Sara sat straight up in bed. Someone was pounding on her door. She padded silently across the apartment. On the other side of the peephole was a skinny little man with a blond crew cut wearing a striped tie and a white short-sleeved shirt.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Tim Smart. I'm the building manager. Can you open up, please?"

"What do you want?" She rubbed her eyes and blinked.

"You're way overdue on rent. If I don't have your payment within three days, with a fifty dollar late fee, you're going to be evicted."

Shakily Sara unlocked the door and opened it. Tim Smart stared at her. "Wait," she said. She blinked her eyes several times, trying to make them stay open. The lids dragged like her eyeb.a.l.l.s were made of scratchy, splintery wood. "I'll get my checkbook."

Her checkbook was not in her purse. She dropped the purse and rolled her neck, trying to work some of the Valium out of her system.

The checkbook was not on her desk.

Tim Smart was still standing in the doorway with his mouth open like a little Neanderthal.

The checkbook was on the kitchen counter, next to a calculator. She wrote the check with her entire left arm draped over the counter and her head supported on the elbow. Still holding the calculator, she returned to the door and shoved the check at him.

She shook her head again, uncertain as to whether she'd stay conscious long enough to finish the conversation. "There," she said. "It's two months' worth, plus your fifty bucks. Happy now?"

Silently, he nodded slowly up and down without taking his eyes off her. She closed the door in his face and locked it, s.n.a.t.c.hing her purse off of the floor and digging through it. The last 8-ball she'd bought from Alexander was still there.

Her legs stopped working. She crumpled to the floor. The itchy wool of her mother's old Oriental rug against her skin was just enough stimulation for one more thought before she pa.s.sed out: She was completely naked.

Her father's voice came from far away, as if he were somewhere at the end of a long cave or pipe.

"... I know your mother has made you hate me with whatever the h.e.l.l she's been saying. And that's too bad, because I don't think it's fair of you to just turn against your family like you're doing. It really isn't fair to any of us.

"You should have stopped in to see me when you picked up the car, Sara. The girls at the reception desk said they never saw you so I know you didn't even come upstairs. This is the thanks I get for giving you a car like that?"

He paused and sighed into the phone. His breath blowing against the receiver made a mechanical crackling sound over the answering machine speaker.

"And now everybody's Thanksgiving plans have been made, and n.o.body's heard from you. Obviously you're not planning on seeing any of us for the holiday. You didn't even care enough to call your grandparents. They didn't do anything to you, Sara, and you really hurt their feelings. None of us deserve this from you."

There was another pause. Sara's eyes wouldn't open.

"So since you obviously don't care about me or anyone on my side of the family, I went and talked to my lawyer today. It turns out that under the divorce agreement I'm required to pay your college tuition for four years, but that's it. So that's all I'm doing, Sara. You can arrange to have your university bills sent to me and I'll pay the tuition part, but I'm not sending you any more checks. Since you've decided that you're only going to see your mother anymore, you can just look to her when you want money."

Sara's eyes opened. She was still on the floor. She had no idea how long she had been there.

"Can you smell it?" Sara asked. "I love how strong my senses are these days. There's turkey, and potatoes ... I can even smell cranberry sauce, I think. Someone in this s.h.i.tty building's having a real Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving."

Alexander didn't reply. He just kept staring out the window at the parking lot. Hippy Joe shrugged. "Well, it is Thanksgiving, I guess."

Sara smiled, gesturing to the little paper plates of cocaine and the three gla.s.ses of champagne on the coffee table. "Still, I think it's funny I can smell all that without getting hungry at all. I'd rather have our feast, anyway. Thanks for nabbing the champagne and the gla.s.ses."

Joe raised his eyebrows, making them almost disappear into his strawberry-blonde hair. "Good deal for me," he said. "I swipe some booze from work, you guys give me some blow. We've all got something to be thankful for."

Sara did another line. Of her own c.o.ke.

Since he's decided to use me and make me pay for the privilege. But it's fine. They're all the same. At least I can get c.o.ke from him.

"So anyway, my dad says he's not paying for s.h.i.t now, right?" she said. Joe nodded but Alexander didn't respond. "I'm totally on my own. No notice, nothing. Just f.u.c.king cuts me off. Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" She raised her gla.s.s in what she thought might be the direction of her grandparents' house in Connecticut.

"You, uh," Alexander said, clearing his throat. His voice was raspy and scratchy these days, and he talked slower than before. "You want me to, you know ... f.u.c.k him up the a.s.s for you?"

