tommy began to rock back and forth, and a sound almost like a faraway song escaped his parted lips. Bruiser whined softly and laid his head across the boy’s legs.

To Anna the trip back to the house then the endless wait for the police and paramedics seemed to drag on forever although only twenty minutes passed before Chief Morman's squad car shot into her driveway.

Later Anna remembered the shocked look on Mr. Jenkin's face as she stumbled, scratched and bruised, from the forest. She would laugh until she cried at the way he threw his stick-thin arms out to protect his precious flowers, as if she were some flora-eating monster descending on his pretty little babies. But that would be later, much later. At that very moment only one thought dominated her thoughts: Get help for Tommy!
After regaining his composure from the initial shock, Mr. Jenkins forced himself to hurry towards Anna. “What is it? What's the matter? Is it Alex?”

Alex? Alex? The man has Alex on the brain.

Mr. Jenkins reached out and grabbed Anna's arm, trying to get her to stop long enough to tell him what was wrong. Anna yanked away and continued hurrying toward her house.

Running behind to keep up, her neighbor again reached out to once again grab her arm, but Anna stopped him with a hissed, “Get the hell away from me!”

Mr. Jenkins froze, his eyes bulging. “Well I . . .I . . . well.” He didn’t stop following her though, even when she ran through her kitchen door, and he stayed long
after the ambulance took the body away. He even stayed when the evil Alex appeared.

God only knew how Alex found out about it so soon. He was supposed to be at work, but Anna knew only too well how his one drink at lunch could last well into the night. When Alex had come shouting and staggering up the front sidewalk Anna's heart shot up into her throat. The last thing Tommy needed right now was to see his father, and it was sure as hell low on her list of desirables also.
Hurrying down the walk Anna cried out, “What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here. Go away!”

“Yeah, right. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what you did to my son!”

Anna saw the Chief out of the corner of her eye, moving in towards her. “Alex, get out of here right now! You're not suppose to be here!”

Morman quickened his step when he saw the other man reach out and grab Mrs. Rogers's arm, nearly jerking her off her feet.

“I want to see my son. I have a right you . . . you ignorant . . .”

Before he could finish formulating the insult in his slowly functioning brain, Morman had him by the arm. “Buddy, I don’t know who you think you are or what business you think you have here, but I'd say without a doubt that you're not welcome.”

Alex's face turned flaming red. “You stupid ass-wipe I live here! That piece of shit,” he spit toward Anna, “is my wife, and the kid’s my son. Now take your stinking
hand off of me before I beat the shit out of you!”

Morman glanced at Anna, his bright blue eyes full of questions.

Anna shrugged, embarrassed. “I have a Peace Bond on him. We're separated. He’s not supposed to be here. He. . . he hurt Tommy.”

Alex exploded, swinging at Anna he screamed, “You rotten, lying BITCH!”

Ted Jenkins, who Anna hadn’t even realized was standing behind her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out of the way just before Alex's fist connected.

Morman subdued Alex quickly by throwing him to the ground, placing his knee in the middle of Alex's back, and twisting his arm behind him hard enough that Alex cried out in pain. The Chief barely contained a contented smile at the drunk's pain.

Panting, Morman looked at Anna. “You want, we can throw his butt in the can?”

Anna shook her head. That would just make him madder the next time he came around. “No, I just want him to stay away from us, especially away from Tommy.”

Anna could swear that Morman pushed a little harder on Alex's arm. Part of her shouted, Yes! Break it off! Another part of her was appalled. This was her husband after all.

Morman called to another officer standing near the corner of the house, apparently taking notes for the paperwork to be prepared later. “Hey Ben, when you get a minute I want you to find out where this piece of garbage lives and take it home. Oh, and Ben, have someone from Pete's gas station tow his car to the impound yard.” Smiling up at Anna he added, “We wouldn’t want him driving in his condition, he might get a ticket.”

Alex's cheek was pressed into the dirt in the flowerbed, and mud caked around his mouth and nose, and, when he looked up at Anna with his bloodshot eyes, she could easily see the demon that frightened Tommy so badly. Her skin crawled and she quickly looked away. She had never in her life seen such hatred as that now in her husband's eyes.

Anna watched as the officer dragged Alex to the squad car. His drinking had gotten worse, and she could only thank God she’d had the nerve to kick him out before now.

Doctor Klein came up to her. “I want to take Tommy to the clinic. I'm sure he'll be all right but I'd like to run a couple of tests on him. He's not responding as quickly as he should.”

Anna felt her legs go to rubber. “Oh my God.”

Klein took her arm. “Come on Anna, he's a strong boy, and he'll pull through just fine. He's had a bad shock, and, on top of everything else he's been through these past few
months,” he glanced at Alex being pushed into the squad car, “I'd be more worried if he weren’t in a bit of a tizzy right now.”

Morman touched her arm. “You go ahead with your son, Mrs. Rogers, I can talk to you tomorrow about,” he nodded toward the forest, “the other thing.”

Anna nodded, her stomach churning. She didn’t want to remember the body, or the craziness surrounding its discovery, right now the only thing that mattered was Tommy.

After gathering a few necessities Anna, with Tommy silently staring through the car window, followed Doc. Klein to his small clinic in town. The doctor had called ahead and told them to prepare a room for Tommy and Anna so she could be with her son through the night.

It was close to midnight when Tommy was through with the tests the doctor ordered and a bit of Anna's fears lifted when Tommy smiled sleepily and whispering “Good night”. Anna sat in a fairly comfortable chair next to the bed, a guardian through the long night in case Tommy woke from bad dreams. She hoped his sleep was dream-free, prayed that neither of their dreams would be plagued by the decomposing corpse of a teenage girl named Lyndsay Abbott.

