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"Yes?" asked Malachi.

  "We’ve found another one."

  "Good."

  "A woman."

  Malachi’s heart raced. The last one. The end was near.

  "Even better," he said.

  Malachi stood and began dressing. He pulled on the clothing quickly, because when he received new prey, he liked to move fast. But he still took the time to make sure the clothing was clean, and comely.

  He put on good clothing, because killing a woman was something that demanded respect.

  FAILURE LOG

  DOM#22A

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  AD 1999

  10:00 AM FRIDAY

  Fran heard the voice, just like everyone else. The difference was, she was actually listening, too. Because the words that the voice was saying meant something to her.

  They meant her life could start again.

  "This is your captain speaking. We’ll be leaving in about two minutes, so you all just buckle up and sit tight while the flight attendants explain our safety procedures."

  The voice was tinny: the same voice that Fran had heard countless times on countless TV shows and movies. Only this time it was real. This time she sat not on her couch with a lonely bowl of popcorn her only company, but in the seat of the airliner. First class, no less, with reclining leather seats that were far more comfortable than her sofa had ever been.

  In the front of the section, the flight attendant began talking about emergency exits. Fran listened even more carefully now, as the pretty airline stewardess - no, hostess, they were called on this line - explained how the seat could be used as a flotation device in case of a water crash.

  Fran’s lips curled into a tight smile. Tight, because if she smiled fully, she’d start giggling. And if she started to laugh, she probably wouldn’t stop.

  We’re flying over the Rockies. Where would we land in water?

  And then, fast on the heels of that thought, came another: I’m really doing it.

  She looked around, wanting to suck it all in and savor the moment. She was leaving home for the first time. If she had had a camera, she would no doubt be busily annoying her fellow first class passengers by taking snapshots of everything from the elegant hostesses to the bald pate that was the only thing visible over the top of the high-backed seat in front of hers.

  This was an adventure. She wanted to enjoy it, the only adventure she’d ever really had.

  No, that wasn’t true.

  For a moment the dull roar of the plane’s jet engines became small explosions. Gunshots. The hostess continued in front of her, waving with a too-wide smile at the emergency exits, but Fran no longer saw her. For a moment, for one terrible moment, she saw her husband’s face. The shock as the strangers pushed into their house, screaming and raving.

  The police had said the men must have been high on something, judging by their actions. Probably PCP, speed.

  But Fran had seen their eyes. There were no drugs coursing through the strangers’ veins. Insanity, perhaps, but no drugs.

  Evil, certainly, but no drugs.

  Purpose, but no drugs.

  Fran did not sleep well for months after that night, terrified that they would return; that the dead would rise up and find her again. Because they had been looking for her, of that she was certain. The cops smiled and nodded and said they would look into it, but she knew that they would not do so. To them, the case was an open-and-shut one that began and ended in five minutes in a small home in Los Angeles. They cared little that those five minutes had meant the end of everything to Fran.

  That was why she was leaving now. After all this time, she had finally found the courage to admit what she had known since that night. Her life in Los Angeles had ended. She was dead there, and her only chance at resurrection lay in leaving the place where her heart had stopped beating.

  Fran had never left Los Angeles in her life. Had never had any aspirations other than happiness with her husband, working hard at his side to build a good life and, later, a good family.

  She had the good life. Not for very long, but long enough. She was grateful. God gave, God took away. Fran had almost a full year with Nathan, and when he died, she went a little crazy for a time. But then she snapped back, as determined as ever to take life, wrestle it to the ground, and squeeze every last drop of happiness out of it.

  But she couldn't do it in Los Angeles. She had to leave. She had to escape into real life again.

  "Are you all right?"

  Fran snapped out of her memories. The gunshots ringing in her brain turned back into the sound of the jet, winding to a higher pitch as the pilot began to accelerate.

  A flight attendant stood over Fran, a look of concern on her face. "Ma’am, are you all right?"

  Fran looked down, and realized that the pressure of her memories had caused her to clutch the arm rests of the chair hard enough to crumple the leather.

  Fran relaxed her grip on the seat.

  "I’m fine, thanks."

  The hostess, whose name badge read Ray-Lynn, peered into Fran’s eyes for one last moment, then hurried to the fold out seats where she would strap herself in during the rapidly approaching takeoff.

  Fran closed her eyes, once again pushing the memories back. Enjoy now, she thought. Tomorrow’s beyond your reach, and yesterday can’t be helped, so just enjoy now.

  The plane took off. Fran’s stomach clenched as she suddenly became heavier. Her eardrums filled and then popped as her body tried to compensate with the pressure changes. The plane slowly rolled to its left side, a lazy turn that seemed to take hours before the plane righted itself and entered the flight path that would take the commuters to Denver, Colorado.

  Last stop, Loston.

  Loston, where Fran’s cousin waited. Where a new life waited.

  She smiled again, and looked around the cabin. Most of the other passengers took no note of her, but one of them, a little boy not more than ten years old, caught her eye. He looked frightened, gripping the seat with white hands that matched his dry-white face, with little lips blue as the sky outside. Fran caught his gaze, and smiled. He tried to smile back, tried to be brave as his parents chatted nonchalantly in the seats behind him. But the smile nearly dissolved into tears as the plane bounced slightly. An air pocket, surely nothing more serious than that, but the child was rapidly nearing terror.

