Chapter 1

The young man in the blazer walked purposefully down the empty lane that led to the truck yard, just behind Philly's Mart on 8th street.

"This is the last time, Camus!" his adversary had threatened. "If you quit on me now you'll be irredeemable!"

They had agreed on this road, which was quiet and unassuming, as well as the yard. In the morning a lot of container freight stop over at the place right after the huge gate was opened: the one that led out to 8th and then on to the interstate half a mile away. But after lunch the gate is closed and by the afterschool hours the yard becomes empty. At least that's the case in the off-peak season, such as now, so the other one waiting for him had jumped at the chance to have the area all to themselves, and so finally dared him to the ultimate beatdown.

"I mustn't use too much force," he whispered massaging his hands.

He paused for a bit and wondered how to properly approach the other guy's style of fighting. The fellow was an expert in brawling, and he didn't want that. He was hoping for a one-hit win; break a wrist perhaps, or any of the joints.

But he never really knew his enemy's weak spot; he seemed to be all muscle. A breakthrough would be especially difficult to engage or even find, and now the fight threatened to degenerate into the mindless butchery he sought to avoid.

His pause lengthened. He couldn't afford to. His opponent must already be there and waiting. The tension will build up even further and if he tarries enough it will blind his enemy with a consuming rage that will wrangle all sanity out of this battle. His mind raced for a solution. There must be a way to handle this smoothly.

His phone rang.

"Hello," he said gruffly.

"What's with that voice of yours?" retorted the voice at the other end of the line. "I should be the one annoyed at you!" It was his cousin, a woman ten years his senior and quite tacky. "Did you get me the laundry?"

Huh?

Oh yes, he suddenly thought with a cringe. What perfect timing. "I'll pick it for you in the morning, 'K? It's a Saturday."

"I'm packing up tonight! I have a flight to St. Louis at 9 AM."

"Wait," he said wiping the sweat off his cheek, "I-I got some important business right now."

"Your father sent me one month's allowance for you. If you can't pick it up over here tonight with the dresses I'm taking all of it with me."

End call.

This is really bad. Cousin Janet never was a comfortable person to deal with. It compounded his agonizing over the fight, but he still gazed straight ahead to the battlefield. He knew the other guy's waiting.

"…Irredeemable!"

A major conflict dead ahead. The epic struggle of strength and style. His head started to sizzle over how to fix the maelstrom of conflicting demands, but the situation is urgent. He must choose only one.

The Gulf Weekly Dispatch: Editorial: Bayou Blues, October 20, 2014

Read in: Español | English

The Gulf Coast is The New Somalia, by Ed J. Fermi

We all love a name that we know. Popular brands, Hollywood stars... their reputation may differ widely, or wildly, over the years. But we never were able to truly get rid of them, if only they were familiar. These days, though, Syria is becoming a household staple. Seriously, when are we going to tire of the Middle East? They say U.S. forces pulling out of Baghdad is unrealistic. I'll tell you what's realistic: Arms smugglers are militarizing our waters.

Now, smuggling via the Gulf is of course, nothing new. We have had these drug bosses taking to sea for a long time. What was new is the all-time high on boldness. I just had a source tell me that a boat off Biloxi had a load of artillery rounds. What are they up to, invading us? This was the first time I heard something like that since Cuba.

The real danger to this, going marine and all, is that they are pouring more arms into our nearest bloodlines of international concourse. Are we going to wait for piracy on the Gulf?

"Eight boxes?" crackled a soft voice over the headset.

"Eight boxes," he confirmed.

"Kalash?"

Gudunov wasn't sure about the details; the contents were a mess and were not properly inventoried. He knew there were Uzis, Berretas, and a few RPGs, and yes, probably a handful of the AKs the client from Sonora wanted. But he didn't have the time to check.

He kicked up the speed and sped by as swiftly as he could at a street level just below the Federal cars standing in search of him on the interstate ramp. The engine was just overhauled and ran silently, if everything went well, it would be as if it was but a gust of wind.

Except there was no wind tonight.

