I backed off real quick, gun raised.

"Who... what the hell are you?" I demanded.

"You need to pay more attention to the headlines, Mr Crawley" sneered the thing in the pool. "Or maybe just to your students!"

That's when it hit me. Jeff Brookman, the student who'd been borderline for all the time I taught in Brahms, the next town over from here. That had been five years ago. Hell of a commute, but the money had been worth it. Almost. It was the extra perks that had kept my interest, really. Extracurricular, you might say. This kid, though, he'd been something else. It wasn't until after he dropped out that I found out he'd needed the good grades from my class to stay in school. I hadn't even been paying attention when I marked him down, I had been too busy that weekend to really try, so I just scribbled the grade down and headed out to meet Tina at the restaurant. That was back when I'd been staying in an apartment out there for a few weeks at a time, before Lisa got all paranoid.

The realization hit deep and I fell to my knees. I'd flunked the kid, and he'd failed and dropped out because of it, and ended up here, at the Happy Burger. Outta the corner of my eye, I could see him walking towards me, slopping hot blood over the ground as he walked.

"That's right, you remember me now, right? I'm the kid you flunked when all I needed to stay in school was a good mark from you. I was a good student! I cared about my grades! And you shot that all to hell!"

"Leave him alone!" What? Katie defending me? Why? "Even if he did flunk you, he didn't do this to you!" Why would she defend me? I still don't understand it, even now. I musta scared the hell outta her back there in the woods, and she damn near killed me twice, so why would she care what this thing did to me?

"Leave him alone?" Jeff again, mocking her. "When he's been so alone all this time? No, I want him to feel what I feel. What I've felt every stinking day since I came to this place. It's all his fault, and you don't know anything about this, little pretty and popular schoolgirl! I tried to fight it, tried to make it out alive. You can see for yourself how they got me when I was too slow, or ran out of ammo." I stared at the ground, waiting for it to strike, but it didn't. Not yet. I guess it wanted me to suffer outta guilt before killing me outright.

"I made it pretty far." Jeff was reminiscing now, telling us how he got to be this... monster... "But each time I thought I was gonna make it, another bastard came up on me. Even that bastard in the coat wouldn't help me. Yeah, he said he couldn't, that he was stuck here just like me, but I know he coulda helped me if he'd wanted to. He just didn't care. So I came back here. Picked up the knife. Ended my misery."

I had to laugh at that.

"Yeah, you look so much happier now."

"Shut up, bastard!" It spun and kicked me in the gut, knocking me over. "I should have died. I should be in paradise. Didn't matter to me if it was the one the outside churches talked about or the one the Order was always yelling about, just so long as it wasn't this. Everything went dark and cold, all my blood ran out, and then I woke up here again. Still bleeding, still in pain. I'm still food for those damn things, and I'm more miserable than ever." Wrists still gushing blood, it turned to me. I could see its head twitching faster and faster, its claws lengthened, and suddenly it was grown to twice my size, and towered over us. It bared its teeth, sharp and ready, claws running red with its own blood.

"But you know what they say," it growled, "misery loves company. You'll stay here with me forever."

It's finished, Crawley. You're finished, old man, and you know it.

The thought penetrated my brain like a railroad spike through the skull. The pain knocked me askew again, and as I knelt there cradling my head, I saw black shadows racing across the ground, smelt more stench from the fountain pool as it bubbled more violently than before.

I don't remember much of that, my mind was a real mess, and I couldn't think straight at all, what with the terrified thoughts and the agony in my head. I could see Kate sunk to the floor, too. Her long legs curled under her, she slumped forward, braced against the ground, like some sorority kid hurling at a kegger.

If only it'd been that. A drink or a drunk. I knew she felt it too, this pain, like a cold spear through the mind. She breathed heavily, I could just about make her out through my blurred vision, like it was taking everything she had to just stay up from collapsing forever. She raised her head up, and in that terrible place she looked like a saint, a Lady Saint, a Saint Lady, something holy. Her blonde hair framed her face like a halo and her eyes, held open with agonising effort, still saw so much, still saw so clearly.

"Nathan!" she yelled across to me, as I clutching my own head under a fresh wave of pain. "Nathan it's in our heads! It wants us to give up!"

