SHANE

When the draug's liquid surrounded me, flowed over me like syrup, everything just ... whited out for a few seconds. And then it went black.

And then I just ... woke up.

It surprised me how easily I got away.

One second I was trapped in that sticky, thick, stinging liquid-death by drowning in jellyfish-and the next I was clawing my way free, up, and finding the edges of the bubble that held me prisoner. I got my hand out, then my elbow, and then my face broke the surface and I gasped for air as I slithered completely free. I was slimed and disgusting, and I was stung all over, but that didn't matter. I slipped in the thick draug residue and tried to follow Claire down-but part of it split off and came back for me.

I went up instead, taking the steps two and three at a time. Outpacing it.

I made it back to the second floor and then kept going, because the door I'd braced was shuddering and there was liquid flowing around the edges. The draug were very angry.

Top floor.

I hit the exit door hard and stumbled out onto the decking. This area was mostly offices, locked doors, and I needed to get to the main stairs in the center. I needed to find Claire and Michael and Eve and get the hell out of here, now, before the draug caught up to me again ... but the thought did cross my mind that if they were after me, maybe that would give everybody else a chance to get clear of them.

That would be okay, if so. Not that I wouldn't rather live, if it came down to it.

There didn't seem to be any draug sliming their way toward me, which was a temporary blessing. My clothes were soaked, and the stinging just got worse, as if I was rolling in a million tiny shards of glass. I could see the pink wash of blood spreading through the damp fabric of my shirt. I needed to get clean and dry, fast; whatever bits of draug were still on me were trying to feed, and I had no idea what that would mean. What if they got inside me? I had a vision of chest-bursting alien parasites that made me want to puke up the taste of rotting slime.

For a fraction of a second, that felt so real it was terrifying. They're eating me. Eating me alive. And then a kind of strange calm settled in, because I was okay, I was alive, I was going to make it. I just knew it.

Because I was Shane Collins, and the fact that I was still alive was an ongoing miracle anyway.

But the clothes had to come off.

I kicked open an office door and found a locker that held extra coveralls. I stripped down to the skin, toweled off with a sports flag pinned to the wall (finally, a good use for a TPU souvenir), and put on the coveralls. They were a thick orange paper with reflective white strips on the sleeves, back and legs, and they just barely fit me. If I did a lot of bending, it was going to get interesting, but ripped pants were the least of my worries. The stinging died down to a dull, constant ache, and I found a pair of heavy work boots that were only a little small. I left them untied.

Then I tried for the main stairs.

No good. The draug were in the way. They had resumed their human disguises, and all of them were moving purposefully toward the front exit-where the truck was parked, probably still waiting for me because I knew Claire wasn't going to leave without me. Michael and Eve wouldn't want to, either, but Myrnin? That plasma-sucking asshat would dump me in a hot second, and I knew it.

"Over my dead body," I whispered, but very, very quietly, because that was all too likely right now. So I couldn't go down.

That left up, to the roof.

The stairs I'd taken to get here had no up, but there were things on the top of the building-air conditioners, at least-that people needed to repair, so there had to be access somewhere. I found an evacuation plan beside the silent, dead elevator, and it showed roof access on the other fire stairs. I headed that way, moving as quietly as I could. The draug didn't seem really interested in me now, but that could change at any time. I needed to get to Claire, to make sure she was okay. She'd run downstairs, and maybe she'd gotten away, but what if she'd run into another trap? What if they had her?

I found the roof door. No locks, but it was alarmed, according to the big red sign. Great; pushing it meant that I was giving the draug a big neon sign that said IDIOT ESCAPEE HERE. Not much I could do about it, though; it was either sound the alarm and hope to find an escape, or stay here and hope I could play keep-away with things that vampires found horrifying and wrong.

I pressed the exit latch on the door. The alarm sounded a shrill, monotonous drone that hit me like an ice pick through the ear, and I ran for it. The shoes felt weird on my feet, molded to some other guy's balance; the wintery chill and damp quickly soaked into the thick paper jumpsuit, and I had a mad second's worry that it was just going to dissolve around me, like tissue, leaving me running around naked in work boots on a roof while the draug pointed and laughed before eating me.

Something was eating me. For a white-hot second, I felt the sting, but that wasn't right. I'd changed clothes, I'd wiped down. There might be draug residue, but it wouldn't be enough to hurt me.

I was okay.

Overhead, thunder boomed and lightning danced in the clouds.

