Leonard Danson wove his way through the crowds between classes, his
head filled with the roaring chatter of seven hundred high school students
in a hurry to be somewhere in the next three minutes.
Somebody blocked his way. Without looking up, he sidestepped to the
right.
So did the human roadblock.
He looked up, feigning annoyance, but fearful of anyone who would
single him out in the crowd for harassment. He expected to see the
twisted grin of one of a handful of personal enemies. Instead, he looked
up into Sarah Mannhardt's blue-gray eyes.
"Hello, Leonard."
Her smile, the murmur of her soft voice and the aroma of her body
isolated him in a warm corner of the universe.
"You wanted to see me?" she said.
Yes, desperately, although it hadn't started out that way. In fact,
she had started it by staring at him during Mrs. Solomon's chemistry class
a week ago, and again making eye contact passing in the halls a few days
later. On the volley ball court yesterday, he had watched with utter
fascination her lean body gracefully popping the ball over the net, and
she had taken notice of his attention.
He couldn't imagine why he hadn't noticed her sooner. She stood
almost his
own height with short-cropped platinum hair, pale eyes that sparkled
mischievously, and an hourglass body to die for. In first period homeroom just an hour or two ago, he had
finally gathered the courage to tape a note to her desk asking if he could
have a word with her.
Leo remembered that she had asked him a civil question. Had he wanted to see her? "Yeah, I did
want to see you," was his reply.
"How are you handling all those metric conversions in chemistry? Isn't
it enough to fry your brain?"
Mrs. Solomon had just handed back their semester finals. Leo put his
had over the warning yellow 'D' on the semester final test atop the book
he carried. He noticed that Sarah's paper carried a blue 'B'. "Pretty good,"
he commented begrudgingly.
"Oh, I get a 'B' in everything. 'A's would be too ostentatious."
And she did. Effortlessly. She had most of the sophomore girls
outclassed in every way possible, in own humble opinion. If she dwelled
on the social sidelines, she did so entirely by choice. How could it be
otherwise? She wasn't shy or socially inept, and she was certainly
prettier that most of the girls in school.
Yeah, he wanted something, but she had been the one to cast her bait,
and he had swallowed hook, line, and sinker and was even now eagerly
flopping about at her feet. He hadn't planned for this moment. He felt
terminally inept. She'd turn him down if he asked for a date, but he'd die
if he didn't ask.
"Wanna go out sometime?" he blurted.
She gave him a coy smile. "Why Leo, how bold of you. What did you
have in mind?"
His heart flopped in his chest like road kill. His knees turned to
rubber and threatened to to give way. "How about if we catch a movie
sometime?"
His voice cracked. He was certain she'd wrinkle her nose, shake her
head, and destroy what remained of his pathetic existence with a summary
dismissal.
To his horror, she did exactly that. She wrinkled her nose. She shook
her head. Leo's lower jaw collapsed. Hot blood turned his face beet red.
"I don't like movies," she said. "I'm free tonight, though. I'm gonna
catch something to eat and study at the library. You can pick me up out
front and take me home if you want."
Unable to recover so quickly, Leo gave her an anguished grin and had
trouble catching his breath.
"Bring the motorcycle," she added casually. "Say at about seven?"
He gawked in momentary paralysis. She hadn't heard about his
accident. "Are you sure it's okay with your folks? I got myself in
trouble last week. . ."
She mocked a sadistic chuckle. "Dumped poor little Miss Muffet on her
tuffet, didn't you, Leonard? Scuffed her pretty little butt something terrible, I heard. But I just know that you wouldn't ever even
think of dropping me on the ground, now would you?"
"No, I won't, I promise!" he said frantically. He had been goofing
around with Judy Muffet. She had teasingly put her hands over his eyes
and he had sideswiped a park car. It would never happen again.
Sarah gave him a satisfied nod. She turned abruptly away and was
gone. Leo found himself standing alone in a stampede of impatient
adolescents, wondering if the peaceful interlude hadn't been a figment of
his imagination.
His elbow buried itself in one of Gloria Withers sized 36 D breasts. Her mouth opened in a round 'O' of shock. As he turned to call out
apology, one-hundred-and-eighty-five pound future linebacker Pete Dickens
slammed him against the lockers with a brutal crash. "Leo, you asshole,
will you get the fuck out of people's way?"
