With haunted eyes, Sally drifted with the dispersing crowd, realizing when it was too late that she hadn’t said thank you or goodbye to that gay couple who had comforted her.

She avoided the police officers who were trying to pin down what had happened in the night. She tried to avoid reporters and TV people, but she was very pretty and camera people naturally included her. Also, despite cuts and bruises, not a single other fighter on the line had died last night. They all (except for one beefy braggart) told the reporters “It’s because of her.”

So she numbly accepted their praise, said vague good things about other fighters, stopped herself from trashing the ones who struck first with the left, bore the sympathetic looks from people who had seen her lose Lavinia and came awake to find herself alone outside the old green camper, waiting for Lavinia to pop the lock.

She stared at the camper which had been their home. She had walked, without seeing them, the 20 blocks to the side street where they had parked… together… just yesterday.

Lavinia had the keys in her jacket pocket. Sally could bend and get the spare key magnet-attached to the rear bumper but her body weighed thousands of pounds. How many times had she stood at this door as Lavinia leaned over and popped up the ancient little round peg lock? Never ever again.

A flash of early sun on a skyscraper window started her going or she might have stood there for hours. She felt under the bumper and found the spare key, unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed in. For the first time she sat in the driver’s seat. She blinked, feeling like the walls were going to squeeze in and crush her.

Something smelled wrong.

Her heart beat faster and exhaustion dropped away. She sniffed cautiously. Around the familiar smell of old foam and the corner grocery smell from their panty there was another smell, not foul, just unworldly somehow, like a – a presence.

Lavinia was back there.

You’re still welcome in my home, she’d thought and Lavinia had accepted the invitation. I thought you had to say it out loud, she protested, but there was no argument. She knew. Lavinia was back there.

She was in the living space behind the green curtain. Right behind Sally’s head.

Dread prickled the back of her neck. She had no hope that Lavinia would still be herself, only the grim, heartbreaking realization that she herself, she, Sally Yan, would have to be the one to finally kill her.

But she snatched the wooden stake from her belt loop, whirled around onto her knees and wrenched open the old curtain so hard the rod snapped loose with a metallic schnick!

Heart slamming, she scanned the dim interior. Bed neatly made, cupboards on the back doors closed, wooden covers of oven and stove in place. Everything looked normal.

But there was something white on the ancient linoleum of the floor which she and Lavinia hadn’t left. The corner of a piece of paper? Impossible that it could be a note from Lavinia!

Carefully she clambered through the opening onto the bed. She crawled to the edge and looked over at the floor.

A hand stuck out from under the bed.

An icicle stabbing her guts, she jerked back. She’d been unforgivably careless not to think of the small storage space under the bed. Lavinia’s undead body was right beneath her.

Teeth clenched, she turned. Her eyes closed for a second, all the air sighing from her body. Her hands clenched the blanket and she wished she believed in anything she could pray to.

Then she filled her lungs, sprang backward and landed in a crouch, stake pointing out, looking with wide eyes at what was under the bed.

It was Lavinia alright, just as she’d known.

Lavinia had managed to squeeze into that tight space. Her eyes were enormous black pools in the dim light, watching Sally. Was there anything in those eyes beyond hunger?

The moment stretched out. Claws of hope and longing tore at the outer layers of her skin.

“Are you still … Lavinia?” she whispered. Her world tottered on a pinhead as she waited for an answer.