We can't win, kid. He'll take us to pieces.. he'll... I'll...

I fell on my side, my vision blurring, despairing thoughts running riot. I could smell Jeff standing over me. Gloating. The bastard.

Kate, though, Kate pulled through like you wouldn't believe. She pushed herself up to kneeling from her hurling pose, overbalanced, and fell back to leaning backwards across her boots, body arched outwards. She raised her gun up and aimed, hand waving like it'd be a miracle to hit the broad side of a barn.

You won't hit it, kid. Nice try, but there's no way, there's no ammo. It's already dead.

She pulled the trigger, and the thing shrieked, clutching at its throat. The noise in my mind vanished suddenly, and Kate pulled the trigger again, but no effect. She didn't seem fazed, though, and got up yelling at me fiercely, like some god-damn valkyrie or amazon.

"Nathan! Get up, or we'll both die!" I groaned, my head felt like it was gonna split open. I rolled to my side, and fired at the thing, though the gun weighed twice as much as my arm. The bullet hit thing's bloody torn chest and it screamed again. It swiped at me. He swiped at me. Old Jeff, destined for better things if he'd been smarter, with his drive he coulda had his pick. Mr Ivy League woulda-been, he leant down and tried to eviscerate me with claws that once were hands that once wrote essays, played football, fooled around with young cheerleaders, buried a...

I rolled outta the way and got up. Not this time, kid. Recess is done. Circling around, I moved away so I had my back to the only solid object in the room, the massive bloody fountain, my full attention on the monster before me, the woulda-been star student, if only he'd had the smarts to go with his ambition and drive. A fallen star now, burning cold and alone forever.

"You can't kill me!" he shrieked, "I'm already dead! You'll never leave here! It's hopeless, give up!" The tip of a claw knocked me on a second strike. Knocked me back and against the fountain. I propped myself up on the pool, steadied myself. Suddenly I felt hot clammy hands grab onto me and, yeah, I screamed. The child's hand, with the small pink wristwatch on it, had latched on to my wrist.

The hand with a forearm with a wristwatch.

The little girl's arm. The arm with no owner.

A pair of arms, steaming wet and slender, wrapped themselves around me. The woman they belonged to pulled herself in close to me, I felt the hot, firm mounds of her chest pressing hard against my back, and suddenly her mouth was on my ear, a wet and passionate kiss that sank hard white teeth into the lobe, drawing my blood, mixing it with her own.

I yelled out and hit out behind me. She laughed sultry in my ear as she fell back, the child's arm fell off and into the pool with a horrible 'plop!'. I turned to face the new threat, and my heart stopped inside me. I stood and stared amazed as I saw the woman in the pool, beckoning me to join her like a lover to a bathtub, her other hand jammed between her legs, fingers writhing there. Tina, my girl from the library back in Brahms. Tina, who I'd spent so much happy time with. Tina, who had up and vanished in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but a lingering scent of her body, its juices, and that special perfume she'd had imported down from Jew York. She had sent me a postcard from there once, but I'd destroyed it as soon as I'd read it. Lisa wouldn't have understood, you know women.

Jeff leered behind me. "I think she likes you, Mr Crawley. Say, have you tried it wet yet?" An unearthly shriek as Kate shot him again. The sound brought me back to the then and there, and I raised my own gun, fired at the 'woman's heart. She shrieked my name (ah God, the memories!) and fell back into the pool, disappeared beneath the surface.

The monster lurched to Kate, leering at her. She fired three shots from the revolver, two went wild, and one just clean bounced off it. She panicked, kept squeezing the trigger. Probably didn't even hear the dry clicks from the empty chambers. It was almost on her, steam from the hot blood rising off it like smoke from a doused fire. It licked its lips and brought the weeping wrists down towards her, to hold her close, to make her his bitch, to have his way with her just like that girl I found him with in the locker rooms that time. Sweet little Suzy, 13 years and completely at his mercy, what little mercy a little girl can expect from a muscle-bound 18-year-old, anyway. Oh God, the memories...

