Rick gave her the address to the house he was staying at and they made the rest of the trip in silence. He stared out the pa.s.senger window as the beauty of nature whipped around them-the tall trees, the thick brush growing everywhere. The rain had stopped briefly, leaving everything rich, green, and dripping.

They were on Highway 1 again, and now Melissa made the turn that Rick would have made had he not spun out five miles back. This road led inward through a thicket of woods. Another turn led down a smaller road and then there was the house, sitting on the right in a small clearing. The rear of the place seemed to overlook the town of Phillipsport and the Atlantic Ocean from a low hill.

Melissa pulled into the driveway and stopped the car. Rick scrambled out and jogged up to the porch and tried the door with the key. It opened effortlessly. He turned back to the car, grinning at Melissa as she opened the trunk and hoisted the first of Rick's belongings out onto the driveway. "This place looks way cool!"

Melissa smiled at his vocal enthusiasms as they moved his stuff into the living room. The minute all his stuff was stowed on the living room floor, he bounded toward the ma.s.sive windows that opened out onto the back deck. Melissa followed him, a shy smile on her face.

The view from the back deck was wonderful. Sloping down the hill below the deck stretched fifty yards of lush green gra.s.s. Melissa followed him inside and was surprised at the house. It was bigger than she expected it to be; she thought it was going to be a simple two-bedroom cottage and this was more like a regular three bedroom house.

Rick turned toward Melissa, excitement on his face. "This is better than I thought it would be."

Melissa smiled. "I'm glad."

"Want to come see the rest of it with me?" Rick was already starting for the door that led to the deck.

"I don't think so, Rick." Melissa said, hesitantly. She was already regretting telling him she'd dated Sheriff Conklin and was fearing that he was only being nice to her now because he was just going through the motions, waiting for her to leave. After all, she was the reason Conklin had treated him so s.h.i.tty. Stop it, she told herself. You can't blame yourself for everything. But she still had to go. She had an exam to study for the next afternoon. "I've really got to get going."

Rick stopped and turned toward her. He looked like he had just gotten bad news from home. "Oh, I was hoping we could have dinner or something. Are you sure?"

Melissa nodded, a flutter of excitement fluttering through her. See, dummy! He knows it's not your fault that Sheriff Conklin is a p.r.i.c.k. But still, as much as she would have loved to have dinner with Rick and talk to him, she had prior commitments. "Yeah. I've got studying to do for a final, and I've got to work early tomorrow morning."

"Oh. Okay." He accepted her decline just fine.

Melissa followed him into the kitchen. She pulled out a note pad and pen from her purse and scribbled her number on it. She handed it to Rick, smiling. "Call me sometime, and we'll get together. A friend at school is throwing a Halloween party next week. Maybe you'll-"

"I'd love to." Rick grinned.

"Great!" That was better, but she still felt awkward. "Listen," she said, as they walked out to her car. "I still feel bad about what happened back at Shelby's." She stopped and turned to him, concerned. "Roy Conklin probably would have eventually gotten around to hara.s.sing you even if I wasn't there today, but not everybody in Phillipsport is like him. Like I said, there's Jack over at the comic shop, Janice Harrelson and her son Bobby, a few others in town. You'll meet them eventually and I think you'll like them."

"Well if they're anything like you, I think I will," Rick said.

They promised to get together in a few days once Rick had settled in and do dinner and a night on the town. She told him to call her if he needed anything. Rick promised he would, and then she was off. She backed the car out of the driveway and turned to wave at Rick before she headed down the road, which led to Highway 1. She glanced up briefly in the rearview mirror as she piloted the car down the road. She saw Rick receding in the distance, watching her drive off from the porch of his house. A moment later he was out of the picture.

