"You knock," Claire whispered as she and Chris stood on the front step of the old house, poised to run if they needed to.

"Why should I have to knock?" he demanded.

"Because I asked you to."

"You didn't ask, you ordered." He sighed. "Ladies first."

"But I'm scared, asshole!" she hissed.

Raking back his flyaway hair, he stole a look at her. Her usually enigmatic face did look scared, and he was surprised to discover that she was actually uncommonly pretty. She wasn't supermodel material, but he would go so far as to say she was beautiful. Chris thought that it was just because she looked vulnerable and innocent at that moment, but when he looked at her again later, he knew that she had been beautiful all along and he'd always just seen through her looks. Then again, he didn't go for looks when it came to girls. He went for personality. And he found Claire's personality tactless and abrasive, so the split second's worth of pity and astonishment he'd felt for her disappeared quickly.

But he did take a hold of her cold, clammy hand and rapped softly on the door.

They waited nervously for someone to answer. Finally, from inside the house they heard footsteps. Claire's hand gripped Chris' hand tighter and he suddenly felt protective of her.

The doorknob twisted, and an old woman pulled open the door. She was dressed in a bulky robe overtop of a flowery nightgown. On her feet were purple slippers and in her hair were pink curlers. She certainly didn't look like she could do too much damage.

"Can I help you kids?" she asked in a bird-like voice.

"Um, yeah," Chris said, slowly and clearly in case she had a hearing problem. "We're lost. And, uh, we were hoping that you could point us in the direction of the highway if it's not too much trouble."

"Oh, not at all, sonny. Why don't you come in for a bite to eat, you two are looking too skinny. Kids your age need to have a little meat on your bones."

"Um, no thank you, ma'am, we need to be getting on our way, you see, so couldn't you just--"

"In, in, in," the old woman chirped, ushering them inside and closing the door behind them. "I'm Lorraine. I was just about to sit down for breakfast."

First exchanging doubtful looks, Chris and Claire followed her hesitantly, both of them saying a silent prayer that this woman wasn't the old witch in the Hansel and Gretal story who just wanted to fatten them up so she could cook them and eat them.

Chris, who was walking slightly ahead, suddenly tripped on something in the hall and went sprawling forward, landing on his elbows. Close on his heels, Claire tripped over him and fell on his legs. They both looked to see what had tripped him, and screamed, grabbing for each other's arms and scrambling to their feet.

Lorraine turned back and smiled. "See a ghost?"

"Lady, did you know that your dog is dead?" Chris cried, breathing hard. "I just stubbed my toe on his head."

"Who, Mortimer?" She cackled an old granny laugh. "Oh, he's not dead, he just doesn't move."

"Ma'am, could you please tell us how to get to the highway?" Claire pleaded.

Lorraine suddenly looked at her with a look of wistful lovingness. "Ohh, aren't you just a pretty little wisp. You look just like my daughter Shirley."

"Really," Claire said. "Well, my name's Claire, not Shirley, so please do not mistake me for her."

"She doesn't come around very often anymore," Lorraine sighed. "Have some eggs!"

"We can't stay, Lorraine," Chris said in his talking to senile old ladies voice. "Do you know how to get to the highway?"

"You'd have to wait for my husband to come in from out back. He's chopping wood."

"With an ax?" Claire cried, going pale.

Lorraine's old fingers traced a petal of one of her potted flowers. "We like company, don't we?"

Claire looked up in fright at Chris. "Chris, she's talking to flowers," she whispered. "Just like Vern said."

"Oh, you know Vern's an idiot," Chris said to reassure her.

Suddenly, a tall man appeared in the back door, with an ax slung over his shoulder. "Lorraine, why didn't you tell me we had visitors?" he asked in a booming voice that encompassed the entire room.

"They just got here!" she chirped. "They're staying for breakfast."

"No we're not," Claire said, smiling nervously at them.

"Do you like raspberry jam?"

"We can't stay," Claire said, pronouncing her words carefully so she'd get the picture. "We're lost and we just want to get back to the main road."

Lorraine sighed. "We don't get much company out here. We haven't seen two young faces for years."

Chris looked at Claire. "It wouldn't kill us to just have some toast with them."

"Yes it could!" she whispered heatedly. "There might be rat poison in her raspberry preserves!"

"Claire, she's just lonely."

"Fine, but if we die, I'll be pissed."

Sitting apprehensively at the lopsided table and chewing slowly on their toast, Chris and Claire kept their eyes on the ax in the corner of the kitchen that Bruce had been using to supposedly chop wood with. It had crossed Claire's mind once that he'd been chopping up their friends with that ax before he came in, but she tried to appear calm and collected like Chris did.

"Ohh, Bruce, don't you just miss young love?" Lorraine gushed, gesturing towards Chris and Claire.

"Love," Bruce snorted. "If there was such a thing as love I would've gotten some touch in the past thirty years."

"I can just see it," she continued.

"See what?" Chris asked.

"You'll be in love for so many lifetimes," she said, grinning from ear to ear.

"We're not even dating," Claire said. "You've confused me with someone else. He's like, in love with someone other girl who's in love with some other guy."

"Who's in love with some other girl," Chris muttered.

"Huh?"

"You know Teddy has a thing for you."

"Yeah, and it's in his pants. He has it for every girl."

"Whatever."

"No matter!" Lorraine said cheerfully. "You're a very attractive couple!"

Chris said, "Come on, she and I can barely keep from tearing each other's heads off."

"That's not true," Claire argued. "We were getting along fine a few minutes ago."

"That's because you were scared and I felt bad for you."

"You didn't feel bad for me. You don't even like me."

"You got that right," Chris said, and trying not to show that he didn't care when Claire looked hurt, even though he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, even Claire's.

"Well--I don't like you either!" she shot back, and then glowered in her inability to come up with a better comeback than that.

"Fine."

"Can you please tell us the damn directions now?" Claire demanded.

Bruce looked at her, his hooded eyelids almost hiding his smiling eyes. "Quite the spitfire you are." He got to his feet, retrieved some faded stationary and a pencil that was barely more than a stub, and began to scribble down some directions in his spidery handwriting. "There you are, Miss."

"Thank you." She stood up and turned to Lorraine. "Thanks for breakfast." Feeling flustered, she walked out of the kitchen, stepped over the motionless dog and stepped outside, breathing in the fresh, clear air.

But the truck was gone. "Fuck!" she yelled. Everything seemed to be rising up in her, and she just wanted to kick something. She hated that Chris didn't even like her as a person and that he had the nerve to tell it to her face. And now their friends had taken off.

Finally, she saw the dully-coloured truck. It was parked behind a patch of bushes about two hundred feet away. She was pissed, and she started walking in the direction of it.

Behind her, she heard the door open and close, but she didn't look back. She figured if Chris wanted to walk with her, he could catch up.

"Claire!" he shouted. "Wait up!"