Sally's lips formed words of their own: "He's so much better than an old man like you!"

"Old man?" the Sam-thing screamed. "I'll show you what an old man can do. You'll be sorry you ever met me!" His huge fists opened as he reached for his wife*.

But the real Sam was trapped in Sally's head. He was going to kill himself. He'd strangle his brand new neck with his original pair of hands, and there seemed to be nothing either of them could do about it.

He started to laugh, and Sally laughed with him.

But, no, he couldn't give up yet. He had used Sally's eyes, had turned Sally's head and lifted her arm. If he tried hard enough, he could learn to use her voice as well. He struggled to form words, actually spoke one or two. If only his new form wasn't laughing so hard. But he knew it was his laughter as well as Sally's. The situation was too horrible. It was too funny for words.

The Sam-thing covered his new mouth. He couldn't breathe. The other Sam was like an animal, pushing against him until he pressed the life out of this new body. He had to free himself. Everything was repeating itself from what had happened before-with one difference. Last time, he had been the killer. This time, he would be killed.

He saw movement, past Sam's shoulder. Hank had somehow managed to stand up. He was leaning heavily against the door frame. He looked wildly through Sally's eyes at the other man, willing him to look his way. Sally was being crushed by the Sam-thing's weight. In a minute she would be choked as well, choked to death. He willed her muscles to push, to free her of the huge bulk on top of her, but she didn't have the strength. She would die, unless he could get Hank to pull the Sam-thing off.

Sam's other hand reached for this throat! No! He wouldn't let this happen! Sally's left hand reached over the side of the bed, searching for the gun.

Sam's weight lifted off this new body for an instant, and then was back again. But it had been long enough. He felt the cool metal beneath his newfound fingers. He grabbed the gun with Sally's hand and lifted it toward the Sam-thing's head. The person who used to be him would have to see it. He would have to stop.

The other Sam pressed into his new windpipe. Sally's body couldn't breathe at all. Her hand brought the gun up so that the muzzle rested on Sam's forehead. He didn't stop. If any-thing, the pressure on her neck increased. Deep within her brain, Sam could feel the lack of oxygen. He was blacking out. In a minute, he would be dead.

He had to use her fingers again to pull the trigger.

He concentrated again, using every bit of strength left to him. He was not going to die. He would survive.

Sally's hand pulled the trigger.Instead of a gunshot, he heard the sound of breaking glass.

He stood in the doorway to the other room.

He looked down at his hands. Sam's hands. Or at least he thought they were his hands. He didn't know anymore. He tried to make sense out of what had happened. There was something about this room, or this hotel, or Sally's broken crystal, maybe all three, something that made you dream. Or was it a dream? He was afraid to turn around, to look in the room behind him. He was afraid he would see Sally's body. But more than that, he was afraid he would be dead as well.

Instead, he looked up into the light. Yes, he definitely saw the outlines of three figures now, endlessly moving and talk-ing. But he thought he saw others in the distance, on the edge of his vision, moving closer. What were they?

Should he try to get them to look at him, or should he try to sneak by them and escape? There had to be some way out of this. Somehow, he would find it.

He moved his hand beyond the door, feeling for a wall in the brightness. Somewhere, in this too-bright room, someone was laughing.

He heard the sound of smashing glass.

At first he heard the voices from a long way away.

"Stupid? How can you-"

"You don't understand at all, do you? Hank's real! Hank's alive! Na-na-he's so much better than an old man like you!"

"Old man? I'll show you what an old man can do. You'll be sorry you ever met me!"

He opened his eyes to a woman laughing. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog from his brain. The whole lower half of his face ached, like he had walked into a door. Or a fist.

What had happened now?

It had to be. He looked down at a pair of unfamiliar hands, with fingers far longer than Sam's, fingers that ended with manicured nails. He knew these hands, this suit, these shoes. He knew what he'd see if he looked in the mirror.

Whatever was going on here had happened again.

He was Hank now. And, in the room beyond him, the scene was playing out all over again. He wondered for an instant if it would repeat forever.

He used the door frame to pull himself upright. In the room beyond, Sam stood over Sally, strangling her. She flung her hand wildly across the carpet on the side of the bed, searching for her revolver. It would all happen again. He had to stop them, had to get them free of whatever had caught them in its web. He knew now that that was the only way he could free himself.

He saw Sally's eyes look beseechingly into his own. Sam shifted his weight, pressing hard down on her throat.

His balance wasn't too good, but the body he was in was young and well muscled, and he managed to make it to the bed, to get his hands around Sam's shoulders. He pulled Sam back for an instant.

Sally gasped for air. Her fingers curled around the gun.

