How to use "from" in a sentence

8.45 am I arrive at the Horseshoe Canyon carpark early in the morning, pull my bike from the truck and lock the door

He and his men stole horses and hid from the law during the last years of the nineteenth century.

A metre from the bottom I let go and land on the ground

About three metres from the edge of the drop is a boulder

If I climb onto it, the drop from there will be shorter

This has to be my rule from now on.

Without stopping to think, I take the water bottle from my bag and drink a third of it in five seconds.

Very few people travel to the Great Gallery from this end of the trail

I take the multi-tool from my climbing bag

All they found was a truck from Colorado with a bike inside and skis on the roof.

I've done quite well, but one thought still worries me: I haven't chipped much rock from the boulder

But then I hear a sound from above and realise my mistake

The plastic pipe from the CamelBak seems best for that

He hasn't returned from a trip he took last week

When Elliot reached the store, he received a call from Mrs Ralston

By early afternoon, Elliot had received an email from Steve Pratchett, the most important of Aron's climbing friends

I follow and find myself in some place I know from the past

I promise myself that if I can escape from here back to the people, I will be kinder towards them.

I take out my camera and film as it disappears from view.

My body crashes from one side of the canyon wall to the other

Blood is coming out faster from my arm now

Blood is now coming from my arm really fast and I'm in terrible pain from the amputation

They are walking away from me.

They are tourists from the Netherlands

'It's about twelve minutes from here.'

I've learned a lot from that choice

Saying goodbye to things from our past is also a new beginning.

The Monster from the Deep

Saved from the Ocean

The Abraham Lincoln moved away from us

We hoped dial in the morning someone from the ship could see us if we were still alive.

The moon came out from behind the clouds and we saw that Abraham Lincoln was too far away

The two men wore black hats and shoes made from seal skin

Where did he come from? Why did he leave "our" world?

It had pictures by famous painters on the walls and glass cases with beautiful shells from the sea.

A white light coming from the ship made everything easy to see

I could see it from the ship

We were far from the beach

The Nautilus is perfectly safe from those outside it."

At that moment, I felt a strong hand knock the telescope away from my eye.

The Captain turned away from me.

He loves the sea, yes, but here is something missing from his life

Captain Nemo swam away from the rocks, with his knife in his hand, and began fighting with the animal

As he said this, a bright light appeared from behind the mountain of rocks in front of us.

The Nautilus moved up over the mountain, and I saw that the light came from an old underwater volcano

"It looks like a city from thousands of years ago."

Imagine what we saw - penguins, whales, polar bears, dolphins, icebergs! It was like a dream and we saw it from the inside of the Nautilus.

The voice came from another room

We all went down, inside the ship, I watched the fight from the glass window in the museum

The Nautilus shook from the explosions of the cannonballs in the water, but it went forward, ready to attack the enemy ship.

As I walked through the museum to the stairs, I heard music coming from Captain Nemo's library

The whirlpool threw our boat away from the Nautilus

All I know is that we travelled 20,000 leagues under the sea, from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, through the Reel Sea and the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic and to the North and South Poles

I saw things that no man from my world will ever see

It took a watch from its jacket and looked at it

She took the little key from the table

He ran out of the room and his hat fell from his hands

She remembered some words from her schoolbook, so she spoke to the mouse in French.

The Mouse moved quickly away from her.

It didn't have the words 'DRINK ME' on it, but she drank from it.

'Mary Ann, Mary Ann! Where are you? Bring me my hat!' The words came from the garden, outside the window

'It's wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar

'Eat from my mushroom and you'll get bigger

Eat from that brown mushroom there and you'll get smaller,' it said

She quickly ate a little from the white mushroom in her left hand

Then she ate some from one hand and some from the other

This smile went from ear to ear on its face.

'I'll have to take this child away from here, or they'll kill it!' she thought

The March Hare took the watch from the Mad Hatter and looked at it sadly

'We move from place to place,' said the Mad Hatter.

Alice got up angrily and walked away from the table into the woods.

The Queen turned away from him angrily

The Queen looked from the flowers to the men

The White Rabbit stood up and read from a very long paper:

'Oh, so you took it from somebody, you bad man,' said the King.

He took a book and read from it

I tried to play with girls, but they all ran away from me.

Then the children started laughing and running away from me

The cinema was not far from our house

Next day, a letter arrived from a university

'Where are you from?' he asked.

I went back to my room, but I heard music from somewhere upstairs

I pulled the machine gun from his hands, and shouted to Doyle.

There were bullets flying all round me from behind - and then I saw more enemy soldiers in the low grass in front of me! They were shooting at our men on the hill.

I got a letter from my Mom, and I wrote back to her that everything was OK

The President was a great big old man who talked like somebody from Texas, and there were a lot of people standing round him in the flower garden.

Just before I left the hospital in Danang, I had a letter from her

Now that I was free from the army, I just wanted to go and see her

I tried to walk to the Hodaddy Club from the train station, but I lost my way, so I took a taxi

Next, I met a teacher from Harvard University, but he was married

'He's a friend of mine from home, and he's going to stay with us for a few days.'

'Stay away from me, Forrest!' she said

'You men are all the same! Just stay away from me!'

'You can make a lot of money from chess,' he said

Somehow, when I was helping Miss Welch to escape from the jungle, her dress came off and I had to run into the trees to hide her

'I don't hear from her very often,' she said

First I phoned Mr Tribble and told him to give some of my money from the shrimp business to my Mom, and some to Bubba's daddy.

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred

We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one

Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells

And some of you have come from areas where your quest - quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hill-tops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that Resolves and Ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object.

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from - will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say

If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority

For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this."

It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.

We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them

To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the states

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged

He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope - fervently do we pray - that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away

I ask further, is it unconstitutional for me to say to the British Government "I refuse to serve you"? Is it unconstitutional for our worthy Chairman to return with every respect all the titles that he has ever held from the Government? Is it unconstitutional for any parent to withdraw his children from a Government or aided school? Is it unconstitutional for a lawyer to say "I shall no longer support the arm of the law so long as that arm of law is used not to raise me but to debase me"? Is it unconstitutional for a civil servant or for a judge to say, "I refuse to serve a Government which does not wish to respect the wishes of the whole people"?

Until we have wrung justice, and until we have wrung our self-respect from unwilling hands and from unwilling pens, there can be no cooperation

Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today

And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance

Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization

Action in this image, action to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors

But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for un delayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike

And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe - the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support - to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective - to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak - and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course - both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.

I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it

The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it - and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

Then he took some papers from the clerk and left.

'He's from the Middle Temple.'

'What a sad story it is! A young man like that suddenly gives up his business and retires from the world.'

'We received these forms from Mr Beckwith

I was away from Mr Slinkton and Miss Niner for about five minutes.

Mr Slinkton walked away from us

Slinkton turned quickly away from us for a second and put his hand to his mouth

On August 30th the weather was cool, the sky was black with smoke from domestic fires, and rain fell; rain and more rain

He came into Buck's Row from Brady Street

Hanbury Street is a long street that goes from Commercial Street to Baker's Row, not far from Buck's Row

He cut a piece of leather from the boot with a knife

Davis ran out into Hanbury Street, where he saw some workmen and shouted, 'Men, come here!' They followed him, looked at the body from the steps, then ran to find a policeman.

Chandler arrived at number 29 and noted down that the woman was lying on her back, with a deep cut from left to right across her throat and mutilations to her stomach

The killer also took some rings from her finger

The small sum of money which she received from her husband stopped when he died in 1886

Sometimes she borrowed money from her relatives

Five people in number 29 could see the murder scene from their windows

But inside the yard light came from the club windows, the club office, and from some cottages on the other side of the yard.

When they saw a lot of blood flowing from the woman's neck, they ran to find a policeman

Had the killer seized the scarf from behind and pulled her to the ground, where he cut her throat?

It is only twelve minutes' walk from Berner Street to Mitre Square, where the second murder happened

Twenty-five minutes later the policeman took her from her cell to the office

Mitre Square is eight minutes' walk from the police station

Then Inspector Collard arrived from Bishopsgate Police Station, and Dr Brown came at 2.18 to examine the body.

At the time of the murder they were only a few streets away from Mitre Square

And only minutes before at 1.41 or 1.42 another officer looked into the square from Church Passage

Goulston Street is only five minutes from Mitre square

The scene in the little room was from a nightmare

The strong heat from the fire had melted part of a kettle

An identikit picture of the man can be constructed from the descriptions by the few witnesses who possibly saw him

In the case of Elizabeth Stride, from the descriptions by Constable Smith and Israel Schwartz we have a man between 28 - 30 years old, 1.65m to 1.70m tall, wearing dark clothes and a hat with a peak, or perhaps a deerstalker

But he had only arrived in England the year before, so how could he know the area as well as the Ripper? And is it possible that Jack the Ripper changed from savagely killing prostitutes to poisoning barmaids?

If Hutchinson was the Ripper, why did he stop killing? We know that by 1891 he had moved away from Whitechapel

There were stories of a mysterious man known as 'Leather Apron', who demanded money from prostitutes and beat them if they resisted

It was very probably from the murderer

Many of them paid to look at the murder scenes from windows

'I have money.' The stranger produced an old leather purse from his jacket.

