Five minutes into the first quarter, Bob heard something behind him. He looked behind the sofa and saw his son trudging towards the stairs. He wore his cowboy hat and cap gun belt.

"What did Mom say about wearing that stuff inside, Junior?"

The boy didn't look at him. He said, in a pathetic John Wayne impression, "I've come to kill Mom."

The monster returned to Marlie's bedroom closet in eighth grade, after she had almost forgotten about it. Marlie lay awake listening to the whispers for one agonizing night. In the morning, she twisted a wire hanger into a jam to hold the knobs together. It could not be killed, she knew, but perhaps

The crescent kick caught me perfectly, the inside of the heel landing on the side of my neck. Quick, fast and hard, the leg sweeping up from the floor in an arc before I could react. The whole left side of my upper body went numb.

I am rage. * * *

I feed a furnace in my belly with a constant cache of coal. It never gets low and I never burn out. It sizzles and sears; it expands and it ebbs. Still, I am in control. * * *

I get a letter from the principal's office.

Sometimes I enjoy cooking, but this wasn't one of those times. I was chopping up a cabbage for lunch. (I fry cabbage with a little bit of bacon and garlic - very good) And I was bored, bored, bored.

The knife hit something hard. There, in the very center of the cabbage, gleamed a massive pearl

It was two o'clock in the morning. Veronica knew for sure now that she was being followed. She'd circled the block three times, a quiet row of identical houses. There were no streetlights, no anything for at least half a mile in every direction except for the two of them,

"Hello. You have reached the Mark and Danielle Becker residence. At the tone, please leave a message and Danielle or I will get back to you as soon as--

"Aw hell . . . who am I kidding? . . . none of that's actually true. It pains me to admit that Danielle no longer lives here. Not anymore

The strong breeze pushed the kite higher and carried the now familiar voice across the backyard.

The call floated through the air, like the sounds of the wind chimes on her neighbor's back porch. Clorisa began hearing the voice a few weeks