Leo took a moment to catch his breath. By then, it was already too
late to make his last class before the bell. So he skipped it. He dropped
his books off at his locker, wandered outside in a daze, and fought to
calm his simmering panic in the warm afternoon sunlight.
He was grounded for another week because of the accident, but neither
of his parents would be home from their afternoon jobs before nine-thirty,
and he had a spare key for the bike. He jogged home, washed the bike,
and paced the empty house entertaining wildly improbable fantasies of his
date with Sarah. He was anticipating more than just sex. Judy Muffet
gave him all the sex he wanted. Sarah, in contrast, would be his first
true love. No girl in school held a candle to her. She was bright,
vivacious, beautiful. He didn't want her to be easy.
Time dragged. At six-thirty, he pushed the bike a block away so the
neighbors wouldn't hear the engine roar and tattle on him. He drove to
the library and parked a block away rather than risk making a fool of
himself waiting for a date that might never show.
Sarah surprised him by appearing at the curb at seven sharp. She
looked around for him patiently, her book bag dangling from one hand,
calmly oblivious to an occasional blare of a horn from passing traffic.
Leo didn't understand what was happening. Why him? He was a nobody, a
C-student extraordinaire, too scrawny for football, too short for
basketball and too uncoordinated for track. He suspected he had been targeted by the girl,
but for what nefarious reason? What did he have that she might need, or
want?
She glanced his way. Her gaze persisted until he realized that she was
perfectly aware of his presence and patiently waiting for him to make his
move. Embarrassed by his moment of indecision, he put the bike in gear
and drove the remaining distance as nonchalantly as he could manage,
pulling to the curb at her side. Without comment and despite the short
skirt she wore, she swung a leg over the saddle. With a flash of white
cotton underwear, she snuggled in behind him.
The hand on his shoulder was a plateau of significant proportions. It
was their first touch. Even better, she melded her body against his back
and circled his waist with her free hand. Leo closed his eyes and
momentarily basked in the aromatic warmth of her.
His eyes flew open when he realized that he hadn't the slightest idea
where she lived. A quarter tank of gas would take him no further than
fifteen miles from town, thirty if he pushed the bike home. "Where to?"
he tossed over his shoulder.
"World's End," she said. "I live at World's End."
Leo balked. "No kidding? Is that a real place?"
"Of course it's real. It's where I live."
"It's not a real town, though, is it?" Leo thought that it might be
near Salem, but that was fifty miles away.
"Take Highway Twenty out ten miles," she said patiently, "and County
Four north five miles."
So close? Leo tapped the bike in gear. "Yeah, okay. I think I know
where that's at."
It struck him as very odd that he could not remember ever having
visited World's End. He had ridden the local state and county highways
out to a distance of a hundred miles a thousand times. Maybe the place
was so small that he hadn't noticed as he went by.
The key word was 'whatever'. Where she lived wasn't nearly as
important as what they would do when they got there.
"Is this going to be a trip of the imagination," Sarah chided, "or are
you going to roll these wheels for real?"
Leo eyed his rear-view mirror and double-checked traffic three ways
till Sunday before pulling out into the street. Never again would he risk
the humiliation of dumping a girl into the middle of the street, not to
mention the torment of leaving behind a few square inches of his own skin
on the abrasive concrete. He accelerated to the intersection, paused for
the red light and hung a right. He sped down the broader street a mile or
so and turned onto Highway Twenty heading east.
Once on the two-lane highway and with the town receding in his mirror,
he shifted into high gear and held his speed at fifty-five. The sun-lit
countryside rolled peacefully by. The bike was an old four-fifty Honda,
not much of a road bike, but great on gas mileage at cruising speeds.
Sarah's hand was a red-hot brand on his stomach. Her breasts pressed
against his back. She rested her chin on his shoulder and let her hair
fly about the side of his face. Despite the wind generated by their
speed, he could feel her moist breath against his cheek.
She put him on edge. His heart pounded with excitement. He calculated
the hours left in the day. No more than two. He'd have to work fast and
set up another date before they parted company at dusk.
Sarah tapped him on the shoulder and pointed the approaching turn-off. Leo had been here before. He swung onto the blacktop and accelerated
confidently, smiling and speeding up as he approached the hollow. Here,
the road dipped down into a dark ravine and became a tunnel through a
dense stand of oaks. Beyond lay nothing but a few old farms. Sarah
probably lived in one of those.