I made it to the edge of the roof and peered over. There was no railing; this wasn't some terrace or balcony-it was just tar, gravel, and a sharp drop for three floors, straight down to a parking lot.

And a big, square, gray armored truck that was still sitting right where we'd left it. Of course they were okay. I believed it, I knew it. Just like I knew they wouldn't leave me behind.

Stinging. A breathtaking wave of it, again, flashing over me and then fading into a wave of calm. Everything is okay. Look, they're here. They're waiting for me. We're okay.

I saw the driver's side door open and Michael step out on the running board. Even in all that gray, dim light, his fierce grin glowed right along with his blond hair. "What's with the prisonwear?" he shouted up.

"You know me. I've spent so much time behind bars I miss the fashions." I looked at the drop. It didn't get any better. "I'm cut off, man. Is Claire-"

"She's here, screaming her head off. She made us turn around for you. I think she's about to stake Myrnin, and me, and maybe Eve if we don't let her come find you, so save us, get your ass down here."

"Uh, I'd love to, but I'm not half superhero like you. And I left my Spider-Man costume at home."

Michael got serious. In one fluid move he was out of the van and leaping up on the roof like some big, dangerous cat.

He was staring up at me, and in a calm, clear voice, he said, "Jump."

"Dude, I am not jumping."

"I mean it."

"You mean you're going to catch me like some old-school damsel in distress? No way in hell, man."

He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. We just looked at each other, and then I felt a damp breath of chill on the back of my neck, and I knew, knew the draug were there, they were rising up out of the puddles on the roof, dripping down out of the clouds, coming up in a liquid rush from the stairwell ....

Something was eating me. Part of my brain was screaming, but the thick wave of calm descended again, smothering it. It's all okay. Everything's okay. Jump.

I jumped.

It wasn't a hero kind of thing, I didn't do a swan dive or let out a warrior yell or anything. I probably looked stupid as hell, actually. It seemed to take forever, but I was sure Claire could have told me exactly how long it took me to fall, simple math and all that, and then something cushioned me and bounced me up on my feet again with a solid thump, so smooth and fast that it was like Michael hadn't actually caught me at all.

Which he had, of course, but we pretended really hard that it had never happened.

"Get in the back," he told me, and swung himself down into the truck's cab. I jumped from the top of the truck to the ground-ouch, even that small distance was tough on the knees-and opened the back door.

Claire was fighting with Myrnin, and by God, she looked like she might just win. Well, probably not, but from the expression on her face she was never going to give up, ever. I kind of froze for a second, because I had never seen her look like that, so focused and burning with rage and just ...

Beautiful.

And then she saw me, and the look changed, and it was something even more amazing. There's this word I always had trouble with in school: transcendent.

But that was it, right there.

Myrnin let her go without a word, and she flew into my arms so hard I almost tumbled out the back again. She was all soft skin and tensed, trembling muscle. I hugged her hard, just for a second, and then let go to slam the back door shut and lock it. "Go, Mikey!" I yelled, and then grabbed Claire again. I kissed her. I wanted to kiss her forever. No, that wasn't true-I wanted a hell of a lot more than that, but it wasn't going to happen in the back of an armored truck with a damn vampire leaning up against Amelie's velvet throne, watching us with an expression somewhere between distaste and longing.

Claire looked vague and dumbstruck for a second when I let go, but she grabbed a handhold-me-as the truck backed up. "Hey," she said, "what the heck are you wearing?"

"I went shopping," I said. "What do you think? Straight off the runway."

"Where, at the detention center?"

Banter was tiring, suddenly, so I resorted to the truth. "I had to ditch my clothes. They were full of draug."

She winced, and unsnapped the top of the jumpsuit to see the red marks on my skin. The bleeding had stopped, at least, though the worst bites had leaked into the paper, making it look either festive or horrific, depending on how your mood ran. Me, I was just happy to be alive and have my girl holding me. Today, that was one hell of a win. "Did you get hurt anywhere else?"

"We can explore that somewhere better than this, but I think I'm okay. Got away clean. I mean that like a metaphor, because I could really use a shower."

Then I felt the sting again, hot as acid rain. I got away clean .... No, I couldn't have. I didn't get away. Nobody gets away. Something is eating me. I know it. I feel it. ... No. No, I was okay. Everything was okay. Claire was right here, holding on to me. It was all fine.

"Did you close the valves?" Myrnin asked.

