another book signing...

Been a while since I've posted, but I have been writing...primarily working on the second Oracle book. I like the way it's looking. Lots of plot threads. Amazing potential. Shall see if I pull it off...

Also had a book signing today at the new place here in Picayune, Bell, Book and Candle. For two hours, we did extremely well. Had the ladies worried we'd run out of books, which is always good news. =)

I'll post the rest of the short story soon, and then start with the real stuff---Oracle. I'll give a few snippets from the as-yet unpublished first book in the series. It's going to be epic.

Roadside: Three

Three

She'd been right: The building was old. Amy had once spent time researching old structures and building techniques in Mississippi as research for a lengthy poem she was writing, and although she was no architecture expert—and even though she hadn't seen this sort of stone design before—she was quite certain it was around a hundred years old. Or more.

From the outside the place was clean and well-kept, but her earlier notion, that of a pile of ruins rising from the plains, remained; the grass and vegetation around the building was high and uncut. There were no broken windows or doors with cracks and rot, no cobwebs filled with black spiders hanging between the white columns in front of the entrance, and the wooden decking before the plaster-colored door hardly made a sound as she stepped cautiously across it. There was no sign or marking indicating just what this place was, and no matter how well in repair it was the thought of a den of dangerous thieves hidden behind the door was still on Amy's mind.

When she came to the door, she waited a moment, gathering her strength for whatever she might find within. She threw a glance back over her shoulder and saw the dull red form of Kevin's Mustang sitting dead on the shoulder of the road, its three-element taillights catching the sun and sending a shot of white brilliance across the plains.

"I can't believe this," Amy said. "It's supposed to be our honeymoon!" For a while she considered starting an argument with God, but choked back on her tongue; she for one always lost arguments with The Man Upstairs. Tears stinging the corners of her eyes, she reached for the bronze door handle and twisted it. She pushed the door slowly open; it made no sound. What she saw behind it made her want to scream, but not in fear.

***

Shock, was more like it. She just stood there in the open doorway, trying to figure out what she was looking at.

Before her was a sparkling, red-carpeted lobby. There was a massive, polished oak desk in the center of the room, and behind it three arches opened the walls into three separate rooms. She thought they resembled ballrooms or banquet halls. Behind the desk there was a beautiful spiral staircase which climbed so high she had to crane her neck in order to see where it led. And coming now, his presence foreshadowed by just the slightest change in air pressure, was the most unbelievable feature of all:

A dour little man of age indeterminate, dressed in a pressed tuxedo.

He stood behind the desk and looked up; tiny round spectacles were balanced on the end of his nose. He opened his mouth to speak, and the words which came out were of an accent and dialect which seemed almost Hollywood in its cultured perfection.

"Good morning, Madam," the man in the tux said. "Would it please you to step inside?"

Not knowing what else to do, Amy did just that. She suddenly became quite aware of her appearance, an utterly stupid and embarrassing feeling considering the circumstances which had brought her here. But still, she realized her Coke-stained tee shirt, through which a keen eye could just manage to catch the outlines of her bra, was hardly appropriate for such a lavish and obviously formal place. Her shorts, which displayed more than their share of athletic, tanned legs (damn fine legs, Kevin had said to his friends after meeting her, almost as good as her hair), weren't much better. She half-expected the man in the tuxedo to stare, to give her a twice-over critique and maybe even throw her from the building, but he did no such thing. He just stood there behind the desk with the perfect form and posture of one who has spent a lifetime serving others in a formal setting.

"How may I be of service, Madam?" the man said. His voice was just loud enough for her to hear him without trying, yet it was quiet enough that if she had been trying to ignore him she probably wouldn't have noticed his words at all.

Amy stepped forward, unsure of herself, but knowing she had to do something . . .
"Madam?"

"I . . ." Amy stopped a few feet from the desk, just out of lunging reach, she noted, if the man in the tux tried to make a grab for her. But suddenly her theory of a secret criminal hideout was looking rather unlikely. She didn't suspect that thieves kept British butlers. So, knowing she had little other choice, she went on: "I need help. Our car broke down, and my husband was looking for help. He came over here last night, and he didn't come back when he said he would. I need to know . . . you know . . . if he . . . if he . . ."

"I understand, Madam," the man in the tux said. "You need say no more. However, I find it necessary, though not to my pleasure, to inform you that no man arrived here last night."

Amy was shaking her head. "But he . . . he came here last night, do you understand? He walked right up here to find help, but he didn't come back! I just—I just need to know where he is, okay? Can you help me?"

"I do apologize, Madam."

The tears were streaming down her cheeks now, but she would not sob. She couldn't allow herself to cry, not now. "I don't understand what could have happened . . . God . . . but . . . but you have to help me, okay? Is—is there a phone I can use?"

"Unfortunately no, Madam. We have no forms of outside communication here at the Inn."

