"Mom sent me for the nightmares," she says.

"What were they about?"

"Lots of things."

"Like what? Christine, you can tell me. It's okay."

She performs an elaborate ritual of looking all around, up to the rafters, over both shoulders, and under the table. Satisfied no one is there to hear her, she whispers: "The devil is here."

"What do you mean? Where?" Caleb asks.

"Sleeping. Close. In a cold, cold cave very close. And," she says, pointing to her temple, "here."

"The devil is in your head?" Caleb asks with a glance to Bean.

She nods.

"What does he do in your head? Does he say things to you?" asks Caleb.

"He put him there." She points upward.

"G.o.d put him there?"

She shakes her head and mouths a word that looks like "arrester."

Caleb just nods, uncomprehending.

Footsteps in the hallway, distant and hollow.

Christine looks over her shoulder at the gaping arch of the doorway, then back at Caleb with fearful eyes. She jerks to her feet and clambers frantically around the table to a startled Caleb, cups her hand, and whispers in his ear: "They're taking me back now, upstairs-you have to get me out, Billy, you have to, he's going to cut me, she told me, he's doing terrible things, I just don't know, I just haven't figured it out, but my dreams are gone out of my head and there's something else there instead, something-they're coming!"

She stands upright. Caleb watches her chest move beneath her gown in shallow, quick breaths.

"Do you have a pen?" she asks, staring at the door.

"Uh . . . " says Caleb, feeling his pockets.

"Do you have a pen?" she hisses desperately.

"Yeah," Bean says, pulling one out and handing it to her.

She grabs Caleb's hand and yanks it toward her with surprising strength, bringing his palm close to her face.

"Anna told me to tell you . . . " she says, writing, pus.h.i.+ng the pen into his hand so hard with her shaking fingers that Caleb is afraid she might actually puncture his skin. "The clocks are ticking." She kisses his hand, glancing back at the door with a look of wild determination. The footsteps have stopped, but there's a shadow spilling out of the corridor. She squeezes Caleb's hand, then drops it and walks away on her pale, white feet, across the room, through the arched doorway, and into the hallway beyond, where she's lost from sight.

"Dude, what did she write on your hand?" asks Bean with an amused grin.

Caleb responds only with an absent gesture of negation. "Let's go," he says, and starts for the door.

No one is there to escort the guys back to the exit, and when they reach the little "ticket window" where the man in the white s.h.i.+rt had been, they find it dark and empty. They push through the front doors into the insect songs, bird calls, and blaring light of the world.

Neither of them speaks. They get in the car and drive away, watching the sleeping colossus bearing the dream center banner disappear amongst the green boughs of the forest. It isn't until they've reached the street that one of them cracks the silence, and naturally it's Bean.

"Dude, that's messed up," he says with outrage.

"Huh?"

Bean frowns and pats his pockets. "She kept my favorite pen!"

Chapter Five.

"FIVE THIRTY-FIVE AM," CALEB SAYS with a shrug.

He and Bean sit in the living room of the abandoned Mason house. After some major dusting and bringing the sleeping bags and backpacks in from the car, they've managed to set up a fairly cozy campsite in the living room, complete with a roaring fire in the fireplace, thanks to some wood Caleb gathered out back and the can of lighter fluid Bean found under the kitchen sink. The fire pops and sputters, casting strange, dramatic shadows on the far wall. The guys sit in a coc.o.o.n of firelight-no streetlight s.h.i.+nes through the windows, no electricity burns through the household bulbs. Still, in their pale halo, everything glows orange and feels safe. The fire makes the hot Florida air almost unbearable, but darkness would be even worse.

Caleb slouches in a wing chair and Bean lies on his stomach, sprawled across an ottoman.

"Let me see," says Bean, and positions Caleb's hand so he can read the writing.

"Ow," says Caleb. "I don't really bend that way."

"Oh, you're not double-jointed like your girlfriend, eh?"

"Ha-ha," Caleb says distractedly. He stares at his hand for a moment, then continues: "And she mentioned Anna, but Anna has been missing for years. Everyone but her mom was pretty sure she was dead. But maybe she's not."

Bean squints at Caleb's hand again. "I don't know, man. Maybe an S. Could be S-three-Sam."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"It means, of course that . . . um . . . I don't know! I'm just here for moral support, anyway. This is all you, Sherlock. Maybe it is five thirty-five am. What does that mean? She wants us to rescue her at five thirty in the morning? I don't think so. It's five thirty in the morning and I'm either sleeping or drunk-in which case I'm still probably sleeping."

"I think maybe we should be there then. We can just wait in the woods and watch, see what happens. Just in case," says Caleb.

"Are you out of your friggin' mind?" says Bean. "First of all, she's crazy. Really, obviously, like, whacked-out. And if we actually help her escape, I'm pretty sure that has to be a major, serious crime."