"One was stuck," I said. "All the others are closed. You don't think they can open them?"

"Unlikely. Magnus can manifest enough physical strength to manage it, but he is about to have much more to worry about," Myrnin said. "I flushed the lines with silver nitrate. They can't use the pipes with any safety. We've slowed them down considerably, at the very least."

The truck did a three-point turn and accelerated, which was a relief. I'd been afraid the draug were going to do some end run around us and trap us all. But from the roaring of the engine, Mikey wasn't going to let anything at all stop us now, and if the draug wanted to splash the windshield I supposed they were welcome to try.

Myrnin sat down on the cushy throne that was decorated with the Founder's symbol on the top, and heaved a big sigh. He was smiling. Not the usual look for him, either-this had a certain gleeful cruelty to it that made me glad he wasn't directing it at me.

"Can you hear that?" he asked us. He had his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the heavy velvet padding.

"Is it the draug?" Claire asked anxiously. "Are they singing? Is it getting to you or-"

"Not singing," he said, and the smile grew wider. "Screaming. They're screaming. And it is lovely."

There was something off about him, I thought with a weird, fleeting chill. The Myrnin I remembered was a crazy asshole, but he wasn't some kind of sadist. Then again, I supposed they'd been afraid of the draug for so long that maybe a little gruesome victory dance might not be so strange.

He opened his eyes and looked at me, and for a moment there was something wrong in him. Something not Myrnin at all.

It hurts. It shouldn't still hurt. Something's wrong. I need to ... to wake up ....

No. There was no pain. I was fine. Everything was fine.

"We should definitely celebrate that we did not die," Myrnin said. "I believe you're all old enough for champagne, are you not?"

"Yes," I said, and heard Michael and Eve chorus from the front.

"No," Claire blurted, and her cheeks turned adorably pink. "Oh, come on, you already knew that. And by the way, none of us are legal drinkers yet."

"We're old enough to carry flamethrowers," I pointed out. "And shotguns."

"I know, and it's not that I would turn it down. I just wanted to be ... on the record. That we're not old enough for any of this."

I kissed her forehead, because that was just ... cute.

Something's eating me. Oh God, I can feel it .... The pain ...

But that was wrong, because I'd escaped. We'd all escaped.

It was all just ... fine.

By the time we reached Founder's Square, things were happening. We couldn't see them from the back of the truck, but Michael relayed a constant stream of information as he drove. Police cars were speeding out of the secured area instead of into it. Word there was that flushing nitrate through the lines had worked-worked lots better than we'd ever expected. The draug were trying to escape, but they'd been poisoned.

They were dying.

You're dying. Wake up. It felt like my own voice, screaming inside, but it made no sense, no sense at all. Everything was going perfectly.

We were taking back our town.

The next few hours were a confused blur. Oliver ignored us and ordered us back to the room where we'd slept, and that was okay, because after all the danger and adrenaline I was bone-tired, and I could tell Claire and Eve were asleep on their feet, too. I don't think any of us expected it to be quite that ... fast.

Claire and I zipped our sleeping bags together and fell asleep spooned together. I thought I'd sleep soundly; I had good reason to, but instead I kept feeling the sharp, digging stings, needles burrowing and probing inside me, and even though I knew it was a dream, just a dream, nothing, it kept me awake.

Whimpering.

Afraid.

Something's eating you, Shane.

No. I was fine. Everything was fine.

I finally dozed, and woke up to find Amelie standing in the doorway. I'm not big on impressing the vamps, but there was something a little unfair about facing the Queen Bee with bed-head and morning breath. I guess the most important thing, though, was that she was awake, and standing up, and actually seemed better. Oliver was with her, looking like a scowling black crow, but I think that was mostly because he was still spoiling for a fight.

Evidently, he wasn't going to get it.

"Magnus is injured," Amelie told us. She sat, gracefully, on a chair and made it look as if it was her own idea instead of something to prevent herself from collapsing in a heap. She had her hair down, which made her look almost our age, though there's nothing about the Founder's eyes that reminds me of youth. "He hides now, and his draug thralls are dying quickly. Your actions may have turned the tide. I will not forget that."

"You," Oliver said, and pointed to me. "And you." Michael. "Come with me."

I traded a look with my best friend, and he shrugged, and we got up and followed the two vampires out of the hall. Claire wanted to come along, but I promised her I wouldn't do anything stupid-though she probably knew that was a nutty promise, coming from me.

