behind the strange clothes and makeup, she was just like him.
Filled with those awful feelings of being somehow different from everyone else.
“Y-You want a ride?” he asked, expecting her to refuse.
But instead of refusing, she nodded. “I think I’d like that,” she said. “Where should we go?”
Something flickered in Michael’s eyes, then was gone. But when he spoke, Kelly had the feeling he wasn’t quite telling her the truth. “I have the day off,” he said. “Maybe we should get some food and have a picnic.” He turned the bike around and climbed on, then steadied it while Kelly mounted the buddy seat behind him.
“If we’re going to buy food, don’t we have to go back to town?” Kelly asked.
Michael said nothing, simply putting the bike in gear and pulling away.
But as they rode away from Villejeune, each of them was thinking the same thing.
I know this person. I’ve known this person all my life. This is the friend I’ve never met before.
Though neither of them understood it, both of them felt the instant bond that drew them together the moment they had met.
Somehow, they were connected.
7
Tim Kitteridge was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake. He’d been in the swamp for two hours now, and though he’d followed the map Phil Stubbs had given him, he knew he was lost.
The trouble was, it all looked the same. There were tiny islands everywhere, poking up from the shallow water of the bayous, each one of them identical to all the others. He glanced up at the sun, but even that was no longer of much use. It was noon, and the sun was so high it seemed to be almost overhead. He could be going in any direction at all and would never know the difference.
He was moving slowly, the small outboard motor at the stern of the boat puttering quietly. Suddenly he felt the underside of the boat touch bottom, and quickly cut the engine entirety. But when he tried to tilt the motor up, lifting the propeller above the surface, he realized it was too late. The prop was already stuck in the mire that lay, completely invisible, only a few inches beneath the dark brown water. Using the oars, he tried to push the boat back, but the stern only dug deeper into the mud. At last he laid the oars aside, knowing what he had to do. Taking off his shoes and pants, but leaving his socks on, he slipped his legs into the water. Even through his socks he could feel the slime of the bottom. As he shifted his weight out of the boat, his feet sank into the ooze. For a moment he panicked, afraid he’d stepped into quicksand. But when the muck was halfway up his calves, his feet touched more solid ground. He stood still for a few seconds, hating the feel of the mud sucking at his feet, hating the thoughts of what might be lying unseen in the water.
Still, he had no choice.
He grasped the transom of the boat, heaving it upward, and felt the prop come loose from the quagmire. Twisting sideways, he dropped the boat back into the water and tested it. The tip of the outboard still touched the bottom, and it would rebury itself if he climbed back into the little skiff. He moved the boat a few more feet until he was certain it would float free even with his weight added to it.
He climbed back into the boat, but left his bare legs, covered with mud, hanging over the side. As he began rinsing them off, his hand touched something firm and slimy and he reflexively jerked it away. Swinging his legs into the boat, he stared at the leech that clung to his left calf.
Three inches long, it looked like a slug, except that its head, instead of being raised up, was pressed tightly against his leg. He stared at the hideous creature for a second, then, with a shudder of revulsion, snatched it from his leg, hurling it overboard in the same movement.
There was an angry red welt on his leg, where the leech had been in the process of attaching itself to him.
Still queasy, Kitteridge examined his other leg, then quickly pulled his pants back on. He stripped off his socks, dropped them into the bottom of the boat, and rowed away from the shallows into deeper water. He shipped the oars once more, deciding to let the small