CHAPTER 6

Anna moved through the house double checking all the new locks. In the kitchen she stopped to look into the aquarium that Sandy, The Three-Legged Turtle, lived in. The poor thing had been gripped to tightly in Tommy's hands, Anna was sure he'd be dead when the paramedic finally pried him loose. To her surprise when finally free the turtle poked his little head out and gave her a look that sent chills up her spine, it seemed to say, I know you.

“Silly, huh, Sandy? You're just a dumb little turtle that happened to get caught up in a nightmare. It was just an eerie coincidence that I saw what I thought I saw yesterday afternoon. You aren’t Sandy, not really even if that’s what Tommy calls you, and you
do have only three legs. No, if I thought that were true I'd probably go totally nuts.”

The turtle crawled over to the glass where Anna stood and stretched his head towards her. Why does he look at me like that?
“You'll be free again, I promise, just as soon as Tommy is back to normal I'll talk him into letting you go.”

As if satisfied by her promise Sandy turned and moved back to the clump of grass in the corner. There he settled down and pulled his head back into the dark comfort of his shell.

#

After checking on Tommy, Anna relaxed in a hot bubble bath. She felt the tension leave her body if only for a short time. The day seemed endless with all the police questions, even if she did think Chief Morman was cute. The last thing she needed or wanted was an involvement. Men weren’t to be trusted, at least not with her heart. Somehow they always managed to trick her into believing they were something they weren’t. Look at Alex, the first time she ever saw him she felt a tingle race through her body. Oh yes, he was so charming and so sweet, and there wasn’t ever a mean word between them, at least not one that couldn’t be forgotten with a kiss. Life back then was so very, very good.

He wined her and dined her and, in three short months, convinced her he was her Prince Charming. On their wedding day he showed up at the church still drunk from the bachelor party the night before and that was the first time she saw him drunk. Unfortunately it wasn’t the last. At the time she convinced herself it was just a fluke that the guys had gotten him drunk on purpose. Wasn’t that what bachelor parties were for, one last night of drunken camaraderie? At least he showed up for the wedding. I would have been better off it he hadn’t, she thought. No, I wouldn’t have Tommy now if weren't for Alex.
The really sad part is that even after all the beatings and arguments a part of me still love the bastard. Not him really but who he could have been, who he was suppose to be.

The bath water turned cool, and, with a sigh, Anna pulled herself up. The night was quiet. For once even Bruiser wasn’t howling, as though even the dog needed peaceful silence.

When she brought Tommy home from the clinic Bruiser was waiting. Tommy went to the kennel, and the two of them spent most of the day sitting in the yard staring off into the trees. If Tommy got up to go in to use the bathroom Bruiser was at his side. This evening after Anna made Tommy put the Bruiser in the kennel, every time she looked out Bruiser was staring up towards Tommy’s bedroom window. It made her nervous, yet at the same time comforted her to know how devoted the dog was to Tommy.

Anna looked forward to Tommy's tenth birthday Saturday. If anything were going to snap him out of his black funk it would be the party with all his school chums. Even the girls were invited, which got a bit of the old Tommy riled up. At his age girls were still icky, which was just fine with Anna, since Tommy seemed to be growing up too fast as it was.

Someday Tommy would find a girl, fall in love, get married and Anna would be alone. She planned to enjoy every precious moment she had with her son so she'd at least have lots of fond memories to keep her company in her old age.

CHAPTER 7

Tony Morman checked his watch again. Bill Padgett was supposed to call him back with the results of the autopsy on the Abbott girl. Bill wasn’t the fastest man around, but when it came to finding the exact cause of death he was one of the best in Michigan. Lyndsay's body was sent to Bill's office in Detroit when it was found, and Tony was waiting for a report. Detroit's morgue was a busy place as Bill kept telling him. Tony had no doubt about that, all he had to do was read the Detroit News or live there to see why Bill's office often worked overtime.

Born and raised in Detroit, Tony understood the pressure his friend withstood. It was exactly that pressure that ruined Tony's marriage and sent him scurrying to the peace and quiet the small town of Whitefields promised.

He often thought if only Shelia could have kept her pants on long enough to make the move with him they could have made their marriage work. Yet in his heart he knew Shelia would have hated Whitefields. A native Detroiter herself, she thrived on the excitement of the big city. The last he'd heard Shelia was singing in a small bar on the northeast side of town, and was shacked-up with some small-time hood. But she was happy; at least the friend who informed Tony of his ex's where about declared. It was a hard adjustment moving to a small town, one that took time, even for him.

His mind wandered from Shelia to Anna Rogers. Anna belonged in this town, would probably go crazy if she had to live in a big city where she had to lock her front door if she were in the back yard because if she didn’t she might go in and find the place cleaned out. Anna knew about locking doors though, and it wasn’t to keep out robbers. Tony shook his head when he thought of Alex Rogers. How could a man treat a beautiful woman, and Anna was a beautiful woman, she just didn’t know it, the way Alex did? And that kid, Tony would have given anything to have a kid like that. A real cutie, and such manners.

Shelia didn’t believe in having kids, said it was cruel bringing kids into this shitty world, and some of the things Tony has seen made him wonder if maybe
she wasn’t right.

