The Thorns Beneath the Rose

By Gary Walters

With the existence of climate change deniers, despite the increasing loss of life due to full strength hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc. and the emergence of demagogues who pray on the general public's fears by offering simple and false solutions to complex problems such as using immigration and foreign competition as scapegoats for job loss actually driven by technological change, The Thorns Beneath the Rose is timelier than ever!

John, David, Emma, and Lauren have all been best friends since college. They shared idealistic goals and dreamed of making the world a better place. But years later, none of them are quite where they had hoped to be. And neither is the world.

But when advertising copy writer, and would-be novelist John begins piecing together clues from his life-long nightmares, they learn that their fate, and the fate of mankind, may be in the hands of forces beyond this world.

Now they find themselves in mortal danger as people they thought they knew are suddenly trying to kill them. All to get at John and keep the deepest, most terrible secret ever buried where it belongs. Exploring a shipwreck, a high-speed car chase, hanging off the edge of a dam, in bed with a lover - Nowhere is safe. Will they learn the truth in time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Walters
• Release date: Jul 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463329320

Gary Walters

I can reached at Twitter as garywaltersyes if you would to leave a comment or to ask a question.Coming in the future...THE THORNS BENEATH THE ROSE, BOOK TWO! My work is a reflection of our times. I wrote Book One when the eminent public issue was climate change and the second most pressing issue of the day was, in my opinion, technological change. Recent events, Covid 19 has given me pause to reflect on my material for Book Two. As such, Book Two will be coming out at a later date in order for me to absorb our current dilemma. I believe both climate and technological change remain our two most important issues of the day but the immediate challenge we face from Covid 19 will undoubtedly color our approach to the other issues. One can only hope climate and technological change do not disappear from the public conscience due to the threat of Covid 19. Take care everyone and may we all remain physically distant from one another while coming closer both spiritually and intellectually.I am a business school graduate from an accredited university. I am an avid reader. “The Thorns Beneath the Rose” is my first novel and the first in a planned trilogy. I welcome, here on Smashwords and elsewhere, all sincere book reviews of my debut novel and all future works. If you enjoy my work and you think one or more people you know would also enjoy my novel(s) please spread the word. Thanks.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sarah’s jade green eyes shot daggers of fear and panic into John’s eyes of cobalt blue. In happier times a long look from his girlfriend would have warmed him to his core. But these were not happy times. Looking down at Sarah, the only sensation John could feel was an ice-cold grip squeezing his very core as he kept his eyes locked on hers. Looking away from Sarah, to avoid the authentic fear of death on his lover’s face, was not an option. John knew only too well that the height of the water reservoir dam, that only a few moments ago they had been safely standing on, was three hundred and ten feet to the water below. The height was written on the plaque he had been reading only moments before his current predicament. With his left hand above his head clinging to the cold, wet railing, and his right hand holding Sarah’s left hand in the direction of his dangling feet, John had the sensation of being nailed to a very lopsided cross. A fire of lactic acid rose throughout his chest, shoulders, and upper back. He knew he had few seconds left and letting go of Sarah would buy him a little time, but not much. An exploding sense of shame, rivaling the burning in his upper body muscles, invaded his sense of honor and dignity. He was considering it. The idea of letting her go was growing like a cancer. His eyes flooded from the shame, the pain, and the icy wind.

Autumn had come early to this Midwestern city; John’s hometown that he had never considered leaving in spite of the weather. His sense of shame was further compounded by the fact that in these likely final moments, he was thinking of Emma, as much as Sarah. Above the howl of the wind, his ears picked up the odd deathly cry of one-on-one combat from above, on the other side of the railing. Oddly, John felt the corners of his mouth involuntarily edging upwards, forming the faintest of smiles. The correct side of the railing was no longer that safe after all. His smile broadened when another thought rose to the surface of his consciousness. For most of his life he had been plagued with dreams, visions in the night of forces unseen, and the possible trouble his visions would bring on his head. For the most part he had chalked up his vivid dreams as a product of his overactive fiction writer’s mind. Yet the dreams had persisted, and they had been so real, so much more real than the usual dreams and nightmares he had experienced. Were those visions now to blame for this horror? If so, then his present predicament was a macabre validation. He closed his eyes before attempting to move his head. He did not want to look past Sarah and accidentally catch a glimpse of their watery grave below. But if he could look up in the direction of the death match above and focus for an instant on the combatants, and determine who was a friend and who was foe… The pain in his neck attacked without warning, and he could only lift his head level with his shoulders. He resigned himself to the fact that any further movement would send more waves of agony to his brain. He realized that the sudden jerk of breaking his and Sarah’s flight to eternity with his left hand clutching the railing, had viciously wrenched his neck. He opened his eyes and gazed straight at the horizon where he found a fleeting sense of peace.

