As she read the last few words of The Shining, Melanie's eyelids drooped with exhaustion, her whole body overcome by inertia.

What's with me? she thought. Why am I so tired? It can't bethat late.

She glanced at her wristwatch. The hands indicated that it was nearly midnight. She'd been reading for around five hours. It didn't surprise her, though. This often happened when a book was extremely involving -- many times she'd stayed up to the most ungodly hours of the night to finish a book that absolutely refused to be put aside. In this case, it was the suspense of the novel that had kept her attention rapt, but sometimes a book had such intricate, realistic description that it drew her in completely until she felt like she was actually a part of it, that she couldn't just stop reading the book anymore than she could stop living her life.

She rested the book on the nighttable and switched off the lantern. Gently, she lay her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes, and slowly, her fatigue began to diminish. She should have known this would happen -- trying to sleep seemed to be a surefire remedy for needing to sleep. It happened nearly every night, too -- Melanie could hardly remember the last time she'd gotten more than six hours of sleep. A few years ago, maybe. Before her father married Leigh Anne, anyway.

Putting the book on the nighttable beside her, Melanie's thoughts involuntarily turned toward Leigh Anne. Leigh Anne had hated her from the moment she'd set foot inside her house as a new resident. She'd seemed like the sweetest person when she was dating Melanie's father -- in fact, Melanie had even encouraged him to marry her -- but after the wedding, it was a different story. Leigh Anne became cold and contemptuous to Melanie, always trying to exert influence over her or cut her down. Melanie supposed that after her first marriage, she wasn't really ready to open up to another person, that she was still feeling vulnerable, like she needed to shield herself from hurt, but if that was the case, why then had she married Edward? And why did she seem to think that was an excuse to take it out on Melanie? She'd never even given her a chance!

This would never have happened, Melanie found herself thinking, if my mother -- my real mother -- were still alive. If Lydia Fairchild Cross were still alive, they would be having a great vacation. Lydia had loved to travel, and she could always find a million fun things to do anywhere the family went. Even in a crisis, Lydia could make it into an adventure. Had it been her and not Leigh Anne on this trip, the Cross family would probably be huddled in the family room around a hurricane lamp, singing songs and telling ghost stories. And she would never have pulled that scene in the kitchen. Lydia had never hit her daughters -- she was hesitant even to get into an argument, preferring to work out differences by being calm and rational and using reason to solve problems. She would have gone to great lengths to preserve peace in the Cross household. Not only that, but she was willing to sacrifice almost anything for her daughters' well-being. Melanie recalled fondly the time she had gone to Parents' Night at Melanie's elementary school with her leg in a cast. She wanted Melanie and Jessica to have the best of all worlds. She hadn't spoiled them, however -- she had taught them the importance of hard work and independence. Just look at how Jessica had turned out.

Melanie realized that both her face and the pillow it rested on were saturated with tears. Lydia's death was like a knife twisting and tearing apart her insides. It hadn't been all that difficult to get through when it first happened -- although her father had pretty much abandoned her, her sister had done everything she could to shield Melanie from the pain, and besides, she'd been too young to fully grasp the effects it would have on her life. But now, now that Leigh Anne had entered the scene, Melanie felt the full force of the void that had been torn into her life, and the aching bitterness toward her father, a coward beyond words. Even now, she still felt neglected by him -- it was as though he were too intent on pleasing his new wife to have time for Melanie.

There was fear, too. Melanie often wondered how she would survive the rest of high school living like this. She had striven all her life to have a stable future, and now she could see it slipping away. This past year, her grades had gone from nearly straight A's to mostly C's, and drugs -- something she had taken especial care to avoid -- were beginning to look more and more like a convenient escape. A few times she had even held a knife to her wrists and throat, imagining the feel of her life flowing out of her.

Her tears had turned to sobs now, muffled by the arm she had flung across her face.

"Mom," she whispered into the darkness. "Mom, where are you?"

Her only answer was the steady, unmerciful drumming of the rain on the cottage roof, and the distant, menacing growl of thunder.

Half an hour had passed, and Melanie's composure had returned -- but her throat was as dry as if she'd spent several days in the desert. She craved a drink, but feared that if she ventured out of her room, she would disturb Leigh Anne, a notoriously light sleeper. Mentally debating it, she finally decided that if she was careful to be perfectly silent, she could probably make it to the kitchen and back without any major disasters.

