She stepped toward the bed. In the dim light she could see an IV running into his arm; a green nasal oxygen tube snaked from his upper lip to the tank that stood like a steely sentinel next to his headboard. His eyes were closed, his face was slack, and his mouth hung open. He could have been sleeping, but as soon as Carol heard his breathing she knew he was in serious trouble.

His respirations would follow a cycle, starting off shallow, then getting progressively deeper until he seemed to be filling and refilling his lungs to maximum capacity, then gradually becoming shallower and shallower again. Until they stopped. That was the scary part. There would be a period when there was no breathing at all. It never lasted more than thirty seconds, but it seemed to take forever before the cycle started all over again.

She'd heard it before. Cheyne-Stokes respiration—that was what one of the internists had told her last year when she had first witnessed it. It was common in comas, especially when brought on by a massive stroke.

Poor Mr. Dodd. Back only a week after his discharge. She hoped his last days were happy and peaceful in Maureen's home. She was sure both daughters were glad now that they had listened to her. Otherwise, if they'd put him in a nursing home only to have this happen, they'd probably never forgive themselves.

She adjusted the covers over him, then gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

That was when it happened.

With no warning Mr. Dodd reared up in his bed. His eyes were wide. The left side of his face was slack, but the right was a half mask of horror as he began screaming hoarsely through his toothless, lopsided mouth.

"Get away! Get away from me! Oh, God, save me, get away, get away, get awaaaaay!"

Startled and frightened, Carol stumbled away from the bed just as his nurse came charging in.

"What happened? What did you do?"

"N-nothing," Carol said. "I only touched his hand."

Mr. Dodd was now pointing at her. His eyes were still wide but his sightless gaze was directed straight ahead. His trembling finger, however, pointed directly at Carol.

"Get away! Get awaaaay!"

"You'd better leave," the nurse said.

Carol needed no persuasion. She turned and fled the room. Mr. Dodd's voice followed her all the way to the elevator.

"GET AWAAAAAAAY!"

The elevator doors finally closed off the sound. Unnerved, she stood trembling as the car began its descent.

I only touched his hand.

As she walked out into the sunny employee parking lot, she decided that maybe today she could bring herself to return to Tall Oaks. She had wanted to visit the grave site yesterday but hadn't had the courage to brave it in the rain. Now she felt she needed to be near Jim, just to sit by his grave and talk to him, even if he couldn't answer.

Oh, Jim. How am I going to get by without you?

2

There was an unseasonably warm breeze blowing across the bare knolls of Tall Oaks. They didn't allow gaudy headstones here. Only quiet granite plaques laid flat in the ground. A lot like Arlington National Cemetery in a way. Carol liked the style. If she didn't look too closely, she could almost convince herself that she was trodding the back lawn of a huge, provincial estate.

Jim's grave was easy to find, and would continue to be so until they cleared away the flowers. About twenty yards to the right of his was another flower-decked plot where someone else had been buried the same day as Jim.

Carol paused involuntarily in her approach, then forced herself forward. She had to get used to this, because she intended to come here often. She was not going to forget Jim. If he couldn't live on in this world, she would see to it that he stayed alive in her memory and in her heart.

When she reached the grave, she stared down in shock. What she saw filled her with a creeping terror that sent her running for the car. She wanted to scream, but there was no one to hear her.

There was someone she could call, though. She knew of only one person she could turn to about this.

3

"Look! You see it? It's dead! All of it! Like it's been dead for weeks!"

The afternoon sun was warm on Bill's back as he stared down at Jim's grave. He removed the windbreaker he had thrown over his short-sleeved tunic and collar; he shut out Carol's agitated voice for a moment as he tried to think. She had called him in a state of panic this morning about Jim's grave. He hadn't been able to get a really clear story out of her but had soothed her with the promise that he would come out to Monroe as soon as he could get away from St. F.'s.

The rectangle of grass over Jim's grave was all a dull, dead brown.

Bill resisted an urge to say So what? and tried to tune in to Carol's emotions as she huddled behind him, shielding herself from the grave, as if afraid it would bite her.

"Why is it dead, Bill?" she was saying. "Just give me a good, sane reason why it's dead here on this grave and nowhere else and I promise you I'll never bother you again."

"Maybe they didn't put the sod back right and it dried out," he said.

"Dried out? It poured all day yesterday!"

"Well then, maybe they didn't cut it thick enough and killed the roots. There's a special art to cutting sod properly, you know."

"Okay, fine. But do you really think that they cut it all wrong over Jim's grave and all right on that one over there? They were both buried the same day!"

"Maybe—"

"Christ, Bill! Even if they cut the grass and sprinkled the clippings over his grave, it would still be green now!"

Bill stared at the dead brown blades curling up from the dirt and had to admit Carol was right. This grass was dead! It was as if the life had been sucked right out of it. But how? And why? Why just here in this neat rectangle? Unless someone had poured an herbicide on it. But that didn't make sense. Who would want to do something like that?

And the most disturbing part of the dead patch was the way it didn't quite reach the edges of the replaced sod. The dead grass was confined to a neat, narrow rectangle exactly the size of Jim's coffin lying six feet below. Carol hadn't mentioned it. Maybe she hadn't noticed. Bill wasn't about to point it out to her.

He turned and looked at her, saw her tortured, frightened eyes, and wanted desperately to help her. But how?

"Carol, what do you want me to say?"

Her control began to crack. Her face screwed up and tears began to slide down her cheeks.

"I want you to tell me that he wasn't possessed by the devil and that there's a good reason for the grass over his grave to be dead!" She leaned against him and began to sob. "That's all I want! That's not so much, is it?"

Hesitantly Bill put his arms around her and gently patted her back. It seemed such a wholly inadequate gesture, but it was the best he could do, the most he dared do.

For contact with Carol was sending intensely pleasurable but unwanted sensations racing up and down his body. All those hidden feelings and desires that plagued him in his bed at night were awakening here in the day and beginning to move. He hugged her a moment longer, then, with difficulty, put a little space between them.

"No, it's not much at all to ask," he said, giving her a stern look. "But I'm surprised you have to ask it."

"I know, I know," she said, and lowered her eyes. "But after all the things those awful people said on Sunday, and then to come up here and see this, I… I just cracked a little."

"It is weird," he said, glancing back at the dead grass, "but I'm sure there's a good explanation that doesn't have anything to do with the devil."

"Good. Tell me what it is."