The voice inside my head rose to a deafening shriek. You're breaking all your promises. You're giving up, you asshole. Wake up! It felt like being plunged into ice water, and for a breathtaking second I couldn't breathe, couldn't live with the stinging pain of it.

Michael grabbed my shoulder. "You okay, man?"

Yes. Of course I was. I was always okay, right? Everything was fine.

"I am leading a group to take Magnus," Oliver told me and Michael out in the hallway; he supported Amelie with an arm under hers, as if he were escorting her to some fancy dance, but it was obvious he was keeping her upright. "I want the two of you with us."

"Good," I said. I was always up for a good fight, even against the draug-maybe especially against the draug. I would never get the images of Claire lying so still and broken on the floor of the Glass House out of my head, even though she was okay now. It had been the lowest moment of my life, in a life with plenty of cellar-diving events. I tried hard not to relive how I'd felt, seeing her that way. "Where are we going?"

Oliver didn't bother to give info, but that was typical. He did arm us up, which was nice-shotguns, which felt solid and deadly in my hands. Then we fell into line with a bunch of vampires and even a dozen humans-surprisingly, the new leader of the human resistance (all the resistance leaders were named Captain Obvious) was one of them, sporting his I-hate-vamps stake tattoo but carrying a shotgun all the same. He nodded to me guardedly; I nodded back. That was like an entire conversation for somebody like him.

"How'd they talk you into this?" I asked him under my breath as we started moving toward the exit. Amelie was watching us go, like a queen sending her troops off to battle-back straight, hand raised, shining and pale and hard as diamond.

"Temporary," the captain said. His eyes kept darting around at the vampires, never trusting for a second; I knew that feeling-hell, I lived it. "Common enemy and all that crap, but it ain't like I'm signing up to be best friends. These vermin kill people, too. That's all I care about." He gave me a longer glance. "You?"

"The draug hurt somebody I care about," I said. "And they're going to answer for that."

It was an acceptable reply, and he jerked his chin in approval-but his eyes went flat and cold when he looked past me at Michael. For him, Michael was the Enemy. I wondered whether that was ever going to change. Probably not, not until the vampires themselves changed it. And let's face it, the chances of that were slim. Nobody likes giving up power, especially the kind that keeps them rich and safe and well fed.

Captain Obvious looked back, straight into my eyes, and said, "Something's eating you. Wake up."

Something's eating you! Listen!

I struggled against that wave again, this time hot and red instead of icy cold, and came out the other side of it, into calm, still waters. "I'm fine," I told him. "Everything's just fine. We're all okay."

"Sure we are," he said, and smiled. "Damn straight."

The vamps had appropriated more buses for troop transport; these happened to be Morganville school buses. Ah, the memories. The cheap, shiny leatherette seats smelled like melted crayons, piss, and fear; I'd gotten the snot beaten out of me a couple of times on a bus just like this, before I'd taken charge of that. It had been righteous, though; I'd jumped in when ninth-grade Sammy Jenkins was slapping sixth-grade Michael around. Good times.

The vampires obviously didn't care for the nostalgic ambience, because they slammed the windows down and let the cold, moist air roll through the bus. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were thinning and blowing away to reveal a clear blue sky. It might even warm up a little, burn off the thin puddles standing on the asphalt.

The desert was sluicing off the water as fast as it had fallen. Within a day, rain would be a distant memory. That was why the vamps had moved here-because water wouldn't stand. It gave the draug fewer and fewer places to hide.

You're drowning, Shane. Wake up. Something's eating you. WAKE UP!

This time, I could almost ignore it. Almost. Except for the horrible, burning pain that wouldn't go away. Wouldn't let me think.

I could feel the tension and the anticipation in the vamps around me. For the first time in a long time, they were going to war-against an enemy who'd been hunting them, killing them, for ages. And they were ready. The violence in the air was thick, and every single one of them looked as hard as a bone knife. When Michael glanced at me, his eyes had gone bloodred. Usually that would have scared me, or at least disgusted me, but not now.

Right now, I wished mine could do the same, because what was burning inside me was just as bright, and just as crimson. I wanted to hurt the draug for what they'd done to Claire.

To all of us. To me.

This isn't right. ...

Shut up, I told whatever it was in my head. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine.

Nobody talked. Not even the other humans. Not even Michael. We just concentrated on what was ahead of us.

