Rafferty ignored her. As he massaged Mari’s breasts, he murmured to her in a low, coarse voice.

“Man, Luanne, you’ve got the biggest tits I’ve ever seen.”

She shivered. Her brain stumbled in confusion at the name. He pulled the revolver from the holster on his hip and fired it over his head. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Mari jolted awake in time to see the moose descending on her. She shrieked and brought her arms up to deflect the blow, knocking the painting onto the floor. The banging she had interpreted as gunshots in her dream went on without cease.

Luanne and Bob-Ray were at it again.

She tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed and discovered that in her fitful sleep she had rolled into the Grand Canyon of mattress valleys.

“I think I saw this bed on The Twilight Zone,” she grumbled, trying to rock herself into a sitting position. “People fell through it into an alternate universe.”

Wishing fleetingly she had stuck with one of the dozen aerobics classes she had signed up for in the last three years, she heaved herself out of the chasm and tumbled onto the floor. A shuddering groan vibrated through the room as the air conditioner kicked into high gear, blasting arctic air and the smell of mildew. The control knob was missing and the plug looked like something no certified electrician would touch without first shutting down power to the whole north end of town.

Rubbing her frigid hands up and down her cold, bare arms, she peered out through the separation in the drapes to see the first faint pink tints of dawn streaking behind the snow-capped peaks to the east. At the edge of the parking lot, the Paradise Motel sign buzzed and flickered. Not a creature was stirring… except Bob-Ray and Li’l Sizzler, the Amazing Human Breakfast Sausage.

“Goddamn, Luanne! You could suck the white off rice!”

Mari groaned and rubbed her hands over her face.