“Posey. What the hell are you doing?”

  Posey turned around. Stan closed the door of a guest room and started toward Posey.

  “Get back downstairs where you belong. Come on.”

  Stan jerked his thumb at the stairs. Posey didn’t move. He was set to keep rolling down the hall and he had to think about changing directions. His mind was full of going to the apartment to find Andy. Stan took several long strides and started to grab Posey’s arm. Posey drew back into an egg-shaped oval, leaving no arm to grasp and stared at Stan. Posey looked hard at Stan, like he did when he was trying to see what a person was thinking, when he was trying to understand what they was about. Farley used to shiver and laugh when Posey looked at him like that. Farley would say that Posey made icicles go up and down his back. Posey didn’t know what Farley meant, but he would laugh, too. Like Farley, Stan’s shoulders quivered too, but he didn’t laugh. Neither did Posey. Stan stepped back.

  “Let’s go. You have no business here.”

  “Got to get the trash.” Posey held the bag up by the neck. “You got an awful mess here. All over the place.”

  “You haven’t been bothering people in the cabins, have you?”

  “Nope. You want that trash picked up when this is done?”

  “No. Now come on.”

  Posey shook his head and stood solid in his boots. “Posey can get the trash when the Traskers ain’t here!”

  “Not when everyone is asleep. Now, you don’t want to wake Andy do you?”

  Posey picked up his ears like a startled rabbit. Was Mr. Nolan saying Andy was in his bedroom? Posey wanted to ask, but instead shook his head.

  Stan smiled, his lips moved in a sliding, oily way. “Come along with me, there is plenty to clean downstairs.”

  “You sure Andy ain’t awake? Maybe he wants some breakfast. Pancakes is good.”

  “Andy is asleep. His mother is asleep. And if I know Denise she won’t be up until afternoon.”

  “Ain’t none of them sick, is they?”

  “No one is sick. Come on, before I lose my temper.”

  Posey followed Stan. He had found out what Jack wanted to know and that was good. Stan went right to the kitchen and started making coffee and giving Posey orders at the same time. Posey barely listened, didn’t make no difference what Stan said, it was time to carry the trash to the green dumpster. Posey gathered up both sacks and opened the back door.

  “Where are you going?” Stan said.

  “Taking out the trash.”

  Posey went through the door then on across the yard without looking back. He lifted the slanting green lid, plopped the bags inside, let the lid drop and marched straight across the parking lot toward the woods. The trash was the first thing. Telling Jack what he saw was the second. If Mr. Nolan wanted work done it had to be third.

  When Posey got to the edge of the woods the sharp slam of a cabin door stopped him. He slid behind a big oak to hide and watch, maybe there would be more to tell Jack.

  Robert Milton stood on the porch of cabin number three. He was dressed in cream-colored slacks and a dark silk shirt and shiny leather shoes. They wore fine clothes, but Mr. Milton was the real dandy of the bunch. Next, Mr. Stanhope came out of his cabin and sauntered over to join Mr. Milton. After that the others started coming out, like bees pouring out of a hive ready to swarm. Every summer of his life Posey had seen these men and something about them made his skin shrivel and crawl. He had gotten used to the feeling and with Farley there it hadn’t seemed so bad. This year was way different. Always before their strangeness was a fact of nature, like how wasps stung if you messed with them and snakes bit if you got too close. Now they was becoming troublesome, striking out to hurt people that wasn’t doing nothing to them.

  It wasn’t good to kill anything. The idea of killing made Posey sick and churned-up inside. Still, sometimes things went wrong with animals and you was doing them a favor to put them out of their misery. Posey remembered one summer when that was the case. He was about Andy’s size then.

  The river was real low that year, its banks dried out and the slow moving water skimmed over and got brackish. The grass turned yellow, while the leaves on the trees curled up into sharp-edged rolls. The whole countryside sizzled, and the bronze sky grew hard like a turned over brass bowl. It was unmercifully hot that August.