Sam shrugged off his grip, like a grown man turning away from a three-year-old. But Sally had the gun up against Sam's head. She pulled the trigger. The bullet went in through the forehead and out through the base of the skull, spewing blood and bits of brain. Sam crashed forward heavily, his chest connecting with Sally's chin, pushing it back sharply. She stopped struggling.

It took Hank a minute to push the body off Sally. He al-ready knew it was too late. They were both dead.

He heard the sound of the wind again, the sound of the open door to the other room. He didn't turn around, though, not yet.

He knew who the three people were on the other side of the door. It had come to him all at once. They were Sally, and Sam, and Hank. Something had happened; maybe it was the broken crystal, maybe it was the first murder, maybe it was only the intensity of their emotions, let loose in this strange place. But, whatever it was, something here wanted it,and would not let them go. They were trapped here, to play out their little drama over and over.

Sam thought suddenly of the outside of this place, with its mass of useless ornamentation growing everywhere, like a fungus out of control. There were endless designs out there, and variations on designs piled on top of each other, so that all sense of any individual piece was lost.

Was that what was happening in this room as well? Was whatever had trapped him and Sally and Hank in this moment in time going to show him that moment over and over again? It was a crazy thought, but crazy things were happening. Or maybe none of this was happening at all. Maybe it was just a recurring dream, his imagination playing tricks on him. Or maybe he'd gone over the edge when he killed his wife.

He heard soft voices coming from the other room. Sally's voice, Hank's voice, his voice. It was as if this old hotel was haunted. Except there hadn't been any ghosts here, before the three of them arrived. Now, maybe they would be haunt-ing it, forever.

Or would they? He looked down at his new body. Hank Fields. Two people were dead on the bed, but he was still here. There was nothing to stop him from walking away from here, in a body twenty years younger than the one he had come here with. And, if he could get away from here, there'd be nothing to connect him with the two dead bodies on the bed. A domestic quarrel that ended tragically; that's what the police would call it.

He started to laugh. Whatever had held him here had slipped up. He was still alive, and in a fitter, younger body. He would get out of here and start his life all over again.

But why was he still alive? Maybe this game he was in didn't go on forever. Maybe there were only three variations after all. Poor Sally. Poor Hank. Poor everybody but him. He was going to get away scot free. He laughed even louder.

Someone banged on the door. He spun around. It was the door to the hallway, which had somehow gotten closed again. Someone rattled the handle. Apparently, it had gotten locked as well.

"Open up!" a man's voice called. "We heard the gunshot. Open up or we'll have to kick it down!"

No! Not when he was so close to getting away. He would get implicated; his fingerprints were all over the room, on Sam's coat and Sally's dress. For all he knew, they were on Sally's gun as well.

The other door opened. Laughter came from the other room. Hank's laughter.

"What, are you crazy in there?" the man's voice called from the hallway. "Stand away from the door. We're going to shoot off the lock."

They were coming for him with guns! He had to find an-other way out of here.

The door to the other room opened wider still, bright light spilling across the floor at his feet.

He heard the sound of glass, shattering.

REVELATIONS.

by Melissa Mia Hall

Neddy Jones is a lightning rod, a sensitive of such insecurity and fear he scares himself when he gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror. Especially when he sleeps on his hair wrong and it stands up funny. He blames it on Laura, Laura of the stricken blue eyes, dyed blonde hair and chipped fingernail polish, concave chest and clumsy limbs. Laura was one of the neediest women he'd ever met, a bird with two broken wings (a bird flew into his front window one day as she came onto his porch). He tried to help her with his Tarot readings, done at cut-rate prices because Laura never had a lot of money in her life. Money flew from her hands, seldom resting in her skinny palms.

Neddy never gave palm readings but the lines on those palms always seemed unfinished, like a doll's palms. He should've known what was going to hap-pen to her the first moment he held her nervous hand in his. Poor Laura. PoorNeddy. Outwardly he just looked over-worked and overtired. Certainly no one at work seems to notice how shaken he is, ever since Laura's suicide.

Neddy knew she would probably do it by the third visit. He thought he could avert it somehow. He told himself he couldn't actually see death. No one knows when a person is going to die. Only God. Neddy just saw the restlessness, the sorrow, the doom, the great unhappiness pulling her away from the ground. He thought he could change her mind about life. Readings change. People change. Good things happen that are not foreseen. It broke his heart when they did not, with Laura.

She was such a mess. Maybe he loved her. Looking back over things past is a hopeless task, like drifting in tea leaves. Like drifting through these income tax records scattered across his desk. He likes his quiet accounting job.

Normally, he even enjoys the challenge of the new tax laws. But not today. Today all he sees is the vaguely distracted features of Laura's lost face.

The cards were just a hobby, something he did to charm his friends.