By the dim flame of her lighter, Melanie crept to the door, unlocked it, slowly turned the doorknob, and eased the door open. She tiptoed painstakingly to the top of the stairway, and jumped lightly from stair to stair, avoiding spots known to creak.

At the foot of the stairs, Melanie gave a start. Her hand clapped quickly over her mouth, stifling a gasp. A light glowed in the kitchen -- the light of a hurricane lamp like the one she had read by. As she proceeded cautiously to the entrance, she saw Leigh Anne bent over a stack of papers, writing. Neither her head nor her body moved, only her hand, and her eyes as they followed it across the page.

Oh, crap, thought Melanie. Oh, no. What's going to happen this time? Can't I even simply get a drink? What is she doing here, anyway?

Melanie took a tentative step into the kitchen. Leigh Anne's gaze shot up from her work, rested on Melanie for a brief second, and then went back to the papers in front of her. Melanie silently crossed to the refrigerator, opened the door, and removed a carton of milk. Taking a glass from the cabinet above her, she brought the carton and the glass to the table, so she could see what she was doing and not spill milk all over the kitchen. She opened the carton, which was nearly full, and a steady stream of milk flowed into the glass.

"Ah-"

Leigh Anne glanced up.

"Ah-choo!"

The milk carton seemed to jump out of Melanie's hands, knocking over her glass of milk, which in turn knocked over Leigh Anne's cup of tea, still half-filled. Milk and tea spilled over the table, soaking Leigh Anne's entire stack of papers, plus the one she had been working on. Ink smudged and ran until nothing was left of Leigh Anne's neat, precise lettering but blurred blotches. Where the tea had saturated the papers, there were muddy, brownish stains.

Leigh Anne let out a cry of dismay as she shot up to a stand, wringing out her wet hands. She stared at the ruins of her paperwork with huge, shocked eyes, her face turning pale.

"I spent weeks on these!" she sputtered. Melanie stood frozen, watching as Leigh Anne surveyed the mess. She turned slowly to face Melanie.

Leigh Anne's face was blushing bright red now, her lips set in an unnaturally tight line and drained of color. Her eyebrows were drawn together. But it was her eyes that caught Melanie - - they were wider than seemed possible, and a veritable inferno of red-hot fury and scathing hatred suffused with a burning pain that somehow seemed more frightening than anything else. If steel could ever catch fire, it happened now -- with a fire that seemed to reach out and sear Melanie's mind. She had never before seen emotions as intense as the ones she saw now, and it filled her with a paralyzing terror like none she'd ever known and supposed few others had. Her pulse began to race. She stood in place like a deer in headlights, her mouth hanging very slightly agape, her eyes those of prey in the claws of a predator, the irises glowing a brilliant emerald. Every drop of color had drained from her face, leaving it paler than death itself. She knew all too well how neurotic Leigh Anne could be about her work.

"Congratulations," she said to Melanie in a soft, calm voice that sounded horribly wrong. "You have just... destroyed... me."

Leigh Anne didn't move. She remained as frozen as Melanie, staring at Melanie for what seemed an eternity, the wildfire in her eyes blazing out of control. Melanie's stomach heaved violently and her head began to pound. For some reason, the fact that Leigh Anne was just standing there seemed the worst thing of all.

Then, suddenly, her hand began to move toward the table. Without changing her gaze, she found her purse, and drew something out. The dim lantern light glinted evilly off its jet-black surface of polished steel. Melanie's heart began to pound even harder and faster, until she thought it would leap straight out of her chest. Her vision blurred as she struggled for breath, wondering if this was all only a dream. It seemed just too surreal to be true -- certainly some ruined paperwork did not merit pulling a gun.

But, then, she thought weakly, with Leigh Anne, merit does not apply.

"Leigh Anne," she managed to choke out. "What the hell?"

Suddenly, a figure appeared in the doorway. Her father!

"Hey, what's going on-" he gasped as Leigh Anne turned to face him, gun in hand. "Leigh Anne, what the hell are you doing?" This last sentence came out as a strangled cross between a whisper and a croak.