You've just been released from prison

Outside, it was growing dark and a cold wind was blowing from the mountains in the east

He knocked on the doors of people's houses, but news of his arrival had quickly spread and nobody would offer him shelter from the cold

Mme Magloire trembled, open-mouthed with fear, while Mile Baptistine rose from her seat with alarm

'Before you leave tomorrow, you must have a bowl of warm milk from our cows.'

The night was not very dark; there was a full moon, hidden from time to time by large clouds moving quickly across the sky

Just as he reached the side of the bishop's bed, the moon came out from behind a cloud and filled the room with light

He fetched them from a shelf and gave them to Valjean.

'Jean Valjean,' the bishop continued, 'I've bought your soul from the Devil, and have given it to God.'

He looked around but could see nothing in the darkness - just a purple mist rising slowly from the fields.

I stole money from him

On a spring evening in 1818, in the village of Montfermeil, not far from Paris, two little girls were playing on a swing outside a small inn

'You have two very pretty children, Madame,' a voice said from close beside her.

Mme Thenardier still said nothing, but a man's voice from inside the house called, 'We'll take seven francs a month, and six months in advance.'

The couple dressed Cosette in rags and gave her very little food, which they made her eat from a wooden bowl under the table

A few weeks later, Fantine received another letter from the Thenardiers

Fantine earned less and less money from her sewing, and the Thenardiers demanded more and more money to look after Cosette

While the policeman was trying to drag her to her feet, however, a voice from the shadows said, 'One moment please.'

Madeleine was in the police station, trying to save Fantine from prison

The man who had just saved her from prison was also the man who had caused all her troubles

Inspector Javert walked into his office, and stood in silence waiting for him to look up from his work.

After being released from prison, this Valjean stole some silver from the Bishop of Digne and robbed a small boy on a public footpath

You will, of course, dismiss me from my job, as I've shown that I don't deserve your trust.'

Two ex-prisoners from Toulon recognized him as Jean Valjean

If he's found guilty of stealing from the bishop - who, as you know, died a couple of years ago - and of robbing the small boy, he'll spend the rest of his life in prison.'

He would also have to break his promise to Fantine about bringing Cosette from Montfermeil

'He hasn't come for you.' Then, gently rising from his chair, he moved towards Javert

She looked as if she was going to speak, but no words came from her lips

Jean Valjean (as we must now call him) shook Javert's hand from his collar and ran to the bed

Two days after his arrest, Jean Valjean escaped from prison

Entertainers and traders from Paris set up their stalls in the streets, and business at the Thenardiers' inn was very good

Suddenly, an enormous hand reached down from the sky and took the bucket of water from her

'This is a very heavy bucket for such a small child,' he said gently, looking down at her from his great height.

She could tell from his clothes that he probably had no money.

Cosette, who had forgotten about the bread, came out from under the table.

It must have fallen from the child's pocket.'

Cosette, who had returned to her place under the table, looked up from her knitting and watched them sadly

The old man left the inn and, minutes later, returned with something in his hands: the beautiful doll from the stall across the road.

Finally, he looked up from the bill without expression and said, 'Tell me, is business good here in Montfermeil?'

'What would you say,' the old man said after a moment's thought, 'if I offered to take the child from you?'

'How much do you need?' the old man asked, taking an old leather wallet from the pocket of his coat.

He took a key from the pocket of his long yellow coat and opened the old wooden door

He then carried Cosette, who was sleeping in his arms, along a dark corridor and up some stairs to the room he had rented since his escape from Montreuil

He felt sad that Fantine had not lived to see her child again, but happy that he had been able to rescue her child from the terrible Thenardiers

After escaping from Montreuil, Jean Valjean had taken all his money from the bank and buried it in a forest near Montfermeil

Walking more slowly now, thinking he was safe from his pursuers, Valjean followed the alley until he came to a lane that seemed to lead away from the city

Valjean looked desperately for an escape from the alley, but could see none

He ran to a nearby streetlight and pulled some wire from a metal box at its base

On the night after the Battle of Waterloo, in June 1815, a robber moved quietly around the battlefield, stealing money and jewellery from the bodies of dead soldiers

He saw a hand sticking out from a pile of dead men and horses, a gold ring on its middle finger, shining in the moonlight

The robber pulled the body from the pile of bodies and saw that he had rescued a French officer

A poor man, Georges Pontmercy had left his son nothing apart from a letter:

I believe that he recently managed a small inn in the village of Montfermeil, not far from Paris

He just looked at the girl from time to time with an affectionate, fatherly smile.

Towards the end of the second week, while Marius was sitting in his usual place, he looked up from his book

Leblanc and his daughter had risen from their bench and were slowly walking in his direction

When he felt that they were near him, he looked up and saw that the girl was looking steadily at him with a soft, thoughtful gaze that made him tremble from head to foot.

He gazed after her until she had disappeared from sight, then rose to his feet and walked around, laughing and talking to himself

He avoided walking directly in front of the bench, partly from shyness, partly because he did not want to attract her father's attention

The concierge then recognized Marius from the previous week

From what they were shouting at each other, he understood that they were running from the police

The girls had already disappeared from sight

But now he understood that Jondrette's business was writing dishonest letters, asking for money from people he imagined were wealthier than himself.

Marius looked up from the letter and watched the girl moving fearlessly around his room, studying the furniture and the mirror on the wall

He moved away from the girl's touch and said, 'I think, Mademoiselle, that I have something belonging to you.' He handed her the parcel of letters.

Marius took a five-franc piece from his pocket and handed it to the girl.

With those words, she gave a little laugh and wave, grabbed some dry bread from the table and disappeared out of the door.

Now, after his conversation with the girl from the next room, he understood what real poverty was

Only a thin wall separated him from the family of lost souls in the room next door

Marius, depressed at what he saw, was going to get down from the cupboard when the door of the Jondrettes' room opened and the elder girl came in

Leblanc and 'Ursula' out of the door and, after a few minutes' indecision, Marius jumped down from the cupboard and ran out into the street

But then he heard a loud voice from the next room.

Leblanc and 'Ursula' from the trap that Jondrette was setting for them

Jondrette, who had just come in, was shaking snow from his shoes.

'Time!' cried the prisoner in a loud voice, jumping from the bed, having secretly cut the ropes that tied him

Marius stared, frozen with fear as Thenardier, knife in hand, stood hesitating a few steps away from the prisoner

He took a piece of brick from the wall, wrapped the piece of paper around it and threw it through the hole into the middle of Thenardier's room.

They threw the rope ladder from the open window but, before they could escape, the door opened and Inspector Javert walked in.

When everybody had been arrested and taken from the room, Javert noticed the prisoner, who was standing, head bowed, by the window

When Jean Valjean returned from his business the following day, Cosette told him about the noises in the garden

I wear a cheap hat, my jacket has lost half its buttons and there are holes in my boots.' He turned away from her and stood with his face pressed to the trunk of a tree, almost ready to faint

' he said, taking a purse from a drawer and putting it on the table

Suddenly he heard a voice calling through the trees from the street.

Although this made him very unpopular, he thought that his opponents would be too weak to prevent him from doing what he wanted

The crowd grew more and more excited, until finally they tried to take the coffin away from the soldiers and carry it across a bridge

Enjolras, who was the leader of the rebels, organized the building of a second barricade and the manufacture of bullets from melted silver

He was just approaching the rue de Chanvrerie when he heard a loud voice calling from the shadows: 'Who's there?'

Marius took Javert's guns from his pockets and shot the soldier dead.

'Put down your weapons and surrender!' a soldier called from the top of the barricade.

While the soldiers waited at the far end of the street for further orders, and the rebels removed dead bodies from the barricade and took care of the wounded, Marius walked around the stronghold in a kind of dream

As he was walking by the smaller barricade, his thoughts were interrupted by a weak voice calling his name from the shadows.

She pressed her hand to her chest, from which blood was pouring like dark wine

She took hold of Marius's hand with her wounded hand and, without seeming to feel the pain, guided it to her pocket, from which he took the letter.

Just as Marius thought that her sad soul had finally left her body, she slowly opened her eyes, and said in a voice so sweet that it seemed already to come from another world, 'You know, M

He went out into the night and sat on the doorstep, his heart filled with a terrible hatred for the man who was trying to steal Cosette from him

'That letter comes from the barricade in the rue de la Chanvrerie,' the boy replied

Blood poured from the middle of his back.

Both cannons fired together, accompanied by gunfire from soldiers at the end of the street and on the rooftops

'They're coming!' cried Marius from the top of the barricade.

Valjean, his gun in one hand, pulled Javert behind him over the barricade and into a narrow alley, where the corner of a house hid them from view

Valjean, however, took a knife from his pocket and cut the ropes that tied Javert's wrists.

They stood with their backs to the door, shooting up at the soldiers who were climbing down towards them from the barricade

It was a situation that only a bird could have escaped from

He could just see, by the grey light from the grille above his head, that he was surrounded by walls

He moved from one passage into another, slipping several times on the wet floor

He walked blindly downwards in this way for a long time, his clothes wet with the blood from Marius's wound, the faint whisper of the young man's breath in his ear

He was suddenly filled with new energy at the sight, at last, of his way of escape from the sewers

Give me half of what you found in this man's pockets, and I'll unlock the gate for you.' He produced a large key from his pocket, and a piece of rope

Valjean took thirty francs from his pockets and showed it to Thenardier, who stared with disbelief

Then, just as he was bending to splash water from the river on Marius's face, he was aware of someone else standing behind him

He had been more interested in catching Thenardier, who had escaped from prison and was known to be in the area.