"What are we supposed to do then? She's asking us for help. She's counting on us. And granted, she does seem a little out there, but just hypothetically speaking, what if she is telling the truth? Wouldn't we owe it to her to find out? I could even write a story about it and have it run in the papers and get the place closed down or something."

Bean laughs. "G.o.d, here you go again with the journalism bit. Does everything have to be an investigative report for you? This was supposed to be a vacation."

Caleb looks at his friend. "Alright. Tomorrow we'll go to the beach, okay?"

"The beach is cool, but I'm talking about going home, man. This place sucks. It's humid, the people are like redneck zombies, with the exception of your buddy who gave us the pie and . . . let's see, what else? Well, your dad's gone, we're staying in an abandoned, probably condemned, rat-infested s.h.i.+tbox, there are no chicks here who aren't wards of the state, and let's not forget numero uno, we live on the beach already! Why are we here? Your friend is nuts, mystery solved."

"But she has no one else to help her," Caleb says.

"What about her mom?" Bean says. "She even said in her letter that her mom gets weekly reports about her progress."

"Her mom got a little weird after Anna went missing . . . I don't know if she'd be much help."

"There you go! Her mom is nuts, she's nuts, case closed."

Caleb looks at his friend. "You really want to get out of here that bad?"

"Yes!" says Bean. "I got places to be, ladies to do, my friend. And while we're in Podunkville, USA, none of that is happening. I vote we go back tomorrow."

The fire pops and a spark shoots up the chimney. There's a scuttling sound from upstairs. Probably a rat. Bean is right. What can they do for Christine anyway? She's already getting professional help.

Still, a tiny voice of protest in Caleb's head won't shut up. He tries to reason with it, he tries to ignore it, but it keeps whispering in his ear as he watches the gyrating, primal dance of the flame. It whispers to him like Christine did earlier. And it won't be ignored.

Bean is humming Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," and putting a marshmallow on a stick to sacrifice to the fire G.o.d in that ancient ritual called "s'mores" when Caleb makes his decision.

"Okay," he says. "We'll leave tomorrow. But there's one stop we have to make tonight."

"What's that?" Bean asks warily.

Caleb is staring at the fire again. "Remember when that guy said we should go see the witch?"

The flashlight beams cut through the night like shears through layer after layer of thick, black velvet. It's a long walk. Branches claw and unseen things rustle in the weeds, always just out of the light. The path is uneven, studded with roots and puddles and branches. Sometimes it's not really even a path at all; still, Caleb seems to know his way, leading them onward with step after determined step. Shrouds of Spanish moss hang all around them like wisps of lingering smoke. They pa.s.s the huge, deformed stump of a long-rotten tree. Bean's light flashes over it, revealing a nest of crawling bugs-a kind he doesn't recognize. All he knows is they're big. He looks away and keeps walking.

Caleb's thoughts race through his mind like a fire through a meadow: I don't like this. I don't like it here. This is not my home. This isn't what I remember. There's something about Christine, something in her letter-d.a.m.n spiderweb. (He brushes it from his face.) Nothing worse than walking in the forest and catching a mouth full of spider-webs. Big-a.s.s spiders in this forest. Remember plucking their legs off, me and Christine. And Anna. Why do I always forget she was there? How awful, to be forgotten. Jesus, Bean sounds like a steam engine back there, out-of-shape b.a.s.t.a.r.d. A few more sit-ups and a little less beer maybe, buddy. I'm lucky he's behind me at all. Who else would follow me here? We shouldn't be here. We don't belong here. I don't belong anywhere. But no one belongs here. I don't remember the path angling left here; I remember it angling right. I remember for sure there was a big rose-colored piece of granite. See, this is what I'm talking about-this isn't right.

And that's when he hears it. He tries to pretend it's nothing-just part of a song he's singing in his mind, maybe, just some atonal notes strung together to drown out the sound of bugs, the sound of fear. He glances at Bean. Bean isn't behind him. For an instant, he feels his heart quicken-then he sees his friend, maybe ten yards back, standing still. Listening. He's standing under one of the rare breaks in the leafy canopy through which moonlight has been able to spill through. And from the look on his face, Caleb knows he hears the singing too.

"What the h.e.l.l is that?" Bean asks.

"What?"

"It's freakin' eerie," says Bean. He doesn't move.

"Probably just . . ." and Caleb has no plat.i.tude to fit this. This is inhuman singing. Chanting.

The devil is close. Her words blow through every synapse in his brain.

But Christine is crazy, isn't she?

They walk on.

This whole thing is screwed. He shouldn't have brought Bean. He has to get his friend out of here.

"Do you want to go back?" asks Caleb suddenly. Bean clearly does. He's sweating badly and keeps looking over his shoulder at nothing.

