Then she sensed something behind her. A monster, the inner voice said. And this one's real.

Turning to look, Liz saw something coming for her, rac- ing toward her… across the desert.

Liz barely noticed the change of scenery.

She had to get up. She had to do something.

But her peripheral vision caught sight of something on the ground nearby. It was Max. He was holding someone, Michael, who was lying on the ground.

Michael was hurt, she could see. No, not hurt, the inner voice said.

Max put Michael gently to the ground. As he did, he moaned. It was a terrible sound that told her without a doubt that Michael was much more than hurt. It was then that Liz saw another figure beyond and partially behind Michael. Though Max was mostly blocking the figure and it was not… completely intact, Liz was certain that it was Isabel. And that she was also much more than hurt.

Max got to his feet. He was wobbly, unsteady. He turned slowly to look at her and the site of her seemed to steady him… to give him strength. He gestured vaguely to Michael and Isabel. And she nodded that she understood.

Somehow, she found her voice. "It's coming, Max," she said, pointing behind him, from where the thing, what- ever it was, was coming. "You have to get out of the way”

Then Liz realized there was something odd about Max. "Liz, you look different," he said, speaking her own thought about him out loud.

He was different. He wasn't the Max who waited for her back in the band room. He wasn't even the Max who was sitting beside her in the van, up above the waterline of her dream.

This Max had not happened yet, and would not happen for almost fifteen years. Nevertheless, he had come to visit her. She and Maria had called him Future Max. He had come to warn her once.

Now it was her turn. "Max, behind you!" she shouted.