Bending down, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, wet it in the river and bathed Marius's blood-stained forehead

The poor man, unable to understand the kindness and gentle nature of the man he had spent his whole life hating, had taken his own life by jumping from a bridge

Gillenormand saw his pale, lifeless-looking grandson lying on the sofa, he shook from head to foot

He told her that the money came from a man who preferred to remain unknown

Apart from preparing for his wedding, there were two people that he wanted to find

The only thing they discovered was that Mme Thenardier had died, and that her husband had escaped from prison and disappeared with his surviving daughter, Azelma.

Marius's attempts to find him also ended in failure, and the true story of his escape from the barricade remained a complete mystery to him.

'Do you realize, Monsieur, how brave this man was? He rescued me from the field of battle and carried me through the sewers of Paris

He remembered the little girl he had rescued from the Thenardiers ten years earlier, and felt sad that he was no longer the most important man in her life

That he was Jean Valjean, a criminal who had spent nineteen years in prison and who had stolen silver candlesticks from a trusting and kind-hearted bishop

Valjean would sit looking at Cosette in silence, or would talk about incidents from their past

She did not realize that, every evening, Valjean would walk slowly from his house until he reached the corner of the street where she lived

Marius thought it was right to exclude Valjean from Cosette's life

Apart from the details about his life that Valjean had confessed to him, he knew that Valjean had killed Inspector Javert at the barricade

He had discovered that Valjean's money really belonged to somebody called Monsieur Madeleine, a wealthy manufacturer from Montreuil who had mysteriously disappeared

He was wearing smart black clothes, and a gold watch chain hung from his jacket pocket.

Jean Valjean, who knew the mayor's background, reported him to the police and took advantage of his arrest to take over half a million francs from his Paris bank

Thenardier sat down and told Marius about the time he had helped Valjean to escape from the Paris sewer.

'Look, I have a piece of cloth from the dead man's coat as proof.'

Jean Valjean listened as she described the view from the room that would be his, the beauty of the garden, the singing of the birds, but he was listening more to the music of her voice than to the meaning of her words

I don't know whether the person who gave them to me is pleased as he looks down on me from above

He watches us all from above and knows what he is doing among his splendid stars

He lay back with his head turned to the sky, the light from the two silver candlesticks falling on his smiling, peaceful face.

The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to him, "I am going to see my grandmother and carry her a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother."

I am on the ground lying on cold grass which is wet from the fog, and I am alone.

The jeans are new, but now they are dirty: muddy stains cover the legs from the wet grass

But what is her name? I pull the last item from my pocket

"Yes," a voice replies, "and this is where it ends." And a tall man steps from behind one of the silent giants.

Rob from the Rich

I almost do not recognise the two men beside me, and I think that from a distance people cannot see that I am a woman.

There is no stopping now, so I pull the small stereo from one of the black bags on my shoulder, and I press play.

I pull two blindfolds from a bag and cover their eyes

And this is my part; I take the laptop from the bag and put it in front of him and open it, "Do you know what this is?"

Robin takes the last blindfold from the bag and puts it over Hastings' eyes.

And no one sees us walk slowly from the bank

He is alone on the jetty, apart from the boat attendant at his chair twenty metres away, his feet on a boat and a cigarette in his mouth

And he cannot hear from there, Oliver is sure

Then he hears the sound of his wife's laughter from the terrace bar of the hotel, and he shakes his head.

He pulls his cigarette packet from his pocket and walks over

He looks at Oliver for a moment, nods, pulls his lighter from his pocket and offers it.

I'm from England."

"Bloody idiot," he says to Sylvia as they slowly move away from the jetty onto the dark water

Then he falls from the boat, and the ice-cold water takes the words and the air from his mouth

And on the small jetty on the bank of Loch Ness, the attendant hears, he takes the cigarette from his mouth and smiles

"About a crime." Branwell pulls his notepad from his pocket and places it in front of him on the table

Every evening when I return home from work."

"In Leeds? Then where does this man follow you from?"

"You walk from here to Brow Top, up over the moors road? Every evening? That's a dangerous road, and it must be more than three miles."

And he remembers something horrible from more than a year ago: an accident on the roads across the moors

The man's dark hair is wet from the rain outside, his skin pale and his eyes cold and dead

Inside the pub it is small and dark, and the barman is rude and suspicious, but Gerry has to agree that the view from the terrace is more than spectacular

He takes a cigarette from his packet, lights it and lets the hot evening sun shine down on his bald head.

You do not steal from Big Jones and stay in London

The creek is twenty metres from the farm house, and the evening seems to be alive with insects and birds that live in the trees near the green water.

But just to be safe he pulls his new gun from the bag and checks it

Then he pulls a box from the bag, opens it carefully, and looks at the diamonds.

And he is about to laugh again, when he hears a noise from the trees.

"How? Do you think you can steal from me and escape? Gerry, you know me better than that."

And Gerry remembers the old factory on the Thames and the boxes with the different addresses and the story about what Big Jones does when people steal from him

The scream comes from Big Jones, who suddenly lets go of the knife.

And Big Jones looks up at him and is about to shout when suddenly he looks behind Gerry, and the colour disappears from his face.

Soon all is quiet again, apart from the sound of three large crocodiles slowly creeping back to the green water

And on the television screens there are giant faces, clips from movies, news headlines, commercials for cars and perfume, chocolate and beer.

The sounds never stop: the horns of the big yellow taxis, the music from the bars and the restaurants

Nick steals clothes from the washing lines on the backstreets

It looks expensive, made from black leather

There is another shout from behind him, but Jake keeps moving

He opens the bag for everyone to see, and there is a cry from a woman near to him, followed by another and another

And there are more cries from the crowd, and everyone seems to know what is happening now

What he sees inside looks just like from the movies: the clock, the wires and the heavy packs of something horrible and dangerous

Just look at the view out there." And from the large glass windows they can see the majestic figure of the Statue of Liberty as the ship slowly moves away from the port of New York and heads into the deep of the ocean.

I am sailing from here to Southampton, then I intend to stay in England for some time

A good escape from editors and deadlines."

And at this point she screams and runs from the building and falls to the floor." Eleanor stops speaking, and for a moment there is silence at the table.

Today he just wants to get out of the hot courtroom, away from the serious lawyers in their black gowns and white wigs and go and enjoy the sun.

Mrs Dawson was bleeding from her nose and mouth; she also had marks on her face

You are here because when Miss Lee saw her younger sister, she took a pair of scissors from her kitchen table, said something to her sister and left the house

Inside the room everything is silent, apart from the slow and constant tick of the small clock on the wall, and the fast, irregular beat of your heart.

There are no shouts or loud voices coming from university students returning home from the pubs and bars

Quietly, you move the blankets from your body, and you take the dressing gown from the end of your bed and put it on

Then you hear another noise from the spare room.

Your hand is nearly on the light switch when you hear another noise from the room

"Father?" he says, but there is no reply, and he can see no movement behind the grille that separates his small space from the other.

"Father, I need to ask for something from you

You're the prisoner, the one that escaped from Mountjoy prison

I escaped from the gardai van that was taking me to hospital

I need to wait for a few days until they think I'm miles from the city

I stole it more than eight years ago, from a bank security van

No one needs it now apart from me."

I just stopped in to confess about stealing another bottle of whiskey from the shop

Well, apart from God, I suppose.

He is tired, very tired, and he still feels sick from the beer and whiskey of last night.

So instead he just wants to get as far from the town called Needles as he can before the night comes.

But anyway, why think about it? Just drive; get a few more miles from the town, and from her.

Maybe it is time for the first drink of the day after all, and he takes the small flask from the pocket of his denim jacket, removes the lid and swallows.

No, this is his holiday, his escape from all those idiots back in California

Now everything from last night is coming back to him

They can get twenty thousand from the bank at Banff

Brandon pulled him from the old deserted cabin, and they ran for Greg's truck

And the man in the dark winter coat and black hat, who appeared from behind the trees.

I think she has family here, or maybe she comes from the area

The kid looks about eleven, and they let him walk into the town from the hotel sometimes

That's enough time for them to get the money from Banff but not enough to do anything else like phone the cops

He tried to escape from the truck that chased him, but he crashed on the highway

I saw the tracks from your truck, and I told the police, but I made sure I found the cabin first

"I already did" she calls back to him as she slowly disappears from sight.

Bowen turns from the window and gives Smith an annoyed look

"Detective, the young men at this school are very clever and come from very important families

"You? Were you watching us from the roof?"

Smith takes the tie from his pocket

He loved the walk up from the town of Sennybridge; he loved the hours of walking and hunting in the forests and valley.

Owen looks back at the car and hopes that no one can see it from the main road

No, you don't need that today," he repeats, and he takes the mp3 player from the boy's hands, and he tries to avoid the angry look in the boy's dark eyes.

Owen is tall and fair with blue eyes and a healthy complexion from years of work and activity outside.

Short and thin with a pale and unhealthy complexion from hours of playing his computer games and watching television.