She cried out her excitement as they swooped down into cool darkness
and back up into the sunlight. But at the crest of the hill, Leo's
confidence faltered. He let off on the throttle and let the bike slow to
thirty-five miles an hour.
"Is something wrong?" She said it with music in her tone of
voice, but the music was taunting, and he didn't understand why.
What was he missing? Something was definitely wrong. Leo couldn't
determine quite what, and it annoyed him that Sarah could handle it so
matter-of-factly.
The sun rested on the horizon an enormous amber sphere bigger than he
had ever seen it before. The oak trees were a variation of the familiar
bur oaks around Oak Grove, but much larger with fat, squat trunks and
broad canopies. Wildflowers grew everywhere. Rabbits dashed across the
road ahead. A doe raised her head and gazed peacefully at him as the bike
rumbled past. The evening air was filled with fluffs of seeds drifting on
a breeze that carried a strange musky aroma.
"Leo? What's the matter?"
"I don't know where we're at," he confessed in growing trepidation. "This wasn't here before."
"It was here when I left for school this morning," she said teasingly.
"Well, the last time I was out this way, there was nothing but farms!"
"Obviously, you must be mistaken."
Leo had no choice but to give her the benefit of the doubt. "How do
you get to school every morning from clear out here?" he said, probing for
information, knowing for a fact that no school bus passed this way.
"I walk to the highway."
"Even during the winter?"
"Ever since I was a kid. My mother walked me when I was little."
"You lived out here your whole life? You went to Monroe Elementary?"
"The same."
"Johnston Junior High and Wilkes High?"
"You got it."
"I don't remember you!" Leo said, annoyed and increasingly unsettled. "And I've been on this road before! It doesn't look like this!"
"You never noticed the fork in the hollow. It's easy to miss."
"No way! There's no fork in the hollow!"
"Okay, if you say so, but at least you got me home in one piece."
A town lay ahead. It had to be World's End, a collection of white
doll-houses nestled beneath the massive oaks. Appalled to have missed a
road and an entire town so close to Oak Grove, he slowed to a snail's
pace.
Every lot in World's End had a garden. There were only a handful of
cars parked at the curb, all of them sleek new compacts. He couldn't see
anyone out and about, although he could hear someone laughing and music
playing nearby. There were no street signs, no telephone poles, no gas
stations or commercial buildings of any kind. A dark woods took up where
the town left off three blocks away.
"Hang a left here," Sarah told him.
Leo coasted around the corner. At the end of a dead-end street stood a
two-story white house with broad windows, an uncultivated field beyond,
and then a line of trees. These were taller trees, similar to poplars,
but with their canopies growing further up the trunk. Like the oaks, they
were strange to his eye. The house, though, had a driveway, a garage, and
a car parked inside. It looked ordinary enough.
Sarah jumped off the bike and went bounding into the house through the
back door. "Mom, I'm home!" She poked her head back outside and gestured
for Leo to follow her in.
Once inside the house, Leo's assessment of World's End went from a
poor, low-tech town to a unpretentious upper-middle class, high-tech
town. Everything in the kitchen was stainless steel and either electric
or electronic. The two enormous downstairs rooms, a combination living
and dining area and the kitchen, had low ceilings and recessed lighting. Off to one side, a spiral staircase extended from the second floor all the
way down to a finished basement.
A woman came circling down the staircase in response to Sarah's call. Leo couldn't help but stare. She wore blue slacks and a white blouse with
long sleeves and ruffles. She stood a statuesque six feet in height and
hardly looked old enough to be anyone's mother.
Mother and daughter looked alike except for their coloring. In
contrast to her platinum-blonde, blue-gray eyed daughter, Mrs. Mannhardt
was a auburn brunette with hazel eyes. They both had lean, athletic
builds. If Sarah's father was about, Leo decided that he didn't want to
meet him.
"Mom, this is Leonard, the boy I was telling you about."
Leo blushed furiously. They hadn't know each other for more than five
hours! How could Sarah have been talking about him? He shook the woman's
hand and considered himself fortunate to get it back unbroken. Mrs.
Mannhardt beamed a brilliant smile. "Sarah tells me what a nice boy you
are."
Nice. Yeah, right.
"Would you two like a snack?"
