Then she saw that it was drawing away from her.

As if the tow line were stretching.

Slowly, the running lights faded with distance, until they vanished entirely. Even the sound of the outboards died away.

There was silence except for the hiss of her skis.

The tow rope led into darkness.

She was alone.

Except for the thing under the river.

Oh God, what am I going to...

Cold hands grabbed her ankles, tugged her straight down. She was still on her skis, still speeding at the end of the tow line, but under the surface. The water pushed at her. It filled her open mouth, muffling her scream as the hands scurried up her legs.

She felt the thing's icy flesh against her back. It was standing on the skies behind her, riding them, reaching around her front, grabbing her hands, trying to rip them from the wooden bar. She held on with all her might.

If I let go, he 'II have me!

He snapped her left arm. Broke it off at the elbow. Her hand still clutched the bar for a moment, trailing its severed forearm. Then the rushing current took them away.

A hand clamped over her mouth. It pinched her nostrils shut.

She fought to suck in air.

Somehow, she'd been able to breathe in spite of the water gushing down her throat, but the hand was different. It was solid. Her lungs burned.

She grabbed the hand and woke up and the hand was still there, mashing her bruised mouth, pinching her nostrils shut.

"Don't make a sound, Jessica."

Frantic for a breath, she nodded. The hand lifted. She sucked air into her starved lungs.

"Had a little nightmare?" he whispered.

He was on the bed, sitting on her, leaning forward and holding her by the shoulders. Jessica was no longer covered by her sheet. In the glow of moonlight from the windows, she saw that Kramer was shirtless. From the hot feel of his skin where he sat on her, she knew that he'd removed all his clothes before climbing onto her. He had slipped her nightshirt up, too. Her left forearm rested against her chest, its cast heavy and cool.

"You bastard."

"Shhh. If you wake up your parents, I'll have to kill them. And you.

I'll have to kill everyone. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"

"No," she whispered.

"I didn't imagine you would."

"What do you want?" she asked. The stupid question of the year.

What he wanted was obvious. But she'd thought it was over.

Saturday night she'd told him it was over, told him that he could find another girl, threatened to get him fired if he didn't stop. That had been the stupid threat of the year. But after finishing his little "lesson," he'd said, "I'm sick of you anyway, you disgusting slut."

"I've been thinking," he whispered. "I've been worrying."

"I'b not going to tell."

"How do I know that?"

"Don't hurt be. Blease."

"I didn't come here to hurt you, Jessica. I'm here for only one reason. Well, maybe two." He laughed softly. She squirmed as a hand slid down from her shoulder and squeezed her breast. "I'm here to teach you a lesson. A lesson about safety. For you, there is no safety.

Do you understand?" She nodded.

"If you should ever happen to tell someone about me, I'll come into your home just as I did tonight. There will be one difference. I'll have a straight razor in my hand. I'll begin by slashing the throats of your parents while they sleep. And then I'll come to you." A fingernail circled her nipple. "I'll cut you very badly. Everywhere. It may take all night. And just before dawn I'll open your throat from ear to ear. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Very good." The pale blur of his face drifted down. He kissed her sore lips. "Very good," he whispered again.

Eleven

Except for the struggle on Monday morning to come up with a new story, Larry had spent the entire week on Night Stranger. That book was coming along fine. But what about the next?

He didn't feel like wracking his mind for a new idea. So much easier to stick with the familiar territory of Night Stranger. He knew where that book was going, and enjoyed the excitement of guiding it there.

This was Friday.

He couldn't keep avoiding the problem forever.

Think how much better you'll feel, he told himself, once you've come up with a great plan for the next book.

A great plan that does not include a stiff under the stairs with a stake in its heart.

He found the disk from Monday, put it into his word processor and tapped out commands until "Novel Notes- Monday, October 3"

appeared at the comer of the screen. As he cleaned a pipe and loaded it with fresh tobacco, he skimmed the amber lines. About three pages worth of material. And nothing.

A lot of crap about their vampire.

"In effect," he read, "you have this gorgeous thing as your slave.

"Real possibilities."

Sure.

Better luck today.

Larry lit his pipe. Below "Real possibilities" he typed, "Notes- Friday, October 7.

"How about a tribe of desert scavengers?" he wrote, recalling the idea he'd toyed around with shortly before the van reached Sagebrush Flat. "They arrange 'accidents' on the back roads, then fall upon the unlucky travelers.

"Too much like The Hills Have Eyes. Besides, I already did something along those lines in Savage Timber."