Could it be a park ranger from the Forestry Commission? Did someone see the car parked in the trees and call the police?

There is a snap from behind the trees, and Owen thinks that maybe he should put his gun down, in a bush, nice and carefully like he told Junior to do

As he lies there shouting and screaming and trying to pull the pieces of shot from his skin, he looks up at the beautiful blue sky and green trees and magnificent forest.

An Englishman from the great city of London

You see, you don't take from Las Vegas: Vegas takes from you.

Small cuts on his arms and chest, and he is naked apart from his trousers.

You remember the Mexican: the one stealing from the bar?"

And, right now, it's very important to you." And he takes the gag from Jimmy's mouth.

Exhausted from a long day at work and made passive by the slow journey home.

She can get it as she passes the restaurant, buy a bottle of wine from the local shop and be in bed by ten o'clock.

The forty minutes from Liverpool Street to North Acton.

The man in the corner is probably just a normal guy and not some horrible character from one of her thrillers.

The doors slide open, and ten or twelve students from Chancery High School enter the carriage.

The old woman two seats away from her does not look happy and she moves to sit in the seat next to Sarah.

The poor old woman must not feel too comfortable next to the noisy kids, but Sarah knows that they are okay: she can spot the bad kids from a mile away.

But she does not want to listen, and she takes her MP3 player from her bag and puts her headphones in.

She looks to see what the pain is and pulls her headphones from her ears.

The strange man, the man who looks like the evil character from her thriller; his eyes are open now.

No one gets off apart from her, she is sure.

And the old woman takes a long, thin knitting needle from her bag, and Sarah remembers what the kid said on the tube...

A simulator cost five units per hour, which was a lot - but it was worth it for the escape it offered from the city.

There were hundreds of tastes to choose from.

There was a screen on the wall with a list of places to choose from: places they would never see for real.

She didn't know where those words had come from

"Is that you, Sala?" called a voice from somewhere above

Sala could see from her face that it hurt her to move like that

Her back was often painful from when she'd been injured during the Oil Wars, so she almost never left the apartment these days.

it came from outside?"

Sala had never seen anything from beyond the city

"I haven't heard from him for more than..

"Oh, I know it's silly, isn't it? I don't know where it came from

She got up and returned to her tomato plants, taking off the dead and dying leaves from the bottom of each one

There was one from Niki, but nothing from Cham, so she began a message to him

If it really was from outside, it could be dangerous to say anything about it

"Who from?" Sala was surprised.

You have to remember that his situation is different from yours

Her mom was a food scientist in the meat-growing laboratory, developing different kinds of meat from just a few animal cells

"Do you honestly think it came from outside?"

But of course it can't have come in from outside..

"Well, I suppose I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, there is still life in the outside world - and maybe someone from that world has found a way across the city boundary."

A message - from Cham! His smiling face, saying simply: "Can you come to mine?" Sala's heart flooded with happiness

"Gran said she thought it had come from..

she thinks maybe it came from her long-lost brother

He truly didn't believe the fruit came from another world beyond the city boundary - and she couldn't really blame him

Apart from the virtual world, of course..

It was Monday, and the two friends were riding the walkway home from college

But who are you? Where did it come from?"

"We're like explorers from the past," she said.

Sala had seen it before, of course, from a distance - but she'd never been so close to it.

it was you in there, wasn't it? Your voice sounded a bit different, but apart from that..."

When Sala arrived home, Mom was back from work, and Apat and Gran were there, too

It was a delicious dinner - Mom had brought home some top-quality meat from the laboratory, and Gran had added some vegetables from her garden

If that rose fruit came from outside, who knows what may be possible."

It was from Cham.

Trembling from the cold, and from the shock, and from unhappiness

She found Gran sitting with Mom, talking and drinking tea; for once, Mom had got home from work early.

But before Mom could answer, there was a gasp from Gran

If you received one of the fruits, you know that this is true, and that it came from me

How could she ask Cham to keep a secret from his parents?

She pulled Cham away from the entrance and quickly told him the news about Gran's letter.

Cham moved stiffly forward, took the screen from his dad, and lifted his hand

Then Cham would be torn away from her for two long years.

"So, was that note really from Gran's brother? Are people alive out there - outside the city? How did you get the note across the force field?" She had so many questions.

And apart from that, keep very, very quiet."

The whole way back from the earth apartment, Sala had been asking herself if it was OK to tell Cham about the rebellion

We have the letter from Gran's brother

Instead, Mom was busy cutting up Gran's vegetables from the Real Space.

I never want to be separated from my closest family ever again

Apat was busy on the jumping machine, and Sala was collecting a drink from the cafe, when she heard a voice in her ear.

"Sala! Are you there?" came (Iran's voice from the kitchen.

People were coming and going from the main entrance, like last time, but the narrow passageway down the side looked dark and empty

After an hour, her legs were aching from standing still

But he says that it could be from anyone."

With no Cham to talk to, and no news from Wena, the week went by very slowly for Sala.

"Greetings from the Alps!"

"The letter from Gran's brother." The words slipped out before she could stop herself, and she knew at once that she shouldn't have said it

Terrified, Sala rushed from her room as soon as she and Cham had finished talking.

"Sala! What on earth is it?" Mom called down from the Real Space

We know that the letter really came from Gran's brother

"But he knows about the letter from Eston," said Gran

The door of the apartment opened and Apat came in, back from visiting a friend for dinner.

Sala waited in the pod as they made the final checks, bright lights blinding her from above.

Sala forced her mind to go still; the voices seemed to come from far away

She turned to me, her eyes shining: 'Go upstairs and find that letter from my nephew, Billy

I was very rude after lunch.' The note was not signed, but I knew it was from de Winter.

Mrs Van Hopper called me from her bedroom

'Your friend is very different from you,' he said at last

It was so near that the sound of its waters could always be heard from the house

This little valley, hidden away from the world, was full of the scent of flowers.

I took my gloves from the shelf of the car

"Max - from Rebecca, 17th May."

Mrs Van Hopper had read a letter from her daughter at breakfast

The train would carry me away from Maxim, mile by mile

So my last morning was to be taken away from me

'I'm different from you

We got up from the table and walked out of the room together

I read again, 'Max, from Rebecca.' She was dead

I wanted to hide from their curious eyes.

We were not far from the house now

But we're tired from the drive and we want our tea

A dog ran up from the fireside to greet us

Its walls were covered with books from the floor to the ceiling

Maxim looked up from his letters

There is a lovely view of the rose-garden from there

'You can't see the sea from here,' I said, turning to Mrs Danvers.

'No, not from this wing,' she answered, 'and you can't hear it either

The morning-room was quite small and very different from the library

Yes, Mrs Danvers was right, you could hear the sea from here.

Mrs Danvers was still watching me from the top of the stairs.

I could hear the sound of voices from the morning-room

She shook hands with me and said to Maxim, 'She's quite different from what I expected

His eyes smiled at me from behind his thick glasses

You are so very different from Rebecca.'

'I'll get my coat from upstairs.'

She said I was quite different from what she expected.'

I stood straight again, brushing the rain from my head

It comes from the house.'

It was very different here from the Happy Valley

It must have come from the raincoat pocket

Was there nowhere I could escape from Rebecca?

I could see the sea from the terrace and the lawns

People came from miles around

They even came down from London.'

And when I meet anyone new, I know what they are thinking: "How different she is from Rebecca." '

Your job here is to lead us away from it.'

Frank turned away from me so that I could not see his face.

Maxim looked up from his paper.

Mrs Danvers has accused him of taking a valuable ornament from the morning-room

No one except Robert has been in the room, apart from Madam, of course

Maxim threw his paper on the ground and got up from his chair

Mrs Danvers came back from the window and stood beside me.

I could not take my eyes away from hers

I felt different from yesterday

It was easy for Mrs Danvers to watch me from one of their windows.

When I came back from my walk, I saw Maxim's car standing in front of the house

'You can tell Favell to keep away from Manderley

Maxim lit a cigarette and moved away from me

Hundreds of them were brought in from the garden and Mrs Danvers knew exactly how to arrange them

'I got the idea from a friend.'

I locked the door and took the dress from its box

Then I ran from her, back to my room, tripping and nearly falling over my long skirt.

After a long time I got up from the bed where I was sitting

I would never escape from Rebecca

A fog had come up from the sea

She turned her head away from me.

Mrs Danvers moved away from me.

I backed away from her, towards the window

My fingers ached from holding the ledge

I heard Frith answer from the hall.

Mrs Danvers moved back from the window.

I felt as though I had just woken up from a long sleep

She was on the rocks about two miles from the shore

Maxim stopped suddenly and pushed me away from him.

But I got the truth from him in the end

Rebecca came back from London very late

I had to get water from the sea to clean the place.

At half past eleven, Maxim phoned me from Frank's office

We had no more phone calls from reporters and no visitors

The boat sank too far away from them

Favell took a piece of paper from his pocket

'But we found your old telephone number in Mrs de Winter's diary.' Dr Baker looked at the page from the diary that Colonel Julyan was holding out to him.

'She kept it a secret from everyone, even Danny

The wind blew towards us from the sea

Nathan quickly gets away from Bud and runs across the roof of the building.

This time, he is going to steal from Zak Wakeman's house

'Remember him from the newspaper? He's going to that car!'