Call it panic or sensory overload, but it was only then that he realized Sarah had been crying out to him. Looking down at her before had been like watching a silent movie. Her eyes had pleaded with him and her lips had moved in silence. But now her words, which were still erupting beyond her quivering lips, were registering in his overloaded head, melding into one shriek begging for salvation.

John! Please don’t let go of me! I love you, John! John, say something, John!

Ah, ah, was all he could manage, his sounds caught in his vise-clamping throat. His left hand was losing its grip. It didn’t feel as if his four numb fingers were slipping off the pipe but rather that the pipe was moving skyward, tired of the puny pinch of four weak fingers doomed to perish.

The shouts of blood and battle above, and Sarah’s cries below, had been loud enough to be heard over the wind. But now there was only the sound of the wind. John looked down at Sarah. Her lips were moving and her body quivering but she had cried herself hoarse. Her left hand still clung to his right but her grip was weakening, making it more difficult for John to keep a hold on her and her life.

John’s heart stopped. A trembling but still strong hand had grasped his left wrist. A war weary voice tried to make itself heard above the wind but to no avail. John could not make out the voice or the words the voice spoke. Was he a friend or foe? He tried to lift his head once again. And once again agony burned in his brain when he lifted his skull a mere five degrees above the horizon.

So this is death; the feeling of the end. John grasped the thought with resignation.

It would all come down to this mortal roll of the dice.

If the being above was a friend, and John let go of the railing then he and Sarah would be lifted upward to salvation.

But if the being was a foe, and John let go of the railing, the hand holding his wrist would also let go, casting him and Sarah into eternity.

John sucked in a breath of fresh air with as much pleasure as he could muster. After all, he thought, it might be my last.

John held on to Sarah, and let go of the railing.

Chapter 2

Lauren tried to relax. She tried to be Zen-like, but she had been left alone for what seemed to be an eternity. Her captor had been quiet in whichever other room the villain had chosen to lurk. Granted, it might have only been five or ten minutes, but blindfolded and tied spread-eagle to her bed, there was no way she could have glanced at the old school, wind-up alarm clock, a keepsake from her mother upon Lauren’s leaving home for good, that was ticking no more than a foot from her head, on top of the night-table on the right of her bed. Her nude body was beginning to shiver. And all she could do was moan.

That was because after her captor had tied each of her wrists and ankles with one end of a crimson silk scarf, and the other ends to one of the four posters of the wooden bed frame, Lauren was ordered to open her mouth.

If you know what’s good for you, little girl, chortled her captor in a low voice.

Wisely, Lauren had complied. For her compliance, she was rewarded with a round sensation filling her mouth, rubbery tasting but firm, and the fiend raised Lauren’s head enough to secure a fastener to the back of her head. It seemed to Lauren that the fastener was part of the apparatus filling her mouth.

It’s a cock gag! laughed her captor. "Want to know what color it is?

Ugh, was all Lauren could manage, and she made no attempt to move her head up and down or to the side.

Too busy getting used to my little gag surprise to answer, huh? the villain snickered.

And then her captor had left the room and shut the door behind her, leaving Lauren in her present state of helplessness, naked, tied spread-eagle on her back, gagged, blindfolded, and all alone.

In fact, she had been left alone for a good fifteen minutes when finally, she heard the door creaking softly, followed by the sound of muffled steps.

Lauren moaned with relief and a touch of impatience.

Shush, baby, shush, said the deep resonant voice, sounding a little lower than before.

Mmmm, Lauren purred, as she felt first the touch of one rough hand and then another. The rough hands, firm and strong, started at her ankles and slowly moved their way up her calves to the inside of her thighs. Why are those hands so rough? Lauren wondered. What are those magical hands covered with? Gardening gloves? No, they can’t be, Lauren concluded. As the hands continued to make their way up her quivering, restrained, nakedness, Lauren guessed that the sensation she felt could be attributed more to a pair of heavy duty leather gloves rather than from a pair of cotton gardening gloves. Her captor occasionally angled her gloved hands so that Lauren felt the protruding edges where the fingers of the gloves had been stitched together. Lauren could feel them making their way past her belly, and in an instant, the gloves were cupping and squeezing her full breasts and then attempting to pinch her erect nipples.

