When Al peaked into 1962, Sam was sound alseep. He poised, ready to hit the buttons to exit, but felt a nagging urge to check on Charles Whitfield.
         "Gushie, center me on the slimball," he ordered.
         Al popped into the kitchen where Charles was standing and sulking at the counter. He held the newly empty whiskey bottle by the neck with only two fingers, swinging it gently as he stared out the window into the dark night.
         Al knew the look of brooding anger in the man's eyes. He had seen it in the mirror often enough. "Uh-oh. This doesn't look good."
         Charles turned and saw the candy dish, the lemons, and the plastic pill bottles. He suddenly threw the whiskey bottle across the room, right through Al. It hit the wall and shattered, splattering glass and the few drops of alcohol that remained inside onto the floor and walls.
         In one fell swoop, he cleared the counter of the candy dish, lemons, and bottles. The dish hit the floor, shattering with candy landing as sporadically as the glass. The lemons wobbled in different directions, stopping at the first obstacles they met. Pills showered the floor, sounding like rain on a tin roof as the spread.
         With a look that would rival Linda Blair, Charles spat at the mess on the floor, "It should have killed you!"
         "Oh brother!" Al ran through the walls back to Sam, not wasting the time to request a recentering from Gushie. "Wake up! Wake up!" he yelled close to Sam's ear.
         Sam flinched, "Al," he grumbled. "I feel awful." He kept his eyes closed, hoping the irritant would cease and he could return to slumber.
         "You're going to be worse in about five seconds. He's coming. Get up, get your shoes on, and run!"
         The urgency in Al's message brought Sam out of his dreams. His eyes readjusted to the dark room.
         "Get up!" Al barked like the commanding officer he was.
         Sam moved, albeit clumsily. His arms and legs still felt disconnected from the rest of his body.
         He sat on the side of the bed, inhaling slowly to still himself. A wave of blackness floated through his mind and he felt as if he could put the wastebasket to good use again.
         "Hurry, Sam!" Al coaxed.
         "When the world stops spinning," he explained, not wanting another close encounter with the floor.
         Charles pushed the door open, shoving it against the joining wall with a loud crash. "Good, you're up."
         "Oh, no!" Al shook his head. If only he had cheked on Charles earlier, had kept his promise and not left, even when things looked okay.
         "Gotta throw up," Sam told him, hoping the threat of vomit would keep him at bay. He could smell the whiskey on the man's breath even before he was standing beside him.
         "How dare you embarrass me in front of the Becketts like that?!" Charles jerked Sam up by his upper arms.The grip was so tight that it sent bolts of pain through his arms.
         The black wave reached a rip tide, "Oww" he moaned, from the jar. He felt as if he would topple over, had Charles not been supporting him.
         "Kick him, Sam. Do that martial arts, kung fu stuff that you do. You're an expert. He's mad as hell and you've got to get away."
         Heeding Al's advice, Sam kicked out, but in his clumsy, disconnected state, he only grazed his attacker's leg.
         "Oh, not good," Al commented, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. Even if he could get to Sam or Katie again, he knew the Becketts could not help Sam in time to stop this burst of violence.
         "You want to kick me now? Is that it? Two can play that game!" Charles snarled. He threw Sam against the wall and watched him slide to the floor. Then he delivered a swift and hard kick to his stomach.
         Sam's breath halted momentarily and what was in his stomach rushed up his esophagus. He swallowed, forcing it back down.
         Al jittered nervously, knowing there was nothing he could do to help and that Sam was in no shape to even feighn his own defense.
         "So how do you like kicking now?" Charles asked, with a follow-up kick.
         "How can you do that to a kid? Your own kid?" Al yelled at the angry man. Afterall, Charles saw a small child clutching his stomach, trying to catch his breath.
         Charles grabbed Sam's ankles, dragging him away from the wall to an open space on the floor. He lowered himself to the floor, strattling Sam's body as he propped himself on his knees.
         "Do something, Sam!" Al yelled, feeling sick at the disturbing set up. It was obvious that Sam was barely conscious and Charles had more devastating violence in mind.
         Sam felt a hand strike across his face, and another, and another. The wave continued to ebb and flow. He struggled to make his arms move in the way he wanted; he could fight if he could only control his muscles. But he could not. Nothing worked the way he wanted it to work; everything was too heavy.
         "You should've died with your mother!" Charles hit him over and over with an intense passion for the power, even if the power came in beating a small boy who was too weak, too sick, and too dazed to even twitch in his own defense. It felt good to him to be in control.
         "Stop it! Stop hitting him!" Al begged, his anger and disgust giving way to fear. "He's not fighting. He can't fight. You won, okay? You won! Stop it!"
         Then the blows stopped. Though his face stung and his body ached, Sam opened his eyes. To his horror, the only thing in his line of sight was Charles' hands on his jeans, struggling with a button and then easily sliding down the zipper. "No!" he wailed. "Al! Al!" he called, beginning to hyperventilate. "Help... me!"
         Al knelt beside Sam and could see what he saw, Charles reaching into his pants. "Oh, God, what can I do?" he looked upward. "Help me! Help Sam! Don't let this happen to him again!"
         Then he remembered what Sam had told him. Al frantically punched buttons on the handlink, hoping to overload it. It worked. The handlink began to emit a high pitched alarm. It hurt Al's ears and only added to Sam's terror; but soon the dogs, the blessed dogs, began to howl and bark as if to signify the end of the world.
         Startled, Charles pulled his hand out of his pants and looked around. "What the hell is out there?" he grumbled. He did not hear the alarm, just the dogs. He got up and left the room, left Sam.
         "Al" Sam continued to cry out, tears and blood streaming down his face onto the floor. He was acutely aware that he was hurting and that the floor was cold and hard and getting colder and harder the longer he was there. "Help me," he whimpered when his jagged respiration would allow him to speak.
         "He's gone," Al asssurred him, entering the code to stop the alarm. He could imagine Gushie was having a fit in the control room, trying to figure out what the problem was. By this point, every dog in Elk Ridge and the surrounding communities were howling in communication with each other. As dogs were accustomed to doing, they would continue to bark long after they forgot why they were barking at all.
         "Help me. Help me," Sam repeated in a whisper, shaking from the pain, the shock, the fear and the temperature. "Al." The alarm was still ringing in his ears.
         "Look at me, Sam. It's just me," Al knew he was expecting the worst that Whitfield had to offer. He had not opened his eyes to realize that Charles was indeed gone.
         "Listen to the dogs, Sam. They scared him away, just like when you Leaped in. C'mon, Sam, you need to snap out of this." Al shook his head sadly. "So much for therapy," he sighed almost inaudibly. "C'mon, Sam, get into bed. Cover up."
         Sam did not respond.
         "I better see where he is. Gushie, center me on Ca-Ca-for-Brains."
         Al found Charles passed out on the sofa. There were several beer cans on the floor. He had obviously had more than whiskey that night. The drapes were pulled back where he had looked outside to see if there was anything unusual in the yard.
         Al went back to Sam who was still lying in a helpless, shivering heap on the cold floor calling his name. "I'm here, Sammy. I'm here."
         He could not cover his friend with a blanket. He could not stop the pain or that wave of darkness. He could not take away the fear and the memories that were paralyzing Sam. So, Al did what he could do: "Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the merigolds...."