Tony sighed when he thought of Anna, her narrow waist, appearing even smaller because of her full breast and hips that were made for child baring. She hid her figure beneath baggy tops, which was probably some of her husband's doing. He'd probably been telling her for years that she was too fat or too skinny, that she was homely, until she finally gave up and started believing his lies. Tony had seen it a hundred times before, beautiful women beaten down by the men who were suppose to love them. Anna would be surprised if she could see herself through Tony's eyes.

He'd done some checking on the husband. The man was a real creep, and Tony would like nothing more than to find a way to get him out of Whitefields and out of Anna's life.

Thinking of Anna made his skin feel tight. He needed to talk to her, to see how she and Tommy were doing. He needed to be close to them, and that was as good of an excuse as any to call her. Just as his hand dropped to the phone it rang, startling him.

“Morman.”

“Hey Tony, Bill here. What's up, my man?”

“Same ol', same ol'.” Tony leaned back, propping his feet on the edge of his battered old desk.

“Well I hope that's the same ol' that was going on before this little girl you sent me. Man, I thought you told me you was living in a nice little place with no crime.”

Tony sighed. “Shit.”
“Yep, 'fraid so. Not only was your girl raped, she was pretty badly beaten. She wasn’t attacked where you found her either. I'd say she stumbled around the forest for some time before the cold finally got her. But hey, don’t feel too bad, if we didn’t have at least three bodies in the same shape every week I'd think something was wrong. Like maybe people were actually getting civilized or something.”

Tony was trying to think of a gentle way to tell the parent’s. They definitely weren’t taking this well, not that he could blame them. Then even if he had searched for her body when they first came to him, he would never have found her clear out there in the middle of the forest. How had she gotten way out there anyhow? Could anyone walk that far in a blinding blizzard with nothing on but a nightgown and slippers? Why wasn’t she found closer to the road?

He felt bad for the parents. They seemed like really nice people, and losing their only child was hitting them hard, but not being a parent himself Tony could only guess at the depth of their grief.
“Shit,” he hissed again, wishing the body had never been found. That way at least there would be some hope left for the parents, if only a little.

“Tony? Tony, you OK man? Hey, you got to be used to this shit by now. You've been a cop how long, ten, twelve years? You’ve got to know how to face it, or it’ll do
you in. You've been a cop long enough to know that.”

“It's different here Bill. These people don’t know what crime is. If they hear a siren they run outside to see who got a speeding ticket, or to see whose house is on fire. They're innocents, babes in the woods when it comes to shit like this.

“You know what's funny? After all this shit happened I checked back in the files to see what the worst crime committed around here was. Know what I came up with?”

“Nope.”

“Back in 1953 a certain Mr. Warrington built a garage. The garage was on his neighbor, a Mr. Redman's, property by three inches. Three inches! Redman, a seventy-eight-year-old man by the way, didn’t want a garage on his property, so he waited until Warrington was gone.”

“And burned it down,” Bill interrupted.

Tony laughed. “Not this seventy-eight-year-old man. He went out, measured off exactly three inches, then took an old saw and cut off the wall that was on his property! Do you know how long, and how much work that would be, and we're not even seventy-fuckin'-eight-years old!”

Bill laughed, “You're really in your element out there, my friend. Those people are as crazy as you.”

“Two years of peace and quiet, I should have know it was too good to last.”

“Shit Tony, no matter how blue the sky, sooner or later some rain's gotta fall. Makes you appreciate the quiet times more, know what I'm sayin'?”

“I suppose, but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t having any trouble appreciating the quiet times before. Well, guess I'd better go out and talk to the kid's parents. Take it easy Bill, and I'll talk at ya later. Oh, and thanks for getting back to me so quickly on this.”

CHAPTER 8

Tending bar wasn’t exactly the job that twenty-three-year-old Dee Clark would have chosen if there had been a choice. Unfortunately in Whitefields a girl had to take what she could get, or she got out of town, which was exactly what Dee planned on doing just as soon as the opportunity arose. Every time the job started getting to her too badly Dee just reminded herself that she could be working at the K-Mart, or the 7-11 over in Ashly making minimum wage and still be putting up with obnoxious customers. At least here on a bad night she still made over ten dollars an hour, but the worst part of the job was Jake, boss and owner of Jake's 1 - 4 The Road Bar and Grill.

Using her finger and thumb, Dee gently lifted Jake's arm from across her bare chest. With great effort she resisted the urge to pinch the bastard black and blue, and carefully, so as not to wake the fat little cockroach, draped it across his gray E.T. chest. She absolutely loathed this part of her job but knew it came with the territory when she hired on. If she refused Jake it would be hello K-Mart.

It was common knowledge in town that if you worked for Jake you were expected to do more than tend bar and wait tables. Everyone in town seemed to know what was going on except Peggy, Jake's bible-thumping-turkey-throated-string bean of a wife. Dee suspected that Peggy knew what was going on but preferred to look the other way most of the time. There had been a few times when Peggy showed up just after close. Dee was pretty sure she was trying to catch the old pervert in the act, unfortunately Peggy always arrived too soon because Jake insisted Dee have all her cleaning up done before he’d honor her with his advances. One of these nights though Peggy was going to get her timing right, and Dee hoped she was still working for Jake when that happened. She'd love nothing more than seeing bird-woman rip off limp-dick's head, both of them.

Slipping quietly off the soiled couch, Dee tiptoed into the bathroom, easing the door closed behind her before turning on the light. The old wash cloth and towel she'd brought from home hung from a nail inside the cleaning cabinet, and Dee quickly put
them to good use scrubbing the stink of Jake from her goose bumped flesh.

