“Family’s been here a while,” Ross Humbolt said in a chummy, confidential tone as his grass-stained fingers settled around Becky’s throat. He hiccupped. “Folks can get pretty hungry. No Mickey D’s out here! Nope. You can drink the water that comes out of the ground—it’s gritty and awful damn warm, but after a while you don’t mind that—only we’ve been in here for days. I’m full now, though. Full as a tick.” His bloodstained lips descended into the cup of her ear, and his beard stubble tickled her skin as he whispered, “Want to see the rock? Want to lay on it naked and feel me in you, beneath the pinwheel stars, while the grass sings our names? Poetry, eh?”

She tried to suck a chestful of air to scream, but nothing came down her windpipe. In her lungs was a sudden, dreadful vacancy. He screwed his thumbs into her throat, crushing muscle, tendon, soft tissue. Ross Humbolt grinned. His teeth were stained with red, but his tongue was a yellowish green. His breath smelled of blood, also like a fresh-clipped lawn.

“The grass has things to tell you. You just need to learn to listen. You need to learn how to speak Tall Weed, honey. The rock knows. After you see the rock, you’ll understand. I’ve learned more from that rock in two days than I learned in twenty years of schooling.”

He had her bent backward, her spine arched. She bent like a high blade of grass in the wind. His green breath gushed in her face again.

“‘Twenty years of schoolin’ and they will put you on the day shift,’” he said, and laughed. “That’s some good old rock, isn’t it? Dylan. Child of Yahweh. Bard of Hibbing, and I ain’t ribbing. I’ll tell you what. The stone in the center of this field is a good old rock, but it’s a thirsty rock. It’s been working on the gray shift since before red men hunted on the Osage Cuestas, been working since a glacier brought it here during the last ice age, and oh, girl, it’s so fucking thirsty.”

She wanted to drive her knee into his balls, but it was all too much effort. The best she could do was lift her foot a few inches and then gently set it down again. Lift the foot and set it down. Lift and set. She seemed to be stamping her heel in slow motion, like a horse ready to be let out of a stall.

Constellations of black and silver sparks exploded at the edges of her vision. Pinwheel stars, she thought. It was oddly fascinating, watching as new universes were born and died, appearing and winking out. She would soon be winking out herself, she understood. This did not seem such a terrible thing. Urgent action was not required.