(FADE INTO): A few hours later, he was sitting in the back of a sheriff's car. "Hey fuckhead, " John Wyandt, Lloyd's deputy, said, "hey fuckhead, are you alive?

"Yeah," Mark replied, his mouth foul and dry with liquor, "where's my car?"

"We'll get it tomorrow. It's safe. Nobody comes back here in these woods much, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean don't you Mark? Maybe it's time to grow up, eh?"

"You taking me home? Are you taking me to the Lincoln?"

"I'm taking you to the station where there's a nice bed waiting, for you. You're spending the night there; you pulled a gun on a small crowd--that's reckless endangerment. Fucking around with a crime scene, who knows what that'll get you around here. Let's say you're lucky you are family. "

"I had clearance."

3:00 a.m.

Mark woke up when Wyandt came into the cell.

"I forgot something," Wyandt said to Mark. "Maureen called and told me you were real prone to suicide attempts and such. Throw me the shoes."

"Maureen said that?"

"She cares bout you. Me? I think you're an asshole but to each his own. Blood runs thicker than water; blah blah blah. Throw me the shoes.

"What? You think I'd hang myself?"

Wyandt finished and left the cell. Mark slumped backward and stared at the photos that adorned the office's walls. Mostly they were black and whites taken of the days of Kurtzville gone by. Lot of picnics put on by the foundry. Mostly.

DREAMLAND

Tonight's REM clue was similar but this time he was barreling along a straight rural road that was very wintry in character. The roadside is dotted with trees every twenty yards or so. Snow dots the landscape. The woman sitting next to him is wearing black lace, including a veil. She knits a pair of pink booties. There is a thump, something red splashes onto the windshield and the car careens out of control. Lack of gravity takes over and the car flies away. Then the car plummets back earthward and smashes into a tree. All is still for a moment. A baby cries in the distance and then fades out.

Mark was trapped in the car, some of the tree had burst through the windshield and then gone through his stomach, finally getting stuck to the car seat. The woman passengers' face had been torn off revealing half a skeleton. Her arms show that she was an old woman, flesh hung loosely from her arms. But what's left of "her" is still trying to knit the baby booties until her bones creak to a standstill. Mark slumps. He looks to his gut and sees his insides spilling out. His innards steam in the wintry air. Some guy was calling an old football game on the radio. He's trying to move but he's not going anywhere. A sad looking old farmer is taking pictures of the wreck, his breath turns to steam, the flashes of his camera illuminate the gray sky.

He awoke. Wyandt was asleep, his feet propped up on the desk. The quiet static of a slow night came over the radio. He focused his attention on a small group of photos that hung on the wall; they were photos of a wreck on the highway. There was the dead faceless woman from his dream. And there was a dead man in the front seat, his insides spilling out. The guy looked a lot like himself, Mark noticed.

He looks into the woman's pregnant stomach to get a glimpse of the dying Tessie, who is fading into a dark whirlpool like oblivion.....

"Cheer up, Johnny," Mark whispered-- mostly to himself, "you are a very important person around here."

****************************