Jigsaw World by JD Lovil

their lives more than twenty years ago, and they were
basically Loners, not avoiding company, but always seeming to wind
up alone.
    Another similarity that they had with each
other was that they gained important and useful information from
their dream lives. They also trusted their intuitions regarding
situations and danger to an almost ridiculous degree. They had also
developed identical conclusions regarding some sort of strange
immunity they had either developed or inherited to the spectral
phenomena that happened around them.
    George and Tom had each been traveling around
for the last few years, instinctively seeking out answers to
questions that they had not ever consciously asked. The events had
begun to speed up (relative to a number of events to time plot) in
recent times. Tom and George mutually agreed that this was a real
acceleration, not any apparent change due to increased scrutiny or
enhanced detective powers.
    They continued to discuss related matters for
about two hours, until finally Bailey padded into the room and
stared at them reproachfully. The pot of coffee was all but dead
about then anyway, and the two of them began to prep the RV for a
day’s travel.
    The first rays of the morning sun began to
peek through the leaves of the Oak tree which bordered and shaded
the space where the RV was currently parked. There was something
brighter, more yellow, about the light Tom saw out of the side of
his eyes. He looked directly out of the windshield of the RV at the
curb wall in front of the RV, where a fat gray squirrel was
chittered and waddled along the top bricks of the wall.
    Something strange was happening out there. The
light just touched the squirrel, and the squirrel began to emit a
loud squeaking screech of distress. One moment he waddled the
length of the wall, and the next moment, it looked as if the wall
melted a little, and the squirrel sank into the brick to about
shoulder depth. There, the brick must have hardened, because the
squirrel struggled desperately to no avail. The rodent was part of
the rock, and could not escape.
    Tom brought the current situation to George’s
attention, and together they watched the activity around them.
Neither of them was sure if they would be less endangered by
leaving the rest area now, or more endangered. They decided to wait
a few moments to see if the phenomena subsided. If it did not, they
would make a break for it in a few moments.
    As they watched, the couple in the RV next to
theirs eased out of their vehicle and was looking about curiously.
George speculated that they probably did not see the true action
around them, but were reacting to the distress of the various
victims of the event.
    The man made the mistake of leaning against
their RV, and he fell backwards into the siding on the vehicle. He
sat back up so that his face had emerged from the metal, and there
he was stuck, screaming. The woman was screaming also, first in
response to the sound, and whatever she saw of her husband’s
plight, and then because the pavement below her opened up and
swallowed her in a quicksand like descent.
    Tom looked sidewise toward George. “You really
can cook an ovary on the pavement in Texas.” George gave a
truncated snort in response.
    “ All in all, I think we have
learned everything here that we are going to.” George stated. “This
is just another one of those weird events that have no logical
basis. Hopefully we are immune to this, but I don’t know. Let’s get
out of here, and not find out.”
    Tom agreed with the sentiment of George’s
statement, and they prepared to move out. Just as Tom was about to
start the RV’s motor, someone or something began banging violently
on the door of the RV. Someone outside began yelling, “Let me in!”
The Shouter banged even harder on the door.
    Tom checked the pocket where he had taken to
putting the nice 32 semiautomatic pistol he had obtained from the
werewolf dude. It was there. He reached over and turned