"Eight o' clock!" shouted one of the agents in the Ranger pointing at him with a rifle and firing a shot that grazed his tail fin. Everybody in the pickup braced themselves and the lumbering vehicle made a surprisingly sharp turn. By then, however, Gudunov has already turned into a side-street only wide enough for him to fly by safely.

Ten minutes into the renewed chase, and the Feds were gaining on him again, somewhere. He couldn't see them as he was himself hidden, but the distant roar of engines every two seconds or three reminded him of their presence.

"What's in the box?" demanded the client over the headset.

"I'm about to die here!" shouted Gudunov into his mouthpiece. He was now almost in a panic.

"The box!" insisted his client.

Gudunov spat in defiance.

"I can't hear you!"

"If I get shot here you'll buy your ammo at Fort Kerry!"

" 'Ya think you're the only one on the run? I need to get the right toys before 2300! I'm just twenty miles to the border and the Famoso guys will be waiting for me with AKs. AKs!"

So the man only wanted to know how many Kalash he got. "One sec," he muttered. He revved up the bike and made a racket so loud it made him stand out to his pursuers, making it look as if he was going top speed, while he actually slowed the bike. The Feds were now sure of themselves their quarry was heading full speed southwest to Morris Lane.

He cooled down the bike and slowed to a fuming stop. His engine must have given up by now. But the sound of the Federal cars were gone, having disappeared in the direction of Morris exactly where he wanted them to be.

He hurriedly heaved the boxes off the bike with a bang on the ground. For a frightened moment he was afraid the impact would set off the ammo, but they were on top of the guns in a styro case packed with sawdust. After quickly collecting himself, he ripped the boxes open and rummaged.

"What now!" yelled the client.

"What time..." he said hoarsely, catching his breath, "...shall we meet?"

"In one-and-a-half hours. At Seminario, two miles off Junction 8"

"I can't possibly get there with the cops swarming all over Exit 33!"

"Your head, or my guns!"

He cursed and gritted his teeth.

"How much do you have?" added the client.

"I got..." he panted, "...I got... 23 Black and Decker power drills..."

"Ammo! Ammo!"

"10... 50... 80 briquettes."

"Give me the four by ten screws! Now!"

The faint siren of the Feds was already in the background. They saw through the trick. They found him out in time.

"Four by ten!"

"Hey," he said, now shaking, "you think I can throw you guns over thin air?"

"Four by ten!"

Suddenly a flash of blinding light whited out his thoughts. They found him.

But he had enough presence of mind to grab the RPG slung from his back. They were far enough for him to fire safely... if he did it right now, before they close in.

One cop already beat him to it. He saw wield a modified M9, which vomited a larger projectile.

It can't be! They were actually going to blow him up! The missile rapidly wiped up the gap between him and the Feds.

It came straight at him.

He got hit with a painful metallic thud on the head.

"Ow!"

Rhys fell off the chair and groaned loudly amid the laughter of his classmates in Woodworking. A piece of wood lay close to where he has fallen. An intense beam of brightness from a LED flashlight was trained on his face by the teacher, who was already fuming.

"Four by ten, Camus!"

He got up red-faced and wordlessly got the screws. He handed them over not once looking at him.

The teacher snorted as he snatched the tools from him as he struggled to get up. "Seriously, if you were going to be a bum, do it out in the street."

Precisely, thought Rhys ruefully. The street may not be the place to start a family, but there he could compose his movie plots with greater depth and no disturbance.

Even when the lecture has resumed, the students kept looking his way furtively and snickering. The teacher also kept an eye on Camus every now and then the whole time. Only his seat neighbor, muscular self-styled hippie poet Don Griffith (called Grif sometimes but prefers to go by the moniker 'Denali'), begrudged him a stiff conversation.

"Dreamers certainly never will learn the ways of this world. If you keep cooking up inane fantasies in the middle of class, I will have to oblige Mr. Warren and throw you out myself."

"I was onto the climax already."

He only smirked, adjusting his beaded headband self-importantly. "Stop justifying yourself. If you keep flailing in the quicksand, you'll only sink faster."

"Don't you know how frustrating it is when you get into a good scene? Wait, look… I just found SWATpad. It's a cool new site just for cop and crime stories. I'm only seventeen and I'm making it big!"