This will never do! the villain cried, realizing that the gloves could never properly squeeze her victim’s nipples. An eagerly anticipated moment or two later, Lauren felt the now-empty gloves stroking and slapping her nipples in a light playful manner. Then she heard a light plop at the side of her head and the smell of leather by the left side of her face, followed by the unmistakable feel of bare fingers squeezing her nipples, and a weight bearing down on both sides of her body. And then the unmistakeable weight of another body, dressed in leather from neck to feet, lying on top of her. The warm breath of another human being caressed her face and filled her nostrils with familiar aromas.

At five feet eleven inches, with a big boned but shapely body, honed by years of laps in swimming pools in schools and health clubs, Dr. Lauren Bach was statuesque for a woman, but she knew her lover was almost as tall, and though not as wide-bodied, curiously, much stronger.

I guess if I want to shove my tongue down your throat I should remove the gag, right? laughed her lover, in a voice though still filled with confidence and a growing quality of lustfulness, no longer so deep.

Mmmm, Lauren replied once again. She assumed, with relief, that Amanda was getting as tired of her one utterance replies as she was. She felt Amanda move. There was no more weight bearing down on her, no more leather on skin contact from her lover, from gloves, jackets, or pants, though she could still sense Amanda above her. Lauren felt Amanda’s left hand around the back of her head, which was once again raised from the pillow, and then, at long last, the exquisite freedom of having the hard and rubber tasting sensation removed from her mouth.

Ewww! Amanda groaned. Look at all this drool! Don’t think I’ll be using this again! After that declaration, Lauren heard tissue rapidly being pulled from a box, followed by a plunking sound, which seemed to come behind the persistent ticking of the vintage alarm clock.

That was some surprise lover, Lauren said with a hint of irritation in her voice.

The gag, honey? Amanda asked, sounding contrite.

Yeah, I thought I was going to choke on that thing!

That explains all the drool. Sorry love. I thought it’d be a kinky and ironic surprise. Between us two girls I mean.

A penis in my mouth?

Yeah, although a rubber one of course. Not the real deal. Of course. No more surprises then? asked Lauren.

Well, just a teeny one, Amanda replied.

Still blindfolded and still lying spread-eagle on their queen-sized mattress, Lauren felt something pointed and cold lightly touching the inside of her right thigh just above her knee.

Now what? Lauren thought as she felt the pointy thing move slowly upwards. She was beginning to regret turning down the invitations to visit David and Megan on their vacation in the Rockies, or Emma and Tyler on their photo shoot in the Caribbean. Lauren knew the invitations had, in fact, been from David and Emma only. For some unfathomable reason, the new partners were all jealous of the original four musketeers, David, Emma, John, and herself. Of course, John and Sarah were working things out between them back in John’s old hometown in the Midwest, which happened to be where all four of the musketeers had gone to college. As such, no invitation had been forthcoming from John. That must have been to Sarah’s great relief, Lauren mused, and come to think of it, wasn’t it interesting that Amanda had insisted to the point of obstinacy that they stay home for some quality time? If this was quality time, Lauren was looking forward to its end.

Ever hear of knife play, sweetie? purred Amanda. By this time, the icy point had reached the top of Lauren’s leg and now rested, with a little more pressure, in the valley between her thigh and the lower region of her abdomen.

Baby, I think I’ve had enough surprises for one day, Lauren said with the same irritation in her voice that was now mixed, to her amazement, with a little unease. Her heart began to beat a little faster and she felt thirsty. Then she felt her own body involuntarily twitch a couple of times. Her spasms did not go unnoticed by her lover.

What’s wrong, honey? teased Amanda. Can’t handle this little surprise?

Not sure, Lauren replied while twitching involuntarily a few more times. Her earlier goose pimpled shivering from before was all but forgotten. Then she felt the knife point leave its resting place in her thigh-abdomen valley. The cold point of the knife continued its journey on the surface of Lauren’s helpless naked flesh, travelling diagonally across her stomach towards her left breast. With a rising sense of discomfort Lauren realized that her lover was slowly but steadily increasing the pressure of the knife on her flesh.