  A farmer between Lost Crossing and Camdenton shot a skunk and the country wildlife men came and carted it away. Then they gave out the word that it was rabid. Went mad, it did. Farley told Posey to keep away from squirrels, coons, and even rabbits. That seemed funny because the creatures never came close anyway. They naturally stayed away from people. Then Farley explained that when this sickness got em they didn’t act normal. They would come right up to a person, and bite if they got a chance.

  A few days later someone’s fine looking bluetick hound came zigzagging across the lawn at the lodge. The dog ran more slant-legged than usual, throwing its hindquarters out at a strange angle. Then ever so often it would drop down flat on the burnt up grass, its tongue lolling out while its ribs heaved. The worse thing was, though, how it would watch with its eyes all red rimmed and glassy. When Farley came out with his rifle Posey had jumped up and down, flapped his arms, and yelled for the dog to run away. But it got up and stood there, its head hanging low, and its legs spread out stiff as barrel staves. Farley walked toward it slow and careful, keeping the rifle ready to bring up to his shoulder. The hound started coming at Farley. The rumbling growl deep in the hound’s throat froze Posey. If Posey hadn’t believed Farley before that awful sound convinced him. The yellow-toothed snarl left no room for doubt. The hound wasn’t itself anymore. It had changed into a mad, crazed thing no more like a bluetick hound than a butterfly was like a scorpion.

  Farley stopped and raised the rifle, sighting down the barrel at the stalking hound. The blast was sharp, then with a dull ring it echoed out into the trees and hills. The shot pierced right between the hot, fevered eyes and the hound dropped. It didn’t even quiver. Posey edged to Farley’s side and stared at the limp body. Tears stung Posey’s eyes, but they didn’t come out. It was too late to cry. Farley hadn’t killed the poor dog, it was already dead, killed by the madness.

  In the bright sparkling summer morning the men from the cabins went laughing and talking across the lawn to the lodge. They didn’t look mad. Their arms and legs swung in a natural easy way and they seemed happy, as if someone had given them the whole world for a play toy. Posey frowned and squinted his eyes. Since that night when Jack came liquored up to Posey’s house, and told how he had shot up the lodge, Posey had been thinking. One picture from the past and then another welled up into his mind. He rolled each one over examining it like a smooth colored rock pulled out of a creek bed. Most of the time the pictures stayed separate, not having nothing to do with one another, then sometimes a couple would come together and there was some sense to be made of them. Those memories, along with what Jack had said, began to harden into a solid conviction. Posey never jumped to conclusions, he carefully studied so that when he finally learned something it was to be trusted as true and right.

  As he turned away from the cabins and started through the trees to find Jack, Posey nodded to himself. He had come on a new truth and that was a fact. Men could get the mad sickness, like the poor old hound, but it didn’t show on the outside. Men got a sickness inside themselves. They could hide it and make people think they was fine, yet they was sick. And it looked like these men had passed the sickness on to Mr. Nolan and his girl. Now they was set to go raging and tearing, too crazed with the sickness to know what they was doing. What Jack was saying he had to do was right, as right as what Farley had done to the dog.

  Posey found Jack squatted down on his heels, leaning against a black oak. In a circle around him a dozen smashed cigarette stubs were ground into the dirt. Posey inspected them with care.

  “Ain’t good to smoke in the woods, Jack. Fire can be a bad thing.”

  Jack shuffled his right foot over the offending butts. “They’re dead, Posey. What did you find out?”

  Posey put his head down and frowned hard so he would remember exactly the way it happened. He went through every move and told what Mr. Nolan had said. Jack stared off through the tree branches, but he was listening close.

  “But you didn’t see them,” Jack said.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, we got to suppose they are there though. Especially with him admitting it. And if they didn’t have them they would still be out beating the bushes. I could bust in there and pull them out, but there is no way to hold off those unnatural fiends.”

  Jack got mad and slammed his fist against the black oak tree. Posey ducked, it scared him to see Jack so hard-faced and red-eyed.

