When Redwood wasn't around the next morning, the band decided rather quickly that of course he had been captured by the police and was now being held as a political prisoner in the county lock-up.

"What are we going to do?" Berg asked.

"What do you mean do?" Salmon asked.

"You know, contact sympathizers, hold a demo, do basic prison support work?"

"Ha!" Amber said, "that's herd thinking, not pack thinking." Salmon had told her something similar about a month prior, when she wondered if the crew couldn't liberate extra food during their Dumpster diving expeditions and deliver them to the homeless. We're homeless, Salmon had pointed out. But we're a pack, not lone wolves and not a herd.

"Well, what if the pigs come after us, if Redwood tells them about us?" Berg asked. Amber didn't know what to say to that. "You can't live a free life in prison, pretty much by definition. I mean if freedom were just an individual subjectivity, you could be 'free' taking English literature courses or interning at Google."

"So? We're out here trying to be free; we're not looking to free everyone else, or even anyone else," Salmon said. "In fact, you're going to have to face facts, we'll need a massive population crash in the first place to really experience freedom. It's civilization and its diseases and wars that'll bring that about. Our job is to survi-"

"Then why the hell did I napalm half a dozen Hummers last night?" Berg threw up his arms. His voice was birdy and shrill. "With that logic, the best thing I can do for the cause of human freedom is go to work for Exxon or Blackwater, I could-"

The boys argued. Free free free. It was all symbolic thought, Amber realized quickly enough, but underneath the rhetoric was something else. Monkey rivalry. Chest-bumping and displays. Or mating calls, birdsongs. But then the symbolic thought. After that comes the division of labor-we fuck shit up, you stay here. Then agriculture. Domestication of the wolves who comes too close to the fire. Stories of spirits in the wind, of dead ancestors. Scratch out a language on the sides of rocks. Better build a temple. And from there pharaohs and slaves, kings and peasants, CEOs and transfats and Twitter and smokestacks, and we're all prisoners of civilization. Now the only thing left to do is wonder whether the planet will die in a nuclear holocaust, or if the melting icecaps will drown the soldiers in their ICBM silos first. Amber wandered off, not to her platform, but just to go out deeper into the woods to be really human. What was that line-Running on emptiness. Get out there and be, and don't think about what "be" means.

Amber heard the police in the woods. They were easy enough to avoid. They stumbled over twigs and leaves, their communication devices crackled and whined. She didn't bother trying to divine their motives or outthink them. They were just other noises, loud ones to walk away from. Soothing ones beckoned and she found a stream and followed it, feet wet on the rocks, a careful leap over the branch-dams of the beavers. There were smells too, obvious ones. Plastic and cooked meat. Amber had eaten nothing but berries and mushrooms and the occasional hastily stolen Hostess Cupcake jammed into her mouth whole during the latest shoplifting spree. Her stomach growled.

There was a family-little Asian girl in purple with giant boots, white parents in colors they probably didn't even realize matched the environment. Khaki pants like the dirt of the clearing, green and brown tops. Camouflage by way of accident of demographics and fashion trends. They had tents, fancier than Berg's, and a camp stove, fancier than Berg's, and some solar power contraption that was probably also a stove but didn't seem to work right as the father was hunched over it, and the parents both had the white cords of iPod headphones hanging down their torsos. They were silent. The girl played with leaves, the mother was fuming about something with her chin high and hands on her hips. Amber realized that there should be four, not three. A boy, slightly older, cartoons on his sleeping bag. They weren't food, they weren't anyone she could talk to, they weren't threatening her with violence as the police did simply by existing and by marching through the woods with their sticks and their guns and their dogs, so she left the family behind.

The sun had moved into the orange of afternoon when Amber heard the yawp and the thrashing about that attracted her attention next. It had been hours, though she wasn't aware of the passage of time except when the shouting brought her back into the world of symbolic thought, and then only because it was so ironic. If there was anything at all left of humanity after tens of thousands of years of civilization and symbol-making that could be considered real and pure and true, it was a scream of fear. A boy's voice, broken like a girl's from shock and rage, and then there were echoes. Responses. A woman's voice shrieked, "Jeremy!" and the woods grew restive.

Amber had heard screams before. When Salmon had twisted his ankle. When Redwood and her were up on her platform fucking like wolves. The day before Berg had found the pack, when he was tramping through the forest shouting both parts of the fight with his father that had sent him into the woods with his camping gear and a dog-eared copy of Future Primitive. He screamed again when Salmon had torn it apart in front of his face. But this scream was different. It hadn't been swallowed up by the echoless trees and hills. The police were alive in the woods now, shouting again through megaphones and amplifiers. The woman couldn't stop shrieking Jeremy! The little girl was whooping too, like a bird.

