From: atropos@mac.com   
      
   Here's one of my own. Enjoy.   
      
      
      
      
   PROLOGUE   
      
   The town sits silent, brooding, in the oppressive heat of late summer.   
   The cool, gusting breezes, tinged with sea-salt, so common to rural   
   Maine at this time of year are absent. Here the air is stagnant and   
   stifling and still. The kind of deadened atmosphere common to tombs and   
   crypts.   
      
   The streets are deserted, the businesses along Main Street locked and   
   shuttered, half the homes burned to the ground, nothing but cinders.   
   Those that survive have fallen into disrepair, their windows broken and   
   gaping like the empty sockets of a bleached skull.   
      
   Even in the bright summer sunshine, the shadows pool in disturbingly   
   dark patches beneath sagging porches and the rusted hulks of old cars. A   
   sentient malevolence permeates everything, a palpable evil that all but   
   the most hard-headed can sense almost instantly.   
      
   The living instinctively avoid this place without consciously knowing   
   why. Cars passing through on nearby I-95-- families on vacation heading   
   upstate to the beach resorts of Bar Harbor, Ellsworth and Little Tall   
   Island, tourists on their way to Bangor and Augusta and Castle Rock,   
   truckers plying their trade to and from Canada-- all would report   
   feeling suddenly uneasy as they crossed the town line, although few   
   could tell you why. Infants sleeping peacefully in their mothers' arms   
   would start to fuss and cry and fathers would hit the accelerator,   
   feeling an unconscious need to put as much distance as possible between   
   them and this strangely empty town.   
      
   Nothing moves in the summer sun. Silence. No dogs or cats; no rats, no   
   birds. Nothing. It's as if nature has abandoned this town along with its   
   former residents. Even the somnolent buzz of the summer cicadas is   
   curiously absent.   
      
   This is a dead town.   
      
   This is Jerusalem's Lot.   
      
      
   *************************   
      
      
   Haven, Maine   
   August 17, 2006   
      
   The Lot may be abandoned but it still holds sway over the long-time   
   residents of central Maine. In roadside pubs from Kittery to Derry,   
   stories are passed. Fantastic stories, whispered among the locals after   
   the sun has gone down and alcohol has loosened tongues.   
      
   Walt Scoggins spends his days and most of his evenings in one such   
   tavern in the town of Haven. He's a grizzled old fart, his face a   
   weathered and lined roadmap with eyes that have seen far too much. The   
   sun sets in the west, casting long beams of amber light across the bar   
   where Walt sits at the far end. The only other patron, a lone trucker   
   nursing a beer, sits in a booth near the juke.   
      
   Walt is on his fourth whiskey, contemplating a fifth, before going home   
   to the missus and the misery of his life, when the front door opens and   
   a young woman strides in clothed in a leather motorcycle jacket and   
   road-weathered blue jeans. Her slim figure, flowing brunette tresses and   
   doe-eyes belie an inner strength and self-confidence seldom seen among   
   girls her age. Barely past the second decade of her life, she carries   
   herself with the coiled tension of a seasoned combat veteran.   
      
   She strides confidently up to the bar and orders a beer. When her drink   
   comes, she takes a long swig and casts a sidelong glance at old Walt. He   
   shifts slightly on his stool when her eyes lock onto him and he senses   
   something old in her. Old and powerful. He suddenly regrets not calling   
   it a night with drink number four.   
      
   Walt tightens his grip on his glass and nods slightly to the girl. She   
   returns his gaze with a disturbing eagerness, then picks up her beer and   
   sidles over and takes the stool next to him.   
      
   "Hey, there, friend," she says with a smile that doesn't quite reach her   
   eyes.   
      
   "Ayuh," he replies, avoiding her gaze.   
      
   "I was just passin' through and I was wondering if you could point me to   
   a nice cheap place to put my feet up for the night. I figure I've got   
   another ten miles left in me before I'll need to crash."   
      
   Walt regards her critically for a moment, noting a hint of Boston in her   
   husky voice. "If'n it's a place to stay you're looking for, I suggest   
   you just stay here in Haven for t'night. There's the Haven Inn downtown   
   and o'course the Best Western out t'the highway."   
      
   "Nah, I need to put a few more miles on before I stop for the night. The   
   map shows at least one town between here and Bangor. Nothing there   
   suitable for a night's stay?"   
      
   Walt gives her a long hard look. He can tell he's being baited. She   
   knows more than she's telling. But he decides to play it straight.   
      
   "Missy, you don't want--"   
      
   "Faith. The name's Faith."   
      
   "Faith, then. You don't want to be venturing into that town at night.   
   You just take my word for that and put yourself up here in Haven. That   
   town ain't safe for a girl your age at night. Hell, it ain't safe for no   
   one, if'n it comes to that. It don't matter none, anyway. No one lives   
   there no more. Folks done packed up and left the place goin' on thirty   
   years now."   
      
   "The whole town? And no one's moved in since? All that real estate just   
   lying there for the taking and no one scooped it up? I find that hard to   
   believe."   
      
   "Believe what you want but there's not a living soul in the Lot. Hadn't   
   been since I was able to sleep through the night without havin' to take   
   a piss."   
      
   Something he said or maybe the way he said it, choosing his words a   
   little too carefully, piques her curiosity. "So what happened up there,   
   then?" she asks.   
      
   Walt says nothing, just stares at her for a long beat. He knows he's   
   being played now. This girl knows a lot more than she's letting on.   
   She's been steering the conversation here from the start. Something   
   about her triggers a long-buried memory. He recalls seeing a young boy--   
   right after the Lot went bad, it was-- a young boy people said went a   
   little wild, crazy. Like he was on a hair-trigger, just moments away   
   from causing some real trouble. He thinks this girl has that look, too.   
   Walt's rheumy eyes lock onto hers and he takes her measure. She's truly   
   beautiful, a real stunner, he notes with an old man's wistful   
   appreciation for that which is now forever out of reach, but he senses   
   that beauty is one of the least important things about her.   
      
   What the hell, Walt thinks. What can it hurt? He downs his whiskey and   
   looks pointedly at the empty glass. Faith signals the bartender and it's   
   quickly replaced with another.   
      
   Walt clears his throat and stares down at the bar. "It was a funny   
   thing, how people who had lived in the Lot-- 'Salem's Lot, what the   
   local folks round here call the place, short for its given name,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)