Melissa sighed as she headed down Highway 1 toward home. She wished the more negative elements of today hadn't happened, but she was glad she met Rick. She sensed a kindred soul in him and welcomed it. After living in a small town like Phillipsport all your life it was hard to find somebody in town who had interests other than Monday Night Football, deer hunting, deep sea fishing, or drinking at Bud's Tavern on Highway 1. Jack Ripley, who owned Ripp It Up Comics, was one, and Janice Harrelson was another. But they were so much older than her. She had no idea how old Janice was; Janice used to baby-sit her and when you were little everybody seemed to be old, but now that Melissa was an adult now herself at the ripe old age of twenty-two, she a.s.sumed Janice was in her mid to late thirties. Jack on the hand had to be much older-at least forty-five. She got the impression that Rick was in his early thirties, but with a youthful spirit in him. He just seemed younger; he liked the same kind of music she liked, and was hip to what was currently happening, and that was refreshing. Not that Jack and Janice were fuddy-duddys, but if a band like, say, Hole came into town, Melissa was pretty much on her own. Jack and Janice were both rock and rollers, but Hole just wasn't within their realm.

The only other person who might possibly be along the same wavelength with Melissa was Stacy Robinson, who was a year older than her and who lived at the other end of town. Stacy was smart, could carry a conversation about things other than farming and football, and she read books, not the kind of glitz trash most women in town read. The only thing wrong with Stacy was that she was a f.u.c.king waste case who smoked too much pot, drank excessively and had a reputation for taking on five guys at once in bed. The one time she and Stacy had gone out, Stacy wound up going home with some druggie punk. Melissa had been hit on plenty of times herself that night, but Stacy pulling the disappearing act to do the b.u.mp and grind with the nameless punk when it was supposed to be their night to hang out together and have some fun had taken the wind out of her sails. She'd gone home alone.

And that was never any fun.

Melissa drove home and thought about Rick.

Two miles up the coast from the Phillipsport pier rose the monolithic twin peaks of the GE Power Plant. This facility powered Phillipsport County. It sat roughly two hundred yards from the beach and was bordered by a high chain-link fence. The administrative building was two stories and housed twenty-five employees. The generators and their facilities employed twelve people, twenty-four hours a day. At any given moment there were usually no more than twenty people at the facility. The office staff worked nine to five hours, leaving the swing and graveyard techs to themselves.

This evening, the employee parking lot of the GE Facility was a quarter full. The lot was easily accessible by Highway 1, and the gate had been left open. It was normally accessed by a coded card that was inserted in a slot, which opened the gate-only tonight, that mechanism was on the fritz, which resulted in the security department leaving the gate open. One never had to worry about crime this far out in the boondocks.

The cameras mounted at strategic points along the perimeter of the power plant tracked everything. They were viewed in a small room with seven video monitors set along a bank of security equipment. There were nine guards that rotated shifts and schedules, one guard on each shift. Presently the swing-shift guard was sitting on the porcelain reading chair engaged in a tattered paperback copy of The House on the Borderland and a joint of some primo Acapulco Gold.

The monitors showed everything in stark black and white. There wasn't a soul on the grounds of the GE Plant.

The video screens caught the first wave of crab monsters as they marched past the open gates into the parking lot. By the time the guard rose from his alternate work activities, the creatures had scampered out of reach of the cameras and into the building itself.

Chapter Six.

How the f.u.c.k am I going to do this?

Kirk Fischer sat on the cold, sandy beach sipping on a long necked bottle of Budweiser. The wind had picked up considerably since he came out to the beach two hours ago, and Kirk shivered. He had told his live-in girlfriend Stacy Robinson to meet him here at the beach at two. It was now closing in on four. Late again.

Kirk took a long pull on the bottle of Bud and sighed. He'd taken a vacation day from his job as a forklift driver at the mill. He needed some time to think before his big pow-wow with Stacy. They had to talk. Their relationship had gone from weird to worse in the three months they'd been living together. And while Stacy's behavior tended to cause flickers of concern from time to time, it had descended to downright scary. Up at noon with a toke from her trusty water bong and a couple of beers, and then a hit of acid around three followed by more beers and some more hits off the bong. Her choice of herb was on the exquisite side; sensimilla and hash imported from Acapulco. She sat around the house all day reading science-fiction paperbacks and watching the latest features courtesy of the local Blockbuster Video outlet. Sometimes the mainstream movies were replaced with a few p.o.r.n t.i.tles. He came home from work around five-thirty and they would hang out, watch movies, make love (or f.u.c.k, depending on the mood), ingest more herbal and alcoholic vices and keep repeating the process. She drifted to sleep in a stoned stupor. She woke around ten long after he left for work to start the whole process over. It was her daily existence.