Alex Rogers had been taking her home at night, but for some reason he hadn’t come in tonight. That bothered Dee, she hoped he hadn’t gone back to his wife. Alex wasn’t much better than Jake, especially when he was drunk, which was most of the time, but he looked better, smelled better, and, most of the time, made love better, but, most importantly, Alex promised to take her to Florida in June. Once she got that far she wasn’t coming back. She didn’t tell Alex that, because he'd probably beat the hell out of her if he thought she was just using him as a one way ticket.

Alex had a bad habit of
of using his fists to make his point and nothing she said or did would save her from the business end of his fists. She learned a long time ago you never criticized Alex, talked about his wife or son, or said anything that had even the tiniest chance of setting him off.

Dee didn’t blame Anna for kicking his ass out, especially since the stunt he pulled with the kid a couple of months ago. If that would have been her kid he slammed against the wall she would have done more to the bastard than kick him out of the house, but of course that was one of the things she could never say to Alex.

Instead she had to sympathize and tell him how Anna was wrong, (yeah, right, wrong for not shooting the creep).

The Lava soap Jake kept in the bathroom did nothing for Dee's skin, but it did make her feel clean, as though she'd just scrubbed off the top layer of flesh. She glanced at her watch, and shuddered, she had to hurry in case crazy Peggy chose tonight to catch Jake in a compromising situation. She wanted Jake to get caught, but she didn’t want to be in the room when he did. Slipping quickly into her clothes, Dee thought about Jake's Golden Rule: “If I fall asleep you make sure I’m awake before you leave the bar, understand?”

Dee, a nasty grin pulling up one corner of her full lips looked down at her boss and thought, Now how can I possibly wake him when he looks so content lying there with his little limp pecker clutched in his paw like a favorite teddy bear? Barely able to contain a giggle, Dee pulled the door closed as she slipped from the office.

Whistling happily as she hurried down the deserted street to her apartment three blocks away, Dee drank in the warm spring night.

Nighttime was her favorite time, when all the world seemed locked away and the earth belonged to her alone. She always thought she could live very happily as a vampire, but then she thought of Florida and bright warm sunny skies and her heartbeat increased with excitement.

She heard the car engine before she saw the lights, and quickly ducked into the dark doorway to her apartment building as the headlights grew brighter.

As a gray, rusty Ford raced past Dee clamped her hand her mouth to muffle the sound of her laughter. She would have given fifty dollars of her hard-earned Florida money right then to have a hidden camera in Jake's office. One these nights Peggy was going to come hunting for Jake with one of the guns he always bragged about owning.

Upstairs in her apartment the little red light on the answering machine was flashing, and Dee knew if could only be Alex calling and didn’t want to listen, didn’t want Alex ruining her good mood, but finally habit and curiosity got the best of her. It was Alex, and he was drunk as usual, and mad, as usual, and suddenly Dee was positive that this was, without a doubt, the best night of her life. Alex wouldn’t be coming by tonight, because he’d gotten cocky with a cop and was spending some time behind bars.

Alex locked up, Crazy Peggy about to bust Jake with his polly-wacker in his hand, what more could a girl ask for? Peggy would be watching Jake's every move, which would keep him away from her, and Alex would spend at least a night in jail so he wouldn’t be apt to be coming around soon. Peace and quiet, “There is a God after all.”

#

Tommy opened his eyes to darkness. Something woke him, but he wasn’t sure what. He listened, heard nothing out of the ordinary, and propped himself up to look out the bedroom window. The night was black, and even by straining his eyes Tommy was unable to make out Bruiser's kennel. Sweat appeared on this forehead as he imagined Bruiser gone, kennel and all. Then his stomach grumbled at a sudden bout of diarrhea coming on, because not only were Bruiser and his kennel gone, but the whole world was gone! Holding his breath to block any noise, Tommy concentrated on hearing the dog's heavy paws crunch over the fresh straw Tommy had put in the kennel this evening. Then suddenly Bruiser howled, and as suddenly as it appeared, the stomach cramps disappeared.

Tommy had pretty much gotten used to the sound of Bruiser howling, but for some reason tonight the howl sounded different. He was pretty sure the howling wasn’t what woke him up though. It had to be something unusual to pull him from his dreams.

“Tommy,” the voice whispered.
Tommy whipped the covers over his head. “Shit!”

“Tommy, I need your help again.”
I'm dreaming.

“Please Tommy, you're the only one.”

If I ignore her she'll go away. I'll pretend I'm sleeping, and she'll go away.

“Tommy, I won’t go away, and I know you're not sleeping.”

Flushed with anger, Tommy yanked the covers from his head, and snapped, “Quit doing that! Quit knowing what I'm thinking! And you, you go away 'cause you're dead!”

“Tommy, I can’t stay.”

“Good!”

“Meet me in the forest tomorrow.”

“Ha, ain’t no way!”

“More people are going to die if you don’t help me Tommy.”

“Dum-dee-dum, I can’t hear you . . .what?” Tommy shuddered as he reached out and turned on the bedside lamp. In the glare of the lamp it didn’t take long to see that the room was empty.

“I was dreaming, I knew it!"

“Tomorrow, Tommy, in the forest. I'll be waiting by the oak tree.”

“Shit!”

The bedroom door opened and Tommy almost wet his pants until he realized it was his mother standing there.

“Oops.”

“I guess oops, Thomas. Are you all right, it's almost two-thirty in the morning?”

Grasping the only logical thought that came to mind, Tommy lowered his voice and replied sadly, “Sorry Mom, I was having a dream, ah, a bad dream.” If Anna thought he was talking to dead people she’d make him go back to Doc. Klein’s clinic, and Tommy didn’t much care for playing like a dartboard while everyone stuck needles into him, (and what did they do with all that blood they kept stealing from him?)

