"See that there, sonny?" The old man pointed. "Yeah, I see it," Ryan grated back. It was hard to even talk now, from the malodorous soot that seemed to be lining the inside of his mouth. But, yes, he could see it: a line of well-appointed rowhouses, divided by intermittent shops along Main Street, all aflame. Some of the fires had spread across the roofs leaving frameworks of radiant, crackling orange, while other buildings poured flame from their blown-out windows. Ryan wasn't sure-in fact, he convinced himself that it was just an optical illusion-but in one of the windows he thought he saw people running about in horror, dressed in sheets of flame.

"Must've been an earthquake or something," Ryan speculated, "or some big-a.s.s gas-line rupture," forgetting that Dannelleton was all electric and had no natural gas service. "And now that we've established that there's a fire, where in the f.u.c.k is the fire department?" Hence, the next disturbing observation. Main Street was being devoured by fires yet he heard no sirens, detected no evidence of an emergency-service response. The only thing that he did continue to hear were the screams, some low, some high, some tortured and barely human anymore in their rubato-like trait that grimly made Ryan think of people being burned alive.

"There!" The old man pointed again. "Ain't that a b.i.t.c.h!"

It was a b.i.t.c.h. Now Ryan squinted through more stinking murk to actually see the fire department. Flames trailed around the sign on the front wall-DANNELLETON FIRE UNIT 1-and the great plate gla.s.s windows near the entrance had blown out, vomiting more fire. When the entrance door did in fact burst open, a man staggered out, wailing. There seemed to be some clumplike thing on his back, something that moved, but how could that be? It must be just an air-pack, or responder supplies in a backpack. The man, continuing to wail, disappeared into smoke. Ryan couldn't help but think, however: What was that ... thing on his back?

The station's three open bays belched flame too, and the town's three proud fire trucks were easily seen burning. The entire building was engulfed now, and that slight but definite irregularity did enforce itself into Ryan's mind, given his own state of distress at the moment.

The entire building was made of brick. Brick didn't burn, or at least it wasn't supposed to as far as Ryan understood.

This is all f.u.c.ked up, the cop cogitated. What am I gonna do? What could he do? He and Cooper were just two cops who had no communications, no fire-fighting gear, and, obviously, no fire department. Meanwhile, it looked like the entirety of beautiful downtown Dannelleton was burning up.

And still, the screams persisted, but they were fading.

Ryan turned back to the old man-"Hey, pappy, you got a-"

The old man lay convulsing at Ryan's feet. His toothless mouth gasped, opening and closing like the mouth on a fish dying on a pier. His bony fingers felt around at his abdominal area, and that was a big problem.

His abdominal area had been shorn open.

He'd been disemboweled in only the few moments that Ryan had been looking toward the town square. His fingers were desperately feeling around inside the evacuated cavity, feeling for innards that were no longer there.

"We'll get a fortune for these at the gut-diviner's," a sifting voice proclaimed with some enthusiasm. The voice was replied to: "You bet! Fresh guts!"

Ryan wasn't sure. He was hoping, in fact, that he'd inhaled too much smoke and the reaction was causing hallucinations. Nonetheless, he wasn't sure but he thought he observed two things: One, the voices he'd just heard were not human; and, Two, several squat figures had just shuffled off together in the smoke. The figures seemed to be carrying piles of something ropy and wet in their clawed hands, and the figures seemed to have horns.

Not trumpets or bugles. No, not those kinds of horns.

Horns coming out of their foreheads.

When Ryan got back to Dannelicton PD Mobile Unit 208, his partner's previous words echoed in his head: Yeah, this is four shades of f.u.c.ked up, and the impression was trebled when he actually got a good look at his partner, who remained behind the wheel of the cruiser.

