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sprinting for her front door but the man in the truck caught her! She screamed to high heaven!”
    Clara pulled the blanket up under her chin.
    “‘Calm down, miss. I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘But he would have!’” Beatrice said in her most masculine voice. She turned off the flashlight, and Clara could not make out her features. “‘Who?’ the pitiful girl asked, then screamed when a dark figure emerged from the back seat of her car holding a shining knife!”
    Beatrice flashed the light on under her face, her eyes wide and wild, her teeth set in a sinister grimace. She looked like an escaped patient from an insane asylum, and Clara let out an involuntary scream.
    “Ha ha!” Beatrice laughed. She turned off the flashlight and tossed it on the floor.
    “Jesus Christ, Beatrice!” Clara yelled. “How the hell do you make those faces?”
    “Isn’t it wonderful? I plan on being an actress, you know,” Beatrice said. She moved to the couch to sit beside her sister. “Were you scared?”
    “Yes!” Clara replied, her heart still racing. “Even though your story made absolutely no sense,” she snapped.
    “How so?” Beatrice asked.
    “First off, how is Stacy going to be blind to the fact that a dark figure is in her back seat? She had to get in the car. How could she not see him?”
    “Her car was parked in the shadows,” Beatrice explained.
    “Okay then. There’s a detail you left out,” Clara said. “Second, how stupid does a girl have to be to drive home with what she thinks is a crazy person following behind her? Why didn’t she drive to the police station or something?”
    “I told you that Stacy wasn’t that bright,” Beatrice said.
    “Hmm. What were the high beams all about?” Clara asked. She threw off the blanket as the room warmed from the candlelight.
    “Every time the truck guy saw the dark figure rise up out of the back seat, he flashed his lights to scare him,” Beatrice explained. “No one wants to get caught in the act of killing someone.”
    “Why would the dark figure slit Stacy’s throat while she was driving? Then they’d both be dead from a car accident,” Clara said.
    Beatrice huffed. “Clara, it’s just a stupid story, okay? The point was to make you scream with my scary face, which I did, by the way.”
    Clara smiled. “You’re right. You did scare me.”
    Beatrice grinned. “Want me to make the face again?”
    “God, no!” Clara replied. “Why don’t we play Sorry! before bed or something like that?” She was thinking of anything to do that would erase the image of Beatrice’s mental patient face.
    “Let’s have a séance instead!” Beatrice suggested.
    “Absolutely not,” Clara said. “What is up with you tonight?”
    “I don’t know,” Beatrice confessed. “It’s the candlelight or something. I just want to be scared out of my mind.”
    Clara rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t.”
    Beatrice snuggled with her sister, placing her head in Clara’s lap.
    “Clara?” she said.
    “Hmm?”
    “You need to live a little bit.”
    Clara laughed. “I suppose you’re right,” she replied, stroking Beatrice’s hair and staring into the three dancing flames.
     
    ***
     
    Clara was reluctant to go into the cafeteria. But she was hungry. She and Beatrice were already eating too little at home, both afraid of not having any food, so they tried hard not to eat anything at all. They mostly ate sandwiches because they were cheap. Clara did stock up on soups and canned vegetables, and they heated these on the wood stove.
    Beatrice complained about the heat. The few blessed days of coolness in the beginning of September did not last. Just when Clara thought the seasons were turning, the blaze of summer came back, angrier this time, one last roar of sizzling heat. With no air conditioning and the stove running, the temperature in the house grew to an unbearable degree driving the girls to strip to their underwear and lie on the kitchen tiles.
    “This