My heart blazed in fury. He'd gotten away with it that time, at least as far as the school board was concerned, but even the beating I gave him wouldn't wipe out what had happened to that little girl, nor would the time I spent trying to help her get over it. Not again. Not with Katie, who had stood up for me when she had no reason in the whole world to do so. "You bastard!" I yelled. "Let us alone!" A shot into the creature's heart, another shriek from those awful lips, monstrous music making me so glad. A shot into its throat, and it staggered back. Kate blinked, fumbled in her pockets, and reloaded. The monster turned to face both of us, and standing with our backs to the pool, we faced him together. Do or die.

"You can fuck with our minds all you like, but you bleed just like us" she stated flatly, raising her gun. A shot into its eye and it stumbled back, screaming.

I raised my own gun "I'm getting the fuck outta here, Brookman, and you're not gonna stop me." And as I fired, Kate did the same, the shots rang out dull and flat in the closed-in space, but the lead flew strong and true.

The shots tore into Jeff's throat, and an agonised swipe of his claws ran across Kate's jacket, ripping it wide open. She gasped and grimaced at the line of blood that sprung up where it ripped her skin, but stood her ground. Good kid. My second shot hit the thing's shoulder, and bounced off harmlessly. Damn thing.

The monster was blinded now, swaying slow and heavy. Maybe with one last shot... Both my gun and Kate's trained on the most wounded part of the thing, the throat. We looked each other in the eye. She didn't trust me, and sure as hell didn't like me, and I wasn't so sure she wanted me to survive, myself. But we had to kill it together, or die together. Easy choice.

"Now" I said "Let's kill the bastard"

"Go for the throat" she agreed.

A rain of bullets as we emptied our guns into the thing's throat. The hot lead ripped the flesh from the throat and broke through the back of the thing's neck, and the head tore off its shoulders. The creature fell forward to its knees, forcing us to jump outta the way. That or be flattened by the thing we'd just defeated. From its knees, it collapsed forward into the fountain with a crash, its massive shoulders breaking the marble. The head fell behind its feet, the broken fountain spurted up in to the air, a great plume of...

Water?

We turned slowly, gaping like moonstruck idiots. The mall was restored. Just as it had been when we entered it. Almost completely normal, though still abandoned, still with the marks of the fired cleaning crew. The fountain sparkled clear water into the air from a complete spout, and the only real sign of blood was a trail of footprints leading out of the exit hallway, the girl in the white top. She was somewhere out there. For a second, I forgot how much I'd wanted her on seeing her with the bastard in the coat, and worried for her. Would she survive out there? I'd have to check. But first, something else demanded my attention.

A small doll lay on the seating ring around the fountain pool. We approached it silently, guns at the ready, hearts still pounding. The doll was like an action figure, a six inch male in white and red uniform.

"Don't touch it!" I hissed as Kate leant in closer. She nodded, but flipped it over with her gun anyway. Curiosity and disobedience, Woman's greatest sins. From the action figure's head, Jeff's hopeless face stared up at the roof, the fountain mist making his glazed, open eyes appear to cry, just like that night on the field. As we watched, the eyes sank into the waxen skin, the hands turned to claws, and the neck split slowly in two, releasing the head, which rolled into the pool. For a split second, the water turned red, and then cleared again. The doll had crumbled into dust, and the head, rather than floating to the surface, dissolved and spread into the pool.

"Poor bastard" I muttered. "I knew he needed help with his grades, and the other teachers said he needed something more, but this..." I shrugged helplessly. "I... I mean... What could I have done? I was... I didn't..."

I stepped back, took a deep breath. Take control of yourself, old man. She'll lose all respect for you if you break down here.

"Fuck it, I don't have to explain myself. This place is wrong, I'm getting the fuck outta here. You coming, kid?"
I didn't stand there, waiting for a response, but ran to the door, along the hallway, and out of the mall, back into the fog. The girl in the top was out there somewhere, and I might be able to help her before I started really trying to find the way home.

A/N - Some bits of this chapter surprised me. I hadn't known these bits about Nathan, and certainly not about Jeff. Whew! What do you all think?

Gaia - You rule. Your recommendations help so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

MLS - Many thanks for the review, it's always good to hear what people think of my little stories, especially when it's the opinion of writers as good as yourself.