"Camus!" reprimanded the teacher from the board. The classmates laughed again until the teacher banged the notebook on the table for them to shut up.

The lecture droned on, and much as he wanted, Rhys could not dare even turn his head away from the board.

He had to say something, though. "We really live in a backwoods state, don't we?" he whispered.

"Shut up," hissed Denali.

"Wisconsin badly needs a new governor. Someone's gotta ax this stupid wood-chopping subject off the curriculum."

His classmate only huffed.

"I mean, if I wanted a cabinet I could just go to a 3d printer, right? What's the 21st century for? We should have had hoverboards already!"

Grif wanted to bash into this guy the fact that no printer that could produce something the size of a cabinet existed as yet. But he wasn't interested in enlightening someone who was obviously beneath him.

"I'm sure in New York all the furniture's Kevlar by now."

Now he just couldn't help it. "You daft, Rhys Camus?"

"Hey, I'm just horsing around, see?"

The teacher stared threateningly at him again. He instantly twitched back to a full studying pose as though zapped with a 110-volt shock. He waited until the man was once more fully immersed in lecture with his back to him. "I'm quitting this. I'll just get my cabinets cheap from China or Zambia or wherever."

Denali frowned. "Do you not realize that buying China puts American boys like us out of work?"

"Then you make my furniture for me if you insist on staying here."

"I will never bow down in service to scum like you."

"Then I won't get my furniture from scum-bashers like you."

Suddenly, the teacher swung around and made sure his eyes landed even just a sec on Camus. Rhys could feel that stare as it swept by.

He moaned softly. "Why is he always looking at me?" he grumbled.

"He's not the only one."

Oh? Half the class were still stealing him those weird looks. Umm... "Ehem... Oh yeah, thanks..." said Rhys correcting himself. "Why are they always looking at me?"

Griffith gritted his teeth at his dense classmate. "I can't help it if you are just lame. Perhaps every soul under the heavens has his own role in the theater of life, and yours is to be a loser. You are born that way. Every man is born for his role."

"You should be the one lambasted for lameness with your cheesy speeches."

A fist banged on Griffith's desk. He was suddenly fuming mad.

"What was that again!" thundered Griffith taking hold of Rhys' collar. "You don't insult my aged wisdom, Camus! You better die than question the greatness of my words!"

"Wha-hey!"

"You still owe me Friday!" he roared.

Everybody stopped to stare at them. The teacher eyed Griffith directly; sure, Denali was menacing, but the man's eyes were on the bully. Heheh... Rhys can finally smell his roses. Surely, Griffith was a much bigger loser than him.

"Camus bothering you?" said the teacher wearily. "Throw him out."

Friday. Griffith has never forgiven him for that one irredeemable afternoon. The day Rhys didn't show up for their ultimate showdown. He had heard that the crew at Philly's were scared dead by a blood-curdling scream as night fell, which came from the old truck yard behind. They called the cops but they didn't get there on time. Since then, the place had been fenced and patrolled.

Rhys brushed the dirt off of his jeans. He was thankful Griffith didn't shove him into the dust bin in the corridor down by the Rugby team's dorm; if he did, he will have a fabulously hard time, his washer having broken down recently. Anyway, he was now free. But once a moment of literary inspiration has passed, it was well-nigh beyond remembering. He lost his drive to compose so he decided instead to look for some empty space where he could nap. Maybe the storyline will return to him in his dreams. It happened. Coleridge was inspired to write about Xanadu that way.

At this time, though, there were fewer places in campus where privacy could be had. There was the old Literary Clubroom which once hosted the now-defunct Poetry Club; it was now used as a temporary barracks for the workers doing repairs on the North Wing. The Radio Room was usually locked; there was activity in it and the lights were on at night but it seemed more like an exclusive suite than a PA station. The old canteen was swimming in molds.

That left the Music room. It is often used, but band practice was only held at day's end after school. He didn't consider himself a heavy sleeper, and he got his phone with him.

As soon as he arrived there he set the alarm three hours from now. He chose a suitable spot just beside the raised platform that served as a rehearsal stage. Not bothering for makeshift pillow or sheets, he went straight to nap right there on the floor by the stage.

