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My death would ht He didn&039;t understand how vulnerable I was to blood loss He&039;d ignored things while I bled He had literally talked ht that summer day, and it flooded around me, sweet and warm Bobbi held me safe until it was time to drift free

It was very like those moments when I went invisible, but even that forabove ht

The clay I&039;d left behind was in poor shape The face had gone terribly gaunt, fingers curled into grasping claws, outstretched arh the gray flesh He&039;d been throughfor him, the poor bastard The me that floated above hi a body was of no further iot off the floor and went to check on the re of the face would animate that corpse

Theat ood-bye Once I left, that would be the end of it No more ties to this world No more

Bobbi-she won&039;t knohat&039;s happened

That wasn&039;t anything I could fix What was done was done I had to go soon

I can&039;t just leave her

I hesitated And thought And thought soo through-I couldn&039;t do that to her I&039;d carry the remorse with me forever But weren&039;t you supposed to shed that at death? Apparently not I could deal with s I&039;d inflicted on others Added up, they orse thanfrom the meat hook

But this was out of my hands Soht with anyone Bobbi would never

The helplessness returned again My regret had weight like a thousand anvils, and it dragged me toward the empty shell below I hovered close to what had been faed, and his eyelids were at half- orbs That was a dead man&039;s face I didn&039;t want to sink into it and pushed away, just a tiny distance

Bobbi will look for you and cry and wonder and worry and never know

She deserved better than that I couldn&039;t let her go through what I had endured when my lover, Maureen, had disappeared For years I&039;d searched, alondering; the grief and anger and the not-knowing had eaten ainst the cold, leaden husk and recoiled How could I possibly take up its burden again?

I couldn&039;t That wasn&039;t for me anymore

It was over; I had to leave

At the end of the day, at the end of life, it&039;s the saht Things are finally clear Everything would turn out all right Bobbi would go through a bad stretch but get past it Decades from now, at some decisive future point, her time would come, and she would hover like this over her body I&039;d be there waiting for her-

Unless she e and became Undead

A small chance, but possible

Then she would live on and alonder and never know and perhaps blame herself, just as I had Only she&039;d never find me She would never find et back to her

Desire and will added weight, and I sank lower There was an invisible barrier betweenflesh It see thicker and er I delayed

With hard effort, I pushed past it and instantly felt the awful press of gravity dragging ony and blackness

Reluctantly I caing ot an spreading throughwoke up at once: the constant pain, the helplessness, the rage, and especially the hunger That hurt the worst

Sole and had a cup to ot another gulp down and another, and then it was gone I still hurt, still needed-

"More," I whispered

Dugan stared There was a s"

"You&039;re the one ants this"

He didn&039;t hts

"More or I die"

"You won&039;t You&039;re i with an idiot My eyes shut again, and I didn&039;t respond when he slapped me

That worked He hurried away and returned with e, but couldn&039;t stop My previous out-of-control overfeedings had been to sate an addiction; this was pure survival That hat I told hout the corners, it was the truth I&039;d coan must have run out of stock; he stood overvariations of "Are you all right?" at intervals until I mumbled at him to shut up

That seemed to reassure hiht on An oversight, perhaps What had happened must have spooked hi, recovering, thinking of ways to kill hih payback

My brain cleared; I listened to his otten very messy; he&039;d want to clean up Wish I could This place had running water, electricity, I&039;d not yet heard a phone It was information, perhaps useful, perhaps not

Then he paced Restlessly, uneven, up and back in a not-very-large roos went quiet I thought he&039;d fallen asleep until a very faint scratching sound cah the floor to

What would it be? A harrowing and heroic account of his first feeding? Perhaps another essay arguing the social practicality of killing off inferiors or maybe a scientific record of his reaction to rocery list? Meallon

I&039;d recovered enough to laugh again, softly

The otherinto view the saht, I&039;d hadto escape and chose to return Neither of us had reason to believe Dugan&039;s proht He would kill me and put as left where it would never be found Bobbi would still never know No, da I would get back to her

Things had ih blood to ease my belly pain and allow me to think I didn&039;t feel very ser for suggestions

He shrugged "What would Kroun do?"

That one was easy: not get caught in the first place

His extra caution, not letting even me in on where he spent his days, had worked well Of course, Dugan didn&039;t know theassuan wanted me to think that No, let&039;s keep this si by now He had a trapped audience; there was no way he could resist crowing about his cleverness

Had Kroun been here, he&039;d probably have tried hypnosis It wouldn&039;t have worked Hurley Gilbert should be locked in the booby hatch down the hall fro myself a fatal headache from the attempt, the old evil-eye wha else?" I muttered, confident that the other me had the benefit of et out of this?"

He&039;d be dead if his arms looked like mine did now Otherwise, he would listen, learn, and use any little shred of inforan&039;s pen scratched away, fast and without pause He was just bursting with thoughts tonight He liked dark green ink on thick notepaper When done writing, he used his handiness with origami to fold the paper into whatever shape he wanted, which was a very unique way to file things Was the upstairs of this place filled with little paper sculptures, each one bearing his thoughts? He could iraffes, boats, and once left a small paper coffin where I would find it He&039;d not written on it, but I got the e that he would be back Too bad for an hi-around me "What would he do?"

Manipulation That was his specialty: getting people to go along with hiht to disbelieve him, such was the effect of his brand of charm He exploited their weak points He had plenty of his own I could use against hi I said

On the other hand he kneas a genius, while I was littleani him what he expected shouldn&039;t be hard

I winced I wasn&039;t good at that kind of thing

"Better learn quick, then," said my friend asn&039;t there