Soon after, Natalie and Nathan are jumping from Natalie's car

Then, The Cat jumps from one building to the next.

'How can I get away from her?' he thinks.

He cannot get away from her.

The policemen arrive and look from Natalie to Bud and back again.

At six minutes past midnight, Tuesday morning, on the way home from a late rehearsal of her new stage show, Tina Evans saw her son, Danny, in a stranger's car

Two blocks from her house, intending to buy a quart of milk and a loaf of whole-wheat bread, Tina stopped at a twenty-four-hour market and parked in the dry yellow drizzle of a sodium-vapor light, beside a gleaming, cream-colored Chevrolet station wagon

Perhaps he had wandered away from the wrecked bus and had been found miles from the scene of the accident, without identification, unable to tell anyone who he was or where he came from

Pulling her gaze away from his, she studied her hands, which were gripping the steering wheel so fiercely that they ached.

It hadn't been merely the thunder from the dream

On four or five occasions during the past two weeks, she had taken the pistol from the nightstand and searched the place, room by room, but she hadn't found anyone

Maybe what she'd heard tonight had been the thunder from the dream.

Although Michael was still living in town, less than a mile from her, he was, in some respects, as far away and as unreachable as Danny.

The Lido was one of those incredibly lavish productions that could be seen nowhere in the world but Vegas, for it was only in Las Vegas that a multimillion-dollar show could be staged year after year with little concern for profit; such vast sums were spent on the elaborate sets and costumes, and on the enormous cast and crew, that the hotel was usually happy if the production merely broke even from ticket and drink sales

Going to and from the showroom, the crowd had to pass all the craps tables and blackjack tables and roulette wheels and glittering ranks of slot machines, and that was where the profit was made

She had good reason to be suffering from anxiety attacks

Her obsessive fear of intruders in the house, her disquieting dreams about Danny, her renewed grief - all of those things might grow from her concern about Magyck! If that were the case, then those symptoms would disappear as soon as the fate of the show was evident

A little more than a year before he had died, Danny had begun sleeping at the opposite end of the small house from the master bedroom, in what had once been the den

Michael and Tina had helped him move his belongings to the den, then had shifted the couch, armchair, coffee table, and television from the den into the quarters the boy had previously occupied.

Nine model airplanes filled a display case, and three others hung on wires from the ceiling

The walls were decorated with evenly spaced posters - three baseball stars, five hideous monsters from horror movies - that Danny had carefully arranged.

As a sponge soaked up water, she took a chill from the surface of the slate

Danny, of course, had been writing about something else, and the dark interpretation that could be drawn from those two words now, after his death, was just a macabre coincidence.

In the kitchen, she withdrew a bottle of Wild Turkey from the cupboard by the sink

She grew dizzy from the bourbon and finally slipped into welcome oblivion.

Joel Bandiri, Tina's co-producer, had watched the show from a booth in the first tier, the VIP row, where high rollers and other friends of the hotel would be seated every night of the run

He shifted from foot to foot as he talked about Magyck! Turned this way and that, gestured expansively with his quick, gem-speckled hands, virtually doing a jig.

She was aware of his reputation as a perfectionist who demanded superhuman efforts from his people

If the audience at this evening's VIP premiere reacted enthusiastically, she might have to buy lead weights to keep herself from floating off the floor when she walked.

Ramparts of pale pink stone stretched hundreds of feet on both sides of the entrance; those walls were windowless and garishly decorated with giant stone coins, a gushing torrent of coins flooding from a stone cornucopia

At a few minutes past eleven o'clock, a secretary from San Diego put five dollars in a slot machine and hit a jackpot worth $495,000; word of that even reached backstage in the showroom

Shortly before noon, two high rollers from Dallas sat down at a blackjack table and, in three hours, lost a quarter of a million bucks; they were laughing and joking when they left the table to try another game

This evening she would call Michael, when she got home from the premiere and the party afterward

Eighteen hundred guests had been invited - Las Vegas movers and shakers, plus high rollers from out of town

She got out of the car and, carrying a purse the size of a small suitcase, marched up the walk toward the house, angling away from the front door and past the garage.

The sulfur-yellow light from the street lamps failed to reach all the way across the lawn

As Vivienne reached the back of the house, the crescent moon slid out from behind one of the few thin clouds, like a scimitar being drawn from a scabbard, and the pale shadows of palms and melaleucas shivered on the lunar-silvered concrete patio.

This afternoon, however, she'd been playing a pair of lucky slot machines at the Mirage Hotel, and she hadn't wanted to walk away from them while they were paying off so generously

Even these days, when most machines could be played with electronically validated value cards, the nickel duchesses wore black gloves to keep their hands from becoming filthy after hours of handling coins and pulling levers; they always sat on stools while they played, and they remembered to alternate hands when operating the machines in order not to strain the muscles of one arm, and they carried bottles of liniment just in case.

After a long silence, a brief clattering echoed through the house from another room, startling Vivienne

She went to the drawer next to the sink and selected a long, sharp blade from an assortment of knives.

Any tremor too mild to be felt would also be too mild to tear the photographs from the wall.

Puzzled, frowning thoughtfully, Vivienne put down the knife, pulled one end of the sofa away from the wall, and collected the framed eight-by-tens that were on the floor behind it

It seemed to be coming from every corner of the house.

The wisest thing she could do would be to turn back, walk away from the door and out of the house

Get away from here

She pulled her blouse out of her slacks and used the tail to protect her hand from the icy metal doorknob

Baseball stars and horror-movie monsters gazed at Vivienne from posters stapled to the walls

Three intricate model airplanes were suspended from the ceiling

The maddening electronic squeal issued from a pair of small stereo speakers that hung on the wall behind the bed

Scraps of music, split-second flashes of disc jockeys' chatter, single words from different somber-voiced newscasters, and fragments of commercial jingles blended in a cacophonous jumble of meaningless sound

The digital display began to sequence up the band once more, and scraps of music blasted from the speakers.

Each was hung from the ceiling on a length of fishing line, and the upper end of each line was knotted to its own eyehook that had been screwed firmly into the dry wall

Gradually Vivienne's heartbeat subsided from the hard, frantic rhythm that it had been keeping for the past couple of minutes

The frosted window cleared, and as the frost faded from the dresser mirror, Vivienne's distorted reflection resolved into a more familiar image of herself.

Then, with characteristic stoicism, she returned to the boy's bedroom to wipe up the water from the melted ice, and she continued housecleaning.

The sets and props had been moved from the main floor of the stage, and eight folding tables had been set up

"You can go straight from office work to scuba diving without changing clothes."

"- from an audience with the Pope to a Marquis de Sade memorial sock hop."

I just have to check on the show once every couple of weeks to make sure the tone of it isn't drifting away from my original intention."

"If Joel's right - and I'm sure he is - then it's best to get in the habit of staying away right from the start."

Inside the closet, shirts and jeans began to swing wildly on the pole from which they hung, and some clothes fell to the floor.

One of the models was flung from its shelf, then two more, then three more, then another, until all nine lay in a pile on the floor.

On the wall to the left of the bed, a poster of the creature from the Alien movies tore down the middle.

Then a voice blared from the speakers

Tina didn't get home from the opening-night party until shortly before two o'clock Wednesday morning

Then a man dressed entirely in black from head to foot, his face hidden by shadows, appeared at the far side of the pit and began to shovel dirt into it

She edged around the pit, determined to make the hateful bastard stop what he was doing, but he took a step away from her for every step that she took toward him, and he always stayed directly across the hole from her

She had to get down to him and push the earth away from his face before he suffocated, so in blind panic she threw herself over the edge of the pit, into the terrible abyss, falling and falling-

She remembered the two words that she had twice erased from Danny's chalkboard - NOT DEAD - and she realized that she'd forgotten to call Michael

After retrieving the morning newspaper from the front stoop, she read the rave review of Magyck! Written by the Review-Journal's entertainment critic

Danny's collection of paperbacks had been pulled from the bookcase and tossed into every corner

A poster of one of the movie monsters had been ripped apart; it hung from the wall in several pieces

She pulled the telephone directory from a drawer and leafed through the Yellow Pages until she found the advertisements for locksmiths

As she looked over the wreckage, she said, "What the hell do you want from me, Mike?"

Hundreds of gamblers - pretty young women, sweet-faced grandmothers, men in jeans and decoratively stitched Western shirts, retirement-age men in expensive but tacky leisure outfits, a few guys in three-piece suits, salesmen, doctors, mechanics, secretaries, Americans from all of the Western states, junketeers from the East Coast, Japanese tourists, a few Arab men - sat at the semielliptical blackjack tables, pushing money and chips forward, sometimes taking back their winnings, eagerly grabbing the cards that were dealt from the five-deck shoes, each reacting in one of several predictable ways: Some players squealed with delight; some grumbled; others smiled ruefully and shook their heads; some teased the dealers, pleading half seriously for better cards; and still others were silent, polite, attentive, and businesslike, as though they thought they were engaged in some reasonable form of investment planning

On the right, beyond the craps tables, halfway down the long room, elevated from the main floor, the white-marble and brass baccarat pit catered to a more affluent and sedate group of gamblers; at baccarat, the pit boss, the floor man, and the dealers wore tuxedos

When Tina squeezed into the narrow gap between the tables and caught Michael's attention, his reaction was far different from what she had expected

Every player at the table groaned, and they all had comments to make about the unlikely possibility that they might win anything from this dealer.