Mrs. Mannhardt turned away without waiting for an answer. She poured
two glasses of juice and cut two pieces of cake and put them on small
platters. Sarah sat at a plate-glass table and patted the seat beside
her. Leo indulged the two. He couldn't discern the unfamiliar flavors of
either the juice or the cake. He sipped and he ate, and both were great.
"Does Leonard know why he's here, Sarah?"
"I haven't explained it to him yet. I don't think he'll mind."
The woman scowled. "I'm sure he won't, but I'm not sure I approve of
subterfuge. You never gave him a choice, now did you?"
Sarah gazed at Leo studiously. "But I did, Mother. In broad terms,
anyhow. I mean, I won't have to twist his arm or anything like that."
Mrs. Mannhardt, too, gazed at Leo with furrowed brows. "You're
spitting hairs, child."
Sarah cracked a smile. "You don't trust my judgment in boys?"
Mrs. Mannhardt glanced at him one final time and sighed. "Dusk," she
said. "Be home before dark and allow Leonard to return home before dark
as well."
Sarah smiled. "No problem." She watched her mother go back upstairs,
then turned and smiled. "Confused?"
Leo finished his cake and washed it down. "Yeah, you could say that."
"It's nothing much, really, just something of a family tradition. Want
me to show you?"
"How about telling me first?"
Sarah scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "It sounds too goofy. I'll show you."
She led him outside by the hand and paused alongside the motorcycle. "Can I ride you this time?"
Leo grimaced in torment. "You want to drive?"
"Sure. Can I?"
He nodded approval despite the twist in his gut. "Why not, as long as
you know how. . ."
"Nothing to it." Sarah straddled the machine, exposing her long legs
all the way to her underwear again. She turned the key, put the bike in
neutral and thumbed the starter. She barely waited for Leo to seat
himself before dropping the bike in gear and accelerating down the
driveway toward the garage.
Leo thought her sure she was going to collide with the garage. Instead, she swung out into the yard and around the house to the street. At the top of the dead-end, she turned toward the gloom of the forest
extending further into the countryside and rode like a seasoned pro past the few
remaining streets of town.
Leo doubted if World's End totaled more than two or three hundred
people. Once they had left the houses behind them, a dirt path tunneled
through the squat oaks. Their heavy branches extended out over both sides
of the road and met overhead to form a roof of foliage.
He glanced over Sarah's shoulder at the speedometer. She held her
speed at forty-five. "You handle a bike pretty good," he decided.
"Thanks. Not to shabby for my first time."
Leo clutched the seat rail. "You never rode before?"
"Hey, considering what you did to poor Miss Muffet, don't you be
knocking my driving. Hold tight. Here's our turnoff."
Sarah downshifted and swung into an even narrower lane. Here, the
tunnel was narrower and darker. It ended in a cathedral-like clearing
completely enclosed by the trees. Sunlight glittering through the canopy
overhead reminded Leo of countless thousands of amber halogen Christmas
lights.
Sarah parked the bike on the edge of the clearing and wandered out into
the open studying the tree canopies with her head thrown back. "Wow! This sure is something new!"
Leo didn't know what she meant by that and let her comment slide. Pale circles
on the ground ranging in size from a yard to twenty feet in diameter had
caught his attention. Each circle was rimmed by hordes of tiny red
mushrooms speckled in white.
"What are those?"
"Fairy rings. They're made by fungus growing outward as they
consume their food supply." She flashed a
smile of mock exasperation at him. "Haven't you ever had ringworm as a
kid?"
Part of the ground was covered in moss, and another part in creeping
myrtle filled with tiny blue flowers. Ferns clustered about the trunks of
the trees. Squirrels chattered in the foliage, and crows cawed in the
skies overhead. Leo peered into the gloom further back into the trees and
could see fireflies flashing. It seemed the wrong time of the day for
fireflies to be out, and they were brighter and blinking at a slower rate
than he thought proper.
Sarah knelt on the ground in the center of the clearing. "You kneel in
front of me."
"What for?"
"It's part of the ritual I wanted to show you."
Confused, Leo did what he was told. He knelt before her at a discrete
distance.
"A little closer."
Leo inched forward on his knees until they knelt nose to nose. Sarah
stared boldly into his eyes.
"What are we doing?" Leo said uneasily.
"It's a coming of age ritual," Sarah said. "Today is my birthday."
"That's great. How old are you?"
