A Coward Judges All He Sees By

There Is A Story In The Book Night Shift, Called 'the Mangler,' About A Laundry Machine That Takes On A Sort Of Malignant Life. I Worked In A Laundry For About A Year And A Half After I Got Out Of College. It Was The Only Job I Could Find To Support My Wife And Our First Child. There Was A Fellow There That Had No Hands Or Forearms. He Simply Had Hooks. This Is One Of The Things That They Don't Tell You About When You Become Management. You Have To Wear A Tie. It Was This Fellow's Tie That Did Him In.

It's Exciting And It's Thrilling And It's Not Particularly Threatening, Because They're Not Overtly Sexual. A Lot Of The Physical Side Of It Is Conveyed In Things Like The Vampire Will Touch Her Forearm Or Run A Hand Over Skin, And She Just Flushes All Hot And Cold. And For Girls, That's A Shorthand For All The Feelings That They're Not Ready To Deal With Yet.

Eddie Discovered One Of His Childhood's Great Truths. Grownups Are The Real Monsters, He Thought.

And In Real Life Endings Aren't Always Neat, Whether They're Happy Endings, Or Whether They're Sad Endings.

When The Dawn Was Still Long Hours Away, Bad Thoughts Took On Flesh And Began To Walk. In The Middle Of The Night Thoughts Became Zombies.