The Collection

obscenely, moving upward into the air, beckoning him. He awoke drenched in sweat.

Two days later, he faxed his preliminary report, along with the appropriate documents and estimates, to corporate headquarters, then took April out to look at the site. He drove himself this time, using the rental car, so the going was much slower.

He parked the car at the end of the tire-tracked path and said nothing as April got out of the vehicle and looked around. She nodded appreciatively as she took in the trees, the meadow, the lake. 'It's pretty.' she said.

He'd been expecting something more, something like his own initial reaction when he'd first seen that photo years ago, but he realized that she had never shown that sort of en­thusiasm for anything.

'It is pretty,' he said, but he realized as he spoke the words that they no longer held true for him. He knew, ob­jectively, intellectually, that this was a beautiful spot, a prime location for the resort, but he no longer felt it. He re­membered the slick and slimy feel of the water on his fin­gers, and though his hands were dry he wiped them on his pants.

The two of them walked through the high wispy grass to the edge of the lake. As before, the placid surface perfectly reflected the sky above and the scenery around. He let his gaze roam casually across the opposite shore, pretending to himself that he had no object, no aim, no purpose in his vi­sual survey, but the movement of his eyes stopped when he spotted the water pump.

He glanced quickly at April to see if she'd noticed it. She hadn't.

He looked again toward the pump. Its metal was dark, threatening in the midst of the yellow-tan stalks of the weeds, its hose draped suggestively over the small mud bank into the water. He didn't want April to see the pump, he realized. He wanted to protect her from it, to shield her eyes from the sight of that incongruous man-made object in the middle of this natural wilderness. Was it man-made ? What kind of thought was that?

He made a big show of looking at his watch. 'We'd bet­ter get back,' he said. 'It's getting late. We have a lot of things to do, and I have a long day tomorrow. There are a lot of loose ends to tie up.'

She nodded, understanding. They turned to go, and she took his hand. 'It's nice,' she said as they walked back to­ward the car. 'You found a good one.' He nodded.

In his dream, he brought April to the pond. He said noth­ing, only pointed, like a modern-dress version of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. She frowned. 'Yeah? So it's an old polluted pond. What of it?'

Now he spoke: 'But why is it polluted? How did it get that way? There are no factories here, no roads to this spot-'

'Who knows? Who cares?'

She obviously didn't feel it. To her, this was nothing more than a small dirty body of water. There was nothing sinister here, nothing malicious. But as he looked up at the blackness of the dead sky he knew that she was being de­ceived, that this was not the case.

He turned around and she was gone, in her place a pillar of salt.

Again, he awoke sweating, though the room's air condi­tioner was blowing cool air toward him. He got out of bed without disturbing April and walked into the bathroom. He did not have to take a leak, did not have to get a drink of water, did not have to do anything. He simply stood before the mirror, staring at himself. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips pale. He looked sick. He gazed into his eyes and they were unfamiliar to him; he did not know what the mind be­hind those eyes was thinking. He leaned forward until his nose was touching the nose behind the glass, until his eyes were an inch away from their mirrored counterparts, and suddenly he did know what that mind was thinking.

He jerked away from the mirror and almost fell backward over the toilet. He took a deep breath, licked his lips. He stood there for a moment, closed his eyes. He told himself that he was not going to do it, that he was going back to bed.

But he let himself silently out of the hotel room without waking April.

He drove to the property.

He parked farther away this time, walking the last several yards through the forest to the meadow.

The meadow.

In the moonlight, the grass looked dead, the trees old and frail and withered. But the lake, as always, appeared full and beautiful, its shiny surface gloriously reflecting the magnif­icent night sky.

He wasted no time but walked around the edge of the lake, his feet sinking in the mud. The opposite shore was rougher than the side with which he was familiar, the tall weeds hiding rocks and ruts, small gullies and sharp, dead branches. He stopped for a moment, crouched down, touched the water with his fingertips, but the liquid felt slimy, disgusting.

He continued walking.

He found the pump.

He stared at the oddly shaped object. It was evil, the pump. Evil not for what it did, not for what it had done, not for what it could do, but for what it was. He moved slowly forward, placed his hand on the rusted metal and felt power there, a low thrumming that vibrated against his palm, re­verberated through his body. The metal was cold to his touch, but there was warmth beneath the cold, heat beneath the warmth. Part of him wanted to run away, to turn his back on the lake and the pump and get the hell out of there, but another - stronger - part of him enjoyed this contact with the power, reveled in the humming which vibrated against his hand.

Slowly, he reached down and pulled the lever up. The metal beneath his fingers creaked loudly in protest after the years of disuse. Yellow brackish liquid began trickling out of the pipe, growing into a stream. The liquid splashed onto the clear water of the lake and the reflection of the sky dark­ened, disappeared. The water near the pump began foaming, the suds blue then brown in the darkness.

He waited for a moment, then pushed the lever down again. He knelt, touched his fingers to the water. Now it felt normal to him, now it felt good.

He rose to his feet. Dimly, from the far side of the clear­ing, he thought he heard April call his name, but her voice was faint and indistinct and he ignored her as he began to strip. He took off his shoes, his socks, his shirt, his pants, his underwear.

He looked across the lake, but there was no sign of April.

There was no one there.

The last time I went skinny-dipping, he thought, I had a beard and a ponytail.

'POP,' he said, whispered.

Naked, he dived into the water. His mouth and nostrils were filled instantly with the taste and odor of sulfur, chem­icals. He opened his eyes underwater, but he could see noth­ing, only blackness. His head broke the surface and he gulped air. Above, the sky was dark, the moon gone, the stars faint.

The water felt cool on his skin, good.

He took a deep breath and began to swim across the lake, taking long brisk strokes toward the dark opposite shore.

Roommates

I've known people who have roomed with strangers for 'financial reasons, but to me the idea of sharing an apartment with someone I don't know sounds like a prescription for hell. Although I've never had to ad­vertise for a roommate, this is what I think it would be like.

____________________________

I should have charged Ira a cleaning deposit, Ray thought.

He looked around the empty bedroom. The fat son of a bitch had left cigarette butts, old Coke cans, crumpled paper, and other assorted trash all over the stained and dirty carpet. Bushes of fluffy dust had grown in the sharp corners of the room. The small adjoining bathroom was even worse. Used toilet paper clogged the sink and bathtub drain. The water in the toilet was black, the shower curtain covered with mold, and the entire bathroom smelled of rot and decay, dried urine and wet feces, old vomit. He'd almost puked when he'd peeked through the doorway.

I should have charged him a big deposit.

Ray sighed. Hell, if he'd known that Ira had been this much of a pig, he would have kicked him out months