As he hoped Anna's face softened, and she pulled him to her, holding him tightly in her arms, “Oh Baby, I can certainly understand that, because I have bad dreams sometimes too.” In fact it was a nightmare that awakened Anna just minutes earlier sending her scurrying to her son's room.

In her dream Lyndsay Abbott's ghost was standing next to Tommy's bed trying to lure him back into the forest. Just thinking about it sent shivers up and down Anna's back. Anna leaned against the headboard, Tommy safe in her embrace. She held him tightly, unwilling to leave even after his eyes closed and his breathing told her he was sleeping peacefully, and her arms ached from holding him.

#

Karl Abbott moaned in his sleep, as his body jerked and stiffened. He just identified Lyndsay’s body, again. Over, and over, all through the night Karl watched as Chief Morman pulled back the sheet covering his baby's face. In the dream he'd cry out as Lyndsay's sunken eyes snapped open, and she’d keep asking, “Why Daddy? Why did you let him kill me? Why didn’t you save me?”

Karl sobbed the only reply he could, “I didn’t know, Baby, honest to God, I didn’t know. I'm sorry, I wish it were me instead of you. I'd give anything if it were me.”

The dream became really bad then when Lyndsay asked, “Anything Daddy?” And her face began to melt, shifting and swirling until it became so horrible he had to turn away. when he looked back a beautiful Native American woman lay in Lyndsay's place.

He turned to ask Morman where Lyndsay was, but the Chief didn’t have a face any more. Instead there was a gaping hole where maggots and beetles circled in a bazaar dance.

“Daddy, look at me.”

Turning slowly, dreading what would appear before him next, Karl looked at the stranger. “You're not my daughter, who are you?”

As though not having heard, the stranger said, “You can right the wrong.”

Trembling, Karl asked, “How?”

“You must find the man responsible and with your own hands take his life as he took you're daughters”, then the stranger was gone and Lyndsay, as she used to be when she was so very much alive, said, “It's the only way I can find peace, Daddy. It hurts so much! Please make the pain stop, Daddy! Look at what he did to me!” She cried, pulling the blanket aside to revel a bloody gaping hole between her legs that reached all the way to her navel.

She turned to him, and the dead thing from the forest raised decomposing arms and whispered, “Give your baby a good night kiss, Daddy.” A long black bloated tongue snaked between shrunken lips, wiggling obscenely, as shriveled hips pumped frantically.

Karl screamed, but the sound was lost in her laughter. Shooting up in bed, a hand over his mouth to muffle the terror, Karl tried to slow his breathing.

He heard Sue stifle a sob. She'd given up asking him about the nightmare. He was sure she had enough of her own, and didn’t want her to suffer any more than she already was.

Thank God she hadn’t gone to the morgue with me to identify what was left of Lyndsay. The sight that awaited him would probably have killed Sue, God only knew it almost killed him. The dream he kept having was going to finish the job, and even though he knew it was probably spurred on by the guilt of not being able to save his daughter, he knew in his heart that he'd know no peace as long as the murdering bastard went unpunished. His salvation would come when he choked the life from the monster with his own two hands. “An eye for an eye.”

#

Ted Jenkins pulled the bedroom curtains back in place after watching the light go out in the kid's bedroom. Earlier, just after the light in the kid's room came on, Ted watched Anna moved past the window, and he waited patiently, hoping to catch another glimpse of his beautiful neighbor.

He wondered if the kid was having nightmares, and couldn’t blame him if he were after seeing what was left of the Abbott girl. Lyndsay was always such a pretty young thing, a bit too sexy for her age, though. Girls who looked and acted like that were destined for trouble. You could tell the girl was oversexed just by the way she walked and dressed. To bad, there sure wasn’t anything sexy about what they put in back of the ambulance yesterday.

His wife, Betty, stirred on the bed so he hurried back before she realized he was up again. She tended to nag about his not sleeping. He tried to tell her that insomnia often came with age, but she kept insisting he go see Doc. Klein.

He even had to give up his late-night drives and walks, because if she caught him she'd start nagging again. Most nights he lay in bed staring at the ceiling waiting for daybreak so he could get up without Betty carrying on.

The way she treats me, you'd think I were ninety-eight instead of sixty-eight.

Though a bit on the thin side Ted thought he looked pretty damned good, and he felt twenty years younger than he was. Betty was just jealous because he looked and acted so much younger than she did.
He glanced sideways at her sleeping form beneath the light sheet. Too bad it was so late, but if he woke her now for a little slap-and-tickle she'd start nagging him about being awake.

Turning his back to her, Ted stared out the window at the night sky. Rats, he thought. I can’t sleep now, with the boner I've got.
He wished he could see into Anna's bedroom window, but since that wasn’t possible, he crept from the bed and hurried into the bathroom. Closing the door as quietly as possible Ted tiptoed to the toilet, reached over the seat and down into the corner where he carefully lifted the corner of the flooring and gently pulled out his brand-new Penthouse magazine. I'm going to have to replace the tile in here pretty soon, before Betty notices the way that it's curling.