"That's what this is," Amy said. "An inn. You've got to have a phone then. Isn't there a law or something?"

"I do—"

"Apologize, right." Now her fear was being supplemented by anger, a deadly combination. She came closer. The man in the tux wasn't much taller than she, though somehow she didn't think he would be very intimidated. "Then I'll use the damn owl post! I need help!"

"Perhaps Madam would care to take a room, so that she may attain control of herself."

"You're trying to get money out of me? At a time like this? Are you crazy? Are you sick?" She all but shouted this last sentence.

"Madam, your appointments shall be entirely complementary of the Inn. I do recommend you take advantage of this offer, at least until you are able to deduce a solution to your predicament. My name is Jones; I of course shall be more than happy to assist you in whatever way you deem necessary that is within my power."

The guy was damned persuasive, that was for sure. Perhaps against her better judgement, Amy nodded. "Okay. Just for a while."

"Excellent, Madam. Please, follow me." He started up the spiral staircase, his movements so smooth it almost seemed as though he was ascending on an invisible cloud.

After a second's delay, Amy followed him.

***

The second floor of the Inn—if that was indeed a suitable word for the place—was even more grand than the first. The entire place had an Old World feel, a European tinge so thick Amy could almost taste it in the air around her. What the hell was a place like this doing out here in the middle of nowhere? If it was supposed to be rural getaway or something, there were a million better locations, some within a few hundred miles of this one. Judging from the emptiness of the establishment, the rest of the world felt the same way.

"Your room, Madam," Jones said, inserting a little copper key into the lock of a nondescript white door and pushing it gently open. He stepped aside, allowing Amy to enter. When she did, he stood in the doorway. "I am sure Madam will find her appointments to be satisfactory, but should you uncover any problems whatsoever, do not hesitate to call on me."

Amy didn't speak. She only nodded. Apparently satisfied, Jones turned and disappeared back the way they had come, down the spiral staircase and out of sight.

Turning, Amy scanned the interior of the room he'd given her, but she didn't go deeper into it. Something told her that wasn't such a great idea, but she couldn't put her finger on what that something was. Still, Amy had long ago learned to trust her instincts. As inviting as the room seemed—shaded, cool and filled with plush furniture (but without a television or microfridge, she noted)—she instead stepped back out into the hallway, her sneaker-clad feet making no sound on the soft red carpet.

Slowly, she crept along deeper into the hallway, in the direction opposite the stairs, away from where Jones had gone. She wasn't sure what she was doing, what she was she might have been looking for, but her instincts were screaming at her. Look! they ordered. There's something weird about this place, so check it out—carefully!

The hallway was long, almost endless, and it seemed to take forever for her to reach the point where one hallway met another and extended off to the right. This hall too was red-carpeted and white-walled, and every few dozen feet there was a white door. The doors weren't numbered: How the hell did they keep track of their room assignments?

Not that room assignments are a problem around here.

This hallway, like the other, continued off in a long, lonely stretch of identical doors. She thought nothing could be more boring.

"Where are you, Kev?" she whispered, but of course there was no answer. She kept walking.

Ahead of her the hallway came to an abrupt end. The wall simply closed in, blocking off further progress. Amy stopped, realizing she'd probably walked halfway around the entire building and found nothing. Her instincts were usually deadly accurate, but in this case it seemed they were leading her nowhere. She needed to get help, not explore some strange empty hotel out in the middle of the Great Plains. She needed to find her husband.

Look down.

She didn't question her inner voice. She looked down, and at first wasn't sure what she was supposed to be seeing—if anything. Then she noticed something just a little out of the ordinary: The red carpeting ended just a few centimeters short of the wall ahead of her. She frowned. So?

So what? The place is perfect in every way!

Except for the carpet at the end of the hall. And, come to think of it, the same thing was the case all the way around this section of carpet. From the wall at the end of the hall to the wall to the last pair of doors, the carpet stopped just a few centimeters short of perfection.

"It's nothing," Amy whispered.

But is it? What if they're hiding something? What if you weren't wrong about that ‘den of thieves' thing after all? Ever hear of the old hidden trap door trick?

She shook her head; such thinking was ridiculous. Wasn't it?

What if they've got Kevin down there?

Suddenly Amy felt nauseous, not at all sure what she should do. Was she just paranoid? To make matters worse, she realized she didn't have much time to continue her snooping; her food and insulin were both back in the car, and she was already becoming a tad lightheaded. After her episode last night she realized she should have known better than to strike off on a deranged hike without first eating something.

Just do it.

"Oh, crap," she said, and got down on her hands and knees and reached for the exposed edge of the carpet.

***

She managed to do it without attracting Jones's attention. The carpet pulled back easily, leading her to believe that was indeed its proper function. And her suspicions were confirmed when she had pulled it up completely; in the bare, dusty wood, there was the faint outline of a trap door.