  “Posey didn’t do nothing wrong did he, Jack?”

  “I’m sorry, it isn’t you. You did okay. It’s being so hog-tied, that is what has me crazy. You go back to work before they miss you. Keep acting like nothing happened. If you’re gone or act strange they will get suspicious.”

  “What you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure. Guess I’ll go to your place and try to figure something out. I don’t think they’re going to do anything until tonight.”

  Jack stalked away shaking his head and looking worried. Posey watched him for a second and then started back to the lodge.

  Jack sure was having a time thinking what to do, and it made Posey feel bad. There ought to be something he could do. Jack hadn’t told him to find out anything more, but he could go on watching. If he saw Andy or Miz Nolan he would tell them to get right out of there, that might help. Yessiree bob, that’s what he would do. Keep watch for them and help them get away.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  In the lodge Jessie sat on the bedroom floor leaning against the side of the bed. Across the room, huddled in a corner, Andy was asleep. He was slumped over, hiding the ropes that bound him. The pain in Jessie’s heart cut worse than the scratchy, tight ropes on her own hands and legs. In the early dawn hours Andy had finally gone to sleep. Then Jessie used that time to cry. She muffled the sound so as not to wake Andy and frighten him even more. The tears had run down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. She had sobbed with a helpless abandon. When Jessie exhausted herself she longed for sleep, but she was not able to find release. Over and over again her thoughts bounced from a wild hope of escape to Stan’s betrayal and back again. The relentless pounding left her mind bruised and shattered. Her last conversation with Stan still rang in her ears. The others had gone and Stan started to close the bedroom door behind him.

  “Stan, please,” Jessie cried. “Think what you are doing. If you don’t care for me at least spare Andy. Send him away, anything, but don’t kill him!”

  Stan paused, a coldness poured from him chilling the air. “Jessie, you amaze me. I never thought you were a genius, but surely even you can understand the situation. It is an exchange of lives, yours and Andy’s for mine and Denise’s”

  “But it doesn’t have to be, we can live. Tell them you have changed you mind. If they won’t release you we can escape together.”

  With his hand on the doorknob Stan threw back his head and laughed. “You call what we had living? It was a gray meaningless existence, mere survival. I’ve always deserved more, and now I’ll have it. There is nothing so natural as the strong taking what they need from the weak.”

  “Yes, Stan, among animals, but we are human beings. We have the knowledge of right and wrong and are held accountable.”

  “By whom? Surely you aren’t going to drag out that old argument about the soul.”

  Jessie swallowed to control her panic. This might be her last chance to reach him.

  “Listen for a minute. It’s the least you can do for me. If these men have the power you feel they do, where does it came from? How can you trust them? I know you scoff at terms like good and evil, God and the devil, but if one power is present it proves the existence of the other! Night and day, birth and death, two sides to every coin, a reaction for every action. They promise you longer life. Stan...it is a joke. Nothing ever ceases to exist. It simply enters a new phase. They have nothing to give you that you don’t already possess. The question is, where will you spend that existence?”

  “Well then, Jessie, you shouldn’t mind leaving this life. You’ll be starting a new phase sooner than you thought. It may be exciting, think about that. Actually, this is a new beginning for us all.”

  Frantically Jessie searched for another argument.

  “Andy and I will go away, you’ll never see us again. If you want freedom from us we will gladly give it. If you can’t think of us, then think of yourself. The lodge is yours, the deed is legal proof, isn’t that enough? Take that from them, but don’t involve yourself in our death. Don’t you think someone will find out? We can’t disappear and never be missed. What good is wealth if you’re in jail? Jack is still alive. He won’t keep still about this. He has been to the police before, this time they will have to listen. If you kill us I know he’ll not rest until the whole thing is exposed. And what about the people in town? With a little pressure they will tell everything they know. You can’t kill everyone in the valley.”

