Sick of Shadows by Sharyn McCrumb

map before she left school. Actually, I know I’m a few days early, but—circumstances changed.” He shifted uncomfortably.
    Elizabeth’s eyes widened. Circumstances had changed! She thought of Alban’s description of Eileen: “extremely dangerous.” Her uneasiness about the situationhad been right! “Who—who called you?” she asked faintly.
    “Called me? Nobody called me. It’s so idiotic.” He looked at her carefully for a moment. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer of coffee, if you don’t mind. And then if you want, I’ll tell you about it. It’s really been a trip for me.”
    He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she filled the copper kettle, and rummaged around the cabinets for cups and instant coffee.
    “Did you have car trouble on the way down?”
    “No,” he said, settling down on the kitchen stool. “Y’see, I’m on vacation from the clinic. I have to be back for summer session, but right now I’m off. So instead of going home to New York I figured I’d play tourist and take my time driving down here for the wedding. Eileen’s a nice kid, you know. Did you say you’re her cousin?”
    “Yes. Our mothers are sisters.”
    “Anyway, she didn’t seem to have many friends, and I know it’s been an adjustment for her, so I promised her I’d come to the wedding. I’ve always wanted to see this part of the country anyway—ever since I saw
Gone With the Wind
as a kid.”
    Elizabeth nodded, suppressing an urge to giggle.
    “Well, anyway, I drove up to that big national park in the mountains, and I rented a cabin. That was day before yesterday. Commune with nature, you know. I’m from the city myself, but some of my colleagues have been Sierra Clubbing me to death, and I decided what-the-hell, I’d give it a try. So, anyway, I got this cabin, and night before last I’m lying on my bed reading a book when this
thing
flew over my bed. I just saw it out of the corner of my eye, you know? But I threw down my book, and he made another pass. That time I saw it clearly. It was a bat! Ugly little sonuvabitch. Just cruising around my room. I let out a yell and ran for the bathroom, and he followed me. Sat right there in the doorway and peered at me so I couldn’t come out.”
    “Why couldn’t you just leave the cabin?”
    “I didn’t have too much on, you see. It was a hot night. So I went to the bathroom window and I yelled, ‘Help! Somebody! He’s got me trapped!’ hoping somebody would hear me.”
    He was telling all this in a perfectly serious tone of voice, but Elizabeth decided that he knew how absurd it was. Her laughter nearly drowned out the rest of the story. Every time she tried to picture the pudgy Shepherd nude and trapped in the bathroom by a bat, she laughed even harder.
    “Did it look like Bela Lugosi?” she managed to say.
    Shepherd frowned. “Well, it might have been rabid. Anyway, a couple of minutes later—I’m still in the John in a staring contest with Beady Eyes—somebody kicks in the door to my cabin. This guy had been out tinkering with his car and heard me yell. So I look up and he’s standing in the doorway with a .30/.30, saying ‘Where is he?’ ”
    “And you showed him the bat.”
    “Well, yeah. I can’t say he was impressed.”
    “Did he shoot the poor little—I mean, the monster?” Elizabeth asked.
    “No. He put the gun down, sneered, and then shooed it away, so I could get my pants and get out. Luckily I hadn’t unpacked.”
    “What happened to the bat?”
    Shepherd sighed. “I left right then. I don’t know what happened to the bat. But his rent is paid up through Sunday.”
    “Dr. Shepherd,” said Elizabeth, “you’re going to feel right at home here.”
    Amanda Chandler’s reaction to the new arrival was impossible to determine from her behavior. When she came back from her expedition at four, laden with packages and demanding to know where everybody was, Elizabeth appeared in the hallway and whispered to her that