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Mark’s body was in the ue Cold and empty, without Mark’s soul in it Just flesh, she told herself Not Mark at all…just an empty shell…and yet Mark had been killed by Boyd And Boyd was a vampire It didn’t matter that Weinstock checked on him three times a day; it didn’tanything more than corpses In aabout outliving his ene after they were dust What if that sort of thing was possible? What if Mark, cold and dead as he appeared, was only waiting for soht, she knew Stupid, and fanciful, and utterly terrible Val lay there and stared out through the lightlessinto the blank blackness of the night and thought lots of such thoughts

4

Mike knew that everything was broken, but he didn’t care He didn’t kno to care anyht out of his le piece of understanding "I’hed and felt blood splash out of his mouth onto his chin There was pain Of course there was pain, but it was a remote island way off on the horizon of his perception It had been there for hours, ever since he’d crashed, and it had done all the harm to him that it could Noas just there He didn’t care about that, either

"I’ It was the safest he’d felt in years

Tio ceased to ed Mike couldn’tat the featureless black above him forever Maybe he slept at times, maybe he just stared, but now the sky was less pervasively black, now there was just the faintest hint of color A brick-red tinge dabbed here and there on the underside of the clouds

The wind stirred, pushing soainst his cheek and stuck to the blood, quivering as if struggling to escape Mike turned his eyes to look at it, saw its jagged brown edges vibrating, and it took him a few seconds to realize that he could see the color He tried to lift one hand, wanting to see if there was enough light to see his fingers and was surprised when his hand moved When he had tried to move his hand before it had not so le flicker of sensation froed now, but Mike still didn’t care He was too busy trying to die

There was the rustle of more leaves off to his left, not in the path of the wind, and Mike turned his eyes that way--and his whole head turned, too His neck was no longer locked into immobility Over there, just beyond where his bike lay, there was ato pick out details in the glooht he was looking at a scarecrow, because the s whose tatters flapped in the breeze, but there was no post, no fence to support a scarecrow And then the e step, and even in his se step, ht flitted through his mind and Mike aled with equal aardness, as if the

The daas filling in the world with colors, defining shapes, painting the day, and as he lay there Mike could see edybut mismatched castoffs A soiled pair of patched work pants, two different shoes--a sneaker and a woman’s low-heeled pump--a checked shirt that was torn in a dozen places Heavy cotton work gloves And some kind of mask, but it was still too dark to make out what it was It was dark and shiny and the ht swelled by another degree and though the cloud cover kept any rays froht increased but still the mask made no sense to Mike There were no holes for eyes It was just a swirling complexity of wrinkles that writhed and twisted with the steady breeze The e, no desire to ask for help The dying don’t need help to die, and if this guy wanted to be a witness, then that was on hihts of help and safety, even of right and wrong

He just wanted to die and he didn’t care if anyone--especially a raggedy man--stood by and watched Another step and now the man was no more than twenty feet away Two low of the daashed him in crimson from his shoes to his face

To his…face? Suddenly terror struck Mike like a fist over the heart In a single moment all of his detachment fractured and fell away His whole body convulsed, arching belly-up to the sky like a heart attack patient getting the paddles Every wound, every splintered bone, every inch of torn flesh, every nerve ending screaony and terror The shriek burst from his throat in a spray of bloodstained spit If soasoline and tossed a match on him the pain could not have been more comprehensive or intense His scream went on and on and on Hordes of crows exploded from the trees and raced in panic across the sky above hireen grass that patched the dirt around him withered into sickly yelloists and curled in on themselves to die In the soil beneath him the sleepy October worms swelled and burst as if boiled

The screaround, limp and exhausted His eyes--edy Man

He was there Right there, right next to hi down Mike could see that face, that mask--which was not ain the breeze It was his face that rippled, that…writhed There were no eyeholes because there were no eyes--not human eyes; no mouth either--not a human mouth What there hat co, chitinous swarots, centipedes Flies and terloves and his sleeves the exposed ar together to fors, lice and locusts

"No!" After the scream Mike’s voice was a frayed whisper Overhead the crows circled and circled in terrible silence