A five-piece band hammered out wildly amplified pop music from the small stage in the open cocktail lounge beyond and slightly above the slot machines

The blood drains from his head-bang! - And he faints dead away

"For years people go home from Vegas and tell all their friends that they came out ahead of the game

"Then there's 'Vegas syndrome.' Someone gets so carried away with gambling and running from show to show that he forgets to eat for a whole day or longer

Anyway, when he finally gets hungry and realizes he hasn't eaten, he gulps down a huge meal, and the blood rushes from his head to his stomach, and he passes out in the middle of the restaurant

"But my favorite is what we call the 'time-warp syndrome.' People come here from a lot of dull places, and Vegas is like an adult Disneyland

As she had struggled to move up from dancer to costumer to choreographer to lounge-revue coordinator to producer, Michael had been displeased with her commitment to work

She had tried to encourage him to seek advances in his own career - from dealer to floor man to pit boss to higher casino management - but he had no interest in climbing that ladder

She turned away from him and started toward the rear entrance of the hotel, out of which they'd come a few minutes ago.

She had never vented any of her black anger because, initially, she'd wanted to hide it from Danny; she hadn't wanted to turn him against his father

Later, after Danny was dead, she'd repressed her feelings because she'd known that Michael had been truly suffering from the loss of his child, and she hadn't wanted to add to his misery

It wasn't me who jumped from bed to bed."

She could see what he was up to, and she was not going to be distracted from her main intention.

Finished telling him off, she felt pleasantly wrung out, as if some evil, nervous energy had been drained from her.

As Tina pored over a final bill for carpentry work on some of the Magyck! Sets, Angela, her secretary, stepped in from the outer office

A lot of our regular junketeers and high rollers couldn't make it to the VIP opening of Magyck! I'd like you to get their names from the computer, plus a list of the wedding anniversaries of those who're married."

Her heart seemed to be pumping a refrigerant instead of blood, and an iciness radiated from it.

Tina snatched each page from the printer tray as it arrived

How could the temperature have dropped so far in such a short time? She listened for the sound of the air conditioner, but the telltale whisper wasn't issuing from the wall vents

The message blinked and vanished from the screen

Even though he was only a creature from a nightmare, and even though it was utterly impossible for him to be here in the flesh, she couldn't shake the heart-clenching feeling that he was in the room

How could he make the room colder without using the air conditioner? Whoever he was, he could override her computer from another terminal in the building; she could accept that

Suddenly, as the screen began to fill with the same seven-line message that had just been wiped from it, Tina had enough

She switched the machine off, and the blue glow faded from the screen.

As she was getting up from the low chair, the terminal switched itself on.

Tina stooped beside the wall outlet from which the computer received its electrical power and its data feed

She took a step toward him, but then she realized that he might have come here straight from a computer in one of the other third-floor offices

They sat on the beige sofa, more in the shadows than in the glow from the lamps

He returned from the bar with more RS 233; my Martin

He picked up his brandy snifter from the low table in front of the sofa, and he sat on the edge of her desk

Tina got up from the couch, went to the window, and pulled open the drapes

Crowds streamed along the sidewalks, on their way from this casino to that casino, from one lounge to another, from one show to the next.

So it'll work out for the best either way." She returned from the window, sat on the couch again, beside Elliot

Tina went to the bar and sat on one of the three stools, across the counter from Elliot

Smith, and other artists who made their homes in the western United States and who usually took their subject matter from either the old or the new West.

The two of us haunted furniture stores from Vegas to Los Angeles to San Francisco, antique shops, galleries, everything from flea markets to the most expensive stores we could find

He made a mistake blending the salad dressing and had to begin again from scratch

Although she was different from Nancy in many ways, being with her was like being with Nancy

During the minute that he was away from her, she was afraid the spell was broken

She was quaking, gasping about a man dressed all in black, the monstrous figure from her dream.

If seeing the remains would put an end to these bloodcurdling nightmares, she would gain an advantage from the grim experience.

He was afraid Tina Evans would be taken away from him just as Nancy had been.

At night, the view of Las Vegas from the mountainside was undeniably spectacular, but Elliot couldn't understand what other reasons anyone could possibly have for choosing to live here rather than in the city's older, greener neighborhoods

They went outside and strolled down the street, past the partygoers' cars, which ran the gamut from Rolls-Royces to Range Rovers.

"Before the father can get a restraining order from another judge," Kennebeck said.

"Going home from here?" Kennebeck asked.

"Ah." He pushed a curly strand of white hair back from his forehead

Turning, he saw a strange man enter the kitchen from the dining room

He was considerably more formidable than his associate: tall, rough-edged, with large, big-knuckled, leathery hands - like something that had escaped from a recombinant DNA lab experimenting in the crossbreeding of human beings with bears

Both intruders stopped near the refrigerator, twelve or fourteen feet from Elliot

He removed other things from the bag too: a length of flexible rubber tubing, a sphygmomanometer for monitoring blood pressure, two small bottles of amber-colored fluid, and a packet of disposable hypodermic syringes.

The Ursine escapee from the island of Dr

A chill spread from the base of his spine, up his back, as he realized what the presence of these men implied about the accident that had killed Danny.

"Goddamn it, I said you were going to answer the questions from now on."

Bright blood streamed from the ragged stump of the coachman's neck, and gelatinous clots of blood clung to his white, ruffled shirt

His grisly head stood on the driver's seat beside him, grinning fiendishly, filled with malevolent life even though it had been brutally severed from his body.

He was glaring up at her from inside the box

She stepped back from the cardboard box.

Curious about the story from which the illustration had been taken, Tina stepped to the box again to pluck out the graphic novel

He followed her past the kitchen, into the short hall, into the laundry room, and from there into the garage.

This was a bizarre notion, and she didn't know where it had come from, but she couldn't dispel it.

When Elliot refused to move away from the sink to the breakfast table in the far corner of the big kitchen, Bob, the smaller of the two men, hesitated, then reluctantly took a step toward him.

She had given it to him two nights ago, at the party after the premiere of Magyck! She didn't live far from him

Tina left the repairman from the gas company in the garage and returned to Danny's room

The one from which the cover painting had been drawn was sixteen pages long

In letters that were supposed to look as if they had been formed from rotting shroud cloth, the artist had emblazoned the title across the top of the first page, above a somber, well-detailed scene of a rain-swept graveyard

Kevin's parents went away from the city immediately after the funeral, intending to spend a month at their summerhouse in the country, where they could be free from the press of business and social duties, the better to mourn their lost child

They arrived at the grave by dawn, had it opened, and found their son alive, released from his coma

Into her dream, she incorporated a grisly character from an old issue of a horror-comics magazine that was in Danny's collection

Crazily, Tina felt as if her nightmare had not come from within her, but from without, as if some person or force had projected the dream into her mind in an effort to-

And if, by some million-to-one chance, the boy had been alive when he'd been buried, why would it take an entire year for her to receive a vision from the spirit world?

The roots of all dreams were to be found in the store of experiences in the psyche; dreams were not sent like ethereal telegrams from spirits or gods or demons

Tina got up from the bed, went to the window, and gazed at the quiet street, the palms, the olive trees.

She must have glimpsed the grotesque figure of Death on the cover of the magazine when Danny first brought the issue home from the newsstand.

Frustrated and angry at herself for her inability to solve the puzzle, she turned from the window

The gas company workman called from the front of the house, startling Tina.

Death glared hungrily at her from the cover.

"The repairman from the gas company."

He had a photo ID card from the gas company

She felt the blood drain from her face.

A blood-freezing image rose at the back of her mind: the house torn apart by a colossal blast, shrapnel of wood and glass and metal whistling toward her, hundreds of sharp fragments piercing her from head to foot.

Elliot's Mercedes was parked at the far curb, and she was six or eight feet from the car when the sudden outward-sweeping shock of the explosion shoved her forward

The garage had gone up first, the big door ripping from its hinges and splintering into the driveway, the roof dissolving in a confetti-shower of shake shingles and flaming debris

But even as Tina looked from Elliot to the fire, before all of the shingles had fallen back to earth, a second explosion slammed through the house, and a billowing cloud of flame roared from one end of the structure to the other, bursting those few windows that had miraculously survived the first blast.

Tina watched, stunned, as flames leaped from a window of the house and ignited dry palm fronds on a nearby tree.

Elliot pushed her away from the Mercedes so he could open the door on the passenger side

He grabbed her arm, swung her away from the burning house, the sight of which affected her as much as if it had been a hypnotist's slowly swinging pocket watch.

He put the pistol on his lap, the muzzle facing toward his door, away from Tina

Tina looked out the side window, watching in disbelief as the flames spread from the shattered garage roof to the main roof of the house, long tongues of lambent fire, licking, licking, hungry, bloodred in the last orange light of the afternoon.

As Elliot drove away from the burning house, his instinctual sense of danger was as sensitive as it had been in his military days

He was on the thin line that separated animal alertness from nervous frenzy.

He glanced at the rearview mirror and saw a black van pull away from the curb, half a block behind them.