Sara laughed. "Could you? That'd be great."

Alexander turned back to the window.

"Hey, man," Joe said over his shoulder to Alexander, "you all right? You been going to that window a whole lot today, you know? We're watchin' Bedtime for Bonzo over here. Our president is teachin' a monkey some manners. It's really Ronald Reagan with a monkey, man! C'mon over."

Alexander made some kind of grunting sound, adjusting his position to look at a different part of the parking lot. Somehow Joe's sungla.s.ses stayed perched on the end of his nose as he shook his head, lowering his voice as he peered at Sara over the wire frames. "Weird guy, huh?"

Sara nodded, raising her empty gla.s.s. "I'll get more."

"I think that's it for the champagne," Joe said, standing. He reached into his room, holding up a bottle of Bacardi, the bat on the label facing Sara. "But I got some demon rum we can crack open. Hey! I think I might have some brandy around. If there's juice we could mix up some zombies."

"Juice? In this place?" Sara said. "Not a chance.

Joe shrugged, filling his gla.s.s and handing her the bottle. She filled her own gla.s.s and then Alexander's, but he just kept staring out the window.

Sara sat at the kitchen table, rereading her copy of Salem's Lot. She had a bad case of "senior-itis" and couldn't make herself do her homework for the next day. It was hard to care about high school anymore.

There was a fancy little box containing two pastries on the counter, obviously for something special Mummy was planning.

A pair of raised voices drifted down the stairs, the words at first indecipherable. Footsteps pounded down the upstairs hall.

"I've had it!" a man's voice said. Sara couldn't place it. Did she know him? "Psycho b.i.t.c.h!" he yelled.

The words hung in Sara's mind. Psycho b.i.t.c.h. She felt as if she was sampling the phrase, tasting it with her brain.

"How dare you talk to me that way when you come to my house to treat me like this!" her mother screamed. "And with my daughter in the house, you G.o.dd.a.m.ned s.h.i.thead."

"Your daughter oughta know what you are!"

"You sonofab.i.t.c.h p.r.i.c.k! You can't just use me and walk out on me like this. I'm not your G.o.dd.a.m.ned toy."

Sara recognized the closed-mouthed noise her mother made when she was about to attack. It was like a growl but higher in pitch. The front door opened- probably him trying to get out. He made some surprised yelp as the slaps started- the kind where she swung down with the heels of her palms that always made Sara feel like her head would cave in.

Then there was a different sound. A more liquid kind of whump. Mummy gasped, then whined. Another whump. And another.

Sara's eyes widened. He was fighting back! Giggles welled up from some dark place inside her. She picked up the book, hiding behind it in case Mummy stormed in.

Something slammed into the entryway wall. Mummy. But was it real or just her being overly dramatic?

The front door slammed. Mummy didn't make any noise. Sara waited. Mummy made some kind of whine or whimper, but not the dramatic crying Sara had expected. Sighing, she set the book down.

Mummy was curled into a ball on the floor, her arms up over her head. Her face had a blank expression but her mouth was open and tears were streaming from her gla.s.sy eyes.

"Mummy?"

She didn't move. Sara shook her shoulder. "Mummy?"

Mummy curled tighter into a ball, her rumpled pink silk robe riding higher up her thighs. She whispered something that sounded a little like, "No, Papa." Then she whined again.

"Mummy! Are you all right?"

Mummy's eyes snapped toward Sara. She seemed puzzled to see her there. Her face was red and blotchy but there was no blood.

"Let me help you up." Sara lifted her arm, helping her as far as her knees before Mummy waved her away. Sara stood by as Mummy stayed like that for a minute and then slowly rose to her feet, the perfect dramatization of someone raising herself by her own bootstraps. Mummy stared at the wall for a moment and then directed her attention out the window.

"Men," she said, "are s.h.i.t."

Sara recognized the tone. It was a weird kind of voice reminiscent of movie voiceovers. Mummy used it when she was working herself up to attack. Sara took a step backwards. Mummy's head snapped toward her.

Mummy's breathing deepened. She kept talking to herself. "Users. They're all users, takers. Taking what they want." She sniffed, her eyes again staring out the window with her hands hanging limp at her sides. "I thought he was the one who could finally bring some warmth into my life, but he used me just like the others. And then-" She sobbed. "And then he beat me. Like an animal. An animal! That's all I meant to him!" She sobbed again, wailing this time.