What Ryan saw was a big problem. Cooper was quietly shuddering in place, stooped over. His skin seemed wizened now, as though something vampiric had drained a good deal of his bodily fluids. But it was no vampire that had attached itself, via its hooklike mouth, at the back of Cooper's neck. It was a species of parasite known not in this world but in another as Democephalus exsanguinius, referred to less technically as a Caco-Tick. Cannulas slid out of its mandibular cavity to pierce the back of Cooper's neck and slip up into the skull through the carotid inlets and then drain all of the victim's spinal fluid. Once digested, the cannulas then moved on to the corpus callosum where they would spend the next few hours leisurely sucking all of Cooper's blood out through his brain. By now the Caco-Tick had swollen nicely, to something about the size of a pineapple. The parasite's vein-lined blood reservoir quivered as it continued to fill.

Officer Ryan himself didn't have time to get back into the cruiser-provided he would even want to get back into the cruiser when one considered what was also present. Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned to see who it was ... ... he was presented with a big problem. It was Cooper. Standing next to him. Hence, the problem. It didn't matter that Cooper was wild-eyed and buck-naked and grinning deliriously. The problem was much more direct: How could Cooper be standing right next to Ryan when Ryan had, seconds ago, seen Cooper sidled over in the squad car with the giant tick on his neck?

"Hey, buddy!" Cooper cracked, "how about we go grab ourselves some ring-a-ding?"

Ryan stepped back. Why are there two Coopers? he plainly asked himself. Then he stepped back some more.

From nowhere Cooper seemed to produce a meat cleaver of impressive proportions, and he wasted no time in lunging toward his partner, swiping the cleaver back and forth so fast the blade was a blur. "Gotta cut me some pig!"

When Ryan emptied his revolver into Cooper's chest, Cooper just keep coming. Odd what was coming out of the catastrophic chest wound, though. Not blood as anyone would expect but some bizarre organic puree, like loose ground meat. It didn't ... smell good. Now Cooper was chasing Ryan around the patrol car, the cleaver swiping madly, but when enough of that puree had emptied from his chest, he began to falter and then he collapsed. The thing that had chased Ryan about the car clearly wasn't the real Cooper but instead some sack of animated meat that looked like Cooper. By now, of course, after all he'd witnessed out here, Ryan was insensible, and he'd never be able to conceive of the explanation anyway: that the evil Cooper look-alike was something known as a Hex-Clone.

Ryan wasn't sure what it was that eventually got him, or what it could even have been, but he did know this: One moment he'd been standing there physically intact, the next moment he was paralyzed on the ground, similar to the old man, clutching his abdomen. Squat figures bustled around him. Something had riven his belly open, and now those same figures were greedily hauling his intestines out of the wound, bickering. "Give me the spleen, give me the spleen!" one insisted. "I got dibs on the stomach," another proclaimed. More evil voices fluttered about as Ryan merely shuddered in place. They evacuated him with glee, mining their human ore, like voracious cotton-pickers. Two were fighting over what must've been his small-intestinal tract: "Let go, let go! It's mine!" and "No, it's not! Give me it, you Troll b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" It was a tug-of-war. "Hey, buddy?" yet another less-than-human voice whispered to him. "We're gonna sell your guts to an Anthropomancer. They pay good scratch for human guts. They use 'em to read the future, then send messengers to report the results to Lucifer. Thanks for your guts, pal ..."

Incomprehension notwithstanding, that was pretty much it for Officer Ryan. Eviscerated now, he lay dying, blood seeping freely from his calamitous wound. Were mites roving in the blood? Everything had happened so fast, his mind couldn't even attempt to calculate any of it. A clawed hand pulled the wad of cash from his pocket-the crack money he'd gotten from Dutch-but then he heard a guttural sputter. "These ain't h.e.l.lnotes! f.u.c.k! What am I gonna do with this s.h.i.t? Wipe my a.s.s?" Footsteps plodded off.

Next, Ryan was being dragged away by someone-er, well, someone wasn't exactly accurate. It was actually a female Ghoul, sleek in her nutmeg-colored skin, lissome and even voluptuous, pert b.r.e.a.s.t.s like hard fruit on the slat-ribbed chest. She looked back at him with sparkling, billiard-ball-sized tourmaline eyes, then frowned. "I'd eat you myself but I'll get more money for your meat at a Pulping Station."