  "What’s your name?" she asked.

  For a moment it looked as though the boy wouldn’t answer her, though Fran could not discern whether it was because he was too scared to speak or because he was under an injunction not to talk to strangers. But after a moment he conquered his fear and spoke. Either that or he just reasoned that it was all right to talk to strangers as long as Mom and Dad - both of whom were deeply engrossed in a discussion of their new time-share in Malibu - were sitting behind him.

  Fran felt sorry for the little boy. Like so many in the world, and particularly in the U.S., his best friend was probably the television. Mom and Dad probably worked hard to pay for their toys, and the child was left to make friends with machines: TV’s and stereos and video game systems. It was a cruel assumption to make, she knew, one that gave the parents no credit at all for the work they did, but the cruelest thing about it was that it was very likely true.

  "George," he whispered, the word barely a breath across his lips.

  "George. What a nice name. Like the curious monkey?"

  George nodded. Still too scared to smile, but some of the fear had left his face.

  "Are you curious, too, George?"

  He nodded.

  "About what?"

  "Stuff."

  "Really? How interesting. I had a friend once who was an expert."

  "In what?"

  "Stuff. He was an expert in stuff."

  George’s face loosened up a little more. He could feel he was being played with, and it didn’t bother him at all. Fran had a knack for talking to children, and was using it now to calm this frightened boy.

  "Y
up," she continued, "he was a great expert in stuff. World-famous, in fact. He was curious, too, and decided to be a stuff expert. So he went out and examined stuffs all year long, for ten years. Then he brought it all home."

  "What did he bring home?"

  "His stuff, of course. He kept the big stuff in the main room - the ballroom, he called it - and the smaller stuff in a dollhouse that he made special for small stuff. The medium-size stuff he just threw wherever."

  George smiled. Fran decided he wasn’t going to puke or cry. Good kid. She leaned across the aisle, as far as her belt would allow.

  "But you know, the medium-size stuff didn’t like that. Didn’t like that small stuff got its own house, big stuff got its own room. So one day...."

  "What? What happened?" George really was curious now, and more than that. Entranced. He had evidently forgotten about the air-pocket and about the plane itself as he leaned toward Fran, mouth agape and eyes agleam.

  "Well, all the medium stuff rebelled. They called a secret stuff meeting, and decided they’d had enough. The next day my friend got back from a long trip, holding lots of new stuff. He went in his house, and BAM! The medium stuff grabbed him. Said they wanted better treatment. Said they wanted better food. Said they wanted their own room, by heck and by golly.

  "But my friend had no more rooms. In fact, that’s what he said, ‘I have no more rooms.’ So...."

  Fran opened her mouth as though to finish her story. Then shut it and sat back. She was silent.

  "So what happened?"

  Fran looked at George again. He was straining across the aisle, now, as though he could influence her to finish the story by drawing close.

  "What happened to your friend?" he urged, his little boy voice growing even higher in his excitement.

  "I...I don’t know, George." She shook her head, as though debating. "What they did to him was pretty terrible. I don’t know if you really want to hear it."

  "I do. Tell me, please."

  "Well...how old are you?"

  "Nine."

  "Nine. That’s pretty old. But are you tough, George? Are you brave? Can you handle hearing about the awful thing the stuff did to my friend?"

  George nodded, wide-eyed, not a bit afraid, having completely forgotten his fear of flying in the drama of Fran’s small tale.

  "Okay. But I warned you." She took a deep breath, trying to convey what a horrible, evil, slimy, bad thing she was about to relate, getting almost as caught up in the story as George was. "They took my friend into the basement. And tied him down. And then...."

  One last pause for drama. "...they stuffed him."

  "What?" George was incredulous.

  "Oh, sure, they had all sorts of food waiting. Like Christmas feast and Thanksgiving and Halloween and Easter all wrapped up in one. Candy, bread, pies, meat, chicken, hamburgers from McDonald’s, you name it. And they made him eat it until he was, you know, stuffed."

  She smiled at George, who was frowning.

  "That’s it? The stuff just made him eat?"

  "No, they stuffed him, George. That’s what stuff does."

  "That wasn’t scary at all."

  "Not scary? I had nightmares for months after my friend told me what had happened."

  "He escaped?"

  "Oh, they let him go. But they made him eat everything first. My friend weighed about six thousand pounds when the stuff was done with him. Sad sight, really. He couldn’t get in cars any more. Couldn’t ride bikes, because they just broke under him. So did horses. So any time my friend wanted to go anywhere, he’d have to call the coast guard, and they’d fly in with a helicopter that had a special harness for moving whales, and they’d airlift him to the grocery store, or to my house for tea, or wherever."

  George rolled his eyes. "Nobody’s that fat."

  Fran rolled her eyes back at him. "Says you. But as for me, I always make sure to treat stuff well. Especially the medium-sized stuff."

  She grinned at George, and this time he grinned back, a jack-o-lantern smile that attested to the fact that he was still going through teeth. Probably had a pretty rich tooth fairy, too, judging by his clothes and his parents' conversation.