When Elliot rounded the corner two blocks later, he braked from sixty miles an hour to make the turn

He wheeled around another corner, and then another, trying to disappear from the men in the van long enough to leave them with so many choices of streets to follow that they would have to give up the chase in confusion

The door rumbled down, concealing them from anyone who might drive past.

Pulling his covetous gaze from the car, Tom said, "What're you doing here?" There was still neither suspicion nor belligerence in his voice.

about the boat," Elliot said, not even knowing where he was going to go with that line, ready to say anything to keep Tom from putting up the garage door and throwing them out.

"We're buying it from him," Tina said.

Polumby looked from Elliot to Tina to Elliot, puzzled

Several blocks to the north, an ugly column of smoke rose into the twilight sky from what was left of Tina's house, roiling, night-black, the upper reaches tinted around the edges by the last pinkish rays of the setting sun.

As he drove from one residential street to another, steadily heading away from the smoke, working toward a major thoroughfare, Elliot expected to encounter the black van at every intersection.

They were far from Tina's neighborhood now

There's bound to be a lot we can learn from him."

We can hide from them for a long time if we have to

If you want to purchase a false passport, a counterfeit driver's license, or anything of that nature, you can pick and choose from several of the best document-forgery artists in the world, because this is where a lot of them live

I'm pretty sure we can find a reporter who'll go with that much and write a story about how a bunch of nameless, faceless people want to keep us from reopening Danny's grave, how maybe something truly strange lies at the bottom of the Sierra tragedy

I don't enjoy taking guns away from men half again as big as I am."

She leaned forward and picked something up from the floor between her feet

"I brought it from my place," she said.

He risked a quick look, shifting his attention from the road, but there wasn't enough light in the car for him to see what she held

When he came home from the newsstand, I never monitored what he'd bought

The traffic thinned out as they drove farther from the heart of town, closer to the looming black mountains that thrust into the last electric-purple light in the western sky.

"Now," Tina said, "just like Death tried to stop the parents in the story, someone's trying to stop me from opening my son's grave."

Elliot drove behind the restaurant and tucked the Mercedes into a slot in the deepest shadows, between a Toyota Celica and a small motor home, where it could not be seen from the street.

When he turned from the motor home, his gaze fell on a dense pool of shadows around the trash bin at the back of the restaurant, and again he had the feeling that someone was watching him from concealment.

Elliot and Tina sat as far from everyone as possible, in the last booth in the short wing of the restaurant.

They leaned in from opposite sides of the booth and read the material silently:

Elliot looked up from the page

"Evidently they think someone from Project Pandora has decided to rat on them."

"Is that who's been in Danny's room? Did someone from Project Pandora write on the chalkboard..

He sipped his beer and used one finger to wipe a trace of foam from his upper lip

The cheeseburgers were made from juicy ground sirloin

A young couple was plotting conspiratorially, leaning toward each other from opposite sides of a booth, their heads almost touching

She felt as if a vast unbridgeable gap separated her from people like these, and she wondered if she ever again would be as relaxed and free from care as these diners were at this moment.

Elliot turned away from the cashier and put a hand on Tina's shoulder

As Elliot turned away from the machine, the eerily meaningful repetition began again:

The white-haired cashier came out from behind the counter

Elliot pulled the jukebox from the wall so the old man could reach the cord.

In that instant Tina realized she had nothing to fear from the presence that lay behind this eerie manifestation

Jenny, the waitress, called to him from behind the counter

Elliot turned away from the jukebox and looked at Tina with concern

A brisk wind pushed across the city from the east

Laden with dust and with the powdery white sand that had been swept in from the desert, the air abraded their faces and had an unpleasant taste.

But those messages haven't been coming from a sadist

And they haven't been coming from someone who wants to expose the true story of the Sierra accident

"They're coming from Danny!"

"What're you saying - that Danny reached out to you from the grave to cause that excitement in the restaurant? Tina, you really don't think his ghost was haunting a jukebox?"

It came from outside of me

And the people who're holding him don't know he's doing it! They're blaming the leak on one of their own, on someone from Project Pandora."

He certainly wasn't old enough to remember all the cards that were dealt and calculate his chances from that, like some of the very best players can do

And even if those were examples of psychic ability, little tricks like that are light-years from what you're attributing to Danny now."

That's why they've been so much different from any dreams I've had before, so much stronger and more vivid."

"But if he can send dreams to you," Elliot said, "why wouldn't he simply transmit a neat, clear message telling you what's happened to him and where he is? Wouldn't that get him the help he wants a lot faster? Why would he be so unclear and indirect? He should send a concise mental message, psychic E-mail from the Twilight Zone, make it a lot easier for you to understand."

After all, the last couple of years we were married, Michael was running around with a lot of other women, spending most of his time away from home, and Danny felt even more abandoned than I did

He sighed, leaned back from her, and started the car

She knew from experience that fate had countless nasty tricks up its voluminous sleeve, and that was why she was scared shitless.

Willis Bruckster studied his keno ticket, carefully comparing it to the winning numbers beginning to flash onto the electronic board that hung from the casino ceiling

Bruckster stood at the head of the escalator that led from the lower shopping arcade to the casino level of Bally's Hotel

During their periodic breaks from the gaming tables, nursing stiff necks and sore shoulders and leaden arms, the weary dealers retired to a combination lounge and locker room at the bottom - and to the right - of the escalator

He was confident that he would nail Evans when the man returned from the dealer's lounge in the next few minutes.

Bruckster sidled away from the escalator and unfolded his keno card

The other dealers streamed by, and when Evans finally turned away from the waitress, he was the last in the procession as it moved toward the blackjack pits.

He gagged, and a ribbon of foamy saliva unraveled from the corner of his mouth, down his chin

Even if someone had been monitoring that area from an overhead camera, there would not have been much for him to see.

Surely, if someone from Project Pandora had told her what had happened to that busload of scouts, she wouldn't have reacted to the news with equanimity

She was in great distress, and she suffered from horrible dreams that plagued her every night

As Kennebeck turned away from the French frigate, beginning to wonder if he ought to get out from under the Network before it collapsed on him, George Alexander entered the study through the door that opened off the downstairs hallway

Kennebeck had known Alexander for five years and had despised him from the day they met

Harry Kennebeck had come from a dirt-poor family and, by his own estimation at least, made quite a lot of himself

"If he thought he could get any help from the cops, he'd have been there already," Kennebeck said

"But that's what I've been trying to tell you," Kennebeck said, pushing a lock of snow-white hair back from his forehead

But a long time ago you were Stryker's mentor, the man he respected, the man he learned from, and now you've betrayed him

I practically volunteered to help you with the exhumation, and it all just fell apart from there

"Stryker and the woman took off from McCarran International more than two hours ago

While he waited for Alexander to finish with the night manager at the Flagstaff airport, Kennebeck moved from one model ship to another

They don't know anything more about Project Pandora than what they picked up from that list of questions they took off Vince Immelman."

And the woman's evidently not one to hide or run away from a problem either

Then as he had signed for the rental car and picked up the keys from the night clerk, he had kept one hand in a pocket of his coat, gripping the handgun he'd taken off Vince in Las Vegas - but there was no trouble.

The night clerk at the rental agency, from whom they had signed out the car, had known exactly where Bellicosti's place was, and he had marked the shortest route on the free city map provided with the Chevy.

And I gather from your question, you've become a believer too."

He drove away from the airport

This viewport was designed to withstand everything from a gunshot to an earthquake; it was virtually inviolable.

There's more data to be gotten from him."

"Like hell there isn't!" Zachariah turned away from the video displays, went to the window, and found his own spot of clear glass

A thin, humorless laugh escaped Carlton Dombey, and he looked away from the window

It was a dirty piece of business right from the start."

Zachariah walked away from the window

Stone posts and softly glowing electric lamps marked the way to the front door, and warm light radiated from several first-floor windows.

"Storming right up to the front door, demanding answers from Bellicosti - that would be emotionally satisfying, brave, bold - and stupid."

I'll go through the cemetery, circle around, and approach the place from the rear."

"We will approach it from the rear," she said.

Pale light from a street lamp pierced the windshield, revealing a hard-edged determination in her face, steely resolution in her blue eyes.

A low stonewall and a line of house-high spruce separated the cemetery from Luciano Bellicosti's property

Even in the dim light, Elliot could see the fringe of icicles hanging from the roof of the long back porch

He stepped from beneath the sheltering branches of the trees

His fingers were stiff from the cold

They had taken only two steps from the window when Elliot saw the snow move no more than twenty feet from them

Even in the dim, illusory light from the surrounding snow, Elliot could see that the sentry's eyes were fixed in the same unseeing gaze that Bellicosti was even now directing at the bathroom window.

They hurriedly retraced their path, moving away from the funeral home

He helped Tina over the cemetery wall, and then, clambering after her, he was sure that someone grabbed his coat from behind

They embraced, and then she said, "If they knew we were flying to Reno, why didn't they follow us from the airport? Then they would have known we weren't going to walk in the front door of Bellicosti's place."

Tires squealing, he pulled the Chevy away from the curb, into the street.

Crouching beside one of those bushes, huddling in the shadows just beyond the circle of frosty light from a nearby street lamp, he pulled the pistol out of his coat pocket while Tina drove away.

But where do we go from here?"

They abandoned the Chevrolet in a public parking lot, four blocks from Harrah's.