Ryan still didn't understand. In the real world and in this hideous nightmare as well, it seemed that n.o.body cared about anything but money.

Wind gusted off the bay, blowing vast holes in the noxious smoke, and the last visual image to register in Ryan's mind was a glimpse of downtown Dannelleton: the town square, the city hall, the quaint cafes and bistros and the sh.e.l.l shop and the German bar where he'd slammed down many a stein of Bitburger draft. It was all smoldering now, and behind it stood the grim gray skysc.r.a.pers which seemed to lean this way and that at the oddest angles.

This was a big problem.

There were no skysc.r.a.pers in downtown Dannelleton.

(II).

Walter popped the small almond-brown pills. No, he wasn't committing suicide-he'd bought the shotgun for that, a beautiful brand-new Remington 870 pump. The pills were ferrous fumarate-a commonplace iron supplement-because Walter, according to the doctor that Colin had made him see, was slightly anemic. You could tell that just by looking at him. His red hair and already fair complexion seemed to drastically accentuate his stereotypical college-geek egghead never-get-out-in-the-sun-even-though-you-live-in-f.u.c.king-Florida pallor. Eighteen years old and gaunt as Ichabod Crane. Freckles. And no self-esteem. It didn't matter that he had the highest I.Q. of anyone-including the senior professors-at the University of Southern Florida. His love was all that mattered, and that's why he was about to kill himself.

Walter Grey didn't have to live in the dorm room at Morakis Hall; his brother, Colin, would've put him up at a luxury condo right on the water if he'd wanted that, but Walter knew he had to adjust better socially. He wanted to meet people, be part of the "scene," make friends and hang out. None of that had worked at first; Walter was a geek in every sense of the word and, hence, the object of every practical joke that college kids could conceive of. Dogs.h.i.t in his sneakers, anole lizards on his cheeseburgers at the dining hall, Sudden Death hot sauce in his gym-cla.s.s jock strap, water balloons full of mola.s.ses dropped on his head from the dorm windows when he was coming back from cla.s.s. One night some of the guys on his floor had Krazy-Glued his physics books closed, just when Colin had walked in to see how things were going. Colin looked like a geek in the same way that Walter looked like a geek, but Colin didn't give a s.h.i.t. When you were a multi-millionaire, you didn't have to. "Hey, a.s.s-bags," Colin had said to the perpetrators of Walter's torment that night. "Anybody who f.u.c.ks with my brother gets his a.s.s kicked." One of the students had challenged back at Colin's frail physique: "Oh, yeah? By who? You?"

"No, not by me," Colin informed him. "By these guys." Then Colin's hand gestured to the other gentlemen who'd just entered the dorm room after him: four very psychotic-looking bikers with a local motorcycle gang called The St. Pete Decapitators. One of them promptly punched a hole in the wall, as if on cue. Then another snapped open a ten-inch angel-blade. Did the knife's edge have rust on it, or dried blood?

"Walter's our friend," he told the wiseacre student in a voice scorched by years of PCP-toking. "If you ever give him a hard time," the biker grinned through black teeth, "I'll cut your c.o.c.k off and make your mama suck it."

No one ever bothered Walter again. See, Colin merely hired the bikers to make his point-paying them quite well-and he'd hire them again if more severe services were ever needed. They never were.

But by the time that Walter realized he wasn't likely to be socially accepted by anyone, he met Candice.

The girl of all my time-held dreams, he thought yearningly now, love in his heart and a 12-gauge pumpkin-ball in his hand.

Yes. Candice.