Scared or turned on? Amanda inquired.

A little of both, maybe, Lauren replied. Her heart was starting to pound in her chest and her pulse throbbed in her head as her body transitioned from mere twitching to shaking.

I’m surprised. Don’t you trust me, hon?

I’m surprised too, but maybe we could ease up a little?

I’m only trying to turn you on.

I know that babe, but maybe it’s a little too much. I was starting to get all hot and bothered, but now it’s like my survival instinct is kicking in.

Your survival instinct is kicking in? Are you joking, sweetie? What am I? You think I could hurt you, my love?

No, of course not. I guess the adrenaline is going into overdrive against my will. The point of the knife arrived at its destination. Lauren could feel cold steel underneath her breast. She guessed correctly that the flat of the blade had been sandwiched between her left breast and her chest. This new sensation was setting off alarm bells through her nervous system.

Well, maybe your survival instinct has good reason to go into overdrive, interrupted a new female voice, one that Lauren definitely wasn’t familiar with.

Get out! roared Amanda.

Amanda, who’s that? Lauren asked, sounding as frightened as a little girl afraid of the dark.

Shut up, bitch! Amanda screamed at her. Lauren felt droplets of Amanda’s spittle of rage sprinkle her face. Lauren sensed that Amanda was still facing her, and that the new voice was still near the bedroom door behind them.

Plan A, choking on a cock gag did not go as planned, I presume? inquired the new voice.

I said get out! Amanda was in full fury, a perfect counterpoint to the calm in the voice of the intruder.

Plan B, knife play gone horribly wrong is a little messier you must admit. Drool cleans up much easier than blood.

Still cool as a cucumber that new voice, Lauren thought. She wasn’t sure if she should be comforted or horrified at the calm demeanor of the intruder.

Now! screamed Amanda. Lauren could feel the bed shaking from Amanda’s rage as well as from her own fright. Then she felt a warm tickling/ tickling sensation starting at the edge of the knife under her breast and running down the left side of her chest.

Careful Amanda, you’re starting to draw your lover’s blood. We’re at the point of no return now, aren’t we? scolded the voice behind the bed, still calm, but with a little more edge.

There’ll be a lot more… Amanda’s response was interrupted by a thumping sound. Lauren felt a quick massive shift in the weight above her on the bed. First there was more weight, and then none at all, followed by a large thud coming from the floor beyond the left side of the bed. Shouts and screams and muffled grunts echoed off the walls of the room, making beastly harmony with the reverberations of choking and punching and kicking, a veritable symphony of violence arising from a sextet of furious sounds. Then Lauren heard a sharp crunch, followed by a final sigh of air being released for the last time. Then, once again, the only sound throbbing in Lauren’s head was the pulse from her own pounding heart. That crunch and final sigh of a life extinguished turned a switch off in Lauren’s central nervous system. She was no longer shaking, she was now catatonic. Still blindfolded and spread-eagle in bondage on her bed, Lauren sensed someone looming over her; someone powerful and in complete mastery of the situation and her own fate. She opened her mouth, but no words dared to escape. She felt a pair of hands envelope her face, and then slowly but forcefully, as Lauren was paralysed with fear, her sweat laden head was turned to the left side as far as it could go without dislocating her neck.

Look at her! Look at her now! And keep looking! commanded the panting but strong, full, female voice.

Then the sleep mask was ripped from her face. And Lauren looked and looked but could not believe what she was seeing.

Chapter 3

The torch red Corvette ZR1 shot through the winding mountain road, known colloquially as the Million Dollar Highway with a little tire squeal. Megan was showing off her driving skills that she had acquired courtesy of General Motors, which offered a free high-performance driving course to anyone who bought a Corvette, whether in cash, or in David and Megan’s case, a sizeable loan that made David feel almost as sick as he was feeling now.

Guess how fast I’m going, honey! Megan cried, shouting above the roar of the 638-horsepower supercharged V8 engine.

I really don’t want to know dear, David groaned, grateful that his dark lens Ray Bans prevented Megan from seeing that his eyes were closed tight for most of the hellish ride.