Laura just got hooked. Neddy read her cards every week, using them to lure her into his life, empty as hell after he broke up with his last girlfriend. She was cute, if a little off-center.

He needs to get away. Even the Tarot has told him that. At least he thinks that's what it said. Things will get better if he goes away. Since Laura's death he's not so sure about things anymore. Psychic blindness has descended upon him like a white blizzard. He still feels things, though, and he feels he has to go away. He must. He brushes back his hair and wishes he'd had it cut but his barber's an old buddy and he might ask him to do another reading and he can't.

He won't.

Checking into a hotel at night is a surreptitious ordeal. The dark cloaks your actions. The approach to the building of endless windows like so many eyes, watching you. Neddy stumbles out of the cab and the driver starts to get out to help him with his bag. Neddy says he doesn't need any help and stuffs a wad of bills in his hand. The driver grins and thanks him loudly. Neddy is embarrassed. He's acting like a country bumpkin out on his first vacation. The driver roars away, his cab belching smoke. Bad gas. Neddy clutches his bag and stares at the SeaHarp Hotel, listening to the faint sound of ocean and whistling night wind.

Two mammoth stone dogs flank the entrance to this hotel, surely not ancient, but certainly old enough to have known countless visitors. Neddy takes an apprehensive breath and steps forward, then stops again. A porter comes towards him, frowning. Neddy feels embarrassed again, naughty, terribly young and foolish, like he's been caught running away from home by his dad. An especially strong ray of moonlight il-luminates the porter's gloomy face. He holds out his hand for Neddy's weathered Samsonite. Neddy shakes his head and the porter looks offended. Belatedly, Neddy hands it over to him. The porter nods his head and the frown relaxes slightly. "Sir," he says, "welcome to Greystone Bay."

Neddy follows him past the dogs-he almost thinks he hears a muffled animal noise, a snuffling, pawing sound and imag-ines that they must come alive at midnight. He peeks at his watch and feels curiously satisfied that it's only nine-thirty.

The hotel is austerely handsome and alarmingly empty. Neddy feels like he's blundered onto a film set waiting for the crew to arrive. A vague movement catches his eye, a newspaper flapping on a sofa-a newspaper held in front of two crossed legs. Someone. Neddy lets out a sigh of relief and the porter glares at him. He's stopped in the middle of the lobby. The porter wants him to check in at the desk. Flushing hotly, Neddy does as expected and a woman ap-pears seemingly out of nowhere, also frowning. Neddy grins and greets her with a flashing American Express card.

She keeps frowning and Neddy's spirit continues the descent it had begun the morning he'd decided to leave Cedar Bridge and come here to Greystone Bay, Laura's native stomping grounds. He thought the sea air would do him good.

Shit. He thought her spirit would find him here. If it exists.

"Reservation?" the woman asks, the frown lifting as her fingers close over the card.

"No-"

"Well, we're rather full up-"

Neddy's mouth drops open slightly. Unbelievable.

"But I think we can handle it-"

She's joking? Years drop away from her face as a smile leaks out."Great. My name's Ned Jones-"

She taps her nameplate, "Lana Cates, at your service. Fill this out please and sign there-if you will. Here's your room key-enjoy your stay.''

"I think I'll stay a week-if there's any problem-"

She turns her back on Neddy, rudely oblivious.

"I mean, there won't be any problem, will there be, do you think?" Neddy insists on seeing her face again, to see her smile just one more time. He needs a smile. She turns back around and smiles brightly. She's very tan and very blonde, a natural blonde, of sand, of sun, of blue ocean sky. The way Laura wanted to be, what she called "one of them Malibu blondes." Oh, she's young, Neddy discovers. She wears a senior class ring for '85. High school. When he walked in she seemed so much older.

"No problem at all, this is actually the off-season. The water's getting too cold for swimming. We do have a heated swimming pool here, of course-but the ocean and the wind's getting nippy." She toys with a gold nugget-type pendant on a chain around her neck. "The bar's still open. The coffee shop's open-" she looks at the wall clock, "for thirty more minutes. And of course, our room service is excellent. Have a nice stay-"

The porter's been waiting all this time. As Lana Cates turns away again, with a determined whip of her hips, Neddy faces the man apologetically.- "Really, I can handle my bag, thanks-" He reaches out for his bag and the porter relin-quishes it with a disapproving grunt. Neddy hands him a five and he fades away into the shadows. Neddy heads for the elevators, glancing at his doorkey.

His room stuns him. It's a corner room with an incredible view. He pulls back the curtains and lets the full impact take his breath away. Full moonlight on water, crashing breakers, and pale shape of unlittered rocks and beach. He hears the waves. He turns off the light next to the huge king-size bed and savors the silvery light faintly tainted by a couple of manmade lights on the pier. He shakes with a sudden chill.

