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"So she was never there Okay"

"Would you please stop doing that? Patronizing e That’s what it was, you saw it"

"I saw so I sahat you wanted me to see Some people are manipulators, I know that much Oh, hey, you said those o out there and get soo try?"

"No, I don’t Leton you when you had your incident in school? The one that got you sent away? And the report they wrote, did it have the word ‘sociopath’ on it?"

I groaned

"Don’t as, the ones who vanished? They never existed, Arnie No, listen This is hard to understand, but the moment they were sucked into that hole, or whatever it was, they didn’t just stop existing in the here and now They were erased froone At that moment, they were never born If I had fallen in there, you’d be able to go back and see that my mom never had a male child and she never naht now"

"Assuh to do, how can you possibly prove that?"

I took a breath

Here goes

"I have drea frouy And I know his na blond hair In the drea the second dolly of sound stuff, he’s with us in the SUV He’s carrying the second guitar--"

"Okay, okay, back up--"

"I heard her say his name, Arnie I heard Jennifer shout ‘Todd’ plain as day I think that was hi And as of that ot sucked in and he was zapped out of the past, present and future, out of our ht,Todd Brinkmeyer stories, real stories, stories that happened but didn’t happen I think of his face and sometimes I can see it, and it’s like a dreao back and go over the chain of events and there’s places, holes where I know Todd should be He was there and he helped us, Arnie He fought with us And I’m not even allowed to reot a funeral But Todd, I can’t find his picture in the yearbook Can you even ihed and for a quick enuinely sy this elaborately sad He said, "We both got places to go tomorrow Is there any more?"

You act bored, Arnie, you act like you’rehere, aren’t you? You’re still listening I know you got reasons but I don’t knohat they are yet God knoould have split by now if I were in your shoes

I said, "You gotta understandVegas was just the beginning"

Book II: KORROK

A yellow legal pad was found during an inventory of the ite Ji was handwritten on the first page It appears to be part of an unfinished novel titled Jaes from this work have been discovered

she held the blade before hiht Jahosts blood of countless slain Terrans Jameson stared into the wicked beauty of the woman before him, the one blue eye that was not hidden behind an eyepatch shined like a shiny blue jewel

"Xorox," said Jameson "I should have known it was you I could smell your evil before you came in the door!"