The Burning

though he was being foolish by even considering a thought like that, but the truth was that he was being all too reasonable and realistic.

They were out there.

In the desert.

And they wanted him.

He knew it was true, though he didn't know how he knew, and even in the burgeoning warmth of this summer morning he felt cold, his skin suddenly alive with goose bumps. He was hard again, his erection tenting out the front of his boxers, and that also frightened him.

Ray Daniels lived in the next cabin down from his, but Ray was on duty today, as was Jill Kittrick, who bunked with her husband in one of the newer cottages farther up the road. Ordinarily, he enjoyed being alone and appreciated the solitude Canyonlands offered, but today it made him uneasy, and he decided to eat a quick breakfast and get his ass to town, It would make him feel safer.

Moab was crowded.

It was always crowded in the summer months, what with the tourists to the national parks and the hordes of extreme cyclists who came from all over the country to off-road on the sandstone, but that usually thinned out after Labor Day. Today, though, the highway was one long traffic jam, and every parking lot seemed to be full. Henry was grateful for that. There was safety in numbers, and though he never thought he'd find himself echoing that trite cliche, those were words to live by now.

He got some gas, stopped by the grocery store for bread and cereal, beans and tortillas, then hit a couple of camping-supply stores to check out the latest gear. He saw some people he knew, stopped for a few moments to chat with each of them, got into a conversation about conservation with a family who'd been on one of his ranger talks out at the park yesterday, and, as planned, spent the sizzling lunch hour at an air-conditioned fast-food joint.

But still he didn't feel comfortable. He found himself looking at the Chinese restaurant with suspicion, eyeing a Japanese family with mistrust. He was not a bigoted man, never had been, but that dream-nightmare had really thrown him off.

He drove around aimlessly for a while, then ended up spending two or three hours at the Boy Howdy Bar, one of his hangouts from the old days, content to nurse a couple of beers through the hottest part of the afternoon. He was settling up his tab and just getting ready to leave when his ear caught part of a conversation from two men at the opposite end of the counter.

'... swear to God. It was a gook ghost. Someone he'd offed in the jungle, he figured, back in the war ...'

Chills coursed down Henry's arms as he got his change from the bartender. He walked over to the two men. '... and it was crouching by the foot of his bed!'

'Excuse me,' Henry said. 'I couldn't help overhearing you.'

The man closest, a fat guy with a beard and a Cat hat, frowned at him. 'Yeah?'

'Was this ... ghost you're talking about anywhere near Canyonlands? I mean, did it happen around the national park? Is that where your friend saw it?'

Cat hat snorted. 'Omaha, dude.'

'Oh.' Henry backed off, turned around, ignoring the laughter that built behind him as he headed for the door. Outside, the sun was bright, too bright, and he blinked back tears as his eyes adjusted.

Angry.

It was not only the sun that was angry, he realized. Those two twins had been angry, too. Oh, they'd hidden it behind their nudity and their blatant sexuality, and it had taken him until now to realize it was even there, but behind the sensuous attitude was a seething anger, a terrifying rage.

And they were out in the desert somewhere.

Looking for him.

Henry shivered. He no longer saw the two women as figments of his imagination-if he ever had. The reason he had been so excited by the conversation of those men in the bar- a gook ghost-was because he believed that the naked twins were supernatural entities of some sort, spectral beings trying to contact him, and he'd briefly hoped that they'd appeared to someone else as well.

What the hell was wrong with him? Was he going crazy?

Henry had never in his life experienced anything like this. He was one of the rangers who made a specific effort to debunk 'ancient astronaut' explanations of the cave drawings in Canyonlands rather than let visitors hold to their preconceived interpretations, and he would have thought that it would take multiple objectively verifiable sightings and hard documentation to convince him of the existence of anything as flaky as a 'supernatural entity' or 'spectral being.' Yet he had rolled over like a backseat bimbo and after one confusing dream was now afraid to hike or drive the backcountry alone.

Indian genes again.

The alcohol had not strengthened his courage, had weakened it if anything, and he realized that he still did not want to return to his cabin. Ector was on duty at the visitors' center in Arches today; maybe he'd stop by there, shoot the breeze for a while. Ector was broad-minded, had been into that New Agey shit back in the 1980s. Maybe Henry would hint around about the naked Asian babes, test the waters. It couldn't hurt.

Feeling more confident now that he had a plan, Henry got into his Jeep and turned onto the highway, heading north. But once outside the city limits, he kept his attention focused squarely on the highway, on the double lanes of blacktop, not looking at the desert, not wanting to see the sand, and it wasn't until he had pulled into the visitors' center parking lot and Was faced with the building and the enveloping cliffs behind it that he was finally able to relax.

Three

Bear Flats, California

Sawdust and wood chips. The smell of sap and freshly cut trees. The fragrance of the forest permeated the air in town, and Jolene didn't realize until now how much she'd missed it. Even with the windows up, it seeped through the vent, a warm, welcoming, delicious scent that meant ... home.

The highway sloped in a gentle curve past a new McDonald's and The Store, both of which had been built since her last visit three years ago. Downtown, Sam Griedy's Hardware had gained an Ace sign, the Chinese restaurant had been repainted and was now called Golden Palace instead of Jade Palace, but other than that, Bear Flats remained frozen in time, a small Sierra community virtually untouched by the wider world around it.

She liked that.

She counted on it.

She needed it.

'Are we there yet, Mom?'

Jolene glanced at Skylar in the backseat. As always, the expression on her son's face was serious, almost solemn. He looked at her with clear, sad eyes, patiently awaiting the answer to his question, and it was all she could do not to cry. She forced herself to smile at him. 'We're almost there. We're almost at Grandma's house.'

She'd sworn when she'd left Bear Flats that if she ever had a child, she would never subject him or her to the type of chaotic, emotionally unstable upbringing she'd had, but history really did repeat itself, and she now found herself returning home divorced and defeated with her son in tow, her son who had gone from being a happily gurgling little infant to a grave and overly sober boy as a result of the turmoil in their household the past few years.

He'd been through far too much for an eight-year-old child.

The past six months had been especially harsh. She and Frank had been at each other's throats every moment they were together, and though she knew it wasn't good for Skylar to be around such constant hostility and told herself after each blowup that she couldn't and wouldn't allow it to happen again, she and Frank were like oil and water, and not even concern for the welfare of their son could keep the two of them from going at it. She wondered sometimes if they hadn't both been order guards, if they'd had separate jobs working for different companies and had seen each other only morning and night the way normal couples did, whether they would have gotten along better, whether the resentments and irritations that had escalated into hatred would have retreated