The words were gone.

Janice sat down on the floor, pulled her knees to her chest, and grasped the slick piece of gla.s.s, wincing as she pried it from the thick callous on her heel. Blood smeared across the bottom of her foot like finger paint.

Then a smell. Ink.

Janice blinked, unsure of her eyes. Like waves of ants, the words came. They mounted an a.s.sault, driving their tiny, sans-serifed feet into the soft flesh of her ankles, calves, and the back of one hand as she leaned on the floor. The pain burned, a thousand pinp.r.i.c.ks of fire, and she slumped back, cracking her head.

They blotted her eyes, swarming toward her mouth, and she could scarcely hear the other jars as they struck the floor, one after another, as the rest of her words joined the onslaught.

Chapter 36: Fuzzy.

The bright wreaths, teddy bears, and colorful drawings were out of place in the somber decor of the Kurtis Brothers' Funeral Parlor, but a child's funeral was never a normal affair. At the front of the chapel, flanked by flowers and mourners, sat the open coffin of little Tommy Bellinger, age three and a half, his face yellow wax, his hair too orderly, and his expression too dour. A small, sky-blue blanket rested under his folded hands.

"What's with the blanket?"

Kyle Kurtis, always respectful in his black suit and conservative tie, placed a hand on his junior partner's shoulder, led him a few steps toward the back of the room, and bent to his ear. "The mother insisted. Said the kid never went anywhere without it. Said he was holding it when the truck-well, you know."

"Oh." The younger man glanced at the coffin and then to the sober couple in black at its right.

Kurtis shrugged. "The customer is always right."

Later that night, after the wake was over and all the relatives were tucked neatly into motel rooms across town, Jacob Bellinger woke to the clanging of trash cans being dumped outside his bedroom window. He half-rose from bed and leaned on an elbow, kneading his forehead with the other hand. "s.h.i.t."

"Jake?"

"Sorry to wake you, Mags."

Another crash.

"Ah h.e.l.l," he muttered. "Gillespie's dogs are at it again. Or one of those d.a.m.n racc.o.o.ns I've been reading about in the paper."

Maggie Gillespie rolled off the side of the bed, tucked wisps of brown hair behind both ears, and shuffled around the footboard toward the window. "I wasn't sleeping. I couldn't sleep." She stopped short of the window and wrapped her arms over both shoulders in a self-hug.

Jacob closed his eyes and nodded his head slowly. He rose and caught his wife, squeezing her gently with his long arms. "I wish I could-"

Another muted crash from outside the house interrupted him.

"Those G.o.dd.a.m.n dogs. I'll have to chase them away. Maybe call the cops." He pushed his naked feet into a pair of plaid slippers.

The phone rang, startling them both, and Maggie scanned the alarm clock on Jacob's dresser. "11:14. Who would be calling now...with the funeral tomorrow?" She drifted to the phone and lifted it from the cradle.

Probably Gillespie telling me those G.o.d-forsaken mutts are loose again. Jacob started for the door, wondering whether he should grab his broom or air rifle this time, when another sound, almost like the sob of a child, wrenched his attention to the window.

"Mr. Kurtis?" Maggie's voice was as and pale as her cheeks. "What...I don't understand..." She began to shake.

Through the window, Jacob Bellinger watched a shape, a dark shadow too tall for a dog, rummage through the strewn trash. The side of the house was dark, but he could see the form, the size of a child, flit around in the gloom.

"Maggie...it's a burglar...I think. Definitely a person. A short one." Jacob's voice was hushed and serious. He turned to face his wife, her face sucked white save for the heavy bags of faded purple under each eye. "Mags...what is it?" Fear pressed against Jacob's back.

"The funeral home." She spoke as a robot. "Tommy...they called the police...this has never happened...."

Jacob clenched his fists against the cold fingers walking his spine. "What is it?"

"The body is gone...Tommy is gone. Missing."

Another almost-human cry sounded outside followed by a thud. The cold fingers wrapped around the back of Jacob's neck. It's impossible. Impossible. He shivered. A terrible realization coiled in his brain. "Oh G.o.d...he's looking for it..."

Maggie stumbled to the bed and sat on the corner; tears skated down her cheeks. Her eyes, wide and lost, burned toward her husband. "Who? Jacob, what are you saying?"

Jacob staggered to the window, his back pressing against the cold gla.s.s. "I-I replaced Tommy's blankie with a new one. Fuzzy was dirty, Mags. Stained. I threw it away. I-I didn't think-"

Maggie, fueled with grief and horror, sprang from the bed and shoved past her husband to the window. Her eyes searched the shadows outside and saw it moving below, something the size of her son, hunched over the spilled trash, searching. "He never goes anywhere without his blankie," she whispered.

Jacob slumped to the floor, shaking his head. "I...I didn't think he'd know the difference..."

Chapter 37: Words Per Minute.

The man with nine fingers leans forward, his face cut with shadows and light under the lamp. "You got 'em, Manny?"

"Sure." Manny places a crinkled paper sack on the table, reaches inside, and produces a rag. He unwraps the first layer of the rag, revealing dark stains on the folds underneath."Five choices this time...hope one works."

The man with nine fingers slides his right hand under the lamp. The pinkie is severed at the second joint, a clean cut with little scar tissue.

"This one ain't gonna work," he says, lifting one finger from the cloth. "Too short. They'd snipped it at the wrong knuckle."