  George had just been had, and Fran knew that he knew it, but neither one of them minded very much. The plane jostled again, another air pocket, and Fran saw his face begin to bleach white once more. She thought quickly, trying to find something to say that would help him to conquer his fear, or at least to deal with it more easily.

  "Say, George?" she said.

  "What?"

  "You are a pretty brave guy. And to tell you the truth, I’ve never been on a plane before and I’m a little scared. Would you hold my hand?"

  She extended her hand. For a moment George was shy. Fran was a beautiful woman, and that fact was not lost on many males, not even those who were nine years old. But at last he reached out, interlocking his small fingers in her larger ones.

  She squeezed his hand. "Thanks, George."

  He smiled. Behind him, Mom and Dad kept talking about Malibu.

  A moment later, the fasten seat belts sign blinked off, and the flight attendants began moving up and down the aisles, asking people what they’d like to drink.

  Fran squeezed George’s hand once more, then let go to unfasten her seat belt. George did the same, his fear forgotten. Fran watched his bright-eyed enchantment as the flight attendant told him he could have any drink he wanted. He wanted a root beer, and the hostess was happy to get one for him before inclining her head toward Fran.

  "What would you like to drink, Ma’am?"

  "Ginger ale would be fine."

  The hostess leaned over the drink cart, selecting a ginger ale and a root beer. She handed George his first, and he attacked it like a camel just out of the Sahara. Then the flight attendant passed Fran her ginger ale and a napkin with the plane line’s logo marching across the front. She put the napkin down, and sipped the drink contentedly. Everything was as it should be.

  And then the world turned upside down.

  There was a clang, and the plane lurched violently, a shudder rippling through its frame. Fran thought for a moment it might be another air pocket, but since when did air clang?

  The flight attendants all tumbled to the deck like so many straw dolls, and frightened cries echoed through the plane. They created a weirdly cacophonous chorus, a thin wailing of inquiries as people shouted for parents and lovers and God to protect them.

  Another clang sounded, louder and more insistent than before, and this time the plane dropped into a sudden nose dive. Fran braced herself against the sides of her chair, struggling to stay in the seat that suddenly was above and behind her. People all around her fell forward, slapping hands and arms and sometimes faces into the seats in front of them as forward became down in a single shattering motion.

  A flight attendant hurtled past Fran, following the drink cart, which had already rolled to the front bulkhead and spilled its payload of soda all over the walls. The flight attendant shrieked as she landed on her arm. Even over the cries and the sounds of terror, Fran could clearly hear the woman's bone as it snapped against the metal bulkhead. But then the sounds in the cabin could scarcely be heard above the tumult of strained metal, firing jets, and panicking passengers.

  Fran kept pushing against the seat in front of her, struggling to keep from following the flight attendant. There was no time for anything more than pure survival, but somehow she managed to turn her head and it was then that she saw the second-most terrifying sight of her life. Not as bad as what happened to Nathan, but close.

  George struggled to stay in his seat, like her. His thin child's arms quivered as he strained to remain in place, to resist the forces that pulled at him with a million strong hands. It was a miracle he had remained in the oversized chair as long as he had. But miracles sometimes come with time limits, and George’s had run out.

  The plane jolted yet again, and George lost his fight with gravity. He flipped head first over the s
eat in front of him, careening like a pinball into the aisle. His tiny body seemed to hang for an eternity, life and time slowing and the air thickening around him as though the very forces of nature were exerting themselves to keep the little boy out of harm’s way.

  Then even the forces of nature gave in, and George plummeted down to the front of the plane. Fran cried out, grabbing wildly out for him, knowing even as she did so that she’d never reach him in time.

  George pinwheeled out of her range, smashed into a seat, careened back into the aisle, and then smashed headfirst into the drink cart. Time seemed to slow again as Fran saw her young friend’s head smash into the metal cart, and almost gently fold under. His body drove down on his neck, pressing it to a twenty degree angle, then thirty, then forty, and somewhere along the way it snapped.

  Fran screamed again, not with pain or fear, but with the searing vision of George’s body in a heap against the cart full of his favorite root beer and lemon-lime and fruit drinks, his neck twisted at an impossible angle, his eyes sightlessly staring, and his little feet twitching a death-dance against the airplane floor.

  Fran screamed until she couldn’t scream any more, then she mouthed silent screams.

  And still the plane fell.

  A final metallic clang rose above the chaos, this time more of a crunch, and the plane abruptly righted. The movement seemed to come not under the plane's own power, but rather the jet was jerked into proper position by some outside force, as if God had a crane and had grabbed it out of free fall.

  Fran glanced out the window, and saw something that sent shivers down her back, even though she could not say what it was she was looking at. Her experience gave her no words or concepts against which to place the huge metal shape that hovered above the plane and extended for hundreds of feet on either side.

  She looked out the window opposite her, and saw the same thing. She also noticed that huge clawlike appendages had emerged from the side of the object and now grasped the plane, holding it steady below the behemoth that hung above them in the air, like an island in the sky.

  People were still screaming, and all of a sudden the emergency exits burst open.