A fight, a real, genuine, straight-up fight. I was scared on some level, scared in a way I'd never been before, but I was part of something bigger now. Was this what it felt like to be in the army, to put on a uniform and all of a sudden be brothers (and yeah, sisters) with people you might not even like in private life? I imagined it was, because right now, in this moment, I would kill or die for anyone on this bus. Even the vamps. Somehow that felt wrong, but it also felt right. A better version of the life I'd been struggling to lead these past few years.

I would even fight and die for Myrnin, who was sitting up toward the front. He'd changed clothes. I liked him better when he was dressed crazy, but he'd gone black leather now, and that looked damn dangerous. I was glad Claire wasn't there to see it. Some part of me was always going to worry about how she felt about him, so it was best she didn't see him looking all tough. That was my job.

As the clouds parted, the vamps snapped the windows back up, and the tinting-why the hell was there vampire-quality tinting on a school bus, anyway? That made no sense ...

Wake up, Shane!

The tinting cut off my view of where we were going. Not that it mattered. I had my shotgun, and I was ready to rock. It was so much easier to do something than to just ... think.

Because when I stopped to think, everything fell apart. Shattered. Melted.

Wake up.

We pulled to a stop, and the vampires sitting behind me opened the emergency door; those of us nearby piled out through it, and the vampires moved in a blur to the shelter of the nearest shade while the humans took their time sorting out where we were.

It was Morganville High.

The old pile hadn't improved from the last time I'd been walking the halls and ditching class. It had been ugly when it had been built back in the 1950s, and hadn't gotten any prettier over the years. Solid, square red brick, with patches where people (including me) had tagged it that had been covered over with white paint (all the damage, none of the art). The sign outside had a picture of the school mascot, the Viper; we'd all known how stupidly ironic that was, but right now I kind of liked how his faded plastic fangs flashed in the sunlight. The lettering on the sign itself read CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS, but they weren't renovating. It was just closed, like everything else in Morganville.

With no students running around, it looked and felt eerily dead. Water dripped from the gutters on the roof, but slowly; the gushing rains were long gone now, and the puddles in the yard were dried to a thin crust of wet sand under the sparse, struggling grass. Behind the school was the football field, the single most important thing in any small Texas town, but we weren't headed there, of course.

The vamps shattered one of the big steel-wire-reinforced windows in the shadows, and began piling inside. I joined up with Michael and Captain Obvious. "Where the hell are we going?" Captain Obvious asked, which was-heh-a perfectly obvious question, really.

And I knew the answer, without even thinking about it. "The pool." MHS had its own indoor pool. I'd been on the swim team, so I knew all about that. It wasn't a great pool, and in retrospect I was surprised the vampires had been persuaded to allow one to be built at all, but I supposed they'd figured one more enclosed indoor pool wouldn't hurt.

No. They closed down the pool. Drained it. Filled it in. It's not there anymore. Wake up, idiot.

The voice in my head wouldn't shut up. Of course the pool was there. Now the surviving draug had withdrawn to this one spot, this place where I'd swum meets and won prizes. It was a personal place to me, and they'd violated it.

They were trapped.

So are you!

They were stranded, because of the closed valves on the pipes and the silver nitrate in the water.

Wake up, Shane!

I shot my first draug halfway through the hallway; he was hiding in a classroom and oozed out of the shadows to grab a vampire by the back of the neck. The vamp had twisted free, and as soon as she was out of range I yelled and fired, and the silver shotgun pellets ripped the draug apart in a splatter of colorless liquid that smoked on the floor. It tried to reform, but another vampire-Myrnin, in his black leather-took what looked like a salt shaker from his pocket and tapped out some metallic powder into the mess.

Silver. It set the scraps of the draug on fire, and when the blaze was done, there was nothing but a damp smear on the floor.

Myrnin bared his fangs in a fierce grin, and we went on.

Nothing had changed in the school since I'd last been inside-the same lockers, dented and scratched; the same classroom doors; the same trophies in the case. I'd won at least two of them.

They were still there, with my name shining on them.

You never won any trophies, Shane. Of course I had. I'd always wanted to win them, and I had. This is a fantasy-don't you get that? Wake up!