Larry scowled at the screen. He wished he hadn't reminded himself of Savage Timber. That damn novel, his second, had nearly destroyed his career. A major release, and all it did was sit in the stores, thanks to that damn green foil artsy-fart cover.

Don't think about it, he told himself.

Come on, a new idea.

"How about a guy who finds the remains of an old jukebox? He restores it to working order, and..."

And what?

"It doesn't have any records in it. He puts in his own. But it doesn't play the new ones. All it will play are the oldies-but-goodies that used to be in it. Back before it was shot to pieces by... Hey, maybe it wants revenge on the vandals who used it for target practice. "Great. A pissed-off jukebox. What does it do, scoot around and electrocute people?

"Could be like a time machine. The guy gets it working, and it shoves him into the past. So he finds himself stranded in Holman's-or a dive of some kind-back in the mid-sixties.

"Has possibilities.

"Maybe the box wants him there to have a showdown with the jerks who plugged it. A motorcycle gang, or something. A real nasty bunch.

"The poor guy doesn't know what's in store for him. But he's plenty upset. It's Twilight Zone time. One minute he's with his wife and kids, has a nice house and a good job. Suddenly, bam, he finds himself in a diner in a dying town twenty-five years in the past. Freaks him out. All he wants to do is get home.

"Until he finds himself falling for a beautiful young waitress. At that point he begins to appreciate his situation.

"Things start to get ugly when a gang of biker thugs thunders into town.

"Suppose the real reason the jukebox took him there was to save the waitress? Neat. The jukebox likes her. Sometimes, alone at night after the diner closes, she has it play her favorite tunes, and she dances alone in the dark.

"The way things went down, first time around, the bikers raped and murdered her. The jukebox has brought our hero back to the diner to alter the course of history-to save her.

"Which, of course, he does.

"Mission accomplished, the box let's him go home again. But he misses the beautiful waitress. (Okay, he didn't have a wonderful wife and kids. He was divorced, or something.) He goes looking for the gal.

Finds her.

"She's his mother. He's his own father. He got her pregnant during their brief time together back in '65, and he was the baby she had.

"He'd have to be about thirty years old in the present. She could be about twenty-five when he met her in the diner.

"She had to give up the baby (our hero) for some reason. He was adopted, and always curious about the identity of his parents.

"If she is his mother, we could give him back his wife and kids.

"Neater if he finds the waitress in the present and they resume as lovers. But how would that work with their ages? Say he's thirty in the present. How could the gal be anywhere near his age when he finds her again? If she's thirty now, she would've been five when he saved her from the bikers.

"What if the waitress he fell in love with was her mother? That would make the daughter just his age in the present. And she is the spitting image of her mother, the gal he loved.

"Not bad. Might work."

Larry's pipe had gone out. He could tell by the easy draw that nothing remained in the bowl but ash. He set the pipe into its holder and returned his fingers to the keyboard.

"Our main guy resurrects the jukebox. It seems evil at first, but turns out to be a force for good. And a matchmaker. He falls for the waitress, who happens to have a really cute little girl at the time.

Plenty of thrills and spills and nasty crap with the bikers (make them total degenerates, monsters). By facing them down (he's scared, but comes through, proving to himself that he's a man), he ends up saving the kid who will later become his true love.

"Why not?"

Larry grinned at the screen.

All right! You've got it. Spend the next couple of days working out the details, and...

The next couple of days.

He muttered a curse.

The weekend was shot. As soon as Lane got home from school today, they would be hitting the road for Los Angeles to visit with Jean's folks.

Just what he wanted to do.

Especially now, with the new idea sizzling in his mind.

Can't get out of it, though. You'll just have to put the idea on hold till Monday.

It would give him something to think about while he drove. He might be able to work out a few of the main scenes, maybe even come up with some nifty new angles. But he knew very well that daydreaming about the story while he steered down the freeway would accomplish very little compared to working at the word processor. The act of typing out his thoughts seemed to give them a focus that wasn't there when he simply let his mind wander. Daydreams seemed to meander and drift. But sentences were solid, and one led to another.

Not this weekend, they won't.

This weekend's down the toilet.

Well, he tried to console himself, Jean's folks are okay. And it is their anniversary. I'll probably end up having a good time, even though I'd rather be...

He heard the door bell ring.

Jean would take care of it.

He wondered whether he should get back to Night Stranger or spend the rest of the day fleshing out his jukebox story.