It's just September but it feels like January. He remembers Laura's last kiss, a kiss fleeting and sweet, sweeping across forehead and haphazardly down his cheek. "I gotta go, Neds, I gotta go." She called him that-Neds, rhymes with Keds. She always made him feel about fifteen. He tried to make her stay that night. She was a walking tower of destruc-tion, that girl. "Hey, stay over, kiddo, I'll sleep on the sofa, really." Her vacant eyes considered his words. She chewed on a thumb nail and spat out flecks of metallic red. "Naw, I gotta go, Neds."

She gotta go, Neds. She gotta slit her wrists and watch the blood go across the tiles. She gotta go.

Why was she so sad, so beaten and unhappy? Something about her family. She hated her father. She hated her life.

She didn't have a direction, a focus. She couldn't keep a job. She got bored, she said. She seldom paid her rent on time.

One impulsive night he told her she could move in with him for a while. She just laughed and Neddy felt a secret relief.

For a while they slept together but one evening she told him she didn't care for all that sex crap and then had cried because she was afraid she'd hurt his feelings (maybe his ego). "You're my only friend now, Neds, my only one and I mean that." If only he could've reached her somehow. She was always so distant and disconnected. God, it hurts.

Suddenly the moon's too bright, too knowing. He shuts the curtains, turns on the TV and every light in the room.

He'll order room service hamburger and chips. And a cup of hot tea. No booze. No dope. He's going to sit in this room and come clean. And let go to let her in. But the room feels so opaque and withholding. He feels in the grip of some-thing. Or no, he doesn't feel, he doesn't feel at all. It scares him.

He fumbles in his pocket for his lucky penny. As he flips it into the air, he thinks, heads the sun won't come up in the morning, tails, it will. Heads. He groans. Laura wasn't so great. He'd just gotten used to her slinging herself down on his sofa, draping her legs with artful clumsiness across the side. Used to her popping bubble gum and pulling on a strand of her stringy worn-out hair. Used to her saying, "So how am I gonna handle this week, Neds?" and roaming in his refrigerator for her diet Dr Peppers.

Of course, it doesn't matter now.

He opens his suitcase and starts rooting around for his cards. At first he had thought he wouldn't bring them along.

But they reassure him of his sanity (or insanity?). He holds the box to his chest for a moment and then takes out the cards. He wants to look at their dear familiar faces, especially number nineteen, Mr. Sun. He uses the deck illustrated by David Palladini and the sun's face is so gentle and humor-ously benign that seeing it always soothes and calms hisspirit. Neddy turns the first card over, hoping it will be Mr. Sun and is shocked by a blank card. He shuts his eyes and rubs them. He looks back down at the card in his hand. Blank white paper face. Face of nothing Arcanum number minus zero. He turns over another and another. All blank. The Tarot deck, composed of his beloved friends, all gone.

Replaced by nothing. A prank by one of his disappointed friends? He thinks back over recent readings and recalls nothing partic-ularly disturbing, other than Laura's consistently morose readings.

Doesn't seem fair. Neddy wants to cry, would love to let go and let the tears fall, but can't. He doesn't think he's ever cried. Once, maybe when he was at his mother's funeral. He was only ten. It was okay. His dad didn't say a word, just held him. Maybe he could just visualize Mr. Sun, that round white face of orange-red and orange-yellow, the book below him open before the loving rays. It's probably the Bible, Neddy thinks and feels himself praying. The sun represents God, he thinks. He needs God right now real bad. He grips the deck of blank cards too tightly and suddenly they burst out of his hands, spraying across the floor. Who'd do a mean trick like that, stealing his cards? At least he has his lucky penny. He put it on the night table. At least he thought he did. It's gone now. Probably on the floor. It'll turn up some-where. And he's got change. Nowhere is it written that you can't use a nickel or a quarter. Besides, he's a sensitive and he doesn't need help when it comes to feeling things. Except all he feels now is a curious blankness, a numbness. What is it they call it in broadcasting-dead air? The future just seems to have no purchase here, no substance. Even the past seems too distant. At this moment when he tries to recall Laura's face, there are no features, just a pink oval with two dark smudges for eyes. Her voice is indistinct, as well, a strangled whisper.

Dead air. He calls room service finally and stammers out his request for food. He concentrates on the flickering TV screen and turns up the volume. At least he'll dream tonight, maybe have a nice old reassuring nightmare. And what's he griping for? He needs a rest. He'll sit here and watch Entertainment Tonight or Carson, chow down on a cheeseburger with lots of ketchup. Did he ask them to bring plenty of ketchup? Hope they'll remember, Neddy prays.

Neddy prays a lot.

He slept deeply for a couple of hours but now he's wide awake and restless. He's gone to the bathroom five times.