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The land was utterly dead, still, not even a breath of wind or hint of noise to disturb the dark. And yet I felt crowded, as if things bumped and jostled me from all sides. I constantly saw movement from the corner of my eye, but when I looked-- --nothing. This place would send a saint looney. Fear was threatening to take me again. I tamped it down hard, placing all my concentration in that feeling of pull in my chest. I had to think about only that, or risk sitting down and never getting up again. I just wished I could shake the feeling that I wasn't alone. I had no idea how i knew the direction I was going was the right one. The feeling in my chest was warm, soft, and gave no physical indication where it needed me to be, and yet I followed it with the instinct of a homing pigeon. I wondered if this was how birds felt when they flew south for the winter. I tripped? on what? whang! They were just...there. a schoolyard's worth of children, lying in pools of their own blood. I didn't know these children; it wasn't my school. But it was some school somewhere, and the name floated on the edges of my consciousness. I suddenly knew I was seeing this as dougie had, or feared he would, the aftermath of a situation I feared to comprehend. so many broken, battered little bodies. So much lost. Though I knew it wasn't real, the smell of blood and shit was heavy in the air, a gritty reality I did not need. movies gloss over the fact you soil yourself when you die. The corpses are always pretty, clean, with as much dignity in death as they had in life. But death is not so kind. I tried to tell myself this was only one of his fears, something that hadn't happened, but could have. In my nightmare, Dougie had been white, bled out from the gunshot wound, nearly dead. But that was a lie. no dead man could have these fears. But it was the smell that made me doubt, made me wonder. I'd researched it for my writing, even visited a corpse or two, and death had a very distinct odor, one dougie obviously knew well. If this hadn't been real, there were other deaths that were. you never forgot the smell. My fear finally receded, pushed aside by stronger emotions. Horror, such horror, who couldn't feel it, faced with this? but stronger even than that, a sorrow so deep, it wounded. I had felt wronged by life, by what it did to me, to damon. I had felt beset by troubles, but the truth was, I could sleep at night without his face haunting me, I could laugh without guilt, without wondering who'd died through some mistake of timing or judgment I had made. My nightmares could be banished in the warm light of morning, safely forgotten. whereas dougie, dougie had to carry the memory of this every day. I pushed myself off the tree, reached for a child. I don't know why. Perhaps to prove to myself they were real, perhaps instinct, some motherly thing that wanted to provide comfort, perhaps just a morbid fascination. But as I leaned forward they flickered, seemed to fade. I slumped against the tree and they snapped back to ugly reality, a movie image in sharp focus. I blinked, then leaned forward again, watching as the image faded. I leaned back, watched as they popped back to life. oh gods, I'm so sorry, dougie. I looked around at the trees that surrounded me, hundreds of them on this endless plain, then back at the children. The tree I was against was their memory, activated by my touch. And there were so many trees, so very many.... I began to shake again, though this time it had nothing to do with fear. I wanted to cry, but tears refused to come. This hurt too bad for tears.

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