The sweet smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils then, his gorge rising as a wave of nausea swept over him. "Nooo!"

Creature he wailed, and his whole body jerked and thrashed against the chains that bound him to the metal table on which he lay. "Nooo!"

It was his own scream that finally released him from the grip of the terrible dream, and he sat bolt upright.

A blinding stream of white light shone in his eyes. He blinked several times and his vision began to clear.

He was breathing hard; his lungs felt as if they might explode as he gasped for air.

There were people around him, and for a moment the dream closed around him again and he opened his mouth to scream out once more. But then he caught hold of himself.

They weren't the torturers. These men were real, and they wore white coats-as white as the room in which he sat.

Hospital.

He was in a hospital.

Then, slowly, it came back to him, and as his memory returned in bits and pieces, he began to calm down.

He was at the sports clinic. The coach had brought him here, and Dr. Ames was taking care of him. So he was going to be all right.

He looked around now.

There were three attendants, three men he recognized immediately.

They were part of the staff; his friends.

But they were looking at him strangely, almost as if afraid of him.

He raised his hand to shield his eyes against the brilliance of the light, and it was then that he saw the leather strap.

It was buckled tightly around his wrist, but the free end was torn and ragged, almost as if…

As if he'd been strapped down and managed somehow to rip himself free.

He swallowed hard and felt a soreness in his throat, the kind of rawness he always felt after he'd spent an afternoon shouting at a football game.

Puzzled, he tried to swing his legs off the table and sit up straight, but found that he couldn't. And when he looked down at his feet, he saw that his ankles, too, were wrapped in leather straps.

Just as in the nightmare, he was bound to a metal table.

A wave of anger built up inside him, and he gathered himself together to jerk his legs free.

Once more a needle was plunged into his arm and he quickly felt himself sink back into the strange, soft darkness of unconsciousness.

Mercifully, the nightmare did not come back to haunt him.

Chapter Eight

Mark Tanner woke up early the next morning, but instead of rolling over to catch an extra ten minutes of sleep, he threw the covers off, sat up and stretched. AsChivas gazed curiously at him from his place next to the bed, he dropped to the floor and began doing push-ups, his resolve of the night before still strong within him. He kept at it, grunting with the exertion, until his arms ached. Then, though he knew it was impossible for his body to have changed yet, he glanced in the mirror. But this morning, instead of being depressed by what he saw, he only grinned at himself encouragingly. "It'll work," he muttered. "If it worked for Robb, it'll work for me, too."

"What'll work?" he heard Kelly's voice ask.

Flushing beet red, he spun around to see his sister staring at him from the door. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "If my door's closed, you're not supposed to come in."

"I had to go to the bathroom," Kelly replied, as if that explained everything. "You were making funny noises. Are you sick?"

"Don't be dumb," Mark told her. "If I were sick, wouldn't I be in bed? Now get out of here, or I'll tell Mom you came into my room without knocking." Of course he knew he wouldn't, but he also knew the threat would be enough to send Kelly scuttling back to her own room.

As soon as she was gone, he stripped his underwear off, tossed it into the corner with the rest of his dirty laundry, then pulled on his robe and headed for the bathroom. He was already in the shower, the bathroom was clouded with steam, when he heard the door open. "That you, Dad?" he yelled over the noise of the spray.

"Got to shave," Blake replied, then frowned uncertainly. "What are you doing in there? Didn't you shower last night?"

"Uh-huh," Mark replied. A minute later he shut off the needle spray and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel off the rack. "Dad?"

Blake, his face covered with lather and his head tipped back as he drew the safety razor carefully over his neck, grunted a response and glanced at his son in the mirror.

"Do you suppose maybe we could start practicing football again? I mean on weekends or something."

The razor stopped inmidstroke as Blake's gaze fixed on Mark. "I thought you didn't want to do that," he remarked. But as Mark flushed scarlet, his father thought he understood. "Linda Harris, right? She's on the cheerleading squad, isn't she?"

Mark's flush deepened, and he nodded.

"How about tomorrow?" Blake asked. "Or maybe Sunday?"

Mark hesitated. For a moment Blake thought he was going to change his mind, but then the boy nodded briefly, pulled on his robe and left the bathroom. As he went back to his morning shave, Blake felt a sense of satisfaction. Silverdale, he decided, was going to be the best thing that had ever happened to his son.

Forty minutes later Linda Harris fell in beside Mark. They were three blocks from the school and still had plenty of time before the first bell would ring. "C-Can I talk to you about something?" Linda asked, stopping in the middle of the block and turning to face Mark.

Marie's heart sank. She'd already made up with JeffLaConner and was going to break their date.

"It-Well, it's about last night," Linda went on, and Mark knew he was right.

"It's okay," he mumbled, his words barely audible. "If you want to go out with Jeff tonight, I don't care."

"But I don't," Linda protested, and Mark, who had been staring uncomfortably at the ground, finally looked at her. Though her eyes looked sort of worried, she was smiling at him. "I just wanted to tell you what happened, that's all." As they resumed walking slowly toward the school, she told him everything that had happened after she'd left the gym with Tiffany Welch the night before. "I was really scared of him," she said. "It just seemed like he went nuts."

"Did you tell your folks?" Mark asked.

Linda shook her head. "They think Jeff's the next thing to God," she said, her voice trembling. "Just because he's a big football player, they think I should be thrilled to death that he wanted to take me out.''

"Well, you went with him, didn't you?" Mark asked, doing his best not to let his voice betray him. "I mean, if you didn't like him, how come you went out with him?"

"But he was different," Linda insisted. "He always used to be real mellow. But now…" She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, he's just changed, that's all. He gets mad for no reason at all."

Mark couldn't resist a slight dig. " 'Course, telling him you're breaking up with him isn't any reason for him to get upset, is it?" he asked.

Linda started to say something, then saw his grin. "All right, so last night maybe he had a reason," she admitted. "But that isn't what I'm worried about," she went on, her eyes growing serious.

"Then what is it?" Mark asked.

"I just-" Linda began, then faltered, wondering how to say it.

"You just what?" Mark pressed. "Come on, spit it out."

"It's you," Linda finally said, her eyes avoiding him. "When he finds out about tonight, I don't know what he might do."

Mark felt his face reddening, and tried to control it. "You mean he might try to pound me?" he asked.

Linda nodded, but said nothing.

"Well," Mark went on, feigning a bravado he wasn't feeling, "if he tries, I guess there isn't much I can do about it, is there? Maybe I could just roll over and play dead," he suggested. "Think he'd buy it?"