In that last instant of consciousness, Rusty thought about Rose. He was older than she was; Rose was barely out of her
teens. But she made him feel young and forget what a train wreck his long dead marriage had been.
He still wore the ring. He'd been waiting for her to tell him to take it off.
Now she never would.

At the last instant, I changed direction and threw myself down; the axe splintered the trunk of a tree.
I stumbled into the pool of bright light. My lungs burned; I was too exhausted to move. I tensed as I waited for the killing
blow, but it never came. I raised my head. Nothing moved in the darkness beyond.
For the moment, bathed in the cold light, I was safe.

The Visitor Center was sturdy, but the impact turned the front of the building into splinters. Rusty was thrown across the
lobby like a rag doll and hit the far wall hard.
It didn't hurt until he tried to move and saw his leg bend the wrong way, felt the broken rib stabbing him on the inside. Rusty
howled in pain and fear, suddenly afraid to die alone.

The air in the visitor center was heavy with an awful smell, as if some rotten drowned thing had crawled up from its
grave.
Rusty kept coughing blood. My eyes were drawn to the twisted shape of his broken leg. The attack had been vicious. Max
whined in his cage. Rusty's eyes were wild with fear and terror.
He gasped: "Mr. Wake, it happened just the way it was on that page."

Barry had never gotten along with Alice, but he knew Alan loved her with an almost frightening intensity. And now
something had happened to Alice -- and here was Al, armed with a gun and saying things people got put in padded cells for.
It was as if his friend had experienced a massive psychotic episode and was now totally disconnected from reality.
It scared the ♥♥♥♥ out of Barry.

Alice looked through the viewfinder, lining up the shot. Cauldron Lake was breathtaking. Something caught her eye: a
figure standing in the shadows behind the cabin, like a thin woman in a black dress.
She lowered the camera and looked again -- no one there, just a collection of bushes that looked vaguely human-shaped.
She shook her head and laughed.