Her grin lit up her entire face. “They explained everything. Well, mostly everything. You did what you were supposed to do, and now you’re free.”

“I thought I was dead.” The weakness retreated. I pushed myself up on my elbows and lifted my hand.

The fingers were still callused and strong, but they weren’t gray and gnarled. And when I touched my own face I didn’t find craters. I found smooth skin and stubble, and my nose wasn’t a squashed mushroom. My tongue ran over my teeth, and the familiar geography inside my mouth was different. If I looked in a mirror, I probably wouldn’t see yellowed picket-fence teeth. I’d see straight white pearls.

I was in a stranger’s body.

“I kind of figured you had a crush on me.” Kate sat back on a low stool. There was a mirror across the room, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to look in it. Outside the window, the garden drowsed under gentle silver Heartlight. The smell of jasmine smoked in through the window. “I mean, all those CornNuts.”

“I’m not ugly?” I sounded about five years old.

“You never were.” She folded her arms. “But we’ve got to work on our communication. And what do I call you, anyway? Didn’t you ever give yourself a name?”

I stared at her fish-mouthed for a while until she broke up laughing. It was a nice sound, and the smile that cracked over my disbelieving alien face felt like sunshine.

“Call me what you want,” I mumbled, and that broke her up all over again. I settled back into the bed and stared at her. It was like waking up Christmas all over. “I’m not ugly?”

“You never were ugly. Ever.” She moved as if she were going to get up, and I flung out a hand to stop her.

A stranger’s hand. “Please. Kate. I’m sorry, I—”

She sank back down and stared at me. We looked at each other for a long time. “You mean you’re sorry for bringing me here, when you thought I was going to be a human sacrifice?”

My neck felt like rusted metal when I nodded. My hair moved on the pillow.

She nodded, golden hair falling in her eyes. She looked very solemn, and the Heart inside me—it was still there, ticking along as if I hadn’t shoved a knife in it—turned over. If I could have torn it out and given it to her, I would have.

Because it had been hers all along, hadn’t it?

“Yeah.” She settled back down on the stool. “It’s still better than checking at EvilMart. Just relax, for now. We’ll have to think up a name for you, they say. And they say we can go wherever we want, that you’ve got a vacation you didn’t go on.”

My throat refused to work right for a few seconds. Then I got the words out.

“How do you feel about Bermuda?”

The Demon in the Dunes

CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

Chris Grabenstein did improvisational comedy in New York City with Bruce Willis before James Patterson hired him to write advertising copy. He is the Anthony and Agatha award-winning author of the John Ceepak/ Jersey Shore mysteries, Tilt-A-Whirl, Mad Mouse, Whack-A-Mole, Hell Hole, Mind Scrambler, and Rolling Thunder; the thrillers Slay Ride and Hell for the Holidays; and the middle-grades chillers The Crossroads and The Hanging Hill. His dog Fred has even better credits: Fred starred on Broadway in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. With five brothers, most of his summer vacations growing up were pretty scary, but the only paranormal creatures Chris encountered were the mermaids at Webb’s City Drug Store in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the whole family went every August to visit his grandparents. The humidity was pretty monstrous, too. You can visit Chris (and Fred) on the Web at www.chrisgrabenstein.com.

I don’t know why I’m lying here dreaming about 1975 and the demon in the dunes.

It’s summer. Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Saturday. August sixteenth. 1975. The night I first saw the demon lurking in the shadows at the dark edge of the sand.

Kevin Corman and I are running down a moonlit street away from the Royal Flamingo Motel and our families.

“You score?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah.” I held up two warm beer cans. “Schlitz.”

“Your old man won’t notice?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered—nervously as I recall. I wasn’t a big rule breaker when I was a teenager. I usually stayed quiet. Stayed out of trouble.

“Far out,” said Kevin, taking my two Schlitz cans and stuffing them up underneath the flapping coat of his leisure suit. He was dressed to score that