The clash of opposites couldn't have been more profound: terror and arousal. The shapely shadow figure manipulated itself above him; then eager, deft hands pulled his shorts down and dabbled with his genitals. I've got to get up! Collier thought. I've got to find out who this is...

But he couldn't. He couldn't budge.

Now the figure slid over his hips; he could tell-thank G.o.d-that the intruder was a woman, and a rather insistent one. Collier's arousal strained; then the figure adjusted itself and suddenly he was engaged in intercourse with someone he couldn't identify.

The figure's hips began to stroke up and down over Collier's helpless member. He remained lain out on his back as this person took him in the dark. He heard the faintest moans as his own climax impinged. Bedsprings creaked as the rhythm rose...

The dream rigor released just moments before he'd o.r.g.a.s.m; his hand shot out and turned on the light.

It was Lottie, grinning down at him.

Reason of the most unpleasant sort flooded his awareness once the paralysis was gone- Lottie continued riding him, her grinning face bearing down, and he was pretty sure she mouthed these words: Knock me up!

More terror, then, as more awareness returned. Collier heaved her hips off him, severing the coitus. "d.a.m.n it, Lottie! You don't just sneak into a guy's room and start...doing him!"

She giggled silently.

He snapped his shorts back up over the straining erection. Knock me up, he thought in the worst dread. At least he'd interrupted the intercourse before he'd climaxed but still, he knew that was no guarantee. Errant sperms in preejaculatory fluid could indeed make women pregnant-couldn't they?-and making Lottie pregnant was a prospect he shuddered to contemplate.

"You have to get out of here, Lottie!"

She shook her head. Collier had to s.n.a.t.c.h her hand away when she reached for his groin.

"Get out, get out, get out!" he half shouted, but only now did he take full note of her trim, toned naked body. Christ...She leaned over him, still tipsy, and began to rub his chest.

"Just-stop. No more of this, okay? I'm not in the mood; I just had an awful nightmare." But even as he said it, the ghastly nightmare's pall took a backseat to more primal impulses. "Go back to your room, just-" But his l.u.s.t kept tipping. He stared slack-jawed at her bonbonsize nipples atop the ripe-fruit b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The tight stomach curved down...

Finish the job! that other voice said. What's WRONG with you!

His hand began to rise to a breast, but then retracted...

Have some common sense for once! he berated himself. "Lottie, no. We can't do this, it's not right. You're still drunk, and your mother's already mad enough at you, so just go back to your room!" He pushed her back with some urgency.

I love you! her silent lips told him.

Collier groaned. There's always something, isn't there? "Lottie, look, you can't possibly love me."

She wagged her head up and down.

"We've only known each other a few hours, and besides, I live in California, and I'm married."

She shrugged energetically, still drunk but enlivened by him. She got on her knees at the bedside and began to rub the inside of his thighs.

Collier grabbed her hands again. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen, he knew. And-s.h.i.t!-what if she really DOES get pregnant? I'd be ruined. He wanted her out of here so he could simply go back to bed. But he didn't want to be caustic, and he didn't want to hurt her feelings. What a pain in the a.s.s. "Lottie, you're a beautiful girl but this can't happen again. You understand that, right?"

Now she frowned, and the frown turned sad.

Collier got up, put on his robe, and wrapped her up in a clean bedsheet from the dresser. "Come on, you have to go." He opened the door and stepped out with her. It was his very best luck that no one else stood in the hall to see them.

"Just go to bed now," he began. "You had too much to drink tonight, and that's why this happened. You'll feel better tomorrow..."

But then he paused as the words left his lips because he heard something.

From the bedroom, he felt sure.

A voice from the bedroom. Very light.

A woman's voice. A drifting accent...

"Come on, sweetie, there's one more thing ya gotta do for me."

Then a rougher voice, a man's. "I'm done, now I gotta get out'a here."

"No, no, not yet. Do it-you know."

Collier's hands froze on Lottie's shoulders.

Who the h.e.l.l is in my bedroom!

His eyes beseeched Lottie's. "Did you hear that?"

But all Lottie could offer was the familiar drunken grin.

Collier pulled himself back into the room. Looked around.

There was no one there.

But what did he expect? I know I heard voices, he told himself. It sounded like they were coming from here but...

