The Burning

just like his. She strode purposefully toward the restrooms, and he followed, feeling braver now that his courage was being shown up by a girl. He'd almost caught up to her by the time they'd reached the bathrooms, and he pushed open the door marked boys while the girls door was still swinging.

The lights were off-part of the efforts by the school to save money on electricity-but the high, frosted

window and double skylight were not enough to fully illuminate the tall space, and though it was a sunny day, in here it felt overcast. The gray tiled room was empty, and, frightened, he quickly sped over to the closest urinal, pulling down his zipper as he walked, in a hurry to get out of here.

'Hey.'

Skylar jumped, almost peeing on his shoe. It was the same voice, and it echoed between the tiles, the added reverberation making it sound not only strange but sinister. It had followed him here, and his heart was pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. He tried to finish quickly before it came again, and planned to run out of the bathroom even if he wasn't fully zipped and haul back to class and the safety of other people.

'Hey.'

He'd peed enough. He could make it to recess. He stopped, shoved his penis back into his pants and turned without flushing.

'Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey hey. Heyheyheyhey ...'

The voice sped up, became higher. Other words were added, words he didn't understand, and in seconds it was the voice from the grave.

Mother Daughter

A shadow passed over the skylight, over the window. The bathroom was thrown into darkness, and Skylar started screaming. 'Help! Help!'

The alien language now sounded like laughter.

He was afraid to run, afraid to move. He was no longer alone in the restroom-of that he was sure- and the only thing he could do was keep calling for help and hope a teacher or a janitor heard his cries and came to rescue him.

Suddenly there was a light, although where it came from he could not say. It illuminated an area between himself and the door, and Skylar saw a small figure dancing on the tiled floor, held up by strings. His breath was coming in short harsh gasps that hurt his throat. It was a puppet, a brown ugly-looking thing with a hideous grinning face that reminded him of something he had seen before. The puppet seemed to be growing, getting bigger, but he realized that was because it was moving closer to him, the mysterious light accompanying it as it danced crazily.

Skylar had stopped screaming. He didn't know when, didn't know why, but when he tried to yell again for help, he couldn't. His voice had disappeared. The only sound that came out was a parched croak.

But he shouldn't have to keep yelling. Someone should be here by now. Hadn't anyone heard him call? He'd been screaming at the top of his lungs.

The puppet drew closer.

Skylar backed up until he was against the metal wall of the first stall and could move no more. There was a shadow behind the light now. He could see an outline of the figure that was working the puppet. The light remained in place, the puppet moved out of it,, and the controlling figure stepped into the breach.

It was the old man he and his mom had seen that night at the bedroom window, and he realized now why the puppet's terrible face had looked so familiar. It was a smaller version of this one.

'Skylar,' the man said with a strange accent.

It knew his name!

'Hey.'

'No,' was all he could get out.

'I have so much to show you,' the old man said, and Skylar started whimpering.

The figure grinned at him.

And took his hand.

Eighteen

Flagstaff, Arizona

According to the tests, there was nothing there.

That was flat-out impossible.

Angela and Derek listened to Dr. Mathewson's exasperated description of the analyses performed on the black mold.

'I know it's there,' the professor said. 'I can see it. We all can see it. But when examined microscopically, analyzed spectrographically or tested for chemical interaction with various solutions, it's as if it doesn't even exist. It's as though,we're looking at'-he moved his fingers in a wispy motion above his head-'air.'

Angela had no idea how such a thing could be true. But she believed it. As far as she was concerned, there'd been more magic than science involved here since the beginning. That still didn't tell them what they were dealing with, and she knew the lack of hard facts frustrated both the professor and Derek. She was frustrated, too, but for different reasons. She didn't necessarily require a rational explanation for all that was going on, but she still wanted to know what was happening and why.

Part of her felt guilty, as though she'd brought it on herself, as though this was some sort of cosmic punishment being meted out to her.

That was her parents' influence. And the church's.

She'd spent the previous night at Derek's house. At first, she'd declined his offer, worried about what his family might think, but he drove her there, introduced her, and gave his mom a thumbnail sketch of what was going on, and his mother insisted that Angela sleep in the guest room.

'Thank you,' she said gratefully. 'It's only for tonight. I promise.'

'For as long as it takes to get your situation sorted out,' his mother said.

'Derek has a girlfriend!' his brother, Steve, called in a singsong voice. 'Derek has a girlfriend!'

'Shut up,' Derek told him.

'Derek has a girlfriend!'

'He's my half brother,' Derek told Angela, motioning toward a mantel where photographs of the family were displayed. She saw pictures of Mrs. Yount with two different husbands.

'Mom!' Steve whined.

'Derek!' his mother warned.

It felt good to be in a family environment once again. It had been nice to be on her own and in the adult universe, too, but when things got rough, having a family around made it much easier to face the world.

She'd used up nearly all of her anytime minutes calling her own family and her friends back in California, and they probably thought she was having some type of nervous breakdown. No doubt as a result of living away from home for the first time. She'd told them everything, and they believed none of it. Why would they? The story was ludicrous. She'd moved into a haunted house with a bunch of colorful characters; then she'd been grabbed by a living corpse in a tunnel full of corpses and after that, black mold had started growing on her sheets, black mold that her roommate touched and that turned her and everyone else in the apartment building into racist assholes? It sounded like the plot of a grade-Z horror movie.

Besides, her family and friends were too far away to help anyway.

At least Derek had turned out to be a stand-up guy.

She glanced over at him, talking to the professor. The two of them were looking over a series of printouts. She was not sure Derek understood any more of it than she did, but at least he was in there; at least he was trying.

Dr. Mathewson dropped the papers in defeat.

'So what now?' Derek asked.

The professor shook his head. 'I'm going to speak to my colleagues here, confer with others at universities that have better and more sophisticated equipment, contact the CDC and ... keep on trying. We'll nail it eventually, but I'm afraid I have nothing to offer you at this time.'