He worked at the snow until he was spent. "There you are," he said to a small white object on the ice. It was about three feet long, perhaps the size of a small child. "Gesundheit." As he spoke, he opened the door and stepped back out into the icy day. The object stood alone, its arms at its side, legs apart, and its hands held wide. It looked at him, and then suddenly, with a scream, it began to grow. The top swelled, and from the top swelled the arms, the legs, the fingers, the toes. The feet grew long, the toes long and webbed, the ankles webbed and thin. And all the while the hands clutched out for him. "No," he said. "No, no, no." He turned away. He wanted to get back into the car and put it all behind him—the voices, the laughter, the eyes in the dark woods, the car that seemed to chase him, the voices that seemed to speak to him, the thing that he had called Gesundheit that had grown on the ice, hands outstretched. He wanted to go home, to put behind him what seemed to be nothing but a horrible dream. And then, as he crossed the parking lot, the thing spoke to him again. _Kneel._ He knelt. "I will not. I will not do it. No. I will not." The ice had frozen to his knees, and he scraped at it with his hands, making grooves in the ice. "I won't. Don't do this to me." _Kneel and beg. Beg for your life._ "Why?" He turned around. His heart was racing. "Tell me why." And he looked up and saw his father standing over him, looming, looming in his blue work clothes and his orange cap, with a large black rubber hose. "No," he said. "You can't be here. You can't." _You can't,_ the huge face said. _You have to kneel._ "No." He tried to crawl away, to get to the car. He felt the hose in his hand. "No." And then he stood. He went into the store. The ice behind him on the walk melted. He wanted to go to his car and get in and close the door, pull it tight behind him so that he was in that little dark cave that he had found when he had been a little boy, only smaller, and then nothing would happen to him. He went in the store. The girl was behind the counter, and she smiled at him. She smiled at him, and he sat down at the counter. She was looking at him and smiling at him, and then he told her that he thought he would buy something for his mother. He didn't know why he had said that. And the girl said that she didn't think that would be a good idea. She told him that it was a dangerous and evil place where people sometimes forgot their lives and tried to find themselves there. But he said that he would give her the money, and then he would never come here again. _Look around,_ she said. _We've got anything you want._ She pointed at the wall of books, at the shelves of candy bars and cigarettes and magazines. _And it's all free,_ she said, smiling and laughing. _Just look around,_ she said, _and pick out whatever you want._ And he looked at her as she laughed and told him that he could pick anything he wanted. He looked around. The shelves were all filled with boxes. They were all covered with dust. They were all filled with boxes of candy bars. He looked up at the girl, and he knew that she had no fear of him. She was mocking him. She was laughing at him. _Pick out whatever you want,_ she said, her eyes glistening. _I want to see what a handsome boy like you will want._ "No," he said. "I can't. I don't want to look at this. I can't. I'm leaving." He looked at her. "I'm leaving right now." He stood up and walked out of the store. And she called after him. She followed him out onto the street, and she was still laughing, still mocking him, and he knew he had to get away. He had to get away, but he wasn't quite sure where he could go. He crossed the street and walked down another street and then he was out in the woods, following the path home. The trees were bare, their branches stark and black against the blue sky, and he heard no noise but the sound of his feet on the snow, trudging, as though his life depended on it. He knew it didn't matter what he wanted. They were all laughing at him, the others as well as himself. He walked on. A figure was lying on the road. It was a woman, and she was on her back. She was naked, and her eyes were closed. She was dark and beautiful, and her breasts were white and full. He walked over to her, and he crouched down. He put his hand on her breast, and she opened her eyes. Her eyes were big and dark and black, as black as her hair was black. They were not the eyes of a woman at all. _It doesn't matter,_ she said. _You can give anything you want to me._ "Where are you from?" he asked. _We're everywhere,_ she said. _All over the world._ "And we're all beautiful and dark and with dark hair?" _Yes,_ she said. _Go ahead. It doesn't matter._ "And you have breasts?" _Yes,_ she said. _We all have them. They're beautiful. And when you see us, you'll want to look at our breasts._ "And I will lie with you, here, on this bed?" He put his hand on her breast again. "I can touch you?" _Yes, yes, yes,_ she said. _I know you want to. I know it, and I know you'll let me._ "And we can have babies?" he asked. "Our own babies?" _Yes,_ she said. _We can have them._ "So I'll be in a home with all of you, and my little babies, and then we'll go outside and play in the snow together?" _Yes,_ she said. _That's right. Come with us. It's all waiting for you._ "But I'll have to go in alone first. I'll have to go in alone first. Just for a little while. Just until I grow up. Until I'm a man." _And then we'll come with you, all of us, and we'll be together and we'll never be apart again. And you'll be with us, and we'll all be together._ "But if you want to hurt me, don't tell me, because I might be afraid, and then you'll have my heart and you'll take it away from me." _No, no,_ she said. _Nothing like that. We have no need to hurt anyone._ "And there will be a dark place that you can go to? A dark place that's all your own?" _Yes,_ she said. _There's always a dark place for everyone who wants to go there. For us, it's a dark room, dark woods, a small room. And you don't have to go. But you can if you want to. But you don't have to go to the dark woods to look for yourself. You don't have to go there, not if you don't want to._ "And then I'll never see you again?" _No,_ she said. _We'll be there, and you can hear us if you want, and if you can't hear us, you can see us and touch us with your hands._ "And it will be the dark and the beautiful room that we can't ever get out of, and no one will ever know what we did there?" _No,_ she said. _Not everyone will know, but everyone can guess. They can wonder. They can guess._ "We won't be punished for it?" _Oh, no,_ she said. _We never get punished._ "And I won't go and look at the dark woods if I don't want to, but if I do go in and look?" _We'll be waiting for you._ "And you'll come back and find me?" _Yes, yes, yes._ "And I'll go into the room and look? And if I go into the room? And if I look? And if I do that, will you all be able to go and find my body? Will you all be able to take it from my body and take what was mine?" _Yes,_ she said. _We'll be there. We'll all be there._ He stood up. He stood up, and she put her hand on his leg. "Don't," she said. "Don't go away from me. I