Adriatic-blue eyes, long blond hair down past her waist, five-foot-ten and a half. Beautiful as one of those bikini models in a hot rod mag. Candice was a general studies major and at age twenty-six could boast of being the oldest soph.o.m.ore currently enrolled. Her parents were putting her through school-to help her find her true apt.i.tudes, and to keep her shenanigans-and her physical body-out of their North Hampton, New York, beach mansion. In truth, though, her apt.i.tudes were more oral than academic, as just about any male athlete at the school could attest, and d.a.m.n near every male instructor. She knew, in fact, that if she really made the effort, she could probably f.e.l.l.a.t.e her way to a quicker graduation, but her view was: What's the hurry? Even though Candice existed as the embodiment of every s.e.xist cliche, she was quite happy with that lot. She loved it.

And Walter loved her. He truly believed in love at first sight because what else could these feelings be but love? He knew he loved her the instant he'd first seen her at the student lounge watching Hollywood Squares reruns instead of doing her homework. Walter had been having a Mountain Dew and whizzing through the day's chapter on the molecular possession of cesium and its relation to low-ionization energy fields. It was a piece of cake. When he'd looked up, though, the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his eighteen-year-old life was sitting at the same table, right across from him. She smiled at him-it was a distressed smile but a smile just the same-and then she pushed some of that shimmering blond hair back off her brow and said: "Hi."

Walter nearly had a grand mal seizure when she'd said that single, simple word to him. Instantly he was sweating, shaking even, and when he opened his mouth to respond to her greeting, what came out sounded like, "Huh-huh-huh-huh-"

"My name's Candice," she told him next. "What's yours?"

"Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-" Then he finally got it out. "Walter."

She scratched her head, and pulled out a spiral notebook. "d.a.m.n, I got this take-home quiz, it's due next period, and I just can't remember! Isn't math a b.i.t.c.h?"

"It's-it's-it's the only quant.i.tative philosophy," Walter spewed. "Math is the meaning of life."

She giggled. It was the cutest giggle he'd ever heard. "Do you know a lot about math, Walter?"

"Yuh-yuh-yuh-"

"I just can never remember, d.a.m.n it. The difference between Number Theory and Set Theory."

Here was Walter's chance to prove to this blond G.o.ddess that he was something more than a babbling putz. He could help her, couldn't he? Her query grounded him; something snapped in his head like a switch. "Number Theory is the science of integers and how natural numbers relate to one another. Set Theory is the science of the interrelation of collections of numbers as basic number-systems."

Another smile that made Walter want to melt. "You're so smart! Could you say that a little slower so I can write it down?"

Instant confidence. They were relating to each other, via a common interest! Walter reached over and took her pad, and began to write down the needed definitions, and that was just the beginning.

The beginning, that is, of an all-too-typical form of exploitation: the age-old Case of the Buxom Blond Using the Egghead. For the rest of the next semester, Candice exploited poor Walter for what he had far more of than she: brains. Walter did her math homework and coached her for exams he'd already aced. In return, Candice would go out with him-to places where she likely wouldn't be seen by anyone she knew-and hold his hand. She loved County & Western; Walter would take her to concerts in one of Colin's limos, and she loved big thick b.l.o.o.d.y steaks, so he'd take her to the best steak houses in Tampa. Afterwards, she's always whisper sweet nothings to him. She had him hooked at once, and poor Walter was too naive to even suspect that he was being used. No, it couldn't be that! Candice loved him! She'd told him so!

Even Colin warned him: "Buddy-bro, she's a hosebag, she's a ditz. The only reason she's in college at all is because her parents told her unless she got a degree she'd lose the trust fund. She's using you to do her f.u.c.kin' cla.s.s a.s.signments."

"She is not! She loves me!" Walter exploded back, outraged at such a cynical insulation. "You're just jealous because it's not you she's going out with."

Colin lit a cigarette and dismissively waved a hand. "I could s.h.i.t care less about that floozy air-head. She's a jock-girl, Walter. She's not into eggheads like you. She goes out with the football team-the entire f.u.c.king football team."

"She does not! Shut up!"

"Walter, don't be a d.i.c.khead. Don't let her pull the wool over your eyes. She's not the kind of girl to fall in love with. I mean, if you're getting it on with her, great. Be realistic and look at it that way-she's f.u.c.king you in exchange for you doing her math."

