Luscious red lips, full-bodied jet-black hair, and a beauty mark to die for. Her legs were crossed sensuously in the sidewalk café. The tangerine sundress was low-cut but tasteful.
Serge easily held his own in the dating jungle. He never had the kind of striking looks that made him the first guy women noticed in the room. But he possessed what they call intangibles. Charm, manners, intelligence and a robust enthusiasm for everything. Within minutes of conversation, members of the opposite sex gave him a revised appraisal and were usually smitten by a warm, plainly handsome face. And most of all, those piercing ice-blue eyes. No need for eHarmony; if he put his mind to it, he could easily form a line in most jurisdictions.
Serge was never a cad or a deliberate user of women. He always had the sincerest feelings for his companion du jour. Plus he was one of those rare males who never felt the slightest twinge of heartache if they left him, which happened with severe frequency. The charm and other stuff could last days, even weeks, before inevitably: “This guy has serious problems—I need to leave the state.” Then Serge would simply be thankful for the fun times they had shared and go whistling his separate way.
If there was any heartbreak, it fell on the women. As often as they left him, so he left them. Like a Siamese cat that inexplicably stops in the middle of a room and takes off in a totally different direction, Serge would routinely decide that he suddenly needed to be somewhere else.
Now, as he sat in a sidewalk café across from a tangerine sundress, emotions were all new and raw. He had been with her type countless times, but this one was different. She had gotten to know the real Serge and was cool with it, even amused. Serge was lost and helpless and utterly happy.
He stared like a schoolboy into her eyes as they discussed plans for a beach wedding.
Serge never heard anything as her face fell forward on the table, because the gun had a silencer. Confused, he gently put his hand on the back of her head and felt hair matted with tacky blood.
Coleman waddled through the night with a crooked smile and a beer in each hand. It was a giant, wooded field. It would have been the middle of nowhere if it had been closer to other places.
After escaping the lynch mob at the Tampa convention, Serge had plotted a long, dark drive, hopping from state highways to county roads to nameless dirt trails. They were up north of the Ocala National Forest, in a quilt of lakes where land was sparse and in anti-demand. The last stretch formed an isthmus. Just before parking, Coleman saw an owl on top of a faded sign.
HAWTHORNE.
Then they got separated and couldn’t find each other for hours. There were two contributing factors: Serge’s passion to explore, and Coleman’s tendency to get separated.
Coleman had been wandering the woods wide-eyed all night like Hansel and Gretel. But he was properly roasted to dig the trees and crickets, and still had two beers left. He smiled and looked up at the moon through an old-growth canopy. Then a lot more trees. The first sign of anything but plants was a discarded farm contraption half buried in peat. He felt the coarse, rusted surface of a protruding wheel. It had been mule-powered. It called for a beer.
A short time later, he saw a shape in the distance with right angles. He came upon the small tilting barn and picked up a piece of brown glass from a bottle that had been drunk during Prohibition. An abrupt sound startled Coleman and turned him around. Just like the unseen frogs and birds at the beginning of his journey. But he’d gotten used to that. This noise was human.
He ventured forth and saw an even larger barn through the trees. When he drew near, a clearing opened up to reveal a farmhouse that hadn’t been occupied for decades. A voice erupted again.
Coleman gulped, but he pressed on.
The voice grew louder. He reached the house and stuck his face against the porch’s screen door. Empty. Except for the voice. Too weird. He was right on top of the sound, but nobody was there. He backed up. “A ghost.”
The voice became even louder. Coleman got a funny look on his face, then crouched on his hands and knees and stuck his head under the farmhouse’s crawl space.
The voice cried out.
“Serge?” said Coleman. “Is that you?”
Coleman quickly slithered on his belly until he was under the middle of the residence. Serge thrashed in the dirt.
Coleman shook his buddy vigorously. “Wake up! Wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”
Serge flopped a last few times, then blinked his eyes. “Coleman?”
“It’s cool, man. Just a bad dream.”
Serge looked around. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” said Coleman. “I crawled under this old house.”
“Are you still crawling under houses?”