It wasn't even fifteen minutes when he was abruptly roused by stirrings at the door. So soon? He scrambled to his feet and made for the nearest thing that can hide him, the huge broken grand piano beside the toilet door. He got himself up onto the large upholstered bench of the piano; it was soft and velvety, but only long enough to accommodate him if he curled himself up. Not too bad.

A mixed group of about twenty people, no, droves of different groups of twenty people in all, poured into the room chattering loudly. There was a choir instructor with a clutch of recruits, a band, some flutists, and even some girls who didn't seem to have any business there but hang out. How will they even go about like that? The room will be so cacophonous it will be impossible to conduct any practice.

Turns out it was he who was bothered. The choir recruits sounded really bad. The band's lead guitarist had such a high pitch it grated him, and the flutes, though decent, just sounded weird played together. The girls' chat only added to his misery. It seems their way of coping with the other groups was to out-loud each other.

"Time out," announced one of the band to his buddies. He went straight to the toilet.

After a short while he reappeared with a hanky over his nose as he returned to his group. "Hey, the flush is not working." And you left the door open, you fool.

"There's a bucket by the Student Council room," replied the drummer. "The hydrant's down at the tennis court." And both were at least ten minutes' walk away, and they were in opposite directions.

"Do I have to go over there?" he muttered in reply. "No wonder there's a full charge in the bowl."

At least close the door! Don't you care about the poor guy here? H-Hey, hey, where ya going? Don't leave me!

The rest were far away enough and too absorbed in their own business to be bothered by the rather small gap in the door, but when that gap opens straight at you at point-blank range...

His head started to spin. No, the world was dissolving. Flushed straight down into the toilet. With him. He blacked out. Finally... I got my beauty rest...

No dream was as pitch-black as this.

Darkness can be actually hard to interpret. Is one safe in the cover of night, away from troubles without? Are dangers really hidden in the nothingness? Or is darkness itself a danger? Like, it's possible to drown in darkness so thick you can feel it... something like that. But right now this emptiness was a cold but cozy blanket, ocean depths that sheltered unknown fish. Right now, he is unknown, and also unknowable.

Laaa… la. Laaa… la. La-la-la-la...

But now, the blackness was fading at the seams. Black was becoming deep blue, then a lighter blue. He is rising out of the ocean.

Lalala-la-la-la-la-la... Laaa... Lalala...

Those echoes. Voices?

La-la-la... Lalala-la-la...

La-la-la-la-la... Laaa... Lalala...

It was hard to ascertain if they were really voices or just echoes. More like pingpong balls smashing and bouncing off hard walls at the far end of a hallway.

The voices were getting less blurred, They seem to be fusing.

La-la-la... Lalala-la-la…

Lalala... La-la-la-la-lala...

Now, the depths have all faded. He had reached the light. He has broken the surface, rather, the surface shone onto him, and now the inchoate chanting became even clearer, and finally confirmed itself to be a lovely melody.

Rhys' eyes were unusually fresh as it stirred out of slumber. The voice was still there. But it must still be a dream, even though he finally realized he was lying behind the piano again. Such wonderful music couldn't possibly be on earth.

He carefully got up and peeked over the piano, and there she was. One of the chattering girls who came in earlier. Waist-long auburn mane. Slender neck and arms. Hands clasped over ample breasts. An expression of one feeling the wind as she flies through the breeze. And, for some reason, she only had a figure-hugging (swimsuit) topping the regular skirt, revealing the richness of humps and all that skin.

It was unearthly.

Her expression was so natural. He never saw a face as honest as that; her love for the music made itself loud and clear through her overall aura, but what was even more noticeable was her posture, that of a child acting out a play of a story she loved.

Or perhaps it was just his half-sleepy opinion.

Whatever. This is just priceless.

He sat up there behind the piano for what seemed like half an hour, and in that interval he got a real close look at her. She looked very different from the students he knew. Was she an exchange student? It didn't matter to him. He didn't have the time to further pry as classes will be ending in a little over an hour, which means he must vacate soon.

It was fun while it lasted, though. He could lord it over Griffith. Nobody chances upon beautiful women every day.

Beep beep beep! Beep beep beep!

