The Last Story by Christopher Pike Page B

I'm missing the boat, while trying so hard to catch it. Do you know what I mean?"

    He nodded and tapped me lightly on the head with his rose. "You must get to know the captain better. The boat will wait for you." He glanced past me. "Where is the other?"

    "Who? The guy who was sitting beside me?"

    "Yes."

    Ill

    "He's waiting for me outside." The thought of Roger distracted me. He had left in a huff.
    "I'd better go."

    The yogi smiled and handed me the rose. "Listen to your heart, Shari. Not to the world.
    The world is a place to visit, to enjoy. It is not your permanent residence. When you don't know what to do, you return to your true home."

    His words touched me deeply; the way he said my name. With so much love. I felt tears well up in my eyes. "I know that. Thank you so much."

    Peter and Jimmy wanted to speak to me as I returned to the pew, but I was too overwhelmed.

    Collecting my purse, I kissed Peter quickly on the head and said I would be home soon, I just had to drop Roger off. Outside, I found Roger sitting on a bench and smoking a cigarette.
    His mood was upbeat—he said he hadn't minded the wait at all.

    On the drive back to Henry's, where Roger had left his car, we listened to the radio and chatted about the scene we were shooting the next day. The yogi didn't come up.

    Roger gave me a kiss just before he climbed out of my car. A brief kiss, it was true, but a hungry one. Enough to stimulate my appetite. Had I not still been floating in the grace of the yogi, I might have fallen right then. But that is the thing about temptation. It will always be there tomorrow, always waiting. Temptation is like the waves of the ocean gently but persistently wearing away the shoreline. Like temptation, it knows the day will eventually come when everything softens, then crumbles.

    Roger laughed softly as he stepped toward his black Corvette.

    He had me and he knew it.

    I would not be taking the yogi's course tomorrow and I knew it.

    CHAPTER

    X

    VL/^NCE MORE, in the middle of the night, after waking from a strange dream, I went to sit at my computer. Off to my right, in the bedroom, Peter slept peacefully. Thirty feet to my left, in the living room, Peter's blind baseball prodigy, Jacob, slept on the sofa. Not only was Jacob missing his eyes his real eyes, he had glass ones—he had no home now either. Peter said he would only be staying with us for a few days; I didn't mind. He had been at the apartment when I returned from dropping Roger off. A tall, gangly, black seventeen-year-old, Jacob had struck me as a polite young man. But, boy, could he eat. Before going to bed he had cleaned out the leftover turkey in our icebox and a large bag of potato chips, plus three cans of Coke.

    Not to mention the chocolate cake he'd eaten.

    Tomorrow I planned to send him to the supermarket with Peter and a hundred dollar bill to let him buy what he wanted.

    I couldn't sleep because I felt compelled to write.

    I didn't know what I'd say. Only that it would come.

    THE STARLIGHT CRYSTAL

    Sarteen sat in her quarters and stared at the column of jewels she had built to represent the twelve chakras that each human being supposedly possessed. The precious stones glowed, shedding a soft pastel luster across the dim room. It was as if each stone resonated with a portion of her inner being. Even in her desperate situation, she felt unexpected peace as she sat with the golden rod and knew with a certainty that transcended logic that the Elders had not lied to them.
    That they had come to humanity in love and light, and that this invasion had been unforeseen.
    Something thrust upon humanity from a place so alien, so hideous, that it didn't belong in the same dimension. Many insights intuitively came to Sarteen in that moment. The beings that commanded the ship that chased them were evil. They wanted to dominate humanity for perverse reasons. The Elders, and the column of jewels, emanated love. Love was what gave all beneficent