About a hundred draug later, we reached the pool, and we hadn't lost a single one of our party along the way. But the pool was a different story. Firing shotguns loaded with silver in a room full of vampires was pretty damn dangerous, so only the first and second ranks got to have the firepower; the rest of us had to wait until the first rank had to reload, and then we pushed forward, dropped to one knee, and fired steadily at the mass of draug-the identical faces, the bland and empty not-people with things shivering inside them-as they approached. A second rank fired over our heads. My ears went quickly numb from the pounding, shattering roars of the guns, but I didn't care. What I cared about was making every single shot count.

I wanted Magnus. I wanted the bastard who'd started this, who owned it, who had killed Claire and nearly killed me along with her, even though I'd gotten her back.

Magnus, of course, didn't risk himself.

Myrnin figured this out, because that was what Myrnin did; like Claire, he was a sideways thinker, and while the rest of us Joe Average idiots blasted away at the draug in front of us, he stepped away toward the edge of the pool and crouched down. He had a beaker in his hand, glittering and full to the brim with deadly silver and he set it down to pry the cap loose.

"He's in the water!" Myrnin shouted. "Keep them busy-"

But he didn't have time to finish whatever he was going to say, because Magnus reached up out of the water, grabbed him, and dragged him down.

I dropped my shotgun and ran for the beaker, pried the top off, and emptied it into the water.

The silver inside sluiced out into the water in a spreading, toxic stream. Myrnin had hold of something that had to be Magnus, the master draug, the first draug, and he was pulling him relentlessly toward the silver.

And into it.

I couldn't see Myrnin at all now, because the water went from murky to black, swirling with vivid veins of silver. And then boiling.

The vampires were just standing there, even Oliver, staring down into the water. Nobody was moving. Captain Obvious wasn't going to go racing to the rescue, either.

I'm not going to lie; I could have saved Myrnin. I was probably the only one who could have, who might have survived diving into that boiling, raging pool where the draug were dying.

But I didn't try.

I left him there to die.

Just like he left you. Remember? Left you to be eaten. You need to wake up. NOW.

Nobody had left me behind. I was fine. I was just fine.

It's you in there. You're being consumed, Shane. Eaten. Can't you feel it?

I did, for an agonizing second of utter horror. Felt it stripping me bare. Felt the invasion.

And then the calm settled over me, and it was all okay.

Everything was okay.

Always.

The clock ran faster after that.

The time between the pool and Claire's eighteenth birthday was a gauzy blur; I didn't remember much, but nothing much happened to remember, either. Amelie got better. Vampires came back. Morganville got rebuilt. Nothing ever changes, really-that's how Morganville is. It just ... exists.

I was just happy. We were all ... happy. Claire cried over Myrnin, but she was happy he had saved us, happy he had died a hero.

The hero of Morganville.

The martyr.

You're no martyr. You're a fighter. So fight. NOW. Stop this!

Everything was fine.

One year to the day from their not-so-successful engagement party, Michael and Eve finally tied the knot, in the church with Father Joe presiding. Amelie gave her blessing, and I had to wear a tuxedo and a tie. Eve wore bloodred. Of course she did. Claire was the one who looked like a bride, really; she was wearing some other color, but I didn't really notice except to see the light in her eyes and the smile on her lips as Michael and Eve kissed under the flower arch. Eve threw the bouquet, and as usual, her throwing arm sucked, especially backward, because somehow she managed to throw it to me. I tossed it back. On the second try she hit Monica Morrell, Bitch Queen, which was so not going to happen; no man in his right mind would go there.

At some point when we were passing around the champagne and cutting the cake and dancing, I remember Eve twirling in my arms, light and damp with sweat, and she looked me in the eye and said, "This is a lie, Shane. It's all a lie, and you know it deep down. Wake up. You have to wake up." But then she was gone, dancing away with Michael, and I forgot.

It was so much easier to just ... forget. Let go. Drift.

I think it was around this time that I went to see Claire's family. Her mom and dad had moved out of Morganville, because of his health problems more than anything else, though she'd been happy to have them out of the fray; they sort of remembered Morganville, but not the vampires. I went by myself, with Amelie's permission, and ended up standing in front of Claire's parents-her dad looked a whole lot healthier, which was odd-to tell them what was on my mind.

"I want to marry your daughter," I said. Pretty much just like that ... no hello, no buildup, nothing, because I was nervous and it just came out.

And Mr. Danvers smiled and said, "Of course you do." There was something great about that smile, and also, something ... off. It was exactly what I'd hoped to see. And that was ... weird.

No, there wasn't anything weird about getting what I wanted for a change. I deserved to be happy. I needed to be happy.