It reminded her of an attic door, the kind which opened into the roof and dropped a ladder to provide for easy access into the roofside storage area. Only this one was below her, not above, and it had no obvious means for opening. The attic doors in the ceiling usually had a string or some other easy handle, but this one, at first glance, had nothing. So she took a second glance, and she found it.

The handle was a small square in the center of the outlined door. There was a gray circular impression the size of her thumbprint at the top of this square. Amy placed her index finger atop the impression, and pushed down. The impression became a hole large enough for her to slip two fingers inside.

"Unbelievable," she hissed. "Unbelievable!"

She crawled away from the trap door so that her body was positioned on what she hoped was solid floor. Then, holding her breath, she pulled, hard, upwards on the little handle. As it turned out she didn't even need to use all her strength; the door popped up quietly as though it utilized springs to hold it up—again, much like an attic door, only in reverse. And beneath the door . . .

"Unbelievable," Amy said again, a little louder than perhaps she should have.

There was a set of stairs, plain, unpolished wooden ones which led down into a dark hidden corridor. She couldn't see the bottom of the stairs, but she thought that only made sense. Probably they led down beyond the bottom floor into a basement or cellar, which meant it had to be a good forty or fifty feet to the bottom.

Amy shook her head, amazed. "This is crazy."

You have to go down there.

"Yeah," she whispered. "I know."

She swallowed a lump in her throat. Carefully, she stood and placed her right foot on the first step. A few seconds later she was descending into an artificial twilight.

ROADSIDE - Two

Two

"That's impossible," Kevin said. "We passed right by there—what, two minutes ago?"

"And you didn't see it."

"No. There was nothing. And there was more light then . . . I mean, I was looking for a place, a building like that. There's no way I could've missed it. Not a chance in hell."

Amy sighed. Suddenly she felt very tired. "It's there, Kev. You—we—missed it."

"Can't tell if there's any lights on," Kevin said. He chewed at his lip. "I guess there's only one thing to do, though." He went around to the driver's side door while Amy stared back at the building they'd somehow missed, as impossible as that seemed. It was sitting right out there in the open! Kevin locked the car and shut the door, clutching the keys in his hand. He stepped back up beside Amy. "I guess it's not too late for a walk, huh?" He smiled.

She didn't. She was too tired to smile. Tired, and more than a little confused. Her mind still wouldn't accept the fact that her new husband had somehow missed the very sort of thing he'd been looking for as it passed right in front of his nose. It just didn't make sense. With this on her exhausted mind, she looked up into his ruddy, dark-eyed face. He was taller than she; the top of her red-haired head just brushed the bottom of his chin when they embraced.

"I'll wait here," Amy said. "I don't feel like walking way out there, and somebody needs to stay with our stuff."

"There's nobody out here," Kevin said. "We don't have to worry about the car. Hell, I could probably leave it unlocked and it'd still be just like it is now when we get back." He chuckled, somewhat nervously, and Amy knew he'd never truly consider such a thing.

She wrapped her thin arms around his lean body. "I'm tired, Kev. I'll wait here."

He held her for a while, then pushed her away at arms' length. "You sure you want to sit out here in the dark? Alone?"

"I'll be fine. You said yourself there's nobody out here. And I . . ." she trailed off, not wanting to tell him the real reason she didn't want to go.

"And . . . what?"

"I'm tired," Amy said. It was the truth, of course, but not the whole truth. The whole truth was that she was nervous—afraid, was more like it—about this whole situation. It still bothered her that, somehow, they'd passed directly beside that building without noticing it. Whether she'd been sleeping or not . . . Kevin didn't miss things like that. He just didn't. She pulled away from him and turned to see it again, and in doing so she confirmed another of her observations; the building, whatever it was, looked very menacing. It was little more than a black shape against the darkening purple sky, but it was, for lack of a better work, a scary black shape. Probably it would look much better in the morning, and then she'd feel ridiculous, childish . . . but it was not morning now.

Kevin kissed her. When he stepped away he nodded. "Okay. You wait here. Stay in the car and keep it locked. I'll be back. Give me an hour or so. If I'm not back by then . . ."
". . . send out a search party." Amy grinned. "I know."

He kissed her again. "Be back," he said, and started walking. A minute later the sun had vanished behind the edge of the earth, and Kevin was lost in the darkness.

***

She didn't quite fall asleep, despite being so tired, but nor was she entirely awake. She fell into that sort of semi-awareness which sometimes overtakes one in while the radio is on in the car, and your eyes are closed, your brain is resting, yet you can still hear the radio. There was no radio for Amy to listen to, but she did have her thoughts and memories, and her vivid imagination, and in some way these were more powerful than any song.