Ostensibly, Megan had convinced, or more likely conned, David was beginning to suspect that they should take this route on Highway 550 in southwestern Colorado, to do a little sightseeing first in the old City of Oray, previously a home to miners and now a Mecca for tourists wanting to soak up old Americana. In addition, the views, and for the more adventurous, the climbing opportunities in this area, promoted by the locals as the Switzerland of America, were second to none in the continental US. Megan and David were now speeding southward to the other tourist draw, the city of Silverton, another former mining town with spectacular downhill runs for skiers in the winter. But this was high summer, and at least the roads were free of ice. David was extremely grateful for that.

It’s too bad this model doesn’t come in a convertible, Megan said.

Rockets rarely do, my love. Look, can you please ease up on the gas a little? pleaded David.

It’s hard to believe this baby can do 205! Megan said, grinning from ear to ear while downshifting in advance of the next very tight turn.

I believe it and I don’t want to find out, David replied. He could feel the g-forces pushing him up against the passenger door. Having lost his faith in the shoulder and lap restraints, David’s white-knuckled fingers were clamping down on the dashboard with the force of a starving Nile River Crocodile with a Zebra in its jaws. David had at first been pleasantly surprised when Megan had sprung this driving vacation on them. She said she would cover all expenses and make all the arrangements for this trip in the mountains in exchange for this birthday gift of a Corvette from David, though she had been not-so-subtly hinting for months that this was the only present acceptable to her.

Now David was wondering, not knowing at all the itinerary or location of this trip, what the hell Megan had sucked him into. What really bothered him was that on this stretch of winding mountain road, 11,000 feet above sea level, piercing through Red Mountain Pass in the San Juan Mountains, he had seen nary a guardrail and only a few shoulders off the highway. With as much bravery as he could muster, he freed his right hand from its death grip on the ‘vette’s dashboard and fished for his phone resting in the pocket on the right side of his cargo shorts. His left hand still squeezing the dash, he furiously thumbed a search on his phone for where in God’s name he was. In a few moments, he could feel his pulse trying to burst though the veins in his neck.

Oh Christ! David cried out. Do you realize that on this section of the road, for 25 miles, they don’t have any guardrails to facilitate the clearing of snow and avalanche debris? And there aren’t many shoulders on the road either, which we can clearly see for ourselves!

Is that so, honey? Megan purred while shooting him a knowing but devilish grin.

What the hell is this crazy woman up to? David wondered, returning her grin with bug-eyed expression, his face frozen by the immediate feeling of his own mortality. Shaking off his fear, he game fully tried again, gluing his eyes to his phone. It says right here that weaving off the road means plunging down the mountain and that this Highway 550 is the third deadliest highway in all of America. I mean, there’s even a plaque on the side of the road that memorializes all the snow plow operators who have plunged off the road down the mountain while trying clear the highway after it snows!

Don’t be silly, scaredy cat! Megan laughed, Its summer, there’s no snow or ice and I’m going nowhere near 205 on this hairpin turn! She reached out with her right hand to mess David’s hair.

For god’s sake woman, keep both your hands on the wheel!

Sorry my silly, scared little boy. If I keep both hands on the wheel, how can I shift gears?

You know what I mean! Just pay attention to what you’re doing! How can you be so cavalier about this? I’m looking at a drop of, I don’t know how many hundreds of feet, past the road into the gorge below! David screamed. He was convinced that volume, decibels above the roar of the engine, was the only way to get through to his dark-haired beauty.

Don’t worry baby, Megan replied with ice in her voice, and the same devilish grin pasted on her face. I know exactly what I’m doing.

Megan’s cruel response, so uncharacteristic from his normally happy-go-lucky free-spirited girlfriend, gave David the sensation of having a snake made of ice slithering slowly up his sweat-soaked shirt.

The hairpin turn to the extreme left was now at its midpoint. David could see only sheer slabs of red and grey granite to Megan’s left and an undulating edge of road to his right, with blue sky beyond and above, and death in the ravine below.

All right! Megan shouted. To David, it seemed his girlfriend’s roar of triumph was in total sync with the roar of the Corvette’s engine as she floored the accelerator coming out of the top of the turn. David’s breath turned staccato, dark storm cloud formations seemed to be encircling his narrowing field of vision, and his body felt as if it was alternately melting into, and then floating out of his ebony leather bucket seat.

The loud repeated honk-honk-honk of another vehicle snapped him out of his fainting spell.

