Those who survived the night bore no palpable wound, but for all my care they died soon enough anyway. They stumbled from the temple's jagged maw during the fading dark, when the lake lay calm and colourless, or they crawled forth when dawn bloodied the old stone. They left behind the lucky ones, slumped cold beneath the waxing sunlight.

During what days remained them, they flinched at the sight of stone walls, and cowered from the encroaching dusk. Their eyes were haunted with a gold glaze, their skin drawn and pale; their limbs sluggish and their minds dazed. They would not eat. Their deaths were infinitely slower, drawn to an exquisitely prolonged pitch.

A crash landing was necessary, the New Manchester to Io City transport shuttle pilots had informed us over the intercom system. Why the crash landing was necessary is another matter entirely. The explanation they provided was so vague, that I half-suspected that they didn't have a clue as to why we were losing orbit.

As if this information didn't panic us enough, the shuttle attendants had then taken it upon themselves to plaster utterly unconvincing smiles across their faces and circulated the shuttle, attempting to assure everyone that there was nothing to worry about. I presume their intentions were to calm us down, but invariably they had the complete opposite effect.

The sand along the shoreline was soft and cool, soothing to bare feet. It shaped itself around Marizah's as she walked across it, recording the vague imprint of toes, of heel, of arch and callous... only to have the memory erased by the next touch of water and crash of wave.

As it should be. Marizah had no real will to leave traces of this trip behind. It was not the first time she'd stolen out to the ocean that lay so close to her home, that lulled her to sleep every night with its roaring and rumbling music. And it would not, she was sure, be the last. But she didn't need her brothers to know of what she was going to try tonight--to tease her if she failed; to scoff and disbelieve if she met with success. They would dismiss it all as a dream, just as they'd dismissed her pipes and her tunes all her life.

That night Lydia awoke abruptly from the blackest of sound sleeps to the reassurance of Phil lying beside her. She experienced no gradual acceleration of color, from dead to dawn. In one instant--and for how long?--she had lain as a corpse; in the next she was awake, angry, and horny.

Odd that Phil was not snoring. He felt, in fact, quite rigid, and beads of sweat had burst from pores all over his body. And he was so hot, even with the motel's A/C at full blast to counter the summer Texas heat. The heat drew her to him. Her body against his, she felt his chest jerk once, a spasm to draw in air. Then he held his breath.

Dear Mr. Barnes & Mr. Noble,

I am afraid I have some very unfortunate news to impart to you sirs: someone has stolen the Horror genre sections from your stores. At least in the Northern California region. I have yet to investigate the matter beyond my geographical area. I thought it imperative to inform you, since it has been about a year now since I noticed this disappearance and I have not heard of any investigation in the news. One would think the theft of a whole genre from a such a famous fixture in the publishing industry would be newsworthy, but I suppose with Tsunamis, Wars, Famines, and Traffic reports, the loss of a genre did not get reported. Perhaps it has not even been noticed, since I am apparently the only Horror fan in the whole Northern California region if I'm the only one noticing this dastardly disappearance. I can only assume the regional managers felt they should best deal with the situation, since the genre has not been found and put back where it belongs, as I'm sure you sirs would quickly rectify if you knew of its kidnapping. I'm sorry to alarm you, I'm sure this comes as quit a shock, I hope you do not have high blood pressure and collapse dead with a heart attack upon opening this letter, but I thought I should let you know--aortas be damned.