Amber didn't even mean to walk toward the first scream-why would she? But she strode right into it. Not in a clearing, but in a tight clump of the thick-trunked trees, where the woods were dark. And she saw the boy. And the boy held a stick. And at the end of the stick was much of an eye. And just a foot or so beyond the tip of the stick was Redwood, his face wrinkled and brown like bark, a gouge where his eye had been, his lipless mouth open wide. He gasped when he saw Amber, and Amber's knees buckled from the stench of cooked meat. The boy dropped the stick and his smile and ran. Amber vomited into her hands. Redwood tried to talk but the scream was all he had. He keened, a lung pushing air through a scored and warped tube of flesh. In his remaining eye was a message. A glare. Amber noticed that his eyelashes, which she always liked because they were long like she was always told a girl's should be, were gone.

Amber had gone back for her journal, and that is what saved her. Despite the copter and the chain of police and volunteers-mostly portly militia types with barely legal firearms slung uselessly across their backs-marching in a long single file across the woods, she was huddled on her platform and missed. The boys had been picked up. Arson. Redwood was dead, or probably was anyway. There was nothing to keep her. The next morning she dropped from her platform, cut off her dreds with a sharp rock, and moved into town. There were enough crusties on the street to blend in with and she was a pretty girl, even with a haircut by hack. The city was easy. Dumpster dive behind the yuppie supermarket, wash in the library, spread for someone when it rained, and huff and write in her journal with her eyes closed. She showered a lot, standing in a puddle of black water, till she smelled like soap, smelled like Berg.

It was hard for Amber to get used to talking all the time, to street signs and clothing with logos on them. The world was a huge advertisement for itself, and it stank.

Amber spent most of her days outside the county courthouse in the part of town that was all pillars and thick slabs of concrete from the old days, and littered with the homeless and ratty fast food joints from the now. She was a protestor, though the sign she held up was incomprehensible. She chanted, with the few other people who had rallied around Salmon and Berg, "Free Berg!" was a popular chant, and someone on an acoustic guitar had come up with some new lyrics to the old Lynyrd Skynyrd song. They had destroyed some property, but not very much, and hadn't hurt anyone. Even Redwood had only hurt himself.

A thin man with significant sideburns asked Amber if she wanted to check out a copy of PW. Amber opened her mouth to tell him no when she saw the little Chinese girl, her knees high as she climbed the steps to the courthouse. She was on a leash and holding it was the mother. The father was there too, his hand clamped hard on the wrist of the boy who had once held a stick that had once been tipped with a man's eye.

"Yeah, please," she said.

The guy sidled up to her and opened to a two-page spread. "I wrote this article," he explained. "It's about how we, you know, reject anti-civ anarchism as fundamentally playing into the hands of the capitalists."

"Wow."

"Yeah, it's just giving up the fight. Individual acts of terror just bring state repression, and the fact is that we have seven billion people on this planet. If we all lived like hunter-gatherers, there would be a huge population crash. The only reason the bourgeoisie keeps the proletariat alive is because they don't want to do any work themselves, and-"

Amber grabbed the paper. "Thanks. I'll read it myself."

"Okay, well we have meetings too . . . " he reached into his messenger bag for a leaflet. Amber grinned inside. The local socialists were still a revolving door of stupid freshmen-she knew this shtick down cold.

"And that's a dollar, by the way." He tapped the edge of the paper. "What kind of socialist sells a newspaper?" Her eye wandered to the parking lot.

He nodded. "Yeah, well, see. The paper isn't free. We live under capitalism, after all, and the printing press isn't a worker collective, yet. Plus, when you just give out papers for free people don't read them. When they pay a dollar, and some people even pay five to support the movement-"

"Look asshole, I'm not paying you a fucking dollar!"

He tried to grab the paper back but he was weak and Amber strong. She darted away from him and grabbed his messenger bag. "Paper for the people!" Amber shouted, and she flung the bag in the air. It rained copies of Proletarian Worker and then she kicked the socialist right in the knee, making his leg buckle. The other protestors cheered and then the cops, always itching for a chance to use their truncheons, were on them, but Amber was already gone.

