The odd thing was, he was quite sure he was dead. It was odd because he was still in his body, breathing, refreshed and relaxed. He felt a —
The voice came again from behind him, “So, Fred, we’ll be getting into the meat of it now, if you’ll pardon the expression.” Fred whirled. The man on the glistening boulder was looking at him with those sad, tired eyes.
Fred — for he was still Fred. He was! — trembling with despair, sank down into a fetal ball before Alberto of the rock. And he cried out, “I don’t unders — I mean — what’s happening?”
“I’m sad to say, Fred, we’re starting Lesson One. And it’s not easy. Trust me, I know.”
From his huddled position, Fred dared a peek up at the gray sky. God, don’t let the thing come again! The sky was vacant — for the moment. In the respite, his mind raced. How could he be experiencing such pain and horror when he was already —
He looked up at Alberto, feeling a need to explain, “I’m — I’m dead, you know! You do know that?”
“Right you are. Me as well, for a very long time.”
Fred wanted so desperately to understand, but he had barely heard the words when —
The shadow came. He yelped piteously, but reacted even more quickly this time, instantly up and running. He was astonished at how he was able to speed across the stony beach. His body seemed in the best shape he could ever remember. He ran and, timing it carefully, he dodged just as the massive thing crashed down. It missed him by inches, slamming into the earth with a shuddering shockwave. Even as he was blasted sideways in a storm of stones, Fred spotted a tiny cave further up the shoreline. It was barely a hollow, but was perhaps big enough to hide in — if he could only run fast enough. Run! RUN!
He glanced back at the sky. The shadow-thing had drawn up seemingly as high as the clouds, but it now shot downward again, able to alter its impact point by a hundred yards at a time. Dodge as he might, this second blow caught him square. Body parts screamed once more in a symphony of new excruciations. But just before Death took him again, one detail was different. The smell. Rubber.