Kirk drank his beer and threw stones into the ocean. The wind picked up slightly, lifting his collar-length black hair. He lit a cigarette with a shaky hand and inhaled. He'd gone over the past three months in his mind, picking it apart. Trying to make sense of it. After the third time he'd firmly convinced himself that he wasn't to blame for the way she was behaving. She had been f.u.c.ked up long before Kirk had ever met her.

He'd met her at the Eastwood Mall near Bangor in a bookstore. He'd been perusing the Science Fiction section where she was browsing. She'd been dressed in low-slung blue jeans, a tattered T-shirt that showed a hint of her flat, creamy belly, and black boots. Her hair had been dyed a deep magenta. It was obvious the way her t-shirt jiggled that she wasn't wearing a bra. Their eyes lit on each other and firecrackers exploded. Kirk felt that familiar stirring in his groin immediately. Her eyes sparkled with inviting l.u.s.t. They made small talk. Introduced themselves. Stacy broke the ice a moment later by saying she wanted to go out with him.

They went to a bar down on Circle Boulevard and had a few beers. It was apparent early on in the evening that they wouldn't be spending much time in the bar. They found a nice, quiet booth, and Stacy slid in beside him. They talked, hips barely touching. Kirk's arm goose-fleshed every time Stacy touched him lightly. She read the response and a moment later she kissed him. It was impossible to break away from her; her kiss seemed to draw him into another world, a world of pleasure and intoxication. His l.u.s.t swelled and their kissing grew more pa.s.sionate. Their hands roamed over their bodies, caressing, fondling. His hands wound up under her T-shirt, his fingers flicking over her nipples, making them hard.

And then a light bulb went off in his head. If we don't get to a bed real soon, we'll explode. Or wind up f.u.c.king our brains out here in this booth. He broke away from her, panting. "Let's go someplace more private."

They couldn't go to his place. He still lived with his parents, but he wasn't going to tell her that. They walked out to the parking lot hand in hand. She told him to follow her to her place. Kirk followed her black Trans-Am south with a rigid hard-on, just waiting for the moment. A part of his mind twitched nervously. He had never had a woman come on to him so strong in a public place. It was too unreal. She'd been like a b.i.t.c.h in heat, ready to take him right then and there. That had made him hesitate from following through, but his little head ruled out any chance of morality overruling his instincts. He was too h.o.r.n.y to be sensible.

They arrived at her place in Phillipsport, some sixty miles northwest of Eastwood. f.u.c.ked like jackrabbits. Slept till noon.

And G.o.d, it was the best s.e.x he'd ever had. Stacy f.u.c.ked him with such animal fury that he thought she was going to pull his d.i.c.k off. Her energy seemed boundless. She never grew tired, and she pushed them through the night in position after position, o.r.g.a.s.m after o.r.g.a.s.m, until they finally collapsed into each other's arms and exhaustion overtook them.

He'd spent the weekend at her place, in bed, falling for her.

The house was hers. She bought it with the first installment of the inheritance money she'd received upon her mother's death. Car accident. Stacy had been seventeen. There had been a fight. Harsh words. Stacy always had to have the last word in an argument and she made sure her mother got it.

It drove her mother outside and into the car where she peeled away with the fury of squealing tires and burning rubber. She never came back.

Now nearly five years later Stacy still blamed herself for her mother's death. Always would. If it wasn't for her, mother wouldn't have gone storming out of the house in anger. Would have paid more attention to her driving. Would still be alive.