In her mind she was watching Kevin bumble his way through their first date, a quick early evening dinner at Priscilla's Diner, back in his hometown of Tungstown, Mississippi followed by a movie at the little theater in Picayune, which was worth the twenty-minute drive because of its three-dollar primetime tickets. Kevin kept calling her "Amanda" the whole evening, more through anxiety than anything else. It was clear he thought Amy to be well out of his league, and instead of allowing his little word-slips to work against him, Amy had been flattered by his very demeanor. She was in fact a striking girl, with her flaming red hair and ocean-blue eyes, but she'd always been passed over in high school in favor of the classic blondes and girl-next-door brunettes—not that she cared—but this was the first time someone had shown a depth of interest in her this deep, and she was more than happy to take whatever he dished out.

By their third date he'd gotten her name right, and his feeling was beginning to become mutual. It was generally agreed upon at home that he had quite a future ahead of him; he was taking journalism and film at Southern Miss, and he said he wanted to be a documentary filmmaker. Amy, who thought herself to be an aspiring poet of sorts, considered this to be an admirable goal. They shared many interests, and Kevin had a great sense of humor. He liked to joke that if someone gave them a box of toys, they'd choose the same ones. Amy countered by informing him that she'd played with Barbie dolls until her twelfth birthday.

Early the next year—she had the date memorized, February 10th—he had proposed to her. She'd accepted without even stopping to consider his request. They were in love, and that was all that really mattered. Everything else was, in the words of their Louisiana neighbors, lagniappe—a little something extra with no added cost. They'd been married for almost a month. It was July now, and their agreed-upon honeymoon, a road trip across the country, had been underway for two weeks.

In her deep yet semi-aware pseudo-sleep, Amy could see Kevin's handsome face through the sheer white of her wedding veil. In the movies the groom was always a nervous, fidgeting man in an uncomfortable suit, but Kevin had been so calm, so sure that this was right . . . He had just smiled at her, and all of her own fears had been washed away. She felt he was looking at her now, felt his presence around her even though deep inside she knew he was nowhere near her now, the car was broken and he was looking for help. She also felt the warm golden sun on her skin, but knew that too was impossible because it was dark now, dark and frightening in a strange empty land she'd never before seen, much less attempted to cross. She sighed, a calm soothing sensation covering her like her favorite blanket . . . Kevin . . .

And then, suddenly, the blanket was yanked away. The feeling of light and warmth was gone as if it had never been. The sense of Kevin's presence was far away, much too far, and she was cold. And then, filling the void, something black and hard, a malevolence Amy had heard of but never felt. It was real, and it was here, and she was terrified, her breath coming in uncontrolled gasps. There was someone—something—alive and horrible coming towards her.

And she could hear, in the silence outside the car, the light footfalls of an approaching creature, and her—

***

—eyes flew open. She let out a strangled cry for non-existent help, then sat bolt-upright in the seat. She raised her arms against the incoming danger she still felt, but when she was able to see, to look through the glass at the nighttime emptiness surrounding her—emptiness totally devoid of any creature, human or otherwise—she realized she'd only been dreaming

(yeah, sure)

and everything was fine. Her hands were shaking, and her breath was still coming in rapid shallow gasps that made her chest heave, but she was fine. Or was she?

She turned her head, and almost blacked out. The world was spinning around her, and she felt as though someone had pumped her skull full of helium. Her hands were still shaking as she tried to focus on them, and she quickly realized what was happening.

Amy turned, coming close to a faint again, and opened the ice chest. She reached inside, felt an aluminum can, pulled it out—no good, it was a white Diet Coke. She dropped it, not caring where it landed, and back into the pile of ice her hand went. She felt something—plastic—released it—felt another aluminum can, pulled it out—

It was a red Coca-Cola Classic. It took her a few seconds to steady her hands enough to pop it open, and when she raised it to her mouth to drink she spilled a good deal down her chin and neck across the front of her white tee shirt. She swallowed a mouthful, took another sip. The stuff tasted intensely sweet to her, sweeter than anything she'd ever tasted even though she had of course drunk Coke before. Many times, in fact, before the doctors had diagnosed her as diabetic.

Amy took a third mouthful, swallowed, and she lay her head back, breathing. Slowly the light-headedness passed, and with it went the shaking. She was fine. Her blood sugar had dropped, but it was okay now. For a moment she wondered how that had happened, but she stopped pursuing that line of thought. In truth it didn't matter; sometimes it happened, and the only thing you could do was handle the situation. She'd done so. And it was fine now, just fine. Nothing to worry about. She sighed.

But she was still tired . . . so tired . . . her eyelids were heavy, and threatened to close by themselves. Before they could do so, Amy took one last look around through the windshield, and then she let sleep come.

Her last thought before unconsciousness took her: I wonder how long Kevin has been gone . . .

***

A new warmth reached out and touched her face. She climbed up out of sleep and opened her eyes to face the white-hot glare of the morning sun. She turned her head to the left, and saw the driver's seat was empty. Her heart filled with panic.

