Shadowfires

dripping gobbet after another. Maybe his altered metabolism was capable of dealing with the potent venom of the rattlers-either breaking it down into an array of harmless chemicals, or repairing tissues as rapidly as the venom damaged them.
    Chain lightning flashed back and forth across the malevolent sky,
and in that incandescent flare, Eric's long sharp teeth gleamed like shards of a broken mirror. His strangely shining eyes cast back a cold reflection of the celestial fire. His wet, tangled hair streamed with short-lived silvery brightness; the rain glistered like molten silver on his face; and all around him the earth sizzled as if the lightning-lined water was actually melted fat bubbling and crackling in a frying pan.
    At last, Rachael broke the mesmeric hold that the scene exerted,
turned from the flute hole, and ran back the way she had come. She
sought another hollow between other low hills, a different route that
would lead her to the roadside comfort station and the Mercedes.
    Leaving the hilly area and recrossing the sandy plains, she was
frequently the tallest thing in sight, much taller than the desert
scrub. Once more, she worried about being struck by lightning. In the
eerie stroboscopic light, the bleak and barren land appeared to leap
and fall and leap again, as if eons of geological activity were being
compressed into a few frantic seconds.
    She tried to enter an arroyo, where she might be safe from the
lightning. But the deep gulch was two-thirds full of muddy, churning
water. Flotillas of whirling tumble-weed boats and bobbing mesquite
rafts were borne on the water's rolling back.
    She was forced to find a route around the network of flooded
arroyos. But in time she came to the rest area where she had first
encountered Eric. Her purse was still where she had dropped it, and
she picked it up. The Mercedes was also exactly where she'd left it.
    A few steps from the car, she halted abruptly, for she saw that
the trunk lid, previously open, was now closed. She had the dreadful
feeling that Eric-or the thing that had once been Eric-had returned
ahead of her, had climbed into the trunk again, and had pulled the
lid shut behind him.
    Shaking, indecisive, afraid, Rachael stood in the drenching rain,
reluctant to go closer to the car. The parking lot, lacking adequate
drainage, was being transformed into a shallow lake. She stood in
water that came over the tops of her running shoes.
    The thirty-two pistol was under the driver's seat. If she could reach it before Eric threw open the trunk lid and came out…
    Behind her, the staccato plop-plop-plop of water dripping off the
picnic-table cover sounded like scurrying rats. More water sheeted
off the comfort-station roof, splashing on the sidewalk. All around,
the falling rain slashed into the pools and puddles with a crackling-
cellophane sound that seemed to grow louder by the second.
    She took a step toward the car, another, halted again.
    He might not be in the trunk but inside the car itself. He might
have closed the trunk and slipped into the back seat or even into the
front, where he could be lying now-silent, still, unseen-waiting for
her to open the door. Waiting to sink his teeth into her the way he'd sunk them into the snakes…
    Rain streamed off the roof of the Mercedes, rippled down the
windows, blurring her view of the car's shadowy interior.
    Scared to approach the car but equally afraid of turning back,
Rachael at last took another step forward.
    Lightning flashed. Looming large and ominous in the stuttering
light, the black Mercedes suddenly reminded her of a hearse.
    Out on the highway, a large truck passed, engine roaring, big
tires making a slushy sound on the wet pavement.
    Rachael reached the Mercedes, jerked open the driver's door, saw no one inside. She fumbled under the seat for the pistol. Found it. While she still had the courage to act, she went around to the back of the car, hesitated only a second, pushed on the latch button, and lifted the trunk lid, prepared to empty the clip of the thirty-two into the Eric-thing if it was crouching there.
    The trunk was empty. The carpet was soaked, and a gray puddle of
rain spread over the center of the compartment, so she figured it had
remained open to the elements until an especially strong gust of wind
had blown it shut.
    She slammed the lid, used her keys to lock it, returned to the
driver's door, and got in behind the wheel. She put the pistol on the