It's a lie, Shane. Wake up.

Mrs. Danvers said, "Shane, she couldn't have a better young man." And her husband nodded. I looked at them for a few seconds in silence. I was sitting in their living room, which looked a lot like the living room they'd had back in Morganville-but then, they would have kept the same furniture, wouldn't they? I even recognized all the pictures on the walls. They'd put them back in the same spots.

The last time I'd sat down with them like this, it hadn't gone nearly so well. Oh, no. Mr. Danvers had been angry, and I hadn't blamed him, because I'd never intended all this to go so fast with Claire, but I'd said I loved her and I meant it. I still did.

"You're not angry?" I finally asked. Mr. Danvers chuckled. He sounded just like one of those fathers on an old TV show, I forget which one.

"Of course not," he said. "Why would we be? You've always been there for her, Shane. You've always looked after her. And we know she loves you."

I found myself saying, "What about the stuff you said last time? That she had to wait until after college? About MIT and a career and everything?"

"Well," Mrs. Danvers said, with that warm, sweet smile that my own mother had never given me, although she'd done her best, "that's Claire's decision, of course, but we'll support whatever she feels is more important."

It's all so easy, isn't it? Like a dream. Exactly like a dream. Wake up.

I didn't want to wake up. I liked it here.

I found myself shaking Mr. Danvers's hand, and getting a hug from Claire's mom, and promising to work with her on the wedding, and all of a sudden I was in my car-when had I gotten the car? I couldn't remember, but it seemed like I'd had it all along, my own black, shiny, murdered-out car-and driving back to Morganville, with Claire's grandmother's wedding ring in my pocket. It was a diamond with rubies on both sides.

No, that was your mother's ring. Your dad pawned it, remember? To get the money to send you back to Morganville. You didn't want him to do it. You can't have it now, can you?

Of course I could.

I was getting married.

The only problem was, none of it seemed real as it sped forward. Not the days that passed in a haze, not when Michael and Eve moved out on their own and left me and Claire the Glass House (and why would they do that, it was Michael's house, why would he leave it to us?).

Newlyweds needed their own place, Eve told me, and winked. But she didn't seem like Eve anymore. She was almost ... a shadow. Threadbare. A memory of someone I'd known once.

But Claire ... Claire was still real. Wasn't she? I couldn't tell anymore. It was as if I was watching us, not being us. A voyeur in my own body.

Not that that was a bad thing, sometimes, but there were other times when time just seemed to slip sideways, and the walls seemed to sag, and everything flickered ... but it was just the machines in Myrnin's lab, Claire said. They malfunctioned. She had to fix them. She was in charge of them now. Amelie said she was smarter than Myrnin had ever been. The savior of Morganville.

Wake up! Can't you see how wrong this is?

Claire and I were married in the church by Father Joe, and Eve and Michael were our maid of honor and best man. Eve wore red, and Michael had on the same tux, and we stood under the flower arch, the same flower arch they'd been married beneath, and when I turned around it seemed like it was the same people, sitting in the same places, wearing the same clothes, and everything was pale and patchwork for a moment and I felt panic tearing at me ...

And then Claire took my hand. Her fingers felt cool and gentle, but they stung a little bit, too. She kissed me, and it tasted sweet and salty and it stung, too, like lemon on a cut, but this was Claire and I had to love it, because I loved her. The gold ring with its diamond and rubies winked on her hand, and she was my wife.

My mother's ring. I can't have my mother's ring-it's gone ....

WAKE UP.

Then the vampires left Morganville. One day they were just ... gone. Amelie left a note, saying that she was leaving the town to us and that she trusted us to run it properly. Eve inherited the coffee shop where she'd worked so many years. Michael became a rock star overnight and went on tour, and I never thought to wonder how he was managing that, given the blood drinking and all, much less the sunlight. I was busy, you see. Busy being the new mayor of Morganville. The rule of the Morrell family was over, and Richard owned a used-car lot and Monica worked at a nail salon, until one day she got run over by a bus. Very sad.

You're making it up, Shane, in your head. You have to wake up now, or it's too late.

And Claire, my sweet and beautiful Claire, she got pregnant six months after we were married. I only remember parts of that, little parts where I listened to the baby's heartbeat and saw the sonograms and Claire in labor and crying with joy after all the screaming, and then the weight of my daughter in my arms and her eyes, water-blue eyes wide and staring up at me.