Kevin!

She threw open the door and leapt from the car. She turned, the world spinning around her in a way that had nothing to do with low blood sugar. The sun was now climbing high; it must've been close to nine in the morning. Amy turned in a slow circle, taking in the same epic vastness as the day before. The ground, an almost colorless white-yellow, met the gray-blue sky at the same unending laser-straight horizon. A low breeze rustled through the grass and blew her hair free in flag-like waves. It tickled her face; she ignored it. Completing her circle, she saw the building. It was there, all right, and in the light it seemed not less foreboding but much, much more. It appeared closer now, maybe three quarters of a mile away. From here Amy could see the walls, made of sand-colored brick so worn it appeared as flat as the plains around it. The building was alone, a single structure jutting up out of the ground so suddenly it could've been a natural formation, or perhaps even the ruins of an old pioneer cabin. But this place wasn't in ruins, and despite its aged appearance even from this far, Amy could feel the presence of life inside. It was just gut instinct, but she knew it was right.

Kevin had gone over there last night. He'd said he would be back in an hour. What had happened? A thousand scenarios, each one worse than the one preceding it, flew through her mind. Maybe Kevin had never reached the building . . . maybe he'd been abducted

(by who, aliens?)

or some such. Or perhaps the building was used by criminals as a hideout of sorts, and Kevin had intruded upon them and . . .

. . .

. . . and what?

And they'd

(killed him)

hurt him, and he couldn't get back to her. He could be hurt, right now, and he needed help, and Amy was the only person who could do it. If she did nothing, he'd die, and it would be all her fault, she should've gone with him and it was all her fault that she hadn't—

Stop it.

But—

Just stop it, girl. Shut up.

She took a deep breath. Held it. Released it slowly through her mouth. She thought, rationally, step-by-step: All I know is that Kevin walked off last night and didn't come back. That's it. And there's only one way to find out what happened to him.

She had to go to the building. No matter what else she did or thought or said, she had to go over there.

And if whatever happened to Kevin happens to you?

Amy didn't bother formulating a conscious response to that. Without further debate, she began to walk in the direction of the old building on the side of the road.

ROADSIDE - Intro

I'll post one of my short stories here for you all to read, one chapter at a time. I'll post every week or two, approximately. Depends on the response. Anyway, without further ado---the first chapter of ROADSIDE (the rights of which are available for purchase, should any magazine or publisher become interested...).

Without further ado...

ROADSIDE - One

One

I told you so.

Amy considered saying this aloud, but one look at the frustrated grimace on Kevin's face convinced her that such words were better left unheard. Instead, she sighed and turned her gaze out through the passenger-side window. The view was not particularly heartening.

Flat, arid earth encircled their trusty old Mustang as far as her eyes could see. The afternoon sun hung high in the steel-blue sky, a brilliant white orb casting its blinding glare down upon the endless landscape. It was hot; sweat was dripping across Amy's forehead and down her face and neck as the car's air conditioning struggled to keep up. The road, a blacktop two-lane highway of no particular merit or fame, cut through the featureless ground like a shallow ravine. Amy had never before experienced such isolation, such pure unimaginable desolation, and the feeling it inspired within her was one of awe and fear. Awe at the grand scope of creation, which dwarfed even the mightiest and most proud individual; fear because neither of them had any idea where the hell they were.

"Somewhere in the Midwest," Amy said.

Kevin's head dipped in her direction, but his angry scowl remained pasted to the empty road ahead. "What, babe?"

"Nothing." She shook her head. "Thinking out loud."

She did that often. Kevin sometimes cracked jokes about that tendency of hers, but at the moment he wasn't exactly in a joking sort of mood. She sighed again, and absently twirled a few strands of her hair—it was the deep red of a ripe apple—around her finger.

There was a Rand McNally road atlas lying half-open and page-down in the back seat. Amy reached back and grabbed it, flipping it open to the required state page. "The interstate is up ahead. I think maybe ten miles."

"And if we go east long enough we'll hit the Mississippi River." Kevin rolled his eyes. "That doesn't put us closer to a major stop. I've had enough of those frigging rathole motels. I'm thinking some place with a pool and a continental breakfast." He glanced at her and grinned, his teeth straight and white beneath his wry, tired smile. "But from the looks of it we'll be camped out in a field or something. That's one thing we got plenty of."

Amy was still studying the atlas. "Hmm?"

"Fields," Kevin said. "We got lots of fields. Well. One big field. I guess that's why they call em the Great Plains."

She shut up old McNally and tossed him into the Mustang's cramped rear section alongside their snacks and water, kept safe from the heat inside a foam ice chest. She placed a hand on Kevin's shoulder and smiled. "This is some honeymoon, Kev."

"It will be. Yellowstone, Redwoods, Crater Lake, then a week on the beach in SoCal . . . by the time we're there, we won't even remember here."

