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Mike shakes his head.

“I know.”

He holds out a canteen.

“We were the first ones up, so we got the prize. Fresh water. Want some?”

“Can I give it to Janet?”

“Of course,” says Maria. “I’ll take it to her.”

“Thanks.”

As the last couple struggles up the hill, Dan and Kenny lay down long mats on either side of the trailhead. They look like Astroturf. And they’re covered in razor blades. The way the two suckers below are crawling along the trail, there won’t be anything left of them to get out of the canyon. On top of that, flames are creeping quickly up the trail behind them. Razors or not, they don’t have any choice but to keep crawling or they’ll be burned alive. Lodge members are gathered around the trailhead screaming at them to move faster.

I could make this whole thing stop right now. Just mutter a few words of Hellion and the fire is out. The razors are gone. But I made a promise. Should I save these fools and lose Janet? I stand there like a dunce, weighing everything against everything else. The couple s

truggling up the hill chose to be here, and as much trouble as they’re having, they’re staying well ahead of the fire. The only thing they have to get by now is the razors. If they have any brains, they can strip down and pile their clothes on top. Sure, they’ll get cut, but they won’t be hamburger when they get to the road.

I look around. What the hell is wrong with these people? This is like Hell for halfwits. The ones who can’t tell the difference between a martini and a flaming poker up the ass.

Then things get even worse.

Dan and Kenny haul a live goddamn sheep from the second van to the top of the trail. It bleats once when it gets a face full of smoke but doesn’t bleat a second time, because trash wizard Kenny slits its throat. Even the lodge creeps lurch back at that. A couple of people throw up when Kenny disembowels the animal, leaving its belly open wide. Then junkyard Merlin pours a potion onto the entrails and whispers some dime-store hoodoo.

A few seconds later the guts begin to quiver and coalesce into something. A pile of wet meat that pulls itself up onto something like legs and opens a pair of quivering jaws to show rows of shattered bones that have formed into sharp, broken teeth.

Then the gut thing springs into the air, past the razor mats, and lands behind the crawling couple. It’s hard to see what’s happening through the choking smoke, but the screams tell everyone what they need to know. Through breaks in the darkness, it’s hard to see much more than a spreading wet redness on the trail. The screams don’t last too long and when the wind takes the smoke in another direction, all that’s visible down the hill is Kenny’s beast shoving gobs of someone else’s flesh into its crooked mouth.

I told Janet no tricks, but it’s hard not to grab the Colt and put a few rounds into what passes for its head.

The fire surrounds Kenny’s monster and moves up fast behind it. The thing crawls up the trail toward us, trying to keep ahead of the flames. That’s it then. Even if Janet hates me, if that thing makes it to the top, I’m killing it and will find somewhere else to get fritters.

In the end, I don’t have to do anything.

As the glop monster reaches the razor mats, Dan goes to the top of the trail with a Glock in his hand and pumps six shots dead center into the thing. It lets out a startled wail and instead of turning away, it actually crawls faster, practically eviscerating itself as it drags its leaking body over the razors. Dan shoots it a couple of more times, but that’s just icing on the cake.

The fire has caught up to the crawler. By the time it’s at the top of the mats, it’s a mass of twitching meat slowly roasting in a blazing furnace. The heat forces everyone back from the trail.

“Get in the vans,” shouts Dan.

No one needs to hear it twice. The filthy mob piles inside and we speed away. No one says anything, not the whole two hours it takes to get back to L.A.

Because we’re not married and I’m not a family member, the clinic won’t let me stay with Janet overnight, but I arrive bright and early the next morning to get them out of there. They look good. No longer fish-belly white. And they can walk on the bad leg, though with a slight limp.

When we reach the parking lot Janet says, “Where’s your bike?”

I just take their hand and pull them into a nearby shadow.

We come out in the flying saucer house. Janet drops down onto the sofa and I bring them a glass of water so they can take a Vicodin.

When they’re done they say, “I like that thing you do with shadows.”

“I’ll tell you more about it, but right now I need to ask you something. You said I’d understand why you like the Lodge once I saw it. But I don’t. What is it exactly that you get out of the place? You’re not crazy like those other people. I just don’t get it.”

They reach for my hand and hold it loosely in theirs.

“I’ve been scared my whole life,” Janet says. “I was born sick, without much of an immune system. I was afraid of people. Of my doctors. I was terrified of animals. I was afraid to leave my room. When I was older and got the right treatment, my parents wanted me to be a lawyer like my dad. But I always liked music. It got pretty abusive there before I moved out. Later, when I realized I was different, I got scared in a whole new way. I wasn’t really a straight cis person. But I wasn’t gay. I wasn’t a man or a woman. I thought there was something wrong with me.”