The girl's face had a drastic change. The sweet, innocent child had instantly morphed into an alarmed and aghast high school senior as if she aged ten years in a blink. The transformation shocked him so much he drew back and fell off of the chair, toppling it, adding to the racket.

The girl turned frantically in all directions.

"Anyone there?" she said anxiously.

After a while she turned to the piano and realized there was someone behind, judging from the noise. Cautiously, she approached, saying "Hello?" tensely. Rhys could almost feel her footsteps coming closer. He needs to bolt out of here pretty fast or be accused of peeping on her.

He finally decided to creep slowly round the right side of the piano as it sounded like she was going to left side.

No, that's not quite right.

Her footsteps have shifted and were moving in his direction. He instantly reversed himself.

Whut?

This time, he couldn't tell where she was, as the sound of her feet has ceased altogether. She must be tiptoeing or something. Nice try, lady, he thought, as he was already at the other edge of the piano. Once he clears the edge, he'll jump up with a swift turning motion and dash on barefoot for the door. It will be so fast she will notice only a quick whoosh and a shadow through a half-open door. And then...

He will become the phantom stalker. The lady will start a yarn about a mystery admirer all the girls will fawn over, and an urban legend will be born. And it was just silly old Rhys all along, he smiled to himself. He suppressed a full rising grin, fearful his excited squeal at the wonderful idea will break his cover. He quickly and silently slipped off his shoes and held them. All this must be executed within just five-five and no more-seconds.

One... Two—

Go! He was off!

He bumped!

"Ow!" cried the girl.

It was almost eleven the next day and Rhys was already half-dead with fatigue. The Discipline committee sentenced him to a week-long school service at the canteen, mopping the floor and helping out at the kitchen, while having to catch up for missed lessons. Not that he cared much about his studies. But he will have to clear the area fast or suffer major humiliation from the throngs of students who will be here in a short while.

"You ask me another favor and ya'll be lunching in Toronto!" It was about ten or maybe twelve hours away on a nonstop drive, and he could get there in time for lunch if he got a really good punch. The canteen manager refused his request that he clean the latrines instead. This was how low he had to stoop just to save face.

And he failed massively. Among the first students to come in was a foursome of girls. He noticed that three of them were the same girls who chatted yesterday at the Music room. And leading them was...

He was about to turn away, but he froze in place when that girl stared at him directly with a self-satisfied look. It was just for a second, before she passed on to a table she reserved for her group, but he couldn't forget it. He felt like running to the sink to vomit right after, but he reckoned the manager wouldn't allow him to do even that.

Later, he spotted two ex-buddies from another class, Rod and Shem, who owed him some money last month and were now evading him, hence the "ex-". At least there were people who owe him shame. He ambled over to them, the two people he was entitled to boss around during these trying times, and sat down with them at the table as a privilege.

The two only stared at him menacingly. That sure came from nowhere.

"Someone's got air just because he's promoted to washboy," sneered Rod. Shem kept a little satisfied smirk to himself.

He promptly doffed his apron and flung it on Rod's lap. "Washboy no more," said Rhys.

Inflamed, Rod pulled him by the shirt. "We don't have anything on you, sicky. We don't feel like paying back to some filthy peepo. So buzz off before you infect us."

"Sure, sure," said Rhys. "Like you're no filthier than me, sitting in the girl's toilet on Foundation Day while the parade's on. How many customers have you got in your ultra-private club?"

"How could you know? You've no right!"

"Your girls do. Try asking which one of them works for Wikileaks."

Rod pushed him off, sobered. "What do you want?"

"Just let me sit here till lunch's over. And... get me some hash browns."

"OK," smiled Shem leaning over to him. "But we got a better deal. We'll let you sit with us if you introduce us to Lucy over there."

"Who?"

"That one," nudged Shem irritably. "The one you stalked."

"Stalked?" blurted Rhys, astounded. "Wait... Don't lump me in with you."

"Then get going," said Rod shoving him. "If you pretend to be straight about her, represent us."

He spat. "I just got sacked because of her and you expect us to be thick all of a sudden?"

"It's easy! Flatter her. Say you're actually just a fan of her… Wait. Say that you're a papparazzi. She won't resist being famous."