"Other people go to Hawaii. Or Florida."

"That's because other people are boring." A hint of his frustration resurfaced, and he grimaced. "Don't worry, we'll find somewhere to stop before dark. Somewhere decent."

Amy chuckled. "Except for the roaches, the last place wasn't bad."

"The roaches weren't in your damn shoes." Kevin rolled his eyes. "That's exactly what I mean. No more roaches getting stuck between my toes in the morning."

"Nasty." Amy laughed, then let her eyes drift back outside. There was nothing new to see. The land still rolled on towards the horizon, where it met the sky in a seamless line, so straight that it seemed almost artificial, like God had taken a leveler to the land. And except for the occasional tree and the rare bird or rabbit, there was nothing to break the feeling of total remoteness, complete distance from civilization. Amy thought maybe the astronauts on the moon had felt something like this.

"We'll find a place," Kevin assured her.

"Mm-hmm," Amy breathed. Crossing her arms over her slim midriff, she closed her eyes, shutting the vast empty world out of her mind. Despite the heat, she soon drifted away.

***

Almost two hours later she awakened, yawning. Kevin was still driving, and the road was still empty. The land around them was as epic and distant as ever. In fact it seemed even more so, as the sun was drifting towards the horizon, its glare softening and turning the golden glint of an open orange. The dashboard clock said it was three minutes to five in the afternoon.

Amy covered her yawn with the back of her hand. "Find anything yet?"

"Unbelievable," Kevin said, almost as if he hadn't heard her. "A hundred miles—a hundred miles!—and nothing. Not a damn thing! Is that even possible?"

"Apparently it is," Amy said dryly.

"There's gotta be something coming up, some piece of crap town."

Rand McNally was still in the back seat. Amy took the atlas again and opened it. "I don't see anything, Kev."

He hesitated a moment before replying. Without looking at her: "I think maybe you were right, babe."

(Told you so!)

Kevin went on. "We should've stayed back at that last town. Whatever it was. You were right."

Amy shrugged. "It was still early."

"No, you were right. That motel wasn't too bad."

"There probably weren't any roaches," Amy smiled.

"Maybe there were, maybe there weren't. Roaches or not, a bed's better than a car on the side of the road any day. And that's what we're looking at if we don't find a place soon, you know, because—"

"Because you don't like driving at night, I know." Amy sighed. "I know, I know."

"The good news is, we've got lots of gas. Enough to last a few hundred more miles. We can make it halfway to Seattle."

"Not quite."

"Exaggeration, but still."

"Don't tell me," Amy said. "The V6 model gets twenty-eight miles a gallon, which is like five miles per gallon more than they say it gets, and this is a special car, you knew it when you bought it five years ago."

Kevin laughed. "Memorized it, huh. Eh, that's cool. But it is a special car. You know I bought it right before we met . . ."

". . . which means it was a sign of forthcoming good fortune. I know, Kev." She lay her auburn-haired head against his arm. "I'm glad your stories are starting to include me."

"You're the star of the show, babe." Taking his eyes from the twilight road, he kissed her head. "Besides, when you own the same car since you're nineteen, you get to know it. I can tell what this one's thinking, you know? It always liked you."

"I know." She yawned again. "Kev, wake me up when you're ready to stop."

"Don't forget about your insulin."

She nodded. "After we stop." Through another loud, moaning yawn: "Goodnight." Closing her eyes, she was out again in a matter of minutes.

***

Kevin said something. To her suddenly-awakened ears, which weren't tuned very well at the moment, his voice was just a jumble of incoherent sound. She gave one more great moaning yawn, and forced her eyelids to flutter open.

Not much time had passed. The sun was still in the process of setting, and it was only marginally closer to the horizon. The golden orange had begun to go red, and in the east the sky had turned the dark black-blue of a heavy bruise. Stars—tiny specks of cotton-white light—had begun to appear in the ever-encroaching darkness. Amy turned to Kevin.

"What?"

He didn't answer. His face was a tight mask of anger. He was, to put it bluntly, pissed. It took Amy a moment to figure out why . . . but when she did, the realization made her heart sink while at the same time making her feel utterly stupid for not noticing earlier.

The car was stopping.

Adrenaline shot through her veins. She stiffened against her seat. "What's happening?"

"I've got nothing," Kevin said. "No steering, no power—look at the damn clock!"

She did; it was off. The engine was whining down, and the needle on the tachometer was dropping below 1000. Kevin was struggling with the wheel, forcing the car to the side of the road (although judging from the utter lack of vehicular activity, Amy thought this was an unnecessary precaution). "What is it?"

It took him a moment to answer. In that short period of time he managed to get the car on the shoulder, and it slowed to a creaking, silent halt. "Alternator," Kevin said. "Has to be. Damn." Then he balled up his fists and slammed them into the wheel, setting off the horn in a short but comical burst. "Dammit!"