Melanie's survival instinct kicked in all of a sudden, her vision and her head clearing. Acting on pure primal reflex, she grabbed the gun from Leigh Anne's hand, shoving her forward into a chair. But Leigh Anne was quick, too, and resilient. She spun back around and charged at Melanie, knocking her to the floor. Then she was on top of Melanie, pinning her to the cold linoleum and wrapping her hands around Melanie's throat, cutting Melanie's breath off. Managing to hold on to the gun, Melanie averted her gaze from Leigh Anne's and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. Black spots like balls of fuzz appeared amidst the white.

In panicked desperation, Melanie pulled the trigger.

The gun fired with a loud bang that echoed in the small kitchen. The force of the impact slammed Melanie's arm into the floor and threw Leigh Anne off Melanie and into the leg of one of the kitchen chairs. Letting out a ragged, broken shriek that seemed more animal than human, Leigh Anne doubled over, her jaw clenched like a vise, her eyes squeezed shut, her forehead creased and glistening with sweat. Blood gushed from her abdomen where the bullet had hit her, and flowed over the hand she held over her wound. Minutes passed. Melanie could only stare at Leigh Anne in disbelief and amazement.

Suddenly, Leigh Anne's eyes flew open, and one hand shot out, gripping Melanie's wrist above the hand in which she still held the gun. Blood smeared Melanie's arm. With a cry of horror and disgust, Melanie recoiled, shaking Leigh Anne's hand off. The blazing hatred in Leigh Anne's eyes intensified, like a fire to which had been added more fuel. She dived for Melanie's throat, blood spilling onto the linoleum in a crimson flood. Once more, Leigh Anne's hands closed around Melanie's windpipe.

As her vision clouded over again and she felt her mind begin to slip downward into unconsciousness, Melanie tightened her hold on the gun, and, using all the strength she could muster, lifted it and pressed it against Leigh Anne's temple. Although she could see almost nothing, she still felt Leigh Anne's eyes branding her with their gaze.

Melanie again pulled the trigger.

The report of the gun was followed by a crash as Edward, who had been standing in the doorway, paralyzed and unable to do anything but watch the ugly scene play itself out, fell to the floor in a faint.

And finally, everything went black.

The windshield wipers swept tiny rivulets of rain water off the glass, giving way to a momentarily clear view of the highway the stretched before Jessica. The Toyota's headlights reflected off not only the rain, but the swirling wisps of fog that now covered the pavement in a gossamer blanket. Occasionally it glowed with the ethereal orange light of an arc-sodium lamp.

Jessica noticed that the rain had let up. When she had started out from Boston, almost nothing could be seen of the road, but she could see now with much-increased clarity. Switching the windshield wipers to a lower frequency, she ejected the Led Zeppelin tape to which she'd been listening from the stereo and replaced it with Aerosmith. The music began promptly, and Jessica resumed her humming. She still felt a twinge of apprehension, but it lent now to the adrenaline rush that surged inside her as she continued her journey to Cliff's Edge. Along with sleep deprivation and the emptiness of the usually busy highway, the sense of danger that had motivated this trip created an appealing atmosphere of suspense and excitement, as though she were a character in an adventure movie. The thought of driving out in a hurricane to rescue her family, like some fictional heroine, gave her a sense of self-importance. Although she felt guilty for thinking that way, she supposed it was better to think of her own heroism than to worry herself into an ulcer over what screwy thing was going on with her family this time. Kari was probably right, anyway -- she was probably making this trip for nothing, and all that crap about something being wrong was probably all just either a dream or night terror. Oh, well. Melanie and her father would be glad to see her again so soon -- especially Melanie, being cooped up with Leigh Anne and all.

But no matter how hard she tried to tell herself that everything was just fine, she still couldn't shake the strange, nagging feeling that it wasn't.

Everything was black, as though covered by an impenetrable choking haze. A sense of wrongness pervaded Edward's senses, but he couldn't place it. All he knew was that he was lying on a hard surface, and that everything was black.

Slowly, he remembered where he was -- at the cottage in Cliff's Edge. He reached out a hand and, feeling smooth linoleum sliding beneath it, deduced that he was lying on the floor. His limbs were cramped, and his head pounded in splitting agony. Why was he lying on the floor -- what had happened? What was the source of that sense he couldn't quite place?