#

Jimmy Russo immediately regretted slamming the phone back onto its base, not because he was worried about hurting Cindy's feelings, but because he was afraid of waking his parents. He wasn’t concerned about disturbing his parents sleep, because concern for another wasn’t high on his list of priorities, he just couldn’t stand the thought of his mother's sad-puppy-dog-eyes as she fussed over him, asking for the twenty thousandth time if he was all right. Whatever small pain and guilt he felt, he knew he deserved it, and probably a whole lot more. If only I hadn’t let that stupid bitch Cindy talk me into screwing her. I should have known she’d tell Lyndsay. He'd only done Cindy so he could laugh in her face and tell her that she wasn’t even good, let alone the best he'd ever have. Yet, he hated to admit it, even to himself, but Cindy had been pretty damned good. More than once he fantasized about her, but he'd go to his grave before he told her that. The conceited bitch!

Cindy used Lyndsay's death as an excuse to call him. She called day and night, never caring about the time. She cried to him how it had been her fault that Lyndsay was dead, as if he didn’t already know that. She never meant to tell Lyndsay, it had just slipped out. Yeah, right. Like he believed that!

It wasn’t fair that Lyndsay was dead and he had to feel guilty just because he'd loved her.

Sure you loved her, you loved her so much you screwed her best friend. Oh yes Mister, you really loved her a whole lot, didn’t you?
“I did love her. I swear I did, I was just stupid.”

Yeah, you were stupid, and now she's dead. Not a very fair trade, is it?

Jimmy wasn’t surprised to find he was talking to himself. He had these conversations frequently with himself since the day after Lyndsay's disappearance. He tried to convince himself it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t like they'd been engaged or anything. Actually they never really talked about their relationship. They never actually said they wouldn’t see other people.

He knew Lyndsay thought they would get married one day, but that was something he hadn’t wanted to think about. If someone asked them if or when they were getting married he made a joke out of it or ignored the question. Marriage was the farthest thing from his mind, and he hadn’t wanted Lyndsay thinking about it either. The only thing he had planned for his future was playing football, and getting out of Whitefields.
He spent too many years perfecting his skills on the field to let anything or anyone stand in his way. Michigan State already offered him a scholarship, and he couldn’t wait until June and graduation, because he was history in this shit-can of a town.
Besides it wouldn’t have been fair to Lyndsay if he married her. He was good looking, and the groupies were bound to be hanging on him all the time. What kind of life would that have been for Lyndsay?
Lying back on his pillow, he began his favorite pastime, fantasizing. He loved to think about all the twisted, kinky things those young beauties would do to, and for him. He was drifting into sleep, a beautiful, big-busted, redhead whispered what she could do for him with her long, long tongue, and endless throat.

Beside his bed, the telephone rang. “Shit!” There was only one person who would call that time of the night. He toyed with not answering it, but knew that sooner or later one of his parents would hear the damned thing and he'd catch hell, even though it wasn’t his fault.

Snatching up the receiver Jimmy hissed, “What?”

“Jimmy.”

His first thought was that he'd finally lost his mind. His second was that he was asleep and dreaming. The voice on the phone couldn’t belong to Lyndsay. Lyndsay was dead!

“Jimmy? You there?”

He tried to be mad, but he was so relieved to hear it really was Cindy that he actually chuckled.
“It's not funny Jimmy. My best friend’s dead and its all your fault.”

Instantly Jimmy sobered. “My fault? Listen you stupid. . .”

“Ah, ah, ah, be nice Jimmy.”

“What do you want Cindy?”

“Only what's right, Jimmy boy.”

“What's wrong with your voice, you sound funny?”

“Oh no Jimmy my love, there’s absolutely nothing at all funny about the sound of a human voice fighting to be heard through all those squishy old maggots and bugs that eat away at a decomposing body. Know what I mean, Lover Boy? No? Well trust me Sweetheart, you will. Poor Baby, looks like the kinky sex with your imaginary redhead will have to wait, you've got more important things in store for you this night.”

Jimmy dropped the phone as though he had accidentally picked up a hot ember. He opened his mouth to scream, but instead of screaming he gagged. There was something in the back of his throat, cutting of his oxygen. Desperate for air, Jimmy coughed, and a huge bloated maggot squirmed from between his lips, and flopped onto his bedspread. Horrified Jimmy gagged again, and moaned when several more maggots and three ugly little black and green beetles dropped from his mouth.
His stomach churned violently and he knew he was going to vomit, but he did not want to throw-up, because he could feel them down there in his stomach wiggling and scuttling around looking for a way out.

Laughter sang from the telephone receiver laying at his side. Lyndsay, and suddenly Jimmy remembered her favorite saying: “I don’t get mad, I get even,” and she laughed louder.

With a head pounding clunk Jimmy clamped his teeth together, but it was too late, the insects were gushing out by the thousands, and there were more, millions more, in his stomach, and throat, and even crawling into his nasal passage, they were suffocating him!

One particularly large maggot wiggled away from the rest, and, when he looked at it, he tried to scream again but couldn’t, because the rest of the insects had finally found their way out. The large maggot, the one with Lyndsay's face, stuck it's tongue out at Jimmy before scooting to the edge of the bed and dropping quickly out of sight.

Just before everything went black Jimmy heard Lyndsay laugh, “See you in hell, Darling.”

CHAPTER 9

Tommy woke early, and sneaked out of the house before Anna was awake. He knew his mother wouldn’t let him go back into the forest by himself, not after finding Lyndsay. He didn’t want to go, but, frightened as he was, Tommy was more afraid not to obey the persistent ghost.

Bruiser paced Tommy step for step as though even he was reluctant to be back in the forest. The sun was warm on his face, and all around them thousands of birds chirped happily, yet the magic of the forest was gone. He didn’t understand the meaning of the words ‘bad vibes’, but, if he had, he'd say he was having them now.
The bad feelings he was having were familiar though, because sometimes when Dad's demon got out, Tommy had these same jittery feelings right before something bad happened.