Kirk had listened to her that weekend and tried to pry her out of her self-pitying state. Accidents happen. No reason to beat yourself up over something that not only wasn't your fault, but had happened five years before. None of what he said seemed to have any effect on her. Eventually she'd begin sucking his d.i.c.k again and all thoughts of mother and her accident went out the window as they began another round of lovemaking.

She told him she loved him that weekend. She said it with conviction, tears streaming from her hazel eyes. The crackling of her voice supported her conviction. The energy and emotion pouring off her was more than enough to convince him. He believed her.

He moved in the next weekend.

Life went on for the next few months. Kirk still had his job at Plummer's Mill, which was a good twenty miles away. Stacy had her house, her Trans-Am, her money, and her time. She was expecting another insurance payment in the summer, but with the way she was spending it now it wasn't going to last long in the future. Next to the lavish gifts she bought Kirk, she spent a good deal of it on escaping from the memories of mother's accident via herbal, alcoholic, and chemical vacations.

Kirk dragged on the cigarette until it was down to the b.u.t.t. He stubbed it out on the sand and drew his knees up to his chest. G.o.dd.a.m.n, but it was cold out here.

At first he didn't mind the drugs. He used pot recreationally and he especially loved getting stoned before they made love. With Stacy it was electrified twofold. They fit each other's bodies snugly. s.e.x with her was so f.u.c.king incredible that he felt like he could die making love to her.

It was most likely the intoxication of her s.e.xual prowess that blinded him for the first three months. The mental part of their relationship that had always been so absent began to make its presence known gradually, until it began overpowering him within the last few days. Little by little, her mental aberrations picked at his brain until he paused and took a real good look at the woman he had moved in with. The woman he told the guys down at the mill that he loved.

Everyday...waking up at noon...the pot...the booze...afternoon soaps...hanging out at Jack's Sugar Shack on Highway 98 some ten miles north, which was the area's lone adult video store (why hang out at a place frequented by men who were looking for a quick release of l.u.s.t unless she was providing it?)...a tab of acid every couple of days...more pot...sporadic shopping splurges...more pot...heavy s.e.x (the more time pa.s.sed, the more he suspected that he wasn't the only guy playing hide the salami with her)...and then on to the next day to do the whole thing over again. It was at that point Kirk realized that Stacy was a major nut case.

Kirk sighed and pulled the last long necked Bud out of the bag. He twisted off the cap and drank deep. G.o.dd.a.m.n, what a f.u.c.king mess. He loved her, and wanted to help her. She needed counseling, AA, psychiatric treatment, rehab, Jesus Christ-anything! She was slowly spiraling into her sea of misery and if he didn't pull her out, she'd drown in it. He needed to get her away from this p.i.s.sant little town, which was where the source of her pain lay. Make a better life for both of them.

Get her away from her broken past.

A shuffling sound approaching his backside spurned him to look over his shoulder. Stacy was approaching him from the parking lot, a weathered smile on her face. Her magenta hair blew in her face, which was touched up lightly with makeup. Kirk's heart broke when he saw her. She was so beautiful she didn't need makeup. "Hi, baby." Her voice was soft, childlike.

Kirk rose and they embraced. Stacy huddled into him, her check pressed into the leather of his jacket. He stroked her hair, kissed the top of her forehead. She tilted her face up to his and they kissed. He broke it before it could get any further.

"Stacy, we need to talk," Kirk said. He turned and walked away, his back to her. He could sense her behind him, her demeanor becoming confused but knowing what was coming. He turned back to face her, doing his best to keep his feature's stern, yet gentle. Understanding.

Loving.

"What do we need to talk about?" Stacy asked. Her voice lowered to a shaky whisper.

"Several things." Kirk paced the sand in front of her. She watched as he walked on. "I love you very much, Stacy. And I want to help you. I want to protect you, and I want to make things better for you." He stopped and turned to her. "But G.o.ddammit, you make it awfully hard when you don't give a s.h.i.t about yourself. All I see you do is sit at home all day, getting drunk, getting stoned, taking G.o.d knows how much acid-"

"What I chose to do with my body is n.o.body's business but mine." Stacy nearly spit it out through gritted teeth. She seemed locked into a silent, screaming rage that threatened to break through at any moment.