The memory struck him with the force of a runaway train.

Leigh Anne. Melanie.

Edward began to rise from the floor, but was struck down by a white-hot bolt of pain that felt as though it was splitting his skull apart. He hit the floor with a thump, and a dull pain spread from his tailbone to his lower back. After a few moments, he tentatively changed his position on the floor and eased himself first into a kneel, then into a shaky stand. One step at a time, he clutched the door frame and forced his legs to carry him into the kitchen, tingling from hours of being in the cramped position into which Edward had fallen. The lantern's battery having gone dead hours ago, he relied entirely on his sense of touch, until his eyes adjusted to the dim pre- dawn light from the window. He realized that the rain had tapered off to a soft patter, and the only sign the wind gave of its presence was the quiet rustling of the trees around the cottage. The hurricane was over.

But the storm wasn't.

Edward's gaze turned reluctantly to the floor, and what he saw nearly caused him to faint again. His hand shot out, grabbing the edge of the table, as he sank into a chair. Leigh Anne and Melanie lay in a pool of blood, still wet, that bathed them both. The front of the robe Leigh Anne had been wearing was stained entirely red, and streaks of red dyed her blond curls. Her eyes remained open, the expression of hatred that she had died wearing still frozen in their steely irises. Melanie lay near her, Leigh Anne's gun still resting in her stained hand. Her clothes were spattered with blood, but none of it seemed to be her own. Indeed, Edward could tell from the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest that she was alive, and apparently unharmed.

Lowering himself to a kneel, he closed Leigh Anne's eyes, then turned to Melanie and gently shook her.

"Mel," he whispered, "wake up."

She didn't respond.

"Mel," he tried again, louder this time, shaking her harder. Still she didn't even stir.

"Melanie, dammit, wake up!" he shouted at her. An icy wave of panic overtook him, chilling not only his bones but his mind. Logical thought was rendered impossible.

"Melanie!" He slapped her across the face.

She remained still, alive yet not quite.

Covering his face with his hands, Edward began to sob. Tears fell from his face, mingling with the blood that now covered him as well as Melanie and Leigh Anne. Rising to his feet, he staggered out of the kitchen and into the living room, guided by no logic, no reason, no thought even, just the same instinct that had guided Melanie as she struck out against Leigh Anne in self-defense. This was Edward's self-defense from the overwhelming despair that threatened to tear away the last shred of sanity he clung desperately to. He limped, still sobbing, to the bar that the house's owners kept, that he had managed to avoid throughout this ill-fated vacation. He had avoided it because he had cared about his family, hadn't wanted to hurt them like he did after Lydia's death. But now, with his second wife dead and his daughter in some kind of coma, maybe dying herself, there was nothing left for him to care about, no reason left for him to step back from the precipice of self-destruction that he teetered so precariously on. With shaking hands, he reached into the cabinet of the bar and brought out a bottle -- he didn't know what it was, and didn't care. Unscrewing the cap, he began to gulp it down, feeling the familiar burn spread through his chest like an old friend. As he drank, a haze began to slip like a curtain over his mind, over all that had happened in the several short hours just past. As soon as the bottle was emptied, he reached for another.

But the pain refused to go away. It still lingered in the corner of his consciousness, a dark specter whose haunting he knew would go on for the rest of his life.

The rest of his life.

It didn't have to be that long.

An idea began its languid dawn in his alcohol-hazed mind. Rising from where he had nearly collapsed at the foot of a wicker chair, he finished with a long swig his second bottle, and, throwing it down, dragged himself back into the kitchen. His settings swam before his eyes as the haze over his mind thickened, turning his thoughts into a jumble of confusion, saturated with pain so intense he could almost feel it physically.

Stooping clumsily down to where Melanie still lay, unmoved from the last time he'd been here, he fumbled the gun out of her hand.

As a faint glow began to spread in a pencil-thin line across the horizon, the Cross cottage was completely still but for the gentle rhythm of the rain on the roof and the leaves outside. A single gunshot rang through the moist air of the summer morning; and as the rain lessened until the last of the sky's tears had been shed, all was silent.