Papparazzi? "Now, that's too much insulting already! I'm not going. You pay me and I'll quit sitting here. You got fifity percent interest for calling me a peep."

Rod suddenly grabbed Rhys' chin, but Shem pulled him back, hissing, "Griffith says that guy's his property. You don't want him on our tail."

Rod drew back grudgingly, remembering how Griffith always bragged that he will have a massive revenge on Rhys for chickening out. Everybody happened to recognize the guy as the single strongest strongman in campus, not needing a gang to terrorize anybody he saw fit, yet he did have one, the Gray Vultures, which he only occasionally called together.

Rhys wiped his chin as if to rid it of traces the other man's hand. "What do you want about that snob, anyway? If you keep putting her on a pedestal, she'll only get nastier. I'm warning you."

The two guys stared at him in shock as though punched.

"You don't know who you're talking about!" flared Shem. "Lucy Hicks! She's the hot genius everybody's talking about since last month. She's the lovely voice who talks at the PA! You don't know?"

"Oh..." muttered Rhys, exasperated. So the model-like voice was just another student. He thought the school hired a calendar girl to distract the campus thugs from mischief. All this idolizing talk always irritated him. So just to deflate their fantasies, he set about spinning some yarn.

"Hicks has contacts everywhere in this school! Those exams she always tops? She bribed the faculty. Maybe with her own body!

"That close tennis match she won? The referee's her family butler. She's so good at inflating all those wins so she could elevate herself into stardom. Wake up!"

The two guys' eyes widened. Whoops. He had underestimated the reverence these goons paid at one better than them enough. Shem pointed a quivering finger at him. "You... scumbag! You don't throw mud at Lucy Hicks! Never!"

"I just did," shrugged Rhys. "Looks like you're in Hicks's payroll, too."

"You watch out, Camus," hissed Rod. "Griffith's beholden to the lady. As soon as he hears your trash, you're going to the dump... man." They pushed the table into his gut. "You want this, it's yours." They swept away from the table, looking back at him with disgusted looks.

"Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh…

"OLD SPIT BODY SCRUB will stick around your body like a ten-year-old unmopped spit sticking in your… SHOWEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR—"

Rhys silenced the muscle man on the TV with the remote. He was never a big fan of sporting ads. He yawned and stretched on the sofa bed. He's not having any TV for tonight.

He lay back and savored the fact that he was inside the house with the windows tight shut. A driving late October rain has been going on since five in the afternoon and he could see the trees outside shaken by the tempest, yet the tough pane of those large windows only registered soft tapping. The bedroom was roomy but cozy with all that drapery on the walls and velvet all over the furniture. He felt stuck-up rich for a Fielding guy; at worst, he distantly thought he would lose his manliness from all this softness… if not for Universal Fight.

The Camus "mansion" was a vintage forties or early fifties house larger than most of the other dwellings roundabout. Because of its size, nobody thought of purchasing the place thinking it would be harder to maintain and more expensive to heat in the winter. His father nonetheless went ahead with the entire renovation with a Cornish talent for stonework, along with some friends of his back at his college days, who were professional garage nuts and had the tinkering experience for fixtures and other sensitive stuff.

This house had been Frederic Camus' pride, an extension of himself, and that was the way Rhys saw it. His parents may be slaving away in Chicago but as long as he lives in the house with all its memories, the rafters and the windows will always have watchful eyes trained on him.

At the old guest room Rhys, and his dad before him, dumped a huge stash of newspapers, magazines, printouts of newsclips from the net, and other stuff. "Dumped" really was how to describe it. Most were just stacked carelessly in awkward towers that sometimes collapsed but were never righted. They were simply throwbacks to an earlier time.

Those years, when he was just in the third grade, his father already whispered in his ear that he will be a prominent columnist.

The man then went about to set him up for the career: he urged the young Rhys' teachers to endow him with all sorts of school journals, broadsheets and even tabloids. The man was all out on his journalist future. And he believed him. It was the start of his one great hobby of the grade-school years: collecting newspapers and magazines. He built up a real heap in there. Dad even thought of setting up a part of the basement as a repository where issues were to be sorted by date and stashed carefully in steel cabinets.