"What you do with your body is my business." Kirk approached her, jabbing his finger at her. "Because if you continue to f.u.c.k up your body, it destroys any chance we have of continuing this relationship."

"Why are you doing this?" Stacy screamed, burying her face in her hands. "Why are you doing this to me, why-" Her face was turning red and her eyes were beginning to leak. She choked the words out in sobs that snapped Kirk into action.

He grasped her shoulders and shook her. "I'm doing this because I care about you! I'm trying to make you-"

Stacy brushed his hands away and stepped back, crying openly now. She held her hands up to her ears as if to stop the barrage of criticism aimed at her. "Stop it, I don't want to hear it-"

"-understand, that you need help, you need to see a professional about-"

"WILL YOU STOP IT!"

Kirk stopped as if he suddenly slammed into a brick wall. Stacy stood her ground, her face red and wet with tears. Her breath fast and heavy, as if she'd just run a marathon. Kirk caught himself before he launched off into another tactical error. He had to bring it all up; the drinking, the drugs, the suspicion of her having affairs behind his back. He would have to proceed slowly and not hit her with everything at once. It was already getting out of hand; he knew she was going to be in some kind of denial, but not like this.

"Listen," Kirk said, his voice soothing. He held his hands up, palms outward. "Let's talk this thing out."

"No, we're not going to talk this out." Stacy's tone was charged with emotion. She glared at Kirk, her chest rising and falling. "I want you out of my house."

"Jesus, Stacy-"

"I said I want you out of my house!"

A glimmer of movement caught Kirk's eye as he leaned into the argument. He looked past Stacy's shoulder out at the white sands of the beach. Stacy's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did you hear me? I said-"

Kirk held his hand up, still looking past Stacy's shoulder. His eyes widened.

Stacy whirled toward the beach. Her scream lodged in her throat in a wretched gasp. "Oh my G.o.d!"

The creatures were only twenty feet from them. To Kirk they looked like giant crabs from one of those shlocky B-movies. Nuclear Crabs on the Rampage, directed by Roger Corman, based on the novel by Guy N. Smith. Kirk had lived his whole life on the Maine coastline and had never seen crabs like this before. They were as big as a f.u.c.king St. Bernard.

Kirk grabbed Stacy, who stood rooted in shock. The creatures were advancing quickly and he could hear the clicking as their claws clacked together. He made to spin Stacy around and push her into a run toward the parking lot. "Run!" He shouted. "Jesus, Stacy, run!"

Stacy went apes.h.i.t. She fought against his grasp, screaming at him hoa.r.s.ely. She slapped at his hands, at his chest as he tried to get her to run. "Get the f.u.c.k away from me, get away from me-"

She was in panic mode and if he didn't get her out of here they would both be attacked. The creatures were scuttling rapidly toward them, gaining momentum. Getting closer.

Still clutching Stacy's shoulder's, he made to move her forward in his flight to escape. He could hear the hiss of the creatures lunging at them and the clattering of their claws and then suddenly Stacy turned, twisting out of his grip. Kirk teetered on the brink of falling backward, then she pushed him and he did fall, flat on his back into the sand. He scrambled on the ground in his haste to escape. Stacy was already running pen-mell toward the parking lot to her Trans-Am. Kirk rose to his knees, stood up to run but was dragged down to the ground from behind. He ate a mouthful of sand as his face hit the beach and then something sharp pierced his ankle.

He had never felt pain so great. It ricocheted up his leg and rocked into his skull. His mind seemed to keel over and his vision blurred for a moment. When it cleared, a pair of stalked eyes were glaring down at him, tiny jaws clicking. And then the agony blossomed as that great, terrible claw came down again and tore a chunk out of his hip.

