"Sarah Hughes?"
"Yes?"
The young man looked at her, an undefinable look in his eyes.
"You're called Sarah Hughes?"
"That's my name. Yes."
He gave a curt nod and a scrutinizing stare.
Sarah looked back at him with her arms crossed across her chest, her right foot tapping impatiently on the cement.
"Look, buddy, I don't know who you are or what you want from me but I know you've been following me for three months. And now is not a very good time to be stalking me because everything's already so bloody fucked up in the first place."
The man laughed.
"What the hell are you laughing at?" she said.
His face grew somber again and he swallowed.
"Sarah?"
"How do you know my name?"
He held her eyes and said, "I knew Susan."
Sarah gasped. "Susan?"
"Susan Leight. Yes."
"How?"
"It's a long story."
"Longer than the last year?"
He looked around and Sarah noticed the left corner of his moth curl up in a semi-grin.
"Much."
"Ok. Who are you? And how do you know who I am?"
He took her arm just above the elbow and started leading her down the street.
"I'll tell you but we have to get out of the open. Just walk with me, A--Sarah."
"Ok...I'm starting to get used to strange occurances and I'll just follow you because for some reason I trust you."
"Oh, really? You trust me, aah, Sarah?"
"Well, now you're making me doubt a little."
He led them around a corner and crossed a street Sarah had never been on before.
"I'm called Louis Alan. I know who you are because Jill--I mean, Susan...Susan told me about you and what she told you."
"What the hell do you mean, what she told me? And why did you call her Jill?"
Louis jerked her arm and pulled her down an alley.
"Jesus! Don't say that so loud. Pretend I didn't say it and don't mention it again until we're inside. All right?"
She looked at him wide-eyed and began to doubt having let him lead her away into this unknown section of town.
"Are we almost there?"
"Yeah. Just a few more minutes. Don't speak until then."
"How long is this going to take? My boyfriend is expecting me."
Louis kept walking quickly, pulling her along but she noticed an ever so slight change in his gait when she spoke her last sentence.
"Ok. We're here."
He pulled out a key and opened a black door that was hardly noticeable from the street and pulled her inside.
"It's not much but I've ended up better than the rest of them," he said as if she knew what he was referencing.
"What?"
"Sarah?" he said quietly. "Tell me what she told you. I want to hear it from you."
"She didn't tell me anything. All I know is that there was some crazy bullshit going on with nutcases having heart attacks over my stories and Susan knew about it and told me I was my fucking main character. And then next time I heard from her, it was the police department calling me to identify her body. She didn't tell me anything."
"But she did. You just told me. Jesus Christ!" he hissed and ran his hands through his straight, dirty-blonde hair. "She told you."
"What are you talking about? I'm so confused. What the hell is going on? I publish that goddamned story and the whole work collapses. And Susan...Susan tells me the craziest thing in the world. I get abducted by nut cases in suits interrogating me for hours about how I know about something called New Co or something..."
"NOUCO," he cut in.
"Whatever."
"It's an acronym, but keep going."
"Fine. I don't know anything about New Co or whatever it's called and then I don't remember what happened. I woke up in my bed and maybe I dreamed it all but then Susan went crazy when I told her about it. I mean, I told her I had a crazy nightmare and she looked like she'd seen a ghost."
"Jesus. The inhibitor is malfunctioning."
"What inhibitor? They kept saying that in my dream...or whatever it was."
"It's still malfunctioning. That's why you remembered it at all. Even as a dream."
"Can you explain your rambling here, please, because I think I've had enough perplexion to last the rest of my life."
The man called Louis snorted and turned around quickly, then without warning flipped over and landed across the room and smashed the wall with his fist.
Sarah backed away and calculated the distance between her position, the man's and the door.
Suddenly, he whirled around, panting hard, a distraught expression on his face, ran up to her and grabbed her shoulders.
"Alison! Don't you remember?"