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seemed to be directed right at the house.
    Barbara allowed the car to speed by, while she just stared at the hated figure in the lawn. Her chance to run was gone. She closed the door and backed into the shadows of the house. It dawned on her that perhaps the first attacker had gone for reinforcements, and they would return en masse to batter the door down and rape her and kill her.
    She glanced frantically all around her. The large, dreary room was very quiet, cast in shadow. Between the living room and the kitchen, there was a hallway and a staircase; she moved toward it stealthily and her fingers found a light switch. The light at the top of the stairs came on, and she ascended the staircase, clinging to the banister for support and hoping desperately to be able to find a place to hide. She tiptoed…tiptoed…keeping a firm grip on the handle of her knife, and then, as she reached the top of the landing, she screamed—an ear-shattering scream that ripped through her lungs and echoed through the old house—because, there, on the floor at the top of the landing, under the glow of the naked light bulb in the hall, was a corpse with the flesh ripped from its bones and its eyes missing from their sockets and the white teeth and cheekbones bared and no longer covered by skin, as if the corpse had been eaten by rats, as it lay there in its pool of dried blood.
    Screaming in absolute horror, Barbara dropped her knife and ran and tumbled down the stairs. In full flight now, gagging and almost vomiting, with her brain leaping at the edge of sheer madness, she wanted to get out of that house—and she broke for the door and unlocked it and flung herself out into the night, completely unmindful of the consequences.
    Suddenly she was bathed in light that almost blinded her—and as she threw her arms up to protect herself, there was a loud screeching sound, and as she struggled to run, a man jumped in front of her.
    “Are you one of them?” the man shouted.
    She stared, frozen.
    The man standing in front of her had leaped out of a pick-up truck that he had driven onto the lawn and stopped with a screech of brakes and a jounce of glaring headlights.
    Barbara stared at him, but no words would come to her lips.
    “Are you one of them?” he yelled again. “I seen ’em to look like you!”
    Barbara shuddered. He had his arm raised, about to strike her, and she could not make out his features because he was silhouetted against the bright headlights of the truck.
    Behind the truck driver, the man under the tree took a few steps forward. Barbara screamed and stepped back, and the truck driver turned to face the advancing man—who stopped and watched and did not resume his advance.
    Finally the truck driver grabbed Barbara and shoved her back into the living room so forcefully that she fell down with his body on top of her, and she closed her eyes and prepared to accept her death.
    But he got off of her and slammed the door shut and locked it. And he lifted the curtains and peered out. He did not seem to be very much concerned about her, so she finally opened her eyes and stared at him.
    He was carrying a tire iron in his hand. He was a black man, perhaps thirty years old, dressed in slacks and a sweater. He did not at all resemble her attacker. In fact, though his face bore an intense look, it was friendly and handsome. He appeared to be a strong man, well over six feet tall.
    Barbara got to her feet and continued to stare at him.
    “It’s all right,” he said, soothingly. “It’s all right. I ain’t one of those creeps. My name is Ben. I ain’t going to hurt you.”
    She sank into a chair and began to cry softly, while he concerned himself with his surroundings. He moved into the next room and checked the locks on the windows. He turned on a lamp; it worked; and he turned it back off.
    He called to Barbara from the kitchen.
    “Don’t you be afraid of that creep outside! I can handle him all right. There’s probably gonna be