As real as the magician scattering the teeth of the Hydra like beans and waiting for skeletons to sprout.

As real as the shriek of Elsa Lanchester when she first beholds the ugliness of her mate.

As real as the demon at the end of Night of the Demon, swathed in locomotive smoke, plucking the flesh stuffing out of the dreadful Karswell as a child might do to a teddy bear.

As real a" no ... more real.

Kree! Kreee! SchrAAAAAAAAAAAKKK!

It wasn't like something out of a dream. It was better than that. It was like something out of a movie.

The dragon had squat, muscular humanoid legs and a reptilian tail that swished and spiralled spasmodically as if trying to corkscrew a nonexistent bottle. As it turned he saw the thing had a mouth like a whale, bright pink and clean inside, and its leathery wings flapped like the vast sails of a galleon. The mouth opened as wide as its body, the jaw fell impossibly down to its ankles, exposing triple rows of fangs a" sharp, sharper, sharpest a" and Ethan could only imagine the acrid dead-meat tang of its breath.

But it was the second creature that made Ethan's eyes widen.

This one had the first secured in a head lock. It was male and looked like a shaved version of Mighty Joe Young on steroids. He had no idea of its size. Maybe eight feet tall. Maybe more. Its arms were beyond muscular, the insides seeming to want to burst from skin the color of uncooked steak. But its gigantic right hand was what he saw first a" a huge stone paw that looked like it had been unearthed in the Valley of the Kings, the dust blown off its cryptic inscriptions by some soon-to-be-deceased archaeologists of knucklebones a" smashing like a sledgehammer into its opponent's face. Its leather trench coat was torn in places, revealing patches of lobster-red skin mottled with sprigs of hair. Its nose was tiny, making its chiseled jaw even more like something hewn from Mount Rushmore. The horns on its head had been reduced to stumps, and under its fearsome row of piano-keyboard teeth it wore a neat black goatee.

Ethan watched.

As it pummelled the gravy out of its scaly dance partner, the sound of broken bone covered up by the poundings of the storm, it moved surprisingly nimbly on its cloven hooves. He didn't know if it was the devil from that movie Legend where Tom Cruise played Tom Thumb, or Jack the Giant Killer, or somebody; or if it was some Notre Dame gargoyle friend of Quasimodo come to life; or if he was witnessing one of those one-to-one duels that were always the climax of a Harryhausen film, like the centaur-cyclops fighting the gryphon, or Perseus versus Medusa.

Goggle-eyed, he wasn't sure what he was watching, but he didn't want to miss a second.

Next morning he dressed and came downstairs, helping himself to an unusually large bowl of Kellogg's Frosties and shoveling them into his mouth with little sign of restraint.

"Everything all right, love?" Ethan nodded.

"What's wrong?" asked his mother.

"Nothing."

For once, she thought he meant it.

When the car door slammed, Vic took a deep breath, preparing himself for the inevitable barrage of monster questions. He geared himself up. Got ready to roll with the punches.

But this time, nothing came.

He looked over at his boy, who sat obediently looking out through the windscreen with his school bag on his lap and the seat belt across his body like a crossing-out. "All right, son?"

Ethan nodded, and his father felt a strange pang of regret. The car sounded a little empty today.

At lunchtime he pulled on his anorak and walked to his grandmother's house, a few streets away, and rang the doorbell. "I left some work. I did it when I was here on Sunday. I need it for this afternoon." He didn't like lying to her and already felt he wasn't being very convincing. "Geography," he added.

"Oh," said his nan. "Shall I get it for you?"

"No, I'll get it," said Ethan. "I know where it is."

"Got time for a cup of tea, love?" she asked as he went into the middle room, where he always did his homework.

"No thanks."

"Biscuit? Nice piece of cake?"

"No thanks."

When he was sure she'd gone, he crept upstairs and shut the door to the back bedroom behind him. It was Grampa's room.

The old man's belongings were still in evidence. Obviously his nan hadn't yet had the heart to pack them away; maybe she never would. The five or six paperbacks with the elephant bookends. The digital camera Vic had bought him last birthday which he'd never used. The single bed he'd slept in alone ever since his coughing and insomnia had started to keep his wife up all night. The nylon avocado bed linens with not a crease in them. On the dressing table under the triptych of the vanity mirror, a Burgundy-striped rugby club tie, still in its cellophane.

Ethan slid open the drawer underneath. It was full of his grandfathers clothes. Pullovers, cardigans. Shirts a" some, maybe old Christmas presents even, still in their wrappers. The strong smell of mothballs wafted out. It made him think that the objects were being preserved. He wondered if he was a grave robber of some kind, like in Curse of the Mummy's Tomb. Whether he would be punished in some way by forces beyond his understanding. But this wasn't beyond his understanding. This was his grampa.

