I spun around to backtrack, and he was there. I saw his bright mask at the far end of the tunnel.

There was nowhere to go.

I turned on my back, eyes on him, and started sliding myself backward. If he came close, at least I could kick at his face, maybe smack that wooden mask into whatever soft or skeletal nose was hiding behind it. But I knew that was crazy when I saw the reach of his long thin arm extending that blade toward me. My leg was no match-it would only make a nice little shrimp on the skewer.

I had to stay out of range. I kept sliding backward, gaining speed. The wall was coming closer behind me but what could I do? That knife was hideous-long and covered with markings. He was gaining on me. It slashed closer and closer. I didn’t think. I just slid faster and faster and let the wall come. The blade was so close-it slashed my shirt. I went faster, faster, faster-knew the wall was seconds away and maybe God at least I’d knock myself unconscious before the end and the pain and then I felt the wall slam into me, an instant of explosion and tearing and then I felt cold air sweep around me and I was falling, falling through the air and then there was a great explosion below me, a mushroom cloud of wood and dust and a terrible cracking, stripping noise.

I saw a starburst of yellow flashes as my head hit something and then my vision dimmed and cleared. I looked on either side of me and saw that a long wooden table had broken my fall and exploded under me. I was in a dining hall of some kind, long rows of oak tables in a vast room. I looked above me and saw a wall of hundreds of portraits-dozens and dozens of oil paintings of old white men. And in the center, high above me, was one empty frame, the shreds of a portrait flowering out from the edges. Leaning from the empty portrait was the Puppet Man, clutching the frame and peering out, the blade still in his hand, the face still masked, blank and demonic. He seemed to be sizing up the jump. He turned his dark eyes right at me, and I felt the hollowness sweep through me. Then he disappeared back into the frame.

I stood up, slow and shaky, and limped out of the dining hall as fast as I could, out the exit and into a quiet campus that was just starting to wake up. There was a dim strip of blue on the horizon, under a purple sky. I had no doubt that in half an hour, a crowd of students would marvel at the soon-to-be-legendary Smashed Table Prank and wonder which fraternity had the balls to pull it off.

And I had no doubt that above them, the frame would not be empty-in half an hour, there would once again be a perfect wall of unbroken portraits.

27

When I limped into the motel room, Sarah was sitting on the bed. She had just showered; her hair was wet, and her body was wrapped in a towel. Her eyes were red. When she saw me, she said, “Oh thank God,” and ran to hug me. I squeezed her hard and buried my nose in her hair. I breathed in deep. She stepped back and looked me over.

“I thought something happened to you.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know. My leg, maybe. I think it’s all right.” I looked around the room. “Where’s Miles?”

“We wrote everything down while you were gone. Just in case you didn’t…” A guilty look crossed her face. “It was Miles’s idea…” She let the subject die, but I still felt a shiver. “He went to make copies. Come over here. Let me see.”

She led me to the bed. Without a word, she sat me down and unbuckled my belt. She slid my pants down and pulled them off. She moved with the precision of a doctor, and it wasn’t awkward or embarrassing. She sat down on the bed next to me.

“Lean back,” she said.

She examined my leg, pressing her fingers along different lines and spots that seemed to have meaning to her. Each time, she asked if it hurt, and when I said yes or no, she’d nod. It was somewhere between professional and delicate-each mechanical touch ended with a slight linger; once or twice, almost a caress. I closed my eyes and focused on her fingers moving up and down my leg, bending it, tracing on the inside of my thigh.

She paused, leaving the tips of her fingers just over my hip.

“It’s bruised,” she said quietly. “Nothing’s broken or sprained.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Good,” she whispered.

My lack of pants suddenly seemed more awkward. They were sitting on the other side of the bed, behind her. I reached for them, but I think she thought I was reaching for her. She took my hand and put it on the towel over her breast. She put her other hand in my hair and pulled me in and kissed me. Her lips were soft, still damp from the shower. They opened and I felt the soft hint of her tongue. She pulled back and looked at me.

“I was worried about you,” she said.

I tried to say something, something that had been bothering me, but I couldn’t get it out. Her eyes moved over my face, reading it. I put my hand on her chin and held her gaze right at me.

“Sarah, when I was in the tunnels, I realized something.”

“What?”

I told her that tonight, for the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be afraid of death. I’d lost people I loved before, but all that did was let me understand loss. Death had still been a concept, nothing more. It was impossible to feel that it had anything to do with me. Once, a year ago, I was looking in the mirror and saw my first gray hair. I pulled it out and examined it. It wasn’t fear exactly, what I’d felt then. It was like someone had plucked a string deep in my abdomen, an unsteady vibration in my body. But this, tonight-this was a million times stronger. Now, I understood what my dad had tried to tell me about being fifty: I’d had an acute blast of the dull, chronic terror of real age.

And as a result, for the first time I understood the situation we were in. What we represented to the white-haired members of the V &D, waiting in line for their chance to live on. We represented death.

“Sarah, they’re never going to stop hunting us.”

She gave me a stern look.

“Yes they will. We’re going to stop them.”

“We are?”

“We are.”

She took my face in her hands.

“Do you know why? Because I know what I want. And they’re in my way.”

There was real power, a force in her words. She stood and took the bottom of my shirt in her hands. She pulled it over my head and dropped it on the floor. Then she reached to the corner of her towel tucked above her breast and tugged, letting it fall in one fluid movement. She stood a foot away. I looked at her full curves. I felt the heat coming off her skin. She pressed my face into her stomach.

I looked up at her.

“I’ve never done this before,” I said.

She arched an eyebrow. I started to explain, but she put a finger over my mouth.

“I know, I know. You lived with your parents in college.” She grinned. “You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out.”

• • •

Later, she smiled at me with her head propped on her hand.

“Do you think it’s possible?” she asked me.

“What?”

“Possession. Stealing someone’s body.”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She shrugged.

“I had this patient once. A nice old man. He had a stroke. Every morning, I’d walk into his room and have a totally normal conversation with him. Then I’d point at his right hand and say, ‘Whose hand is that?’ And he’d say, in a completely casual voice, ‘I don’t know.’

“‘Well,’ I’d ask him, ‘it’s connected to this wrist, isn’t it?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘And that wrist is connected to this arm, right?’

“‘Right.’

“‘And this arm is connected to your shoulder, isn’t it?’

“‘Uh-huh.’

“‘So whose arm is it?’

“‘I don’t know,’ he’d say. ‘Is it yours?’”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I’ve seen patients with multiple personalities. People who smell colors and taste sounds. What I’m trying to say is, we don’t know anything about the brain. Not really. All our technology, all our research, we’re just scratching the surface. It’s still basically a black box. So, yes, I think it’s possible. But I’ve been thinking, lying here.”