Amber wasn't worried. She wasn't hopeful either. She was wedged in the hatch area of the SUV, one much nicer than civil servants could afford, and whose hood was hot to the touch. Unlocked too. Careless parents, the parents of that Chinese girl, of the boy with the stick. Had Amber been thinking, she would have even thought herself clever for showering and taking care of herself these past few days-surely she would have smelled like rotten wood and ripe human and filled the vehicle with fumes otherwise. Stink lines rising from the top of cartoon garbage can. She took a deep breath. Nothing but flowers. Not even a thought. No thought, no obstacles. Amber was beyond good and evil now, beyond boredom and engagement for that matter. She had her journal and the moon was full even as the sun still stood over the horizon. Plenty of light, but even she couldn't read what she had written in her time living outside. There was something in those glyphs and strokes though, something older the words, older than symbols. Just what she had been wanting all along.

The family was sedate when they got in the car. The boy-Jeremy, but Amber didn't think things like "Jeremy" now-wasn't with them anymore. It didn't matter. The drive seemed long. The sun had gone down and the moon sailed away, as if Amber was being taken around the curve of the world, away from the city and into the woods. But the trees she saw out her window were slaves of lawns, Holocaust survivors forced forever to mourn for their brethren whose bodies made their own coffins. Homes. McMansions. The car parked. The parents got out and collected the sleeping little girl from her car seat and took her away. The girl stared at Amber but didn't say anything.

Amber slid out of the SUV easily enough and landed on her hands and knees. Everything smelled wrong. There were sounds, real ones. A breeze and crickets, but false sounds were more insistent. Tinny laughter. The buzzing of lightning trapped in wire cages. Wind in walls. She loped toward the family's home and peered through the window when she reached it. They were watching TV, but it was all just flashes of color to her. She could smell them through the glass, smell how hot they were. Amber did have a final pair of symbolic thoughts before she threw herself through the window and took the child by the neck in her mouth and crunched, one last bit of culture before she finally sloughed off all that she had been like dirt on skin.

This is a fairy tale!

And I'm the hero!

THE COLDEST GAME.

MARIA V. SNYDER.

The screech of a small child being tortured woke Lexa. At least, that was what her alarm sounded like at four in morning. I feel your pain, girlfriend, she muttered under her breath as she swatted the clock before her roommate could growl.

Why? Why did I ever volunteer for the five a.m. shift? Lexa asked herself this every single Friday morning. The answer remained the same. Because I'm an idiot and fell for Ben's bullshit claim that the morning shift is the most exciting. It wasn't.

Grabbing her shower basket, she schlepped to the bathroom down the hall. Her choice of shower stalls remained the best thing about this time of day. Ah, dorm life.

After a scalding-hot shower, Lexa returned to her room. She dressed in the dark-jeans, sneakers, and a shapeless navy Penn State hoodie. Twisting her long brown hair into a knot, she tucked it under a navy baseball cap before leaving.

An early November fog blanketed the silent campus. Street lights reflected off the white mist. No one around-the only time Penn State's main campus was this quiet. It matched her gloomy mood.

She'd been in a funk since Lauren, her younger sister had been killed by a drunk driver over Memorial day weekend. It deepened when Jason, her boyfriend of three years dumped her in September. Now failing thermodynamics, Lexa thought she'd never see daylight again.

Lexa headed toward the Walker Building on the western edge of campus. At least she had her own key now. Last week Ben had forgotten his, and they had botched the forecast in their haste. A couple radio stations had complained. What did they expect anyway? They were getting free weather forecasts from a bunch of student meteorologists after all.

When Lexa cut through West Halls, a strange icy feeling slipped down her spine. The campus was relatively safe, but her imagination conjured up all those horror movies that Jason had dragged her to see.

Perhaps she should have arranged for a security escort-some jock doing his good deed for the day, but she'd never felt unsafe on campus until now. She dismissed her anxiety as a product of her overdramatic imagination.

Just before she entered the short cut between Irvin Hall and Jordan Hall a low anguished growl emanated from the shadows. Logic urged her to run. But she savored the feeling of fear for a moment. Since Lauren's death, she'd been going through the motions of living, trying to keep the painful storm of grief contained inside her. She felt nothing else.

Lexa lingered a moment too long. A black mass launched from the shadows. She fell back, banging her head on the cement as the heavy beast landed on her chest. In a flash, white pointy teeth dug into her neck. Burning pain squeezed her windpipe closed.

Black and white spots clouded her vision. Then the creature paused. It released her and bounded away as fast as it had appeared. She caught a glimpse of a four legged creature with gray fur stripped with black. A big fucking dog.

Blood gushed from her throat, soaking the collar of her hoodie. Dizziness and nausea swelled as she explored the ragged skin. A strange concern over the location of her cap floated through her mind before she passed out.

Unfamiliar voices woke Lexa. She squinted into a bright whiteness. The antiseptic smell matched the room's decor-curtains hanging from a U-shaped track on the ceiling, florescent lights, and cabinets with glass doors.