Underneath the Marks & Spencer shirts Ethan found what he wanted. He slid his hand into one of his grandfather's brown leather gloves. It was much too big, and when he clenched his fist the tops of the fingers were empty and bent against the heel of his hand.

His nan heard the front door slam, and was surprised her grandson hadn't poked his head round the door to say goodbye. But he was a funny little boy, she knew that. Much as she loved him to pieces, mind.

Dylan Drew was waiting like a gunfighter. His amigos lolled in sullen poses nearby. Huw Gronow, hood up and acne ridden, was munching a Lion bar and Matthew Pamplin was idly rearranging his genitals due to ill-considered boxer shorts. They hadn't forgotten their promise and were waiting for him. And so were a half dozen other hangers-on and rubberneckers who'd heard the rumors that had been percolating and turned up in the hope of seeing some blood spilled. To them, it could be the high point of an otherwise dreary week.

"I'm bored now," one girl in pandalike mascara said. "Honest to bloody God now." One of her mates passed her a cigarette, to shut her gob. Their ringside seat was near the fence and Dylan was watching their miniskirts edge up their white thighs when Gronow's voice, behind him, alerted him to the arrival of his foe.

Showtime!

The gunslinger turned, a massive smirk commandeering his face.

"Hey, freaky dick!" called Pamplin. "You haven't forgotten have you?"

Ethan had his head down and was walking straight toward them at a steady pace. Dylan stood with his arms crossed and his legs wide apart a" which proved not to be the greatest idea. A frown etched into Gronow's brow and Pamplin's chin dropped dumbly as they saw Ethan ... accelerate.

Dylan suddenly and all-consumingly thought of his testicles. The message was traveling from his brain while Gronow, immobilized by disbelief, saw Ethan take his hand from his anorak pocket and at the end of it registered this enormous brown fist like the hammer of Thor. This giant hand, this slab a" pulling back with a crook of the elbow, then embedding itself hard into Dylan's stomach, bending him double.

The girls went into caterwauls of horror.

In a blur the leather fist drew back and administered a second blow, an uppercut to Dylan's chin. With no choice in the matter he followed the trajectory of his jaw, vertically, a dog on a leash yanked skyward.

Then fell on his ass. Before anyone had time to blink.

Ethan just kept on coming. Or rather the stone fist did. It smashed in right and left, crunching Dylans face into the grass, first one cheek, then the other. The bewildered bully's flailing arms did nothing to diminish the onslaught. Two to the head, two to the body, two more to the head. Ethan hardly even paused for breath.

"Oi!"

"Little fucker!"

The friends, on their feet now.

Dealing with it.

How?

While they figured that out for themselves, Ethan continued beating the holy hell out of Dylan Drew, the boy's ears turning redder with every stinging blow, but not as red as the mist in front of Ethan's eyes. It was as if the stone fist had a will of its own now, and Ethan back behind the red mist wasn't in control of it anymore. The fist was empowering him, changing him, making him someone or something and he didn't know what. Something hot and alien was running through his veins. Mascara girl shrieked, "Stop it! Stop it!" But Gronow and Pamplin were still too stunned, too scared, to move.

The mist in front of Ethan coagulated in the air. It became a stream of blood which was coming from Dylan's nostrils and soon smeared his upper lip. The muscular crunch of the blows grew duller and duller in Ethan's ears and he could hear a" distantly a" another of the girls yelling, "Do something! Do something!" But nobody did.

Anyway, Dylan was weeping now the hitting had stopped, and Ethan was standing looking down at him, breathing through locked teeth, seeing his own breath as his adversary curled in a ball, wailing and sobbing and dripping blood from his broken nose.

And a shadow, giant, drew back from over him like an unrolled blanket.

And Ethan walked away, with no one standing in his path, and no words of abuse ringing in his ears. Only the sound of his own loud breathing, sounding like he'd run a hundred miles. But feeling he could run another thousand if he wanted to.

He took his hand out of his anorak pocket. Peeled off the oversized leather glove he was still wearing and pressed it flat back on top of its twin in the drawer. "Everything all right, love?" said his nan, from down in the kitchen. He saw a small red smear on its brown knuckle and touched it with his fingertip. He realized his heart was beating hard, still, as he slid closed the drawer and saw himself reflected in the dressing-table mirror. He wondered if he was a monster or a hero. He guessed he'd have to wait until he was a grownup to find out.

Dedicated to the memory of Dilwyn Mills Volk.