"I'm sixteen. This is a sort of rite of passage handed down by my
grandmother and great-grandmother. Mom says we're a matriarchal society
and mark the generation counting moms instead of dads. Do you date much,
Leo?"
"Yeah, some."
"Have you ever gone all the way with a girl?"
Leo's mouth was suddenly dry. "I guess. A few times."
Sarah cocked her head and gave him a teasing smile. "You and little
Miss Muffet?"
Leo nodded sheepishly.
"Don't be embarrassed. I didn't want a male virgin for this anyhow. Like I was saying, we do things formal here, all sorts of little rituals
and ceremonies. I suppose you could say that you're my first date. We're
not going to do any touching, but we're going to taste each other's
energy."
"Oh?" Leo tried to look sincere. "What kind of energy?"
"Sexual energy, silly. According to the instructions that go with the
ritual, you're an older male introducing me to your experienced
sexuality. Through you, I'll come to understand myself better as a
woman."
Leo raised an exasperated eyebrow. "Why me, may I ask?"
"You possess the virtues I need," Sarah said, "honesty and
self-control. You're even-tempered and not over or under-confident in
your relationship with girls."
"You know all this about me?" Leo said doubtfully, wondering what kind
of baloney he had gotten himself tangled up in.
"I had a hard time finding someone like you," Sarah said.
Leo thought she was being foolish. "You don't know much about me."
"Don't fret. I know about your parents. They're awful, and I feel
sorry for you. And I don't think you should be messing with Judy, if
that's any of my business. She's got way too many personal problems. Now be quiet for a moment. Close your eyes. Tell me when you feel it."
Leo closed his eyes but doubted if he'd feel anything but frustration. He was being used, just as he suspected, but it wasn't going to be a
situation he could turn to his own advantage. He didn't dare take
advantage of the girl. Sarah's mother was not a woman he wanted to anger,
and he sure as hell didn't want to meet a father larger and fiercer than
either of the two women.
"Do you feel it, Leo?"
Leo felt torment. Kneeling inches away from her body, he mightily
resisted the temptation to reach out and embrace her. He peeked through
his almost closed eyelids at her ruby lips and wanted badly to kiss her. "Sarah, this is no damned fair."
"Wow," she says dreamily. "This is great."
He relaxed, closed his eyes, and let her have her way. He could smell
her hair and her body. He could hear her sighs. Strangely enough, he
could feel her body trembling. In the peaceful moment that passed, it
felt as if they somehow shared the same space. He could feel her
breathing. He could feel the rise and fall of her breasts. It did
nothing to abate his gathering lust, but being able to feel her body in
such intimate terms took away the sharp edge of his frustration. In a way
he would never have expected, Sarah's silly little game was oddly
satisfying.
The squirrels and the crows fell still. Crickets chirping in the
underbrush paused. Leo opened his eyes. Sarah frowned and looked around.
The fireflies had grown closer. As the first few entered the clearing,
Leo determined them to be brighter than any fireflies he had ever seen
before. They didn't blink nearly fast enough. "What are those things?
Sarah sighed in frustration. "Ignore them. They're not important."
"Why is it so quiet?"
Sarah shook her head irritable. "They're always playing games. They're ruining everything."
Leo grinned nervously. Sarah was a little girl playing imaginary
games. He wondered if she wasn't a social outcast at school because she
had a reputation for being a nut. Or, maybe her reputation had more to do
with residing in World's End. He had always thought World's End part of
an old ghost story.
"What's so funny?" she said.
"Are you guys really witches?"
Sarah gave him a haughty look. "Is that what they say about us in
town?"
Leo shrugged. "I don't think they say anything at all about you in
town. I've just heard all the old stories is all. Nobody takes them very
seriously."
"About the Coven at World's End?" Sarah seemed doubtful.
"Yeah, that story."
"That was a long time ago," Sarah said. "My mother was just a baby."
"Did that really happen? Did all the witches really go crazy?"
Sarah turned suddenly introspective, but not at all insulted by his
curiosity. "We're not witches in the same way the Salem witches were
witches. It has nothing to do with religion. We're just a group of women
who live together in a little town."
"Women? No men?"
She shook her head solemnly. "No men at all. The men are somewhere else. We don't know where, and we don't know
why."
"Well, I still think you're a bit strange," Leo said. "We don't play
these sorts of games where I come from."