Lexa touched her neck. Bandages covered her throat. A sharp ache pulsed from underneath the dressing.

The curtains parted and a tall young man entered. He skidded to a stop in surprise. Large splatters of blood covered his ripped white Penn State T-shirt and dotted his white sweat pants. Lexa's first thought-college student was followed by-jock.

"You're awake," he said.

"Who . . . " Her voice rasped painfully.

"Don't talk . . . Wait." He dashed away, calling to another.

A nurse bustled in and Lexa wondered if nurses ever just walked or sauntered. The student trailed after her. Concern creasing his forehead, he raked his fingers through his short spiky black hair.

"What-"

The nurse cut her off. She sent the student to the waiting room before asking Lexa questions. Lexa explained about the oversized dog. It didn't take long.

"Was the dog foaming at the mouth?" she asked.

A vision of sharp teeth flashed in her mind. "No."

"We'll test for rabies just in case." The nurse clicked her pen and wrote on her clipboard. "Miss Thomas, you're in the Mount Nittany Medical Center's emergency room. You have a mild concussion and four lacerations in your neck. We put in sixty sutures, administered a tetanus shot, and contacted your parents."

She groaned. Mom probably freaked.

The nurse continued with a more scolding tone. "You're extremely lucky. One of the lacerations exposed your jugular. If it had been torn, you'd be dead."

Upset parents no longer seemed so bad. "How did I get here?" Lexa asked.

"A student found you and called an ambulance. He's been here all morning."

"Can you ask him to come back?"

"Sure. The doctor and the police will also be in to see you." The nurse left.

The police? Lexa searched for her phone. It was in a plastic bag under her bed along with her clothes. No baseball cap. Ignoring the fifteen text messages and three voice mails from Ben, she called her mother, and endured the hysterics. Calming her mother, Lexa noted the irony of how she'd been injured, but her mother needed to be soothe.

"No need to come, Mom," Lexa said for the seventh time. "I'm fine. It's a couple of scratches, and I'll be home in two weeks for Thanksgiving." Their first holiday without Lauren-hell with turkey and stuffing.

Finally, her mother agreed. Lexa read through Ben's texts. He'd teased her, assuming she slept in, but when she missed classes, his texts became more frantic. Avoiding another phone call, she texted Ben. Two seconds after she hit send, her phone vibrated with another message from Mr. Lightning Thumbs.

I'm coming.

She didn't have the energy to argue. Besides, she'd need a ride home. Lexa tossed the phone on the table. There was no one else to call. Her roommate, Bubbles the aspiring freshman beauty queen, wouldn't even notice her absence.

The curtain to her room parted, and the black-haired student entered. A wary concern lurked in his blue eyes as if he was afraid she would yell at him.

"Uh . . . the nurse said you . . . "

"Thank you for helping me," Lexa said. She gestured to the dried blood on his clothes. "Sorry about bleeding all over you. If the stains don't come out, I can buy-"

"Don't worry about it. I get blood on my clothes all the time."

"Really?"

"Man, that sounded weird." He crossed then uncrossed his arms as if he wasn't sure what to do with them. "I play hockey."

Her first impression of jock had been right. Plus only an athlete would have biceps that defined. "Are you one of Penn State's Ice Men?"

"Yeah, I'm-"

A police officer stepped into her room. "Miss Thomas?"

She nodded.

"I'm Officer Reed of the State College Police. I'd like to ask you a few questions." The officer addressed the hockey player. "You can wait at the nurses' station. I've questions for you, too."

"Yes, sir." He retreated.

"Are you sure it was a dog that attacked you?" Officer Reed asked.

"Yes. It was gray with black stripes. It was wide and solid, not tall. Big teeth."

He wrote a few notes in a small book. "Do you know Aiden Deller?"

The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. "No. Who's he?"

The officer gave her a tight smile. "He called the ambulance."

"Oh." She made the connection. Aiden Deller was a senior forward, and one of the top scorers for the Ice Men. The nickname Ice Men came from the precise, emotionless way they played.

Officer Reed's next set of questions focused on Aiden and his timely arrival.

"It was an animal," Lexa repeated. "Ask the doctor who stitched me up."

"No need to get upset. I'm just eliminating all the possibilities. Dog attacks of this magnitude are extremely rare." He handed her a card. "Call me, if you remember anything else." Officer Reed left.

After twenty minutes, Aiden returned. "I overheard the nurses." He pointed at her neck. "They mentioned a dog?"

"You didn't see it?"

"No. As I told Officer Reed, I found you lying on the ground. Alone."

She shivered at the memory. "I don't think they believe me."