Shades

Michael took a deep breath and reached for what little patience he had remaining. "1 was just thinking that maybe we could figure out something to do."

Perry shuffled his cards suggestively. No one took him up on the unspoken offer.

"I know," Junior said, scrambling for his backpack. He pulled out a couple library books. Further searching turned up a small flashlight. He shoved the flashlight under his chin and turned the beam on. The golden light played across the planes of his face, turning his eyes into cavernous hollows.

"You're a pumpkin?" Fly

"No, you cretinous moron," Junior said in disgust.

Fly

Junior flicked the flashlight off as if trying to vanish into the night's shadows.

"Fly

Fly

"Not Halloween," Michael said, trying to bring the conversation back to the subject of distraction rather than destruction. "Ghost stories."

Junior flicked the flashlight on again, highlighting his face once more. "Bwah-haaaa-haaaaa!" he bellowed.

Despite his rough-and-ready act, Fly

"Think you can handle it, Fly

Tiller joined in, obviously enjoying the challenge of rattling Fly

"You guys are full of crap," Fly

"Let's see," Junior mused. "That would make it… last week?"

Fly

Normally Michael wouldn't have stepped in, because he liked to keep to himself. Instead he was up and between Fly

Fly

Michael kept his own hands up, fingers outstretched in a nonthreatening way, but he knew he could use his forearms to block anything Fly

"Then get out of my way."

"Can't do that," Michael said.

Fly

"Think about it," Michael said. "You guys fight, maybe we lose the job. I don't know about you, but I can use the money we're getting paid." He eyed Fly

Fly

"What about it, Fly

Fly

Junior laid back, his hands clasped behind his head like the threat was nothing.

"I'm thinking ghost story," Michael said, not taking his eyes from Fly

"Sure. I got half a bag of marshmallows left."

"Perry," Michael said, "you want to tell the first one?"

"Sure," Perry said, rifling his deck of cards. "I got a good one. I call it 'The Head-Eater.'"

"Terrific. Sounds like a wi

"Sure," Fly

From the corner of his eye Michael caught Junior making a gesture that would have probably gotten him killed if Fly

"This all happened a long time ago," Perry began in a properly creepy voice. "A hundred years ago. Maybe more. Back in the days before the West was settled. Only the Mesaliko bands roamed the mountains and alkaline valleys out here those days, and they weren't friendly."

Doubt stirred within Michael. During the encounters they'd had with River Dog, one of the medicine men of the Mesaliko Native-American reservation outside of Roswell, Max had done research on the tribe. The Native-American group hadn't been extreme or harsh unless persecuted or threatened in some way.

"There was this one guy," Perry continued, "the tribe kicked out. His true name was soon forgotten by the tribe, or never used again because they considered him less than human."

"Why'd this guy get kicked out of the tribe?" Fly

"No," Perry said. "Head-Eater got kicked out of the tribe for the same thing that earned him his nickname."

"Eating heads?" Junior asked in obvious excitement. His eyes danced behind his glasses.

"Yeah," Perry replied, warming to the story.

"Cool," Junior said.

Even Fly

"Seems Head-Eater got stranded in the mountains during one winter," Perry said. "He was with a hunting party when a blizzard came."

Michael only vaguely paid attention to the story. The tale followed the familiar patter of every ghost story he'd ever heard. He wasn't surprised by a whole lot of things that were crafted from mechanical artifices. Stories followed certain routes, and he'd even figured out the trick ending of The Sixth Sense.

Figuring out the ending had been okay, but telling Maria had obviously been a bad move. Actually, he still didn't understand what had been so bad about telling her; after all, she'd been dying to know what was really going on. But that had only been until he'd told her the trick. Then she was mad at him… again.

Perry strung the story out, building up the suspense and the gruesome horror of the grizzly bear that had attacked the trapped Mesaliko Indians and killed them one by one. The story was perfect camp tale fare, and the approaching storm added to the overall effect. Junior and Fly

Tiller kept to himself.

Too late Michael realized that with Tiller's dad committing suicide, ghost stories might not have been the best choice for an evening's entertainment. But there was nothing to do about it now that wouldn't make the situation worse by calling attention to Tiller.

"So Head-Eater's been lying there for days," Perry went on, "and he's getting hungrier than he's ever been. He starts looking at the dead warriors lying around him, and he starts thinking maybe they wouldn't taste so bad. So he starts a fire… "

"In the middle of a blizzard?" Fly

Perry looked irritated. "The blizzards been over for days."

"What did he burn?" Fly

"He found some sticks, okay?"

"Not in no blizzard," Fly

"Besides," Junior said, "it would be better if the heads were raw. Grosser."

Michael reached for a nearby bag of marshmallows, took a couple out, and pierced them with the wire cooking utensil he'd used to fix hot dogs earlier. As the marshmallows caught fire, he thought about the way they looked kind of skull-like. He considered telling the others, but decided against it.