The Chase Page 0,45

been wrong. He wasn't as strong as Tom; he was stronger. Fight or scream? Jenny thought. But he was so close now. She could feel the movement of his breathing. Her heart was beating in the base of her throat.

She could feel her eyes widen as she looked up at him. His expression made her stomach flutter. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to kiss you ..."

Oh, was that all?

"... until you faint."

Then shadows seemed to fill all the corners of the room and close in about her.

But some part of her mind still had strength. She didn't faint, although her legs went weak again. She pushed him away.

"You're evil," she whispered. "How do you think I could ever love something evil? Unless I'm evil, too...."

She was beginning to wonder about this. But he laughed. "There is no good and evil, only black and white. But either black or white on its own is boring, Jenny. If you mix them you get so many colors-so many colors... ."

She turned away. She heard him pick something up, one of Michael's books.

"Here," he said. "Have you read this one?"

It was a poem, "The Human Condition" by Howard Nemerov. Jenny's eyes skimmed over it, not really understanding any of it. It muddled her.

"It's about world and thought," Julian explained. "World being the world, you see, and thought being-everything else. Image. As opposed to reality." He smiled at her. "That's a hint, incidentally."

Jenny was still muddled. She couldn't seem to focus on the poem, and she was strangely tired. Like the old hypnotist's saying, her eyes were heavy. Her whole body felt warm and heavy.

Julian put his arms around her, supporting her, "You'd better wake up now."

"You mean I'd better go to sleep."

"I mean wake up. If you don't want to be late." She felt his lips on her forehead and realized her eyes were shut.

She had to open them ... she had to open her eyes... But she was drifting, somewhere dark and silent and warm. Just drifting ... floating ...

Some time later Jenny forced her eyes open. Blinked. She was lying on Michael's living room floor.

It had been a dream after all.

But beside her was an open book, facedown. Contemporary Poetry. Jenny picked it up and saw the poem Julian had shown her.

Now that she was awake and thinking clearly, the poem made more sense; it was even vaguely exciting, But she didn't have time to appreciate it; her eye fixed on certain words and her heart began to pound.

Once I saw world and thought exactly meet, But only in a picture by Magritte. ...

The poem went on about the picture of a picture by Magritte-the one Zach had shown Jenny. The one of a painting that stood in front of an open window, matching the landscape outside exactly.

Fitting in like a puzzle piece, standing alone in an empty room.

Magritte, Jenny thought. Oh, God! An empty room.

Dropping the book, she seized Tom's shoulder. "Tom! Tom, get up! Dee! Michael! It's Zach!"

Chapter 12

Zach was asleep when he first felt the creeping around his legs. Or half asleep, anyway-he hadn't really slept for days now. He hadn't dreamed. His daytime thoughts went on going even when he lay there with his eyes shut for hours.

He'd wondered what happened to you when you didn't dream for days. Hallucinations while you were walking around?

Tonight, though, he was definitely drifting when he felt the touch on his ankle. A smooth, rubbery feeling. For a moment he was paralyzed, and a moment was all it took. The rubbery feeling wound its way up his leg, his stomach, his chest. It tightened like a living rope, cutting off his breathing.

Zach's eyes flew open, and he saw clearly the head of the snake staring into his face. Its eyes were two dots of shining light; its mouth was open so wide it looked as if its jaw were dislocated. As if it were going to eat him. Out of that gaping mouth came an endless menacing hisssssssss....

Unable to move, Zach stared up at the swaying shape. Then, somehow, his perspective changed. His eyes ached from staring, but he couldn't see the snake's head anymore. The two dots of light looked more like two of the glow-in-the-dark stars he'd stuck on his ceiling when he was eight-he'd scraped most of them off when his father yelled, but a few remained.

He couldn't hear the hiss now, either. Only the shhshhshhshh of the air-conditioning.

His arms and legs were tangled up in