A young woman in standard student attire—sweatshirt and jeans, running shoes, hair well-poufed enough to be SMU-standard—was in command of one of the big tables nearby, five or six newspapers spread out in front of her while she made notes. Velvet blew her nose loudly, stuffed the tissue back in her pocket, and walked over to where the kid sat. Even though she must have known she was coming, the kid didn’t look up until Velvet said, “Excuse me, hon, but I need to find out about spontaneous combustion.”

The kid blinked at her and looked around uneasily; everybody else in the area deliberately didn’t look back. She gave up on help and stared back at Velvet with big empty blue eyes.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“You know, where people burst into flames and shit. If you were looking for that shit, where would you look?”

“Um …” The woman shifted in her chair, back and forth, like she was working up to making a run for it. “I guess—start in reference?”

“Reference. Right.” Velvet gave her a brilliant smile. “Thanks, hon. You have a real nice day.”

“Sure.” A faint, half-terrified smile. Velvet picked a direction and started walking. When she looked back, the woman was staring at her, but quickly looked away. What? Velvet wanted to yell. I look like a psycho to you?

Not a psycho. A hooker. Just like the wino looked like a wino.

Over by the elevators a middle-aged guy with a whining little girl clinging to his pants leg gave her The Look. She returned a professional smile, then she remembered she was on vacation, and dimmed it to something like the librarian’s tight little grin. He kept staring, though. Hungry eyes.

She slowed as she approached him. His expression perked right up.

“Hey, buddy, where’s the reference section?” she asked. He offered to show her, she refused, the kid whined, and she ended up in the elevator again, heading down.

It took an hour and two more unwilling strangers to get what she wanted—mostly crap, hot-brain theories about fat people and alkies and aliens. She found pictures. They looked so familiar. Bright white teeth, black flaking skin, wet muscle.

When she closed her eyes, she could still see him lying there, melted to the carpet. Her stomach lurched noisily.

One day to the funeral. Maybe—

Maybe she’d go. Just as a send-off. Hell, she had nothing else to do.

Incident Two

EL PASO, TEXAS

Jerry Lintz, still dripping from his shower, shoved hangers around in his closet. Blue jeans, suit pants, shirts. He frowned. Things were always like this after vacation—half his stuff missing forever, or, at best, stuck in the wrong place for six months. The first day back was always the worst, and his desk would be an absolute disaster at work. Probably a long day, a late night.

He needed to burn off stress already.