"Do you?" Bean asks.

Caleb does want to go back. And not even just back to his dad's house, but back to Malibu. Back home, to surf and go for runs on the beach every morning, to get ready for college, read some good books, to meet Amber at a hotel in Santa Barbara and screw her and bask in the secret thought that he doesn't really care about her anyway. To do some writing, maybe even finally get something in the LA Times. These are all things that Caleb understands. Here, he understands nothing.

The singing starts up again. It's a howl now, chopped up with a few explosive consonants that ring through the woods like gunshots.

Caleb looks in the direction of the sound. He whispers: "Look, I think the witch the guy was talking about is Christine's mother. The kids in school always used to make fun of her, saying her mom was a witch and everything. I only met her a few times, but she seemed okay-and they say kids are the best judges of character, right?"

Bean gives him a wary look.

"Okay, man." Caleb says, "I promise, if everything is cool with Christine's mom, and we still think that Christine is just a crazy girl getting the help she needs, I swear we'll get on a plane tomorrow, deal?"

Bean looks at his friend and exhales heavily. "Deal."

"But we have to talk to her mom tonight," says Caleb.

"Dude, I said 'deal.' Move your a.s.s before I renege."

Caleb turns and takes a step forward to lead the way-and sees that he has come to a fork in the path.

"Whoa . . . " he says, half to himself. "I don't remember a split here."

"Stop trying to scare me, d.i.c.khole," says Bean. "Which way?"

"This way," Caleb says, leading his friend down the left fork. What he doesn't mention is that he wasn't trying to frighten Bean at all. In fact, Caleb is the scared one. Because the path is changing.

Above, it looks like a Van Gogh painting. A field of stars. That's how Caleb describes it to himself later. There's a clearing, mowed and empty of everything but a c.r.a.ppy trailer and an old, rusting propane tank. Light spills from the windows of the trailer across the brown, parched lawn- in fact, every light in the place seems to be on, judging by the beacon-like aspect of the little square panes of gla.s.s. And above, stars pepper the sky, sloppy traces of a higher power, maybe, like Jesus's breadcrumbs or G.o.d's dandruff. There's something in the air. It's heavy. Not just humidity, either. Something humming. Something hissing. Caleb doesn't like it.

The singing is coming from behind the trailer. And it's louder now, a shrill warble. Like some terrible battle cry, it crescendos loud enough to pierce reality before degenerating into barely audible chattering.

"I do not like this," says Bean.

"I do not like it, Sam I am," says Caleb, feigning a grin. He steps into the clearing. Bean follows like his shadow. They make a wide arc around the trailer, pa.s.sing in and out of the glare from the trailer windows. Caleb is struck for the second time that day by the stillness of a place.

This is what it'll be like on doomsday, he thinks, but he doesn't know where the thought came from. Certainly it isn't his. He isn't a morbid guy. He's a guy who believes in . . . what? He doesn't know how to finish the thought and doesn't have to, because around the corner of the rundown trailer, on the other side of the clearing, underneath the wide-reaching arms of an ancient live oak, a bonfire burns. Caleb hurries toward it.

"Hey, man-I don't think we should . . . " Bean begins, "I don't know if we . . . "

But Caleb is already striding with determination, so fast Bean can hardly keep up. He senses his friend lagging behind, but something, some impulse deeper than will, stronger than desire, pushes him onward. The singing is everything now, as bone-chilling as the roar of a siren but gilded with words of a tongue he doesn't understand, and doesn't want to.

Caleb is getting close now, almost into the ring of firelight, and he can see clearly that all the ear-splitting sounds come from the lips of one woman. She kneels, s.h.i.+rtless, her dark, gray-streaked hair spilling over her face and down to her bare chest, which looks as ashen as the skin of a corpse in the moonlight. She wears a dark skirt, which seems to seep from her waist into the gra.s.s around her like liquid. Caleb follows her downturned gaze to a small book, sitting open at her knees. Next to her left hand is what looks like a cowbell, but there's no mistaking what lies next to her right hand, half-obscured in the gra.s.s. It's a big, serrated knife.

The woman's song deteriorates into another bout of guttural clicks and snapped, unintelligible phrases, and that's when Caleb does it: "Ma'am?" he says.

The woman's eyes snap up from the book and her song pinches into a scream-whether it's anger at being interrupted, fright at their sudden appearance, or simply another phrase in the song, he can't tell.

Instantly, the woman snaps her mouth shut. With one groping hand she seizes the cowbell, and with the other hand she scoops something out of the gra.s.s. She leaps directly over the probably three-foot-tall bonfire, and stands before the guys, brandis.h.i.+ng what now looks to be a bowie-style survival knife in one hand, and ringing the bell violently with the other.

"It's okay," says Caleb to Bean, trying to sound as calm as possible.