"Calm down, Kev," Amy said, as much to herself as to him.

He nodded, breathing deeply. "Okay. Just . . . lemme think for a sec."

He did. And neither of them spoke. There was no sound from outside; the sun continued its descent and the darkness crawled toward them from the other side of the sky. Amy was about to prompt some sort of action—from Kevin, of course, as she knew less than nothing about what made cars really tick—when he broke from his reverie and sighed.

"Let's see," he said, and turned the ignition. The car whined, a groaning, strained sort of cry. Kevin tried again, with identical results. There were no lights on inside the vehicle; when Amy tried to turn on one of the reading lamps, nothing happened.

"We aren't out of gas, are we?" Amy asked.

Kevin shook his head. "No. Half a tank. I was right, it's the alternator. Dammit. You know I've never had an alternator go bad on this car? Never!"

"And you had it checked before we left . . ."

"I had everything checked before we left. Believe me, I know—the bill's gonna be waiting for us when we get back." Suddenly he stopped, and dug into his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone, a little gray T-Mobile wireless, turned it on, and waited. Amy held her breath . . . and let it out almost immediately when she saw the look of disappointment on Kevin's face. "No signal," he said. "Figures."

Amy didn't particularly want to ask the next question that occurred to her; Kevin would see it as nagging, and he hated nagging more than anything. But when a few seconds had passed without activity on the part of either one of them, she could no longer hold it back.

"Kevin, what should we do?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he unclipped his seatbelt and opened his door. Without speaking, he went around to the front of the car and opened the hood. Ahead and to the right the darkness was deepening, and the bottom of the sun was nearing the horizon. After watching Kevin mess around with the car's guts for a while, she decided she may as well do something meaningful. She twisted in her seat so that she could see into the back seat. She opened the foam chest and dug through a layer of wet ice, past Kevin's Coke and her Diet Coke and water, and found the plastic bag which contained her sterile syringes and insulin. Her injection was overdue, which was probably why she'd been drifting off to sleep so easily.

Opening the bag, she extracted the proper dosage. Hesitating just a moment as she always did, she slid the needle through the skin of her arm with the by-now familiar sting. When she was done, she replaced the bag beneath the ice in the chest and reset the top. She smacked it with her fist to make sure it was sealed, then looked up—

She froze. Her first thought was very Kevin-like: How in the hell? Her second was more rational: He must have missed it, while I was sleeping he missed it, that's all . . . But somehow that rationale seemed to be contrived. She didn't know why, but it did, and she was suddenly unable to produce an explanation. So she did the only remaining thing she could.

"Kevin!"

He was back in the driver's seat of the car in an instant. "What? What happened?"

Amy threw her door open and stepped out, still staring back into the fiery orb which was sinking ever-lower in the sky. "Kevin, come here!"

No sooner had the words left her mouth was he at her side. "What?" he said again. "What, babe?" She pointed. He looked. And his mouth opened in silent, unbelieving protest.

No more than a mile away, not far from the side of the road where they had passed only minutes ago, was the black silhouette of a large building.

College news!

I spent last Friday on the Southern Miss campus, following a student around campus and sitting in on a couple of classes. Had a great time! The Honors College is processing my application, and I should be an official Honors student soon. The perks are awesome. The student gave me a tour of the Honors dorm, and the suite-style rooms are exactly what I have in mind. They're more than tolerable. A suite bathroom is a wonderful thing to have on campus, I hear. ;-)

The best part is my meeting with my recruiter. She told me I've already got enough schollies "in the bag" to cover tuition.

Rock on.

Students may drink at meals

Students may drink at meals: "WATERVILLE -- On some Friday nights, students at Colby College can sit down to dinner and savor two beverages found in few college dining halls: beer and wine.

The program began last fall and was initiated by the Student Government Association. It's intended to teach students to drink in moderation while showing an alternative to the binge drinking common on college campuses.

The program began tentatively. On three Friday nights during the fall semester, alcohol was available in Dana Dining Hall to students 21 and over. Students paid $1 per alcoholic drink and were limited to two.

Not surprisingly, the program was popular with students -- at least those of drinking age. But the program was also popular with college administrators, who have decided to expand it to most Friday nights during the spring semester.

"I think people have appreciated it because it's a good way to show that alcohol can be handled in a good and responsible manner," said Janice Kassman, the school's Dean of Students. "We've had only good comments."

Colby officials believe the program is unique in Maine and say they've received inquiries from other liberal arts schools looking to replicate it. They say they've had no complaints from parents.

In a way, the program bucks a trend. It comes as many school are eliminating all on-campus drinking in an effort to reduce the estimated 1,400 alcohol-related deaths that occur each year on college campuses.

But Colby officials say they hope their program will help change the culture around alcohol.