All that until that call from some... Company? Charity? Syndicate? ...somewhere in Chicago drove that wedge of distance between them. The Camus fortune was never large and the debt his father piled up over the manse since he was three became untenable by the time he started middle school. Only the Chicago (racket), with both parents working, could provide enough to ward off the piling interest and send a decent-ish sized weekly or monthly allowance to an only-child kid—if that kid went to a state-run school.

At roughly the same time, his interest shifted to athletics. His occasional fits of writing creativity was all that was left of his journalism past. It was that one parental ambition the child caught on to, heart and soul. What a pity.

He decided to tuck in early as the Universal Fight Ragnarok rematch was postponed until further announcements because of an accident involving "Big Dog" Sully, and a UF highlight fight to him was nothing if it didn't have Sully.

It was troublesome trying to sleep at this hour, though. Thanks to UF he always slept at about one in the morning and at around this time he did a lot of cooking for himself so he could munch in front of the TV while the match was going on. A habit is hard to break. A habit that is fun may be impossible to dent.

He thought of turning off the lights to help him snooze. He wasn't a heavy sleeper and the lights always kept him on edge. Such a pain. He got up, reached out for the switch... and froze.

No.

He realized he couldn't bring himself to flip that switch. All of a sudden he felt a lot safer with that thing on. He lay back, and stayed that way for about half an hour staring at the ceiling.

At quarter to ten, the rain stopped and a heavy silence descended on the house.

For the next half-hour he still couldn't sleep but torpor lay over his body from the extended inactivity. This was a dreary existence. He was paralyzed by lack of anything to do. He was awake, but he was dead. There was nothing. This must be what it's like to be turned into stone; only, you were aware of it all this time yet couldn't do anything. You couldn't even scream. When is this going to end?

But then… something else moved in him.

"…"

Slowly, tenuously, he shifted his gaze down, onto his own body. Something was telling him to look at his body. But... he already knew what he will find there.

Why?

Yet, he was now stirring, starting to move before he even thought about it. There was something in him that wanted to see what was underneath his clothes, but inwardly he was loudly protesting. It was something of a struggle between himself and some kind of perverted curiosity. He knows what was in there, but there was nothing else in this silent world where he is stuck in right now, no sound, no spectacle, nothing to turn his mind to, other than this drive to...

He drew back his sleeve as far as his shoulder. And there it was.

Ghastly tooth marks. Bite marks. He was silently horrified, but he felt compelled to look over the rest of his body as well. He removed his shirt. His trunk was studded with more bite marks. And, to his astonishment, the wounds were becoming fresh. They were starting to bleed again.

His heartbeat abruptly ramped up. His blood pressure rushed like a fireman's hose. He shifted his eyes all over the room. It is here. The ghost. The demon. The... He could feel his body tense up, his breathing fume. It's in the room, by the window maybe. Stop bugging me! Haven't you had enough? Get out! Get out of my life! Get—

Out!

Desperately he got up and leaned forward in a bluff to try shooing away the monster. His mouth lay open to scream-but his breathing has stopped, so he wasn't able to shout. He choked. His lungs must have tensed out. Certainly his pulse was pounding hard. But this... He was constricted. The tension took its toll on his breathing, and was he was starting to black out.

He woke up at about four in the morning. Why was he on the floor? His legs were still up on the bed, still under the rumpled sheets. His head was fuzzy and could hardly register anything, except that something had happened.

Strangely, there was a sense of calm, as if something heavy had lifted off the room. Oh yes, it did come here. The presence. He was now sure it was gone.

In an hour he had showered and shaved. This has been routine since his father left, as he was lazy and took longer than a woman to get dressed while he was here. Perhaps he just did it to rile him up. Regardless, his current habit put him off the house sooner, and that was always good.

The sun was just rising as he ventured out onto the misty street. His classmates would still be stirring, struggling, to get off of bed. Somehow, walking to school on your own, no one else on the road, was supremely refreshing. Feeling that way, he chose to amble round the long way to the campus, where along a segment of which stretched a line of lime trees, standing and identical as cadets.

He had all the time in the world so he purposely slowed his pace to savor as much morning as he could before having to run into the goons at class again.

A hand shot from behind and took hold of his neck.