Had someone come into the room, then left just as quickly, all in the few seconds he'd been standing outside the door with Lottie? Was there some alternate entrance?

All right. I'm just tired. I heard some voices through the air duct, from another room is all.

The stair hall remained clear. "Go to bed, Lottie," he whispered. "And hurry. Someone could see us out here."

Lottie, ever grinning, headed drunkenly down the stair hall.

"Do it! You know! Like last time..."

The drifting female voice again.

"Who the h.e.l.l's here?" Collier barged back into his room.

The bedroom remained empty.

He brought his hands to his face, rubbed his eyes.

Jesus, I'm cracking up.

But now, now, he heard something else. A panting sound?

Like a dog panting.

Collier's hands slowly lowered.

By the baseboard, a small, ugly dog snuffled. Was it eating? Now came licking sounds...

Collier stared in disbelief.

How the h.e.l.l did a dog get in here!

It was lean, mud colored, a mongrel. It didn't seem aware of Collier as it snuffled around the baseboard.

Collier, unmindful of how this might look, loped after Lottie and caught up with her just before she'd start downstairs. He grabbed her arm and looked right into her eyes.

"Lottie. Do you have a dog?"

She shook her head no.

"Do any guests have pets with them?"

Another shake.

He scratched his head. "There's a dog in my room, Lottie. First I heard it, then I saw it."

Lottie's grin disappeared. Very slowly, she shook her head no.

"Just...come and see so I know I'm not going nuts." And then he guided her sheet-draped form back to his bedroom door, opened it, and took her in.

No dog was present.

"That's...crazy," Collier mumbled. "First I heard voices, then-I swear-I heard and saw a dog."

Lottie tightened the sheets around her body, slipped back out of the room, and scurried away.

It was now that Collier's drunkenness crept up on him. Don't think about it, he begged himself. He relocked the door, checked the closet, checked every corner as well as under the bed to make certain there was no dog in the room.

When he went to bed, he left the light on.

Shapeless dreams haunted the murk of his sleep. Sounds: Children laughing?

A dog barking?

And, later, the voices.

The woman: "Just do it!"

The man: "Good G.o.d, you are one dirty broad to want me to do somethin' like that."

"Just...do it..."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

I.

1857.

A rugged man in a leather hat by the name of Cutton rode them up the main street on a new two-horse wagon. The steeds looked strong and healthy, and the wagon had iron-spoked wheels and slat springs: more proof that Gast had a lot of money behind him. The air of the street cleared Poltrock's head quickly. He felt purged.

"So how far's the junction?"

"Not but two miles, just out of town," Cutton said. He sounded like a Marylander, or a Delawarean.

"It's a nice town," Poltrock observed of the clean streets and well-constructed buildings. Women in bonnets and bustle dresses strolled past shops with tidy men in tailcoats. Orderly slaves off-loaded goods from wagons.

"It sure is. We got a fine wh.o.r.ehouse here, and, well, I saw you in Cusher's Tavern last night so you know we got good liquor. The general store's always full up, and folks come from all over to buy boots from our cobbler. We even got a doctor and an apothecary."

Just then the horses pulled them past a sign: GAST-POP. 616.

"Yes," Poltrock said. "This town's got more to be said for it than Chattanooga. Strange I ain't never heard of it."

"Used to be called Branch Landing since we got statehood in '96. Weren't nothing but a little trading post then. Called it that 'cos three main roads branch out from here, one to Richmond, one to Lexington, and one to Mana.s.sas, the three biggest Southern rail junctions that have lines from Washington. But once Mr. Gast came to town, they just said to h.e.l.l with it and named the town Gast. These folks worship the ground he walks on. He built everything here."

"Plantation money's what I heard," Poltrock said over the next b.u.mp.

"Owns thousands of acres, here and other states, too."

"What other states?"

"Don't know."

"This ain't Virginia, you know, or the North. How's one private man own all that land and manage the Indians?"

"Killed 'em. What did you think?"

Past the final buildings on the main street, they could see the Gast House.

Poltrock shuddered at a chill. His sickness had pa.s.sed. He hadn't known what to make of any of it when he'd been inside. That...house, he thought. The vision, the smell. "Can't say I care for the house, though."

Cutton said nothing as he tended his reins.

"A fine house to look at, but I mean...there's just somethin' funny about it. I swear I was seein' things, hearin' things, even smellin' things."