Shadowfires

change.
    The headache became rapidly more severe. The fluorescent lights
bothered him, so he squinted to close out some of the white glare.
    He looked away from his own eyes and let his gaze travel over the
rest of his reflection. Suddenly he thought he perceived changes
occurring along his right temple as well as in the zygomatic bone and
zygomatic arch around and under his right eye.
    Fear surged through him, purer than any fear he had known thus
far, and his heart raced.
    His headache now blazed throughout his skull and even down into a
substantial portion of his face.
    Abruptly he turned away from the mirror. It was difficult though
possible to look upon the monstrous changes after they had occurred.
But watching the flesh and bone transform itself before his eyes was
a far more demanding task, and he possessed neither the fortitude nor
the stomach for it.
    Crazily he thought of Lon Chancy, Jr., in that old movie, The
Wolfman, Chancy so appalled by the sight of his lupine
metamorphosis that he was overcome by terror of-and pity for-himself.
Eric looked at his own large hands, half expecting to see hair
sprouting on them. That expectation made him laugh, though as before,
his laugh was a harsh and cold and broken sound, utterly humorless,
and it quickly turned into a series of wrenching sobs.
    His entire head and face were filled with pain now-even his lips
stung-and as he lurched out of the bathroom, bumping first into the
sink, then colliding with the doorjamb, he made a thin high-pitched
keening sound that was, in one note, a symphony of fear and
suffering.
The Riverside County sheriff's deputy wore dark sunglasses that concealed his eyes and, therefore, his intentions. However, as the policeman got out of the patrol car, Ben saw no telltale tension in his body, no indications that he recognized them as the infamous betrayers of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, of whom the radio newsman had recently spoken.
    Ben took Rachael's arm, and they kept moving.
    Within the past few hours, their descriptions and photographs had
been wired to all police agencies in California and the Southwest,
but that did not mean they were every lawman's first priority.
    The deputy seemed to be staring at them.
    But not all cops were sufficiently conscientious to study the
latest bulletins before hitting the road, and those who had gone on
duty early this morning, as this man might have done, would have left
before Ben's and Rachael's photographs had been posted.
    “Excuse me,” the deputy said.
    Ben stopped. Through the hand he had on Rachael's arm, he felt her stiffen. He tried to stay loose, smile. “Yes, sir?”
    “That your Chevy pickup?”
    Ben blinked. “Uh… no. Not mine.”
    “Got a taillight busted out,” the deputy said, taking off his
sunglasses, revealing eyes free of suspicion.
    “We're driving that Ford,” Ben said.
    “You know who owns the truck?”
    “Nope. Probably one of the other customers in there.”
    “Well, you folks have a nice day, enjoy our beautiful mountains,”
the deputy said, moving past them and into the sporting-goods
store.
    Ben tried not to run straight to the car, and he sensed that
Rachael was resisting a similar urge. Their measured stroll was
almost too nonchalant.
    The eerie stillness, so complete when they had arrived, was gone,
and the day was full of movement. Out on the water, an outboard motor
buzzed like a swarm of hornets. A breeze had sprung up, coming in off
the blue lake, rustling the trees, stirring the grass and weeds and
wildflowers. A few cars passed on the state route, rock and roll
blaring through the open windows of one of them.
    They reached the rental Ford in the cool shadows of the pines.
    Rachael pulled her door shut, winced at the loud chunk it
made, as if the sound would draw the deputy back. Her green eyes were
wide with apprehension. “Let's get out of here.”
    “You got it,” he said, starting the engine.
    “We can find another place, more private, where you can unpack the
shotgun and load it.”
    They pulled out onto the two-lane blacktop that encircled the
lake, heading north. Ben kept checking the rearview mirror. No one
was following them; his fear that their pursuers were right on their
tail was irrational, paranoid. He kept checking the mirror anyway.
    The lake lay on their left and below them, glimmering, and the
mountains rose on their right. In some areas, houses stood on large
plots of forested land: Some were