By now Walter's face nearly matched the vibrant red of his hair. "That is NOT what's going on! She's my GIRLFRIEND! Or, at least, she will be soon. We're kind of... casual now, but that'll change any day." Now Walter grinned, which looked ludicrous with his beet-red face. "She said she loves me."

Colin just rolled his eyes, astounded by his brother's inept.i.tude. "She's duping you, Brother-bro. Girls like her do this to guys like you all the time. She knows that without you she'll flunk her math cla.s.s. She's jacking you around." Colin sputtered frustrated smoke into the air. "Well, she is a brick s.h.i.t-house, I can't deny that, and at least you're getting it on with her. I mean ... right? Please don't tell me you're doing all that work for her and you're not even getting laid."

"Of course, I'm getting laid," Walter lied. "What do you think I am, a moron?" In truth, there'd been a few times when Candice had plowed a few too many Bud Lights and had actually taken Walter back to her dorm for some whoopie. A charity f.u.c.k; Walter had done a lot for her, and what was another roll in the hay, especially after the entire football, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer teams, plus the wrestling squad-all weight cla.s.ses? Candice could be very charitable when she was drunk enough. But wouldn't you know it?

Walter couldn't get it up.

Not even at the virile age of eighteen and being straddled by the living summation of female beauty. Walter's crane would not rise. She'd of course sweetly consoled him with comforting words like, "Oh, honey, don't worry, it happens sometimes" or "You're just nervous, that's all." Stuff like that. Walter, indeed, was very nervous. This was his first time, blast it all. If there really was a G.o.d, He was having a big laugh. Walter wanted to lose his male virginity just like any male virgin wanted to, and to lose it with the girl of his dreams would've been even better. But, alas, all that he would lose on these nights was sleep.

"So," Colin chided on. "You're not getting laid."

"Shut up!" Walter yelled back "You're doing all that work for her, and she's not even hauling your ashes."

"Be quiet!"

What was the use? Colin didn't understand anything about love. He had all the women he wanted, and all of them were dancers at the local strip joint. Colin was just as nerdy looking as Walter, but the only difference between them was that it had been Colin, not Walter, who'd won the hundred million dollars in the state lottery.

Meantime, his love for her grew, as did the time he spent doing her a.s.signments and prepping her for exams. Walter, in his eighteen-year-old romantic idealism, believed that he was in a budding relationship. And those guys he kept seeing her with? The jocks, the guys in letterman jackets, the football players who looked bigger than most compact cars? They were just friends of hers. Sure, girls had male friends. Nothing wrong with that. Just because they were opposite s.e.xes didn't mean something was going on. Right?

Just as Walter knew that an anomalus range of 2.5 to 8 electron volts was necessary to achieve plasmotic self-ionization, he knew that Candice loved him and would one day be his wife.

But back to that conversation he'd been having with his brother. Colin said: "Hey, did you hear the one about Candice robbing a bank? She tied up the safe and blew the guard!"

"Shut up!" Walter yelled while tapping out a quick paper on small energy loss during elastic collisions of electrons in magnetic fields.

"She doesn't love you," Colin reiterated.

"I'll have you know that I have a date with her. Tonight."

Colin smiled. "Oh, so she's got another math a.s.signment for you to do, huh?"

"No, she doesn't. The date's at her dorm, smart guy. She invited me over."

"She's got another math a.s.signment for you to do..."

He'll eat crow when Candice and I get married. Walter couldn't wait. He looked at his watch. "See ya, Colin. I've got to be over there in ten minutes," and then Walter headed for the door. As he left, Colin was just shaking his head, a.s.suring his inept brother, "She won't be there ..."

Candice wasn't there. Walter had the girl at the dorm desk call up to Candice's room ten times. "Walter," the girl said, getting annoyed after the eighth or ninth time, "she's not there."

Walter considered every possibility. Of course, she was there-she said she'd be, she invited him over. There was no way that a girl as considerate as Candice would stand him up. Impossible... She took a nap and forgot to set her alarm. She had a late cla.s.s. She lost track of time at the library. "Could you ring her room again, please?" Walter asked. "She was probably just taking a shower." By now the desk girl was irate: "Walter, Jesus Christ. Candice has not been taking a shower for the last TWO HOURS!"