He thought maybe his mother got the feelings too, because sometimes just before Alex came home Anna started pacing. She'd become nervous and agitated, constantly rubbing her hands up and down her arms. If she and Tommy were eating dinner when she got the feelings she'd suddenly push her plate away and look like she was about to throw-up. Most of the time she told Tommy to go to his room and play or watch television, and she'd get a strange look on her face, because Tommy would have just told her that he was going to his room. He was never sure if he did know what she was thinking, or if she knew his thoughts, or if they were both reading the thoughts of Dad's demon.

Tommy had those feelings now, and his stomach was rumbling way down deep like it did when he had stomach flu and got the runs.
A raccoon and three kits darted across the path in front of Tommy and Bruiser, but neither seemed to notice.

In the clearing near the oak tree, Tommy stopped, and swallowed rapidly several times to keep down his churning stomach. The clearing was empty, and with a start, Tommy realized even the birds had stopped their racket. The only sound was a low, deep growl coming from way down in Bruiser's chest.

Tommy wrapped his arms around the dog's neck as sudden anger welled up in him. “I'm only nine years old! I'm not suppose to do this, I’m just a little kid! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

“Hi Tommy.”

“AHH! Shit!”

Lyndsay laughed softly. “You say that a lot, don’t you?”

Tommy ignored the reprimand. If anyone had the right to say shit he figured he did. “Why don’t you leave me alone? You asked me to help you get out of the forest, and I did.”

“Well Tommy, I wish I could leave you alone, but unfortunately you're the only one I've got to help me.”

“What'd you mean last night when you said someone would die if I didn’t come here today?”

The girl drifted closer. “Someone did die, Tommy.”

“Yeah, I know. You died, and I don’t think that was very nice of you doing that to me either. I think it was shitty of you.”

Shaking her head Lyndsay said, “No, someone else died, last night, and someone else is going to die tonight, maybe a lot of people, if you don’t help me.” Seeing the stubborn set to the boy's face, Lyndsay added, “Maybe even your own mother. She saw your mother the day you found me here.”

A loud belch escaped Tommy’s taunt lips. His stomach was boiling away, ready to erupt. You better watch out, Lyndsay, or you're gonna look pretty silly trying to scare people with puke all over you.

“You leave my mom out of this! You hear me, you leave my mother alone!”

“No, it's not me, Tommy. I wouldn’t hurt your mother, or anyone else. All I want is to go on to wherever I'm supposed to go. I don’t want revenge. It's the Indian woman, she's keeping me here, and she's making people die, and she'll keep making people die until I find out who killed me.”

“Well I didn’t kill you, and my mom didn’t kill you, so leave us alone!”

Her head shaking sadly, Lyndsay continued, “I can’t leave you alone Tommy. I like you, and I'm really thankful that you helped me, but Tommy she's killing people who knew me, people who I was close to.”

“We weren’t close to you, I didn’t know you before.”

“I know, but you helped me after.”
“Shit, if this is what happens when you help someone remind me not to become a Boy Scout.”

Lyndsay laughed. “That's funny, Tommy.”

“It ain’t either,” Tommy snapped. “What do I have to do this time?” He was embarrassed that his voice sounded whiny instead of mad. Clearing his throat he tried to sound brave, “Who is the Indian woman you keep talking about? I’ve never seen any
Indians around here before.”

“Well that's kind of hard to explain. She came to me when I was dying and told me to leave my body, because it was all beat up and freezing. She said if I would leave my body that I wouldn’t hurt any more, and I didn’t. She told me I have to stay here on earth until the man who . . .hurt me was killed. After you found . . .found me she came back. She said someone will die every day until I remember who . . .who I can’t remember.”

“I don’t understand. Why would she kill people who didn’t do anything just because you can’t remember who did?”

“She said I have to be avenged.”

“Huh?” Tommy, still squatting next to Bruiser, slowly stood. The dog pressed his huge body next to the boy, almost knocking Tommy over. Tommy reached out and patted the dog absently on the head.

Lyndsay looked confused, “Oh! The person who killed me has to be killed. An eye for an eye, that kind of stuff.”

“An eye for an eye?” Tommy exclaimed. “Gross!”

Lyndsay smiled. “It just means if someone does something bad to you they get the same thing done to them.”

Tommy considered this new bit of information. Actually it sounded pretty good, that way the next time Bryan Herman beat Tommy up and stole his lunch money, someone else would beat up Bryan and take his lunch money. Yeah, it was definitely something worth thinking about.

Then, his curiosity peeked, Tommy asked, “What did happen to you?”
For the first time Tommy noticed Lyndsay was starting to fade. Just reminding me that she's a ghost, for Pete's sake!

Lyndsay reply was cold and sharp, “That's none of your business, besides you wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”
Hurt by the tone of her voice, Tommy rebutted, “Well fine, but just how am I suppose to do it to him, if I don’t even know what it is?”

When the girl laughed, much to Tommy's relief, she became more solid, “Tommy, I'm sorry for snapping at you. You don’t have to do anything to him, just help me find out who he is. Besides, ah, you couldn’t do to him what he did to me.”

His hurt feelings somewhat appeased Tommy boasted, “Oh yeah? Well I'm stronger than I look, and Bruiser could help.”
This time Lyndsay laughed so hard that she floated right up off the ground a couple of inches. Tommy didn’t like that one bit, 'cause it scared him and that made him mad. “It ain’t funny!”

“Someday, when you're grown-up, you'll think so.”

