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As the edge of her shoe glanced off his hip, he stroked her thigh with the screwdriver. She squealed.
    He grinned. “Don’t do that again, honey, or I might get mean.”
    Sobbing, she watched him inch the screwdriver toward her breast again. “No. Don’t. Pleeease.”
    A rock struck the side of the Reaper’s head. It knocked his head sideways, bounced off, scraped Jean’s armpit, and fell. He stood there for a moment, then dropped to his knees and slumped forward, face pressing against Jean’s groin. She twisted away, and he flopped beside her.
    She gazed down at him, hardly able to believe he was actually sprawled there. Maybe she’d passed out and this was no more than a wild fantasy. She was dreaming and pretty soon she would come to with a burst of pain and…
    No, she thought. It can’t be a dream. Please.
    A dim corner of her mind whispered, I knew I’d get out of this .
    She looked for the rock thrower.
    And spotted a dim shape standing beside a tree on the far side of the clearing.
    “You got him!” she shouted. “Thank God, you got him! Great throw!”
    The shape didn’t move, didn’t call back to her.
    It turned away.
    “No!” Jean cried out. “Don’t leave! He’ll come to and kill me! Please! I’m cuffed here! He’s got the key in his pocket. You’ve gotta unlock the cuffs for me. Please!”
    The figure, as indistinct in the darkness as the bushes and trees near its sides, turned again and stepped forward. It limped toward the glow of the fire. From the shape, Jean guessed that her savior was a woman.
    Others began to appear across the clearing.
    One stepped out from behind a tree. Another rose behind a clump of bushes. Jean glimpsed movement over to the right, looked and saw a fourth woman. She heard a growl behind her, twisted around, and gasped at the sight of someone crawling toward her. Toward the Reaper, she hoped. The top of this one’s head was black and hairless in the shimmering firelight. As if she’d been scalped? The flesh had been stripped from one side of her back, and Jean glimpsed pale curving ribs before she whirled away.
    Now there were five in front of her, closing in and near enough to the fire so she could see them clearly.
    She stared at them.
    And disconnected again.
    Came out of herself, became an observer.
    The rock thrower had a black pit where her left eye should’ve been. The girl cuffed beneath the tree was amazed that a one-eyed girl had been able to throw a rock with such fine aim.
    It was even more amazing, since she was obviously dead. Ropes of guts hung from her belly, swaying between her legs like an Indian’s loincloth. Little but bone remained of her right leg below the knee—the work of the Reaper’s woodland troops?
    How can she walk?
    That’s a good one, the girl thought.
    How can any of them walk?
    One, who must’ve been up here a very long time , was managing to shamble along just fine, though both her legs were little more than bare bones. The troops had really feasted on her. One arm was missing entirely. The other arm was bone, and gone from the elbow down. Where she still had flesh, it looked black and lumpy. Some of her torso was intact, but mostly hollowed out. The right-hand side of her rib cage had been broken open. The ribs on the left were still there, and a shriveled lung was visible through the bars. Her face had no eyes, no nose, no lips. She looked as if she might be grinning.
    The girl beneath the tree grinned back at her, but she didn’t seem to notice.
    Of course not, dope. How can she see?
    How can she walk?
    One of the others still had eyes. They were wide open and glazed. She had a very peculiar stare.
    No eyelids, that’s the trouble. The Reaper must’ve cut them off. Her breasts, too. Round, pulpy black disks on her chest where they should’ve been. Except for a huge gap in her right flank, she didn’t look as if she’d been maimed by the troops. She still had most of her skin. But it looked shiny and slick with a