"I think it's fun," Sarah said, hurt by the criticism,
but she
reserved her most intense pout for the fireflies. "We're going to have to
start all over again. They have no manners at all."
Leo grew increasingly leery of the phenomenon. "What in hell are
they?"
"Oh, just ignore them."
But Leo was too jittery to play Sarah's games. He climbed to his feet,
anxious to get away from this strange place. "Let's go back to the
library," he suggested.
Sarah stood. She hugged herself, looking
increasingly uneasy as the fireflies ventured closer still. It made Leo
nervous that her cheerful self-confidence had been diminished by their
presence.
"Is something wrong?" he asked of her.
"I wish they'd leave me alone when I don't want to play with them."
Leo's alarm grew by leaps and bounds. "They?"
She glanced at his alarm and gave him a wane smile of reassurance. "Don't worry, they're harmless. I don't know why they're behaving like
this. They get a little pushy sometimes."
Despite the strangeness of the moment, Leo hated to let his budding
relationship with Sarah slide. If he didn't make his move now, he'd miss
his opportunity, maybe forever. He reached out and grasped her arm
gently. "Can't we just do it the old-fashioned way?"
"The old-fashioned way?" Sarah scoffed. "Grandma used to say the
old-fashioned way was good for raising babies in broken relationships. Here in World's End, we do things by the book."
Curious as to how hard she'd resist, he drew her closer to him. It
worked with Judy. Judy, in fact, loved playing rough. For all he knew,
it would work equally well with any girl. He had been meaning to test his
hypothesis, and this was as good a place to start as any.
Sarah made no effort to resist. Neither did she cooperate once he had
tightly embraced her. "Better not try that here, Leo," she said mildly.
He kissed her anyhow. She allowed it, so he reached up and put a hand
on her breast.
A sharp pain stabbed him in the backside. Leo leaped onto his tiptoes
and arced his back, his mouth agape with shock and bright pain. He
brushed away the offending hornet, if that's what it was, and pivoted
about in the twilight in search for a dreaded horde.
Sarah chuckled, amused by his shock and confusion. "See? I told you."
"Son of a bitch! What was that?"
She shook her head in disapproval. "And you had better watch your
language around here, too," she says mildly. "They don't like vulgarity."
"They? Who the hell are they!"
Sarah gave a nonchalant shrug. "Fairies, I guess you'd call them. I've always thought of them as fairies."
Leo paused to sort out his confusion. For an instant, he pictured the
unlikely scenario of male homosexuals lurking among the trees. And then
he eyed the fireflies. "Oh, fairies!" Which meant that he had been dealing with a genuine
airhead all along. World's End wasn't full of witches. It was full of
kooks.
Sarah's eyes glowed bright in the dim light. She was always staring at
him, constantly undermining his cool. Leo glanced about, wondering what
was really going on. The fireflies had been somehow attracted by their
presence in the clearing. Hundreds had gathered about in a concentric
ring of twinkling light that stood as high as the underside of the low
tree canopy. Slowly at first, then perceptively faster, they began
circling in a counterclockwise motion.
Sarah giggled. "They want me to dance with them. They're ignoring
you, Leo."
Leo shook his head in denial that she could be for real. "Christ,
Sarah. What did your mother bake in those fucking brownies?"
With his passion for Sarah thoroughly doused, he grew fully aware for
the first time of just how strange his surroundings really were. It was
like waking up in the middle of a bad dream. "What is this shit?" he
cried out stridently. "Where the hell am I?"
The pain stabbed in exactly the same spot as before, but on the other
cheek.
"Ouch!"
Sarah threw back her head and laughed out loud. "Told you so!"
Leo backed toward his motorcycle, genuine fear beginning to infiltrate
his calm. He was suddenly very eager to leave this strange place.
"Sarah, come on! Let's get out of here!"
She only stared sadly at him, surrounded by a thousand circling stars
of light and suddenly as weird and frightening as the rest of the glade.
He bolted in fright. He leaped onto his bike with his heart pounding
wildly and fired its engine, fish-tailing across the hard ground as both
the engine and gears caught. The tunnel of trees leading back to World's
End became a gauntlet in the dying light. For the first few hundred feet,
his rear view mirror filled with a haze of light as the angered fireflies
gave chase.