"Please?"

"All right, look. I'll call one more time, and if she doesn't answer, you'll leave, right?"

"Okay," Walter agreed because he knew in his heart that Candice would never treat him like this. She was just taking a long shower, he felt convinced. She's there.

"Tenth ring," the girl informed. "She's not there. Now-go home!"

Walter was crushed and, as promised, he turned and left. He would've been even more crushed if he'd overheard what the desk girl said in the phone right after the door closed behind him. She said, "Thank G.o.d, he's finally gone. Tell Bucky I said hi, Candice."

Eventually, Walter's dejection transformed into more denial. She was probably just real tired, from her cla.s.ses. She'll call tomorrow and apologize. Of course she will! She loves me! He meandered across campus, as night fell. Two jocks in letterman jackets pa.s.sed without even noticing him. "You put the blocks to Candice yet?" one asked, and the other responded, after chuckling, "Couple nights ago after the finals mixer-s.h.i.t. I didn't just f.u.c.k her, I stuffed her like a turkey."

"What a woman!"

"She's like a machine you can't turn off. Just fill her with beer and let 'er rip!"

Walter scowled at this rough talk, and certainly they weren't talking about Candice-not his Candice. Some other girl named Candice, some jock tramp. When Walter turned the corner at Campus Drive, heading back to his own dorm, he spotted red and white lights flashing stroboscopically. Ambulance, he quickly realized. Then he saw cops and several tow trucks. Someone in a gold Dodge Colt had run the red light at the circle. Walter peered closer, then thought, Oh no ...

A pedestrian had been hit in the crosswalk, a philosophy student, no doubt. Spiral notebooks lay flapping in the street, along with copies of Sartre's No Exit and Soren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Dread. A guy with gla.s.ses and a trimmed beard lay on an ambulance gurney, his neck obviously broken. Dead, Walter saw. He noticed the odd tattoo on the guy's left arm: NARRATION IS MY ENEMY. No, Walter thought. Reckless drivers are. The two EMTs by his side didn't even bother with CPR. The Colt had front-ended the flag pole in the center of the circle, a campus cop handcuffing the fat, inebriated driver. "f.u.c.kin' pedestrians, Jesus Christ, the guy just walked out in the middle of the street."

"Yeah, because he had a walk light, a.s.shole," the cop said. "Thank G.o.d for the new drunk driving laws. Five years, no parole, on any DWI/vehicular manslaughter charge."

As the EMTs scribbled on clipboards, Walter just kept staring at the dead guy on the gurney. His eyes were crossed, tongue hanging from an agape mouth. He wore a white t-shirt that read PIL: THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.

"f.u.c.k, the s.h.i.tface is gettin' froggy with the cop," one of the EMTs observed.

Walter looked over. The fat guy who'd been driving the car only had one wrist cuffed; now he was swinging at the cop with his other hand, shouting, "All I had was a couple of beers! I ain't going to prison for five f.u.c.kin' years!" and-SMACK!-the loose cuff hit the cop right in the face.

"Kid! Hold this for me!" the EMT said and slapped the clipboard into Walter's chest. Walter took it, startled, as the two EMTs rushed the fat guy and aided the cop. The scuffle didn't last long, but Walter, for a reason he couldn't identify, couldn't focus. He wasn't watching the ruckus, he was looking at the dead man on the gurney.

The dead man was leaning up now, on one hand behind him. His other hand grasped the back of his own head by the hair, angling the broken neck. A few vertebrae crunched as he did this. The dead man was holding his head so to look right at Walter.

Walter's bladder emptied.

"Sartre was wrong," the dead man said. "h.e.l.l isn't other people."

"Huh?" Walter managed to respond.

Then the dead man said, "The showerhead knows more about us than we know about ourselves."

Walter gaped. "What?"