Kirk yelled and this time he did move. He hobbled forward in a slithering motion and ate sand again. There was the pressure of a tremendous weight on his back as a creature climbed on top of him, poised for attack. Kirk squirmed like a rat caught in a trap. Only pure adrenaline kept him going, surging through his bloodstream rapidly and pouring out of him via the hole in his leg.

The creature at his side seemed too hungry to even immobilize its prey. It dipped its claws into Kirk's back, ripping chunks of flesh and stuffing them into its mandibles. Kirk screamed, squirming beneath the weight of the creature on his back. His eyes gla.s.sed over and his mind was drifting. He clawed frantically at the sand.

The last thing Kirk Fischer saw was Stacy's Trans-Am rapidly diminishing in the horizon with the squeal of spinning tires. The rest of the creatures grouped around him and joined their brethren. A few jabs of their segmented tails later, and Kirk was reduced to a bubbling ma.s.s of sizzling flesh which they ate their fill of.

Fifteen minutes later the creatures moved inland, leaving the tattered remains of a black leather jacket and an empty six pack of long necked Budweiser-hardly enough to acknowledge Kirk had never left the beach.

Chapter Seven.

It was too bad Melissa hadn't been able to stick around, but Rick did have a ton of ch.o.r.es to get through before starting on his next novel. Still, her absence weighed on him as he eagerly explored his house. He had hoped she would have traipsed through with him, sharing his enthusiasm and surprise as he uncovered the dwelling's many features. But he would have to do without her for now. It was time to unpack and settle in.

It was a modest, one-story farmhouse. There was a living room, a kitchen with a dining room, and a den. There were three bedrooms, the largest of the trio tucked in back of the house with its own bathroom and shower. A second bathroom was off the main hall. Rick christened the middle bedroom as his office, and began moving his computer equipment in.

The house was equipped accordingly with worn yet homey furniture. The kitchen had all the necessary tools of the trade; pots and pans, dishes, gla.s.ses, silverware. The den contained a television, a VCR and a so-so stereo system. The master bedroom contained a king-sized waterbed with satin sheets. The bed sat across from the walk-in closet with mirrored sliding doors. All the better to watch if he ever got lucky and found a steady honey to do the horizontal bop with.

Rick spent the next two hours unpacking and stowing things. Clothes went into the closet or in the dresser. His computer and laser printer went in the office, along with his files and supplies. The few books and odds and ends he brought along remained in the living room. He'd brought his CD collection and some reading material, along with some VHS tapes. His stay in Phillipsport wasn't intended to be permanent, but the more things he brought from home, the better he felt.

Once he was semi-settled in, he called Cynthia Jacobs. His agent.

He rang her up from the extension in the office. She picked up on the first ring and sounded surprised to hear from him. "So, you made it to Phillipsport?" Her voice came in strong and syrupy, dripping with s.e.x. It instantly reminded him of the first time they'd combined business with pleasure.

It had happened at a convention in Nashville. They'd been conducting business for three years by mail and phone, but that was the first time they had the opportunity to meet in person. They'd both gotten drunk at a party, talking aimlessly. They'd stumbled to their rooms and as Rick bade her goodnight, she swept him up in a sweeping embrace, hug, smooch, squeeze, fondle. They ended up making love in her room. At the time it happened, Rick never thought that it was a wrong thing to do. She made the first move, he was drunk, she was drunk and attractive, and why not take advantage of each other? What else was a man supposed to do when seduced by a drunk, h.o.r.n.y, s.e.xy older woman?

He regretted it almost as soon as the convention was over. He knew it was unethical business-wise, but then she had made the first move. Still, it bothered him and he seriously considered dumping her for another agent. When you came right down to it, what kind of agent f.u.c.ks her client on a business trip? He voiced his concerns to her over the phone one day and they talked about it. She said that she had no interest in pursuing anything relationship-wise and was sorry she'd come on to him. It had been very unprofessional of her and she promised it would never happen again. That made him feel better about the situation.