He shot through the village of World's End with his bike engine
howling. In the dusk light, a strange golden light illuminated all of the
houses from within.
Once outside town, he relaxed marginally in the open and somewhat
brighter countryside. He was frowning at the tremendous size of the sun's
ruby orb on the horizon when he dropped unexpectedly into the hollow. He
looked for a fork in the road at the bottom, but he was moving too fast
and it was too dark for a careful inspection.
An icy cold took his breath away momentarily. He ascended into a
brighter, more normal looking sunlight. Even the air smelled different.
He braked for the highway, paused at the stop sign and closed his eyes
with a sigh of relief. He sighed deeply to calm himself and tried not to
think about the madness he had just witnessed. And then he continued on
his way to Oak Grove.
Before he had reached the edge of town, he slowed again. Something
vivid and unforgettable had just slipped his mind. It annoyed him that he
couldn't quite remember what it had been. It was on the ragged edge of
his awareness at first, then slowly receded into oblivion. By the time it
was gone entirely, he assumed that he had been daydreaming. Of only one
thing he was certain. He had sure as hell been lost in the surrounding
countryside.
His new priority was to get the bike parked before his parents had the
neighbors check to see if lights were turned on in the house. He'd park
the bike and damned well leave it parked. The ride hadn't been worth the
aggravation.
He made it home in time. He covered the bike and went to
his bedroom upstairs. Cranking the stereo, he paced furiously and thought
it odd that he was feeling so incredibly horny. He was thinking of
calling Judy for a date later in the evening when he heard his parent's
car pull into the drive with its characteristic squeak of worn brakes. Doors slammed. Loud voices outside became loud voices and things slamming
inside the house downstairs.
"Leonard, you damned well better be up there!"
"I'm up here, Mom!"
They ignored him thereafter. Feeling isolated
and restless, he phoned Judy. Her husky voice murmuring a bored
greeting sounded soothingly welcomed. "Leo, where were you? I called and you were gone."
"Just out riding."
"Were you with another girl, Leonard?"
A thousand volts of electricity jolted through him. He had taken Sarah
Mannhardt home from the library! How in God's name could he have
forgotten!
Leo's heart beat fast and hard. "I took a cruise on the bike is all."
"You took an awful chance, Leo."
"Yeah. I don't know what got into me. I got lost in the boonies. I
scared the shit out myself. I didn't think I'd make it back in time."
"You sound really shaken up. Did anything happen?"
Leo couldn't for the life of him remember what exactly did happen. He
had ridden Sarah into the countryside. He couldn't remember where he had
dropped her off. "No, I'm okay."
"Can you sneak out tonight? I'm hungry for you, Leo."
His parents were yelling at one another downstairs. They'd be yelling
the rest of the night. By the time they were ready for bed, the word
divorce would be thrown in every other sentence.
Hadn't Sarah said something about babies and broken
relationships?
"Yeah, I'll be over in a while."
"I'll be waiting for you, Leonard," Judy Muffet purred melodically and
hung up the phone.
"Leonard! Get your ass down here and eat some dinner!"
He set the phone down with a shaking hand. "I'm coming, Dad!"
He went out of his way to throw his parents off-guard. He danced down
the stairs with faked cheerfulness and gobbled a meatloaf and mashed
potatoes without making eye contact with either one of them. He faked a
casual grin and excused himself. "I'm gonna do homework and watch some
TV."
He returned to his room and spent an hour trying to sort through his
memories of the day. He had dropped Sarah off somewhere out on the county
highway. Why hadn't he remembered that? How in hell had he managed to
forget? The only time he had gotten this messed over was the LSD-saturated postage stamp he had licked at age thirteen. Maybe it was a
flashback. He had heard that those sorts of things happened.
He turned both the TV and the stereo on just loud enough to lull
suspicions downstairs. He went out the back window, but paused on the
porch roof for a time and sat watching the golden sun go down. The warm
light filtering through the sprawling oak out back haunted and tantalized
him terribly, evoking memories that hovered just out of reach.
His heart continued to race in his chest. Finally, he shimmied down
the drainpipe and went racing across town in the dusk light to work off
his mounting tension. He was thinking of Judy's warm body awaiting him,
but he saw instead Sarah's pale blue-gray eyes leading the way in the
night.
And he cried out in startled fright when a lightning bug flared its
phosphorescent brilliance a few inches off the end of his nose.
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