“How come big people always say 'you'll understand when you're grown-up?’ I ain’t stupid you know. Mr. Parks says I'm the smartest fifth grader he ever saw. He says if it weren’t for my, huh, emotional problems that I'd already be in the sixth grade!”

“Poor Tommy, I sure got you in a mess didn’t I? I promise I'll protect you from the Guardian if you promise to help me.”

“What about Mom and Bruiser?”

“Oh, I don’t think she'll hurt Bruiser, and I'll try to protect your mom too, deal?”

Shifting from foot to foot and rubbing his hands up and down his arms, Tommy looked a lot like Anna waiting for Alex to storm through the door.

“Tell me some more about the Indian lady, huh, the Guardian?”

Lyndsay glanced over her shoulder, causing Tommy to sneak a peek also. “She's bad, Tommy, even though she's beautiful, she's meaner than you could ever imagine!”

“I can imagine pretty good,” Tommy said glancing again in the direction Lyndsay had looked before. “I saw Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddie's pretty darned mean, and scary, too. I think he's the scariest thing there is. Mom doesn’t know I saw Nightmare on Elm Street, though, 'cause I saw it over at my friend Billy's house one night. The Indian couldn’t be worse than Freddie, no one could be!”

Again Lyndsay nervously glanced over her shoulder. “She is, because she's real, and real is always worse.”

Tommy, who'd been looking where Lyndsay kept glancing, suddenly noticed a weird dark area between two trees. An area about the size and shape of a doorway was moving around in circles the same way water in the pond in Billy's backyard did when he threw rocks into it and they made little circles of waves. Unconsciously his butt cheeks squeezed together as he whispered, “Lyndsay?”

Lyndsay knew what was happening and pressed Tommy for an answer, “Will you help me?”

“How?” At that moment he would have promised her the world just to be away from the alien presence.
“Just ask questions, and listen, that's all. Now run Tommy and don’t stop until you're out of the forest!”

His feet barely touching the ground, Tommy moved from the clearing even before Lyndsay finished warning him. He slowed long enough to glance back as someone, or something tried to pull Lyndsay into the swirling blackness. Bruiser jerked and suddenly Tommy was practically flying out of the forest behind the big dog.

#

Ted watched as Tommy and Bruiser broke breathlessly from the woods behind the kid's house. Damned kids were always poking around looking for trouble.

“What are you looking at, Ted?”
With a guilty flinch Ted turned and snapped at his wife, “Christ woman, don’t go sneaking up on me like that!”

Barely able to contain a smirk, Betty apologized. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. What are you looking at?”

Turning back to the window he replied, “Just watching the kid and his dog. You'd think with all the trouble they ran into last time they'd stay the hell out of the woods.”

Betty moved to her husband's side, and watched as Tommy quickly put Bruiser in the kennel. “Kids will be kids. You know how they like to go exploring.”

“No, I don’t know.”

Stung by the rebuttal, Betty turned away and started out of the room. At the door she stopped and said softly, “I forgot, you never were a kid.”

She knew that wasn’t what he'd meant. He never let her forget the reason they couldn’t have children of their own. A botched abortion, which almost took her life, ended any chance of her ever having children of her own. What hurt the most was that it had been his child, and his idea for the abortion. Ted set everything up for her to have ‘the problem’ taken care of', even though the doctor he'd arranged for her to see looked like a
refuge from a defunct meatpacking house. She’d begged and pleaded with him, promising anything, if he wouldn’t make her go through with the abortion. He was worried about what his family would say, afraid he wouldn’t be permitted to finish college, never once considering what having a baby at sixteen would do to her reputation. It was a choice she was willing to accept for the sake of the tiny life growing inside her.

“A baby now would ruin everything, you don’t ever think of me,” he told her, his face red with anger. “We can have ten kids later after I'm done with college, but not now. We can’t afford a kid now. You're so selfish, always thinking of yourself and what you want, and to hell with everyone else.”

His words stung, and although she knew in her heart that he was manipulating her as he always did, she finally relented, feeling as selfish as he claimed her to be.
True to his word though, after he finished college the following year, they'd gotten married, but there weren’t ten babies in their house as he’d promised, there were none, ever. She was pretty sure the only reason he married her was because their parent’s had forced the issue after she almost died. When she ended up in the hospital, hemorrhaging and in a coma for three days, there really hadn’t been any way for Ted to keep the abortion secret, especially from her parent’s, although he'd tried his damnedest.

They were frantic when Betty hadn’t come home, and the logical place for them to look for her was at Ted's. From there it wasn’t long before her father had the whole truth from the frightened young man. She learned later that Ted at first denied knowing where Betty was, claiming he hadn’t seen her for several days. It ripped her heart out when, after they were married, Betty's sister told her that Ted was going to let her lay in that hospital all alone. Thank God Daddy hadn’t believed him.

In the bathroom Betty stared back at her reflection. So many years. Why can’t he let it be? She often wondered why she'd stayed married to him all those years. He very seldom wanted to make love to her, and when he did, he never said her name, or that he loved her. She couldn’t remember the last time that he said he loved her. Once several years ago she came right out and asked him if he still loved her, he ignored the question, but Betty persisted until Ted snapped, “Yeah, sure, as much as I ever have.”

It hadn’t been the answer she wanted to hear, so she never asked him again.

The tile behind the toilet was pulled up again, and Betty chuckled to herself, his hiding place, as though he never suspected that she mopped the bathroom floor. Damned old fool probably thinks it cleans itself. She wondered if, on those rare occasions when he had sex with her if it were her, or one of the staple-in-the-navel girls he held when his eyes were closed. Once, feeling misc