Manny nods and dabs his damp forehead with the back of his arm.

The man with nine fingers proceeds to try each remaining pinkie next to his stump, scrutinizing them under the harsh lamplight, comparing skin tone, size, fit. With a grunt, he tosses the last on the rag with the others and pushes away from the table.

"No good?" Manny asks even though he knows.

"No."

Manny collects the cast offs in his paper sack. "I'll see what I can do...but really, is it worth--"

"Yes, it is." The man with nine fingers frowns. "I don't mind the quotation mark so much--I don't write a lot of dialogue. But the return. The return key is a stretch. Slows me down."

Manny fidgets with the paper sack, crinkling it in his fists.

"It's NaNoWriMo, Manny." The man with nine fingers knocks on the table. "I gotta get my WPM up there. 50K ain't gonna type itself."

Chapter 38: Everything in its Place.

The mail boxes were labeled wrong. That was the first hint that Lucey should have canceled her reservation at El Hotel de la Trampa. She wasn't too fond of other aspects of the lobby, either: cheap candy in gaudy foil wrappers sat in a gla.s.s fish bowl on the counter, the strange man on the sofa who kept looking at her...

"Can I help you?"

Lucey's attention shifted to the clerk.

"Oh. Sorry...I was," Lucey forced a smiled, "I need to check in."

The man opened the guest book and pushed a pen across the counter. "Reservation?"

"Yes. Harrison. Lucey Harrison."

He turned to the mailboxes, but looked over his shoulder. "What is it you do, Senora?"

"Oh...I'm not married. Why do you..." Lucey's eyebrows knit together. "Well, I work with books."

The clerk's brown eyes burned into hers. "A teacher?" His hand slid into one of the boxes, fishing for the key.

"No. A librarian. Only an a.s.sistant, really."

His hand stopped, crept out of the box, and plunged into another labeled with a 'G'. "Si." He moved to the counter and dropped a heavy bra.s.s-colored key. "Your room. Second floor." With a nod to her bags, he asked, "Would you like some help?"

Lucey took the key and shook her head. Her peripheral vision caught the face of the man on the lobby sofa. Was he watching her?

"Senorita?"

"No, I'm fine. Second floor?"

The clerk smiled, showing a mouth of teeth mismatched and yellow.

Maybe next time I won't travel on the cheap, she thought.

Lucey avoided the elevator and took the stairs. As she opened the door to the second floor hallway, a shadow moved at the end of the hall, perhaps someone entering their room. Gooseb.u.mps crawled up her arms. She read the key, simply labeled G, and felt the grooves of the embossed letter.

The first door on the right was labeled 'H'; on the left she found the letter 'A'. She walked further, dragging her suitcase across the worn carpet. Room designations descended on the left in alphabetically order, but 'G' came directly after 'E'. Lucey felt the blood in her face.

"Disorder and chaos. Not very helpful at all," she mumbled.

Her key slid into the lock, but would not open the door.

"Wait a second..."

The door was clearly labeled with a 'G'-a bra.s.s letter screwed to the center of the door. She touched it, and then tried the key again. Nothing.

Lucey shook her head at the thought of asking the clerk for help. The door was scratched around the bra.s.s letter. Maybe a prank, she thought. From the left side of the hall, Lucey counted seven doors. She was at the sixth.

With a soft click, the key slid into the lock of the seventh door. Lucey turned the k.n.o.b, and pushed inside. The air was cool and clean. She worried about moldy smells or the lingering odor of tobacco after seeing the state of the lobby, but all seemed in order. Good.

Her folding screwdriver set-the miniature kit for repairing eyegla.s.ses-was in the front pouch of her suitcase. Lucey Harrison wanted rest, but she also needed her room letter set right. It wouldn't do to have some stranger try to enter in the night. Whoever played the prank could not be allowed to let chaos seep in to a logical world.

Worse than the books at work, she thought. She slipped her key in one pocket, and began uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her letter 'G'. Only three letters were out of place overall, and she fixed them. It was quick work really, as only one screw held each letter in place. Quick work and proper order.

Her job done, Lucey tried her own door-'G'-again. The key would not work. She glanced down the hall and counted again. Seven. The key still would not work.

But my bag is inside, she thought. Lucey Harrison's stomach began to knot, a p.r.i.c.kly, unpleasant feeling.

She hurried down the stairs to the lobby-something I should have done immediately, she self-chastised. The first sign of things gone wrong sat in the fish bowl on the counter. Instead of the brightly wrapped candies, the bowl was now teeming with small snails-too many, really, for such a small container. Her eyes swept the rest of the room, noting the now-alphabetized mail boxes behind the counter, the artificial palm tree where once stood a display of vacation brochures. The old man still sat with his paper, but now the sofa was a deep burgundy.

"May I help you?"

The clerk was wrong, too. He smiled, and his teeth were too white. Perfect. His once-brown eyes had lost all color, and now reflected her startled image in their grey irises. Lucey looked at the key in her hand, but staggered a few steps away.

"You...you're not..."

Lucey jumped as a hand patted her on the shoulder.

"Come with me," the man with a newspaper said.

The clerk's grey eyes sent a frost into Lucey's chest. She allowed the newspaper man to pull her aside, close to the main entrance.

"Is this a joke?" She asked, her voice shaking.

"I wish." The man smiled; not a warm smile, but one of knowing. "How'd they get you?"