It had a threadbare beauty to it, like an old film, and it kept feeling less and less like my life and more like dreams, dreams that sagged around the edges at the corners of my eyes, dreams that melted and puddled and hid in the shadows.

Because it isn't real.

Then it was like a jump cut in a movie, no transition. I was walking, and it was raining, just a light, cold mist that beaded up in fine drops on my leather jacket. I was shivering, and I didn't know why I was out in the rain when the Glass House was right behind me, with its warm lights and Claire smiling from the window with our daughter in her arms. Where was I going? What was I doing? I felt a bubbling sense of panic, and then I turned the corner and stopped, because my father, Frank Collins, was standing there in front of me, and he said, "Hello, son. I've been trying to reach you."

It wasn't the Frank that had abused me and betrayed me and used me. It was the Frank I never knew, who never existed. A kind man with Frank's face, and a TV dad's smile, and eyes the relentless color of water on glass. "Dad," I said. I didn't feel all that surprised to see him, which was strange, because he was kind of dead. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, Shane. I heard you got married."

"Yeah."

"Are you happy?"

I was supposed to be happy. No, I was happy. I was. "Yes," I said. Pain sheeted through me, just as it did all the time now, red hot and icy cold, stinging and gnawing and grinding.

Something's eating you.

"I'm glad you're happy," he said. "You deserve to be. You've made me proud, Shane."

I was silent for a moment, struggling with that. He didn't blink. There were tears running down his cheeks, which was weird, because my dad didn't cry, had never cried, not even when my sister, Alyssa, died.

It was as if his face were melting.

"You're dead, Dad. And you were never like this."

"Like what?"

"A real human being," I said. "You were never proud of me, or at least you never said it. You always wanted more. I was never good enough for you, even before I killed Alyssa."

"You didn't kill her."

"I should have saved her. Same thing. Didn't you tell me that a million times?"

The tears were ice, and the ice was melting. "I'm sorry if I said that. I didn't mean it, Shane. I've always been proud of you."

Liar. Liar liar liar liar.

I pushed past that, because as much as I'd always wanted to hear it, always, there was something else bothering me. "But you're dead." The Frank Collins that existed in Myrnin's lab was a cheat, a ghost, a two-dimensional image, a brain in a jar, not this flesh-and-blood person who didn't even look right. I reached out and shoved his shoulder. He rocked back, real to the touch. "This isn't you."

"It's what you want," the not-Frank said. "It's what you always wanted. A father to be proud of you."

"I want a real life!" It burst out of me in a shout, and I knew it was true, the only true thing in a long time. "Dad, help me."

"I've been trying to help you," he said. "Wake up, Shane. You can't get what you want. Isn't that what I would tell you? You can't be the hero. You can't wish the vampires away. You can't marry the perfect girl and have a perfect little baby and get your dad back alive, and reformed into the model you always wanted. But now you have all that. What would you call that?"

"A fantasy," I said.

"Is that what you want?"

"No."

"Then wake up before it's too late. "

His eyes were water, they were full of water, and I felt a surge of blinding terror and nausea. I felt that tingling burn again, all over my skin. Even though I'd turned the corner and I remembered turning it, I could see the Glass House right in front of me. Someone had painted it, and it glowed neon white in the rain, and Claire was looking at me through the window, smiling, holding our baby.

What was our daughter's name? I should know that. But I didn't. I didn't.

Because she doesn't exist. Wake up!

"Dad-" I looked back. Frank was gone. There was just the sidewalk, and a gray fog, and the rain, rain beating down on my face, beading up on my skin. "If I wake up I'm going to lose them. I can lose everything but them. Dad-" I didn't want this, but I didn't want to let it go. I couldn't. I started to walk back to the house, to Claire, to the baby whose name I hadn't decided yet, to a future without vampires where I was respected and important and my dad loved me and ...

And I knew I couldn't have that.

Because I'm Shane Collins, and I don't get those things.

Because that isn't how my world is.

WAKE UP!

I did.

There was a solid sheet of glass above me, and water beading up on it and dripping down on my face. I was submerged in the water, except for my face. And everything burned.

The water was thick, and turning pink from my blood.

I hadn't escaped the draug. I'd never escaped at all. Some people see their lives flash before their eyes; I'd flashed forward, to all the things I wouldn't see, wouldn't have. I'd escaped into dreams.

I was a prisoner of the draug.

And they were eating me alive.