What the…? was all Megan could manage as she looked in the rear-view mirror. David saw a flash of black and orange shoot past the Corvette on its left, and then it was in front of them. A feminine right hand waved at them as if to say, Is that all you’ve got? If the owner of that hand sitting in the driver’s seat with her short but styled ginger hair had meant to rile Megan, she had succeeded, beyond expectation.

I’ll show the bitch! Megan screamed. A jerk of the wheel, a quick downshift and hammer down on the pedal, the Corvette shot past the black and orange car with its ginger -haired driver.

In a blink, David caught the driver, as beautiful as his Megan, winking at him. But it was an odd wink. Not a slow flirtatious wink with a tip of a tongue touching the corner of her very feminine mouth. Rather, a quick perfunctory wink with a slight grim smile and a nod of the head as if to say, ‘Don’t worry kid, your red-haired super woman is here to save the day, and your butt in the process.’

Fuck! Megan groaned as she pulled in front of her new-found nemesis.

Yes dear? David inquired, barely able to get the words out. He was approaching an ostrich-like state of fear, burying his feelings of alarm, impotent in his inability to change the course of events, which appearedto be rapidly spinning out of control, and beyond any rational explanation.

It’s a Bugatti Veyron for Christ’s sake!

A what?

A Bugatti, you know… If you got your head out of your law books and football magazines once in a while, it’s a two-million-dollar limited production. Oh, never mind, it goes over 250 miles an hour, and what the hell is it doing here?

Sightseeing like us maybe?

Before Megan could answer, the Bugatti shot past the Corvette and was once again in front of her and David.

Shut up, David! Megan commanded her boyfriend. If the bitch wants to play in these mountains, I’m game! Once again, Megan jerked the steering wheel to the left, downshifted, and floored the accelerator.

No darling! Please! Horrified, David pleaded with his clearly maniacal lover.

The short stretch of straight mountain road they were on was disappearing quite literally into the clear blue sky. Another sharp turn lay ahead, and they were on the passing side of the winding two- lane highway, with no idea of what might be coming at them around the next bend. As they once again passed the other car, out of the corner of his right eye, David captured the image of his ginger-haired would-be rescuer, and the image pierced his brain like frostbite. No wink and nod and grim smile this time, the Bugatti driver had a wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression of shock on her face, and the effect it had on David was petrifying. The loud blast of an air horn snapped David’s focus front and center. A jumble of sensations, sounds, and images collapsed one upon another. The cab of a gargantuan semi-trailer truck, with god knows what it was hauling, was bearing down straight at them. Then there was a shearing sound as the rear of the Corvette clipped the front of the Bugatti as Megan, in desperation, jerked the steering wheel to the right. David experienced a burning in his esophagus, on fire with a mixture of bile and remnants of his breakfast, as he swallowed his puke back into his belly. The wind generated by the truck and the gigantic trailer it was pulling, shook the Corvette like a child’s toy. David suddenly realized how puny his girlfriend’s super-fast, super-expensive car was, compared to the behemoth that nearly rolled over them a split second ago. The thought made him bring up his breakfast a second time, and for the second time he choked it all back down.

Bet this all looks kind of nuts to you, eh honey? chortled Megan as she fought to keep the Corvette on the road, going a little too fast into the turn, riding the edge between braking too hard and spinning out of control, and not slowing down fast enough, and flying off the road, and into the wild blue.

David could only manage a weak smile. He was ashamedly aware of a layer of moisture between his butt and the leather seat of the Corvette. With trembling hands David fumbled with his phone, not sure what do with it. Call someone? Throw it at Megan? He chuckled feebly at his helplessness. His now clammy fingers allowed the phone to slip right through his fingers and drop right through his trembling knee and onto the ZR1 floor mats that came with the Corvette.

Watcha gonna do baby? Call your mother? Megan had noticed his pathetic groping with his phone and roared with glee. So much for Mr. Workout, Mr. Captain of all his sports teams back in high school! The big college quarterback on an athletic scholarship!

David turned purple from the shame. She’s right dammit, he thought. Mr. Jock always had this weakness, this motion sickness. He had always found a convenient excuse not to go with his elite school friends, the inside crowd, whenever a carnival came to town. He could barely handle the merry-go-round never mind the wild rides. Sheepishly, David bent from the waist, scooped up the phone, and put it back in his cargo short’s pocket, if only to occupy himself, to avoid, perhaps, dwelling on the inevitable denouement of destruction that was looming. A split-second after Megan had successfully negotiated