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their backs. In their hands they held long, barbed whips or vicious looking spears which they used to further torment the pathetic figures swimming the molten rivers and those who tried to pull themselves ashore.
    Toward this horrific scene Thomas fell, his mind numb with what he saw. To his left and right he noticed that there were others much like himself, far off in the distance, plummeting toward the literal Hell that awaited.
    My God , he thought, starting to believe, to really believe some of the stories he’d been told in church when he was a child. Because if there was this… If there was a Hell then there had to be a Heaven, right? A Devil. A God.
    Please save me, Lord …
    He soon discovered, however, that he was beyond saving. Because his descent did not stop, did not falter in the least. He continued to fall and then he plunged into the lava and the heat of it seared him, flash-burned every particle of his being. But it didn’t kill him, no. As the indescribable torment went on and on it never killed the apparently immortal body he now found himself possessing. The burning continued, endlessly, relentlessly, unendurably, until…
    He found himself on solid ground, lying on his back, water splashing down onto his face, the whole of his naked body. It was blessedly cool and refreshing right then. He was certain he’d never felt anything so wonderful in all his life. Opening his mouth, he let it run down his throat in soothing rivulets, drank it in, savoring the touch and taste of it on his tongue. He was content to lie like that for some time, to never move again, if need be, if only the water would continue to comfort him with its simple benediction.
    Minutes passed like that before he opened his eyes, before it even occurred to him to do so. It was the rumble of thunder that made him sit up and assess his situation. The sound made him think of a storm where it wasn’t rain that fell but something foul and sickening instead. Was it possible that he’d spent so much time parched and in pain that the touch and taste of blood would seem as soothing to him as water once did? Looking around, he was relieved to discover that it was only water, nothing more, that fell upon and about him. It was raining, just a regular old thunderstorm, the kind he had known before the world became such an alien and inhospitable place.
    He was sitting on the front lawn of his house, could only guess at the time of the day. The clouds were thick and grey overhead but the sun was still visible behind them. Night had not yet fallen although it seemed to be fast approaching. Had it all been a dream? The torments of Hell. The swarm of mutant bugs. The blood storm. The disappearance of his family... If only it could be so. All of it. But a glance toward the house showed him the broken windows through which the bugs had entered. And there was the blood that had congealed like scabs upon his yard which was only now being loosened by the rain, starting to sluice down the slight incline of his property toward the runoff at the side of the road which was empty of all traffic.
    He sighed and got to his feet. A part of him knew that he should be concerned about his nakedness but right then he couldn’t have cared less. Besides, it wasn’t like there was anyone around to see him. His muscles ached like he’d been lifting weights for hours or wrestling someone who outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Like he’d had his ass kicked, is what it felt like. It was already occurring to him that what he’d recently experienced—the descent into Hell, the flight through the forest, the meeting with Julia (Dana?)—was, in fact, a dream. A very powerful and lucid dream, to be sure. A hallucination? Something to do with the insects, breathing in the powder of their desiccated bodies?
    That last memory of Dana wasn’t sitting very well with him. He hoped that it had only been part of the hallucination. The thought of Julia and the kids, the guilt that