Sara backed up another step.

"And you!" Mummy said. "You just sat there like a lump of s.h.i.t while he was almost killing me! You're young and healthy, you could've saved me!" She turned to Sara, her rage in full bloom now. "But you're too G.o.dd.a.m.ned worthless!" She slapped Sara sideways, aiming for her cheek but hitting her in the ear. The blow made a flat drum sound in Sara's head.

"See how you like it! Huh?" Mummy said, swinging down with her palms this time. "You like that? You think I like that? But you don't do anything for me, do you?"

Sara raised her arms up around her head, blocking the worst of it. Mummy grabbed one and wrenched, tumbling Sara to her knees.

Mummy spun away, heading for the kitchen. "But we'll show him. I know how to hurt him. We'll hurt him like he hurt me. f.u.c.kin' b.a.s.t.a.r.d." A hint of Texas accent crept into her voice.

"Mummy?" Sara followed her.

Mummy s.n.a.t.c.hed up the phone. "We'll call the cops on him. That'll get him. We'll see how he likes it when someone bigger and stronger than him beats up on him."

"Mummy! You can't!"

"You shut up! He hurt me first. He lied and he used me and he said hurtful, terrible things. He came into your house and beat up your Mummy! And that 's just what you're going to tell them-"

"If you call the cops, there'll be a record. If they arrest him, it might even get into the papers."

Mummy sighed, putting back the receiver, nodding. "Yes. Your father would use that against me, wouldn't he?" She s.n.a.t.c.hed a re-corked bottle of wine from the counter, pouring herself a blood red gla.s.s. She took a drink and got a pill bottle down from the cabinet, struggling with the lid, pinching out one pill, and washing it down with more wine. "Your father is a cold, cold man." Noticing the box of pastries, she grabbed it and swept open the pantry door, lifting the lid of the garbage can stored there and dramatically stuffing the box into the trash. She slammed the lid down, slammed the door shut, and washed her hands at the sink. She dried them and sniffed, wiping tears from her face with her fingers.

Sara fought the urge to escape back to her book.

"Sara," her mother croaked, sniffling and reaching for Sara's hand with her slippery fingers. "You know you can't tell your father about this." She tightened her grip, reeling in Sara's hand to force another gaze into her face. "He'd just use it to hurt me. Promise me you won't tell him."

Sara raised her shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, trying to pull her hand back. Her mother's grip was too tight to escape. Or maybe Sara was just too weak. "Sure, Mummy."

CHAPTER 7.

Nocturnal Visitor POWER HAS ITS own kind of pleasure.

Sara detaches her claws from the torn flesh of what had been a young sorority girl. She kneads the fresh corpse like dough, sliding the bones past each other in the floppy mess of skin, squeezing out every last drop of blood.

She drops it to the pavement, smiling down at it. "Thank you for your sacrifice," she says.

Sara awakened in her still-dark room. The tingle started in her eyes, making them water and sting. It spread down her body and her muscles tensed, immobilizing her under her sheet. It licked at the edges of the great void inside her, seeping through its cracks until it broke through, rushing in and chilling her at the core.

It's here. Right here. What'll- No. It was the pills. The pills wore off and there was probably a little c.o.ke left in her system, leaving her with that creepy "last-bas.e.m.e.nt-stair" feeling.

No, no. There's something here. I feel it. I know. I'm not alone in this room.

Someone-or something-stares out from the shadows.

Something moves at the edge of her vision. Or maybe she just thinks she sees it.

No. It's there. Shifting slightly in the corner, obscured by patterns of filtered light from the street. Could that bluish flicker have been eyes? Right over there- No. It's gone.

She exhales, fighting to silence her breath. Her eyes scan the room.

There! She gasps, failing to stifle the sound. Standing- crouching- in the gaping blackness of the doorway- just at the foot of her bed. No human moves so fast, so silently.

She stays frozen, helpless, her heart the only part of her still capable of motion. Each valve's soft sound reverberates inside her head, the telltale beating getting louder and louder, as if calling out to the creature in the blackness.

Milky blue eyes glow from the pitch-dark doorway.

She silently slides her fingers across the nightstand. The phone is gone!

The dresser. She can almost make out the phone's short, rectangular silhouette there and its cord hanging down over the top drawer.

She springs out of bed and lunges for the receiver, sticking her finger into the "9" of the rotary dial and yanking it around. The dial slowly clicks back.