(1924-2007).

Evolution and Hellhole Canyon.

Don Winslow.

Desert species are larger. This isn't just my observation; its an evolutionary fact. Species in the desert have adapted larger body mass to diffuse the suns intense heat. Its true of the mammals, with their bigger frames, larger ears, and thicker tails. Its true of the reptiles a" they're just, well, bigger.

I thought about this and my own long, thick tail as I stared at the rattlesnake.

I'm adapted to the desert, an evolved creature, if you will; just like the snake that hissed at me, its large rattler making music like some kind of ancient ritual from the extinct people that inhabited this canyon for thousands of years.

They hadn't evolved.

But my concern now was not with them, but with the snake blocking my path, a narrow passage between two red-rock boulders twice as high as my head. The whole canyon was strewn with boulders, a geological anarchy, strewn about as if some god had had a temper tantrum and thrown his toys all over the place.

Unintelligent design; again, if you will.

It was this maze of sun-baked rock that I was trying to work my way through.

I was already hot, tired, and thirsty; and now this rattlesnake was in my way. In the desert, time equals survival. The longer you stay, the hotter you get, the more you dehydrate, the less chance your large body has to diffuse the heat. This is even more true in the narrow canyons where the sun reflects off the rocks, which store the heat and then disperse it, creating an oven.

I wanted out of the oven. I wanted to make it up to the oasis of palm trees, do my job, and get out of Hellhole Canyon.

The snake was a big one, all right, and it knew it. It had all the arrogance of the A-male, the dominant individual of its species. This boy was clearly successful, healthy, fat from hunting rats and mice. If a snake could be said to swagger, this one had swagger.

"We have a problem, big boy?" I asked.

"We don't," it hissed. "You might."

"Yeah?" I asked. "What's that?"

I tried to sound light and tough at the same time, but I was alert and ready to move. So was the snake; it was coiled to strike.

"It's one thing to go up a canyon," it said. "Another thing to come back down."

"Thanks for the wisdom," I said. "Are you going to let me through?"

Or do I have to swing my hammer-fist down and crush you, which I really don't want to do. Or try to do. I'm fast, but was I as fast as that rattler? It was a question to which I really didn't want an answer. Take it from a guy who's been in a lot of scrapes a" talking is always better than fighting. Guys who say different are usually standing on the sidelines, men in white shirts and two-hundred-dollar ties who sit in offices and encourage other men to go out and fight and die.

I doubted that the snakes bite could pierce my tough hide, but the fangs that it was showing me were big, and this was another question I preferred to leave to the realm of conjecture. Didn't want it on my headstone, He Guessed Wrong About The Fangs.

And it wasn't like anyone was going to come rushing in with the antidote. I was a long way from anywhere, in the desert a hundred miles east of San Diego, hard by the Mexican border.

Which was the point.

I looked down at the snake with a Well? look in my eye.

"I'll let you through," it said, "if you think you really want to go."

Want to go? Does anyone want to go on a gig like this? Since when did want have anything to do with it? You do your job, whether you want to or not.

Evolution is not a choice.

"Stamp my ticket," I said. "I'm going for the ride."

"Suit yourself," the snake said. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

Then it was just gone, disappeared into a crack in the boulder I didn't even realize was there. But then again, it had evolved to do just that. If it hadn't, it would long ago have fallen prey to one of the hawks that even now circled above, issuing its single-note, plaintive cry like another warning I wasn't going to heed. Higher in the sky three vultures wafted on a thermal, their keen eyes looking down, searching for the dead and dying.

They were large animals a" desert species.

"Not yet, you bastards," I muttered. "You're early for the party. Very bad manners."

I took a gulp of hot air and then bounded up the next section of the canyon, my red skin blending in with the rock, my tail switching from side to side, providing stability and balance, my tough skin impervious to the cholla and barrel cactus that lined the canyon like angry sentinels. It was easy to imagine dinosaurs in this place that sang of the prehistoric.

Is that me? I wondered.

Am I a dinosaur, too?

In some ways, I hoped so.

It took me ten minutes to climb to a flat stretch of rock from which I could see the palm oasis a half mile above me, a patch of dark green cut into a narrow notch between red cliffs. I stopped and let my heartbeat slow down, and when it did, I could hear running water above me in the oasis.

I laid flat down on the sheet of rock, blending in as much as I could.

Laid still as death, and watched.

Twenty minutes later I saw a flicker of movement in the palms. A flash of white fabric. A cool color for desert heat, but a mistake in this country of buff, tan, terracotta, and red. You don't wear white in the desert if you don't want to be seen.