  “We don’t need to. You can’t accept it can you, Jessie? No one will miss you, they know of your illness. I’m simply sending you to a hospital and of course Andy will be better off with my mother. You can forget about Jack. Roland and Alvaro are taking care of him.”

  Stan had slammed the door trapping his wicked laughter in the room with Jessie. He was as deaf to her pleading as Denise had been. After Stan had gone Jessie remembered Andy slumped in the far corner. They should never have said that in front of him. Then the absurdity of the thought struck her and she laughed. They were going to die and she was worried about the damage to Andy’s emotional well-being. Crouched in his corner, Andy seemed to catch her thoughts. He smiled with a knowing expression far beyond his years.

  When he tried to comfort her it broke Jessie’s heart. She was grateful they hadn’t been drugged, but it wasn’t out of kindness. For them to be a satisfactory sacrifice they must be fully awake and aware. For one wild moment Jessie even considered finding a way to kill herself and Andy. Better to die at a time and place of her choosing and cheat The Group. That should put a kink in their plans. Still, even if it were possible, Jessie doubted that she had the nerve to do it.

  With the rising sun came the time-keeping square of light on the far wall of the bedroom. Andy awoke and for a minute his eyes were a hazy, teal blue, then a spark of awareness turned them crystal blue-green.

  “Mom,” he said, his voice a raspy whisper. “You okay?”

  “Depends on what you call okay.”

  “For a second I thought you were gone.”

  “Not me. Guess that’s our fatal weakness. If we had ran in different directions and forgotten about each other we might not be in this mess.”

  Andy scooted further into the corner using the walls to help himself sit up. His wrists were red and raw where the ropes had chewed into the skin, and as he tried to move his face crumpled with pain. Each of Andy’s efforts made Jessie hurt even more.

  “Relax, Andy. Try to go limp. It doesn’t hurt as much then. The ropes won’t pull so tight.”

  “I want to sit up. And I want to tell you something. It’s probably too late now and won’t make any difference, but I want to anyway.”

  “Hush now, we can’t give up hope.”

  The lie surprised Jessie because giving up was exactly what she wanted to do. She was tired. It was Andy who brought her the strength to keep fighting.

  “I’m not giving up,” he said. “But I want you to know what I’ve found out. It’s about this thing of seeing stuff. I really thought about it and I got mad because it doesn’t seem to help us. But I’m beginning to understand. I think it is like a map. It unfolds and gives information, but it doesn’t tell you which way to go. Like when you wanted to talk to Denise. I told you they might know, that we shouldn’t try.”

  Jessie winced at the truth of what he said. He had argued against it and she hadn’t listened.

  “I had to try. I couldn’t give them up without trying.”

  Andy nodded. “I know, like I couldn’t let you go alone. But next time I’ll be stronger and I’ll trust It instead of doing what I feel.”

  “What do you mean? Give over to it completely?”

  “In a way. Don’t you see? If I’d listened, instead of putting my feelings first, I would still be free and could help you. I did the normal thing, but that was wrong for me. It is like everyone else is blind and I can see. It isn’t right for me to act the same way they do because I can see more.”

  He looked at her, pleading for understanding and she smiled to comfort him. She did understand. Andy was learning to live with his ability, but what a waste his new-found knowledge was if he never got the chance to use it.

  “Do you have any idea what we should do now, Andy?”

  “I think we’re suppose to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like something is coming but I can’t tell what it is.”

  Jessie’s hands and feet were icy and numb. It was either from the tight ropes or the strange mind-spinning world they had fallen into. Jessie wanted to kick and scream and fight or if it were a nightmare at least struggle to wake up. But regardless of what movie heroes did, and no matter how unreal things seemed, the ropes were too solid. There was no lighter handy to burn through them, nor did a nail file conveniently slide off the dresser top. Awake or dreaming life was, if nothing else, solidly real. Perhaps they were supposed to wait. Jessie smiled bitterly. This time it was easy to take Andy’s advice. It was the only thing they could do.