"The purpose is education," said Varun Avashthi, the colleges director of dining services. "The whole point is that the students recognize that you don't have to binge drink or abstain. There is middle ground."

Colby attempts to make the experience informative. An expert on wine and beer sometimes lectures as the students drink.

At the first session, the owner of the Allagash brewery in Portland came to explain how beer is made.

"The students like it," Avashthi said. "They enjoy every aspect of it."

Avashthi said he had no reservations at the start of the program, mostly because he also runs Colby's on-campus tavern and says he's never seen students misbehave there.

But Kassman admitted having misgivings at the program's beginning, if only because she feared that people would perceive Colby as encouraging students -- especially underage students -- to drink.

"I didn't want people to think we had lost our minds," Kassman said.

Two students initiated the project: Catherine Welch, president of student government, and Adelin Cai, vice president. Both have experience in other nations, and both were puzzled by the attitude toward alcohol on American college campuses.

Cai, who is from Singapore, said students there tend not to think of heavy drinking as a rite of passage, and said the dining- hall drinking experience provides a nice change of pace, giving students a different view of drinking, and sets an example of civilized behavior.

Maine beers have proven particularly popular with students. Cai, however, is hoping to diversify the selection.

"I put in a request for beers from Singapore and Asia," she said.

Chris Churchill -- 861-9252

cchurchill@centralmaine.com

How about that, eh? Common sense!

It's my opinion (based on the way I've been raised) that making anything a taboo duing childhood and young adult life only makes it more desirable, and more likely to be tried, upon ultimate independence. My brother and sisters have been around moderate drinking since early childhood. We know what alcohol is, what it can cause, and how to use it properly. Making some totally off-limits and taboo, basically pretending that it does not exist, only worsens the problem.

Kudos to Colby College. True forward-thinking. Very nice.

William F. Buckley Jr. on Pope John Paul II

William F. Buckley Jr. on Pope John Paul II

At church on Sunday the congregation was asked to pray for the recovery of the Pope. I have abstained from doing so. I hope that he will not recover.

The seizure brought on by his dramatic trip to the hospital a week ago suggests the international sense of his indispensability. Pope John Paul is a graphic figure in the lives of Catholics and many non-Catholics. He is of course a towering theological figure who has presided over the development of Catholic thought and practice for the 26 years of his papacy. He is a major historical figure, who began as a Catholic seminarian in a Poland subservient first to a Nazi overlord (they hanged him in Nuremberg), then to a Communist overlord (nothing happened to him — the Communists are never prosecuted). From that scene he succeeded to the Holy See, where he was the symbol of hope and, after the Communists fell, of triumph, distinctive in his bid for international recognition as a God-fearing man of good will.

I remember him as he was leaving Havana to return to Rome. Fidel Castro was there to recite the diplomatic amenities. The pope was standing on the gangway of his airplane and suddenly rain fell. As John Paul spoke under an improvised parasol, his three-minute farewell address evolved, in near-perfect Spanish, into a homily on water's purifying mission. All of Cuba watched on television, no doubt hoping, for an exhilarating moment, that Castro would melt away, Cuba shriven from the antipodal reign of a tyrant who came to power even before the pope did, and will outlast him.

Unless it were to happen that Castro died tomorrow, and the pope a week later; but we must see through the blur of the rain to realities of the day, which are that the pope almost died the day that he was taken to the hospital. "We got him by a breath," one medico leaked the news, and another said, "If he had come in ten minutes later, he would have been gone."

The temptation is, always, to pray for the continuation of the life of anyone who wants to keep on living. The pope is one of these. In the past, he recorded that he did not plan ever to abdicate, that he would die on the papal throne. It is presumptuous, in thinking about John Paul, to suppose that in arriving at that decision he was motivated by vainglory. What exactly he had in mind we do not know, but can reasonably assume that he was asserting pride in physical fortitude, consistent with his days as a mountain-climber and a skier. Perhaps there is an element of vanity there. Not many sovereigns leave the throne, except at the hands of embalmers.

There is the further question, distinctive to the throne of St. Peter. To leave it before death can be construed as forsaking a mission charged by God almighty. That isn't the consensus of theologians.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, said simply, "If there is a man who loves the Church more than anybody else, who is guided by the Holy Spirit . . . that's him. We must have great faith in the pope. He knows what to do."

What to do includes clinging to the papacy as a full-time cripple, if medicine, which arrested death by only ten minutes, can arrest death again for weeks and even months. But the progressive deterioration in the pope's health over the last several years confirms that there are yet things medical science can't do, and these include giving the pope the physical strength to coordinate and to use his voice intelligibly.

So, what is wrong with praying for his death? For relief from his manifest sufferings? And for the opportunity to pay honor to his legacy by turning to the responsibility of electing a successor, to get on with John Paul's work. Muriel Spark commented in Memento Mori, "When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality." That cannot be effected by the hospital in which the pope struggles.