Unable to prove his identity, he was required to pay for both nights in advance, which he did, taking the money from a wad of cash he'd stuck in his pocket rather than from the wallet that supposedly had been stolen.

"Listen, if I could get my hands on the people who're trying to keep us from finding Danny, I wouldn't have any compunctions about killing them

Kurt Hensen, George Alexander's right-hand man, dozed through the rough flight from Las Vegas to Reno

They were in a ten-passenger jet that belonged to the Network, and the aircraft took a battering from the high-altitude winds that blew across its assigned flight corridor

As usual, he nodded off minutes after the aircraft lifted from the runway.

Three billion dollars, the largest single part of the Network's yearly budget, came from the Department of Health and Welfare

Lesser amounts, ranging from only one hundred million to as much as half a billion, were secretly extracted from the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and other government bodies on an annual basis.

She started down the tunnel toward him, determined to get him out of there - and something reached for her from a narrow cleft in the wall

She was peripherally aware of a soft, fire like glow from beyond the cleft, and of a mysterious figure silhouetted against that reddish backdrop

She turned, and she was looking into the grinning face of Death, as if he were peering out at her from the bowels of Hell

A dozen times, she passed chinks in the wall, and Death glared out at her from every one of those apertures, screamed and cursed and raged at her, but none of the holes was large enough to allow him through

She reached Danny, and when she touched him, the chains fell magically away from his arms and legs

The director was calling from Washington

A ghost supposedly guides your hand to deliver a message from beyond

Elliot withdrew another one from the leatherette case and handed it to her

She felt a peculiar pulling sensation that seemed to come from within her hand, and she stiffened in surprise.

Instantly the invasive power retreated from her.

Tina got up from the bed, massaging her cold right hand

Elliot and Tina spread the map on the table and sat down across from each other.

Tina lowered her gaze from the empty air to the map, and her hand began to move

"The cold comes from the..

Tina let the pen drop from her fingers

She lifted her gaze from the map

Billy Sandstone looked from Tina to Elliot, baffled

"I guess I could have some money transferred from my Vegas bank," Elliot said

It's in a public lot about three blocks from here."

Alexander took a Valium out of a tin that he carried in his jacket pocket, and he washed it down with a swallow of hot coffee, which he poured from the silver pot on his desk

Aaron Zachariah turned from the bank of video displays

When they came out of this curve, the trees fell back from the verge, and open sky lay above for the first time since they had departed the county blacktop.

Bizarrely, the unplowed trail had led them to a paved road; steam rose from it, and sections of the pavement were even dry.

Stopping the Explorer, he picked up the pistol from the seat between them, and he flicked off both safeties

A guard shack stood to the right of the road, from which the gate was controlled.

They were no more than six or eight feet from the lighted shack, close enough to see the guard's face as he scowled at them through the large window.

Inside the hut, the guard plucked a telephone handset from the wall.

He got to his feet, took a coat from the back of his chair, slipped into it, zippered up, and came out of the shack

The Explorer roared across the straightaway and careened up the slope beyond, through the tendrils of steam that rose from the black pavement.

At four-thirty, they obtained a strong, positive identification from a maid at Harrah's.

Kurt Hensen was standing in front of Alexander's desk, picking through the junk that had been brought over from the hotel

Tall lampposts were arrayed across this featureless plain, casting dim, reddish light that was severely directed downward to attract as little attention as possible from aircraft that strayed out of the usual flight patterns and from anyone backpacking elsewhere in these remote mountains

He twisted around, leaned over the back of the seat, and quickly fetched the rope from the pile of outdoor gear in the cargo hold

Apparently, the door could be opened only from within, after those, seeking entrance had been scrutinized by the camera that hung over the portal.

He drew, aimed from the hip, and squeezed the trigger.

"You're crazy," Hensen said from his seat behind the pilot.

The intersecting hall began directly in front of them, across from the guardroom, and bored at least four hundred feet into the mountain; a long row of doors waited on each side of it, and other corridors opened off it as well.

The cab was at such an angle from them that they couldn't see who was in it.

The light on the indicator board changed from four to three to two, and the air inside the lift became so frigid that Tina's breath hung in clouds before her

Laughter pealed from the nearby room again, and Elliot said softly, "Where now?"

She looked around, waiting for some sign from her child, and she and Elliot twitched in surprise when the overhead fluorescent tube winked off, then came on again

She spun the wheel and located a pin that, when pushed, prevented anyone from turning the handle back to the unlocked position.

Maybe Danny could prevent the alarms from sounding, and maybe he could not, so Elliot fired once, and the display screen dissolved into thousands of splinters of glass.

The man cried out, pushed his wheeled chair away from the keyboard, and thrust to his feet

I knew this whole business was too dirty to end any way but disaster." He sighed, as if a great weight had been lifted from him

My country's far from perfect, but what's been done to Danny Evans isn't something that my country would approve of

Elliot took the remaining rope from Tina, and he gave her the pistol

She couldn't pinpoint what else about his eyes made him so different from any eyes she had ever seen, but as she met Danny's gaze, a shiver passed through her, and she felt a profound and terrible pity for him.

The boy blinked, and with what appeared to be great effort, at the cost of more than a little pain, he withdrew one arm from under the covers and reached out toward her

He turned away from them, spun the wheel on the steel door, and swung that barrier inward.

And judging from his appearance, she was concerned that any serious emotional disturbance would literally destroy him.

From somewhere deep inside of him, from far down beneath all the pain and fear and anguish, Danny found a smile for her

But he hugged her very hard, and again she was surprised by how much strength he could still summon from his devastated body

When she pulled him into her lap, he trailed wires that led from electrodes on his skin to the monitoring machines around the bed, like an abandoned marionette

As his legs came out from under the covers, the hospital gown slipped off them, and Tina saw that his poor limbs were too bony and fleshless to safely support him

The chopper hugged the valley floor, streaking northward, ten feet above an ice-blocked river, still forced to make its way through a snowfall that nearly blinded them, but sheltered from the worst of the storm's turbulence by the walls of mammoth evergreens that flanked the river

That's what keeps it from getting boring."

No effort had been made to keep him from chafing.

The problem is that some flaky people are attracted to this kind of work because of the secrecy and because you really do get a sense of power from designing weapons that can kill millions of people

Tina removed an electrode from Danny's neck, carefully peeling the tape off his skin.

Now she looked up from the task of bundling the child, and she said to Dombey, "But why was he infected in the first place?"

"You're trained what to do from the day you start to work here

Apparently, he convinced himself he could run away from the infection

He started out of the forest, toward the county lane, which is about five miles from the turnoff to the labs, and after only three miles-"

They were just about to move off the road, into the trees, so they would be away from any sign of civilization when they set up camp for their first night in the wilderness

Bollinger tried to run from them

Each time that he personally killed someone, he felt as if he were establishing another link to the world beyond this one; and he hoped, once he had made enough of those linkages, that he would be rewarded with a vision from the other side

One day maybe he would be standing in a graveyard, before the tombstone of one of his victims, and the person he had killed would reach out to him from beyond and let him see, in some vivid clairvoyant fashion, exactly what death was like

But the lines didn't fade from Danny's forehead.

She held Danny close, and she stared into his dark eyes, and she wasn't able to comfort herself with those words from the Bible

I received a death threat by phone the night before the arbitration - I can't say for certain that it was from the writer; the voice was so deep that it might have been his mother - and the next morning the law firm handling the studio's case assured me that they had taken extra security measures for the meeting

In each subsequent meeting, one or the other would show up to take story notes on their latest draft, while the missing partner would always have been waylaid by an emergency of one kind or another: a broken washing machine and a flooded laundry room, the sudden-onset illness of a cat with symptoms suggesting (to me) demonic possession, the death of a beloved aunt, the death of a beloved uncle, the death of a beloved neighbor (I began to worry that merely by associating with these women, decades would be shorn from my life span), migraine headaches, and an unfortunate encounter with an angry Big Foot in a long line at the DMV

If you haven't yet read The Eyes of Darkness, I am giving away nothing important in the story when I tell you that eventually, in a search for her lost son, Tina ventures into the High Sierras in winter, where she comes across a paved road, in the middle of the wilderness, that features heating coils under the pavement to prevent snow from sticking to it

I simply said, "Well, a red-hot glowing road is a great visual." In fact, it would be such a fantastic visual that it would be visible at night from orbiting satellites, like a neon arrow pointing toward the secret installation that it served.

I long ago wore out the three pairs of shoes that I was able to buy with my after-expenses and after-tax income from the project which, had it come to fruition, might have been titled I Think There's a Rat Chewing My Foot in Dean Koontz's Theater

He didn't like the black Americans, so during the Civil War he fought against the men from the North, and with those from the South

'One day Uncle Elias got a letter from Pondicherry in India

'When did your uncle get the letter from India, and when did he die?'

"And where has this letter come from?" my father said

I remembered my uncle's letter from India, and I was very worried.

'It comes from East London, and it says "Put the papers in the garden"

'By train from Waterloo station,' replied Openshaw.

Now where did those letters come from? Did you see?'

'The first from Pondicherry in India, the second from Dundee in Scotland and the third from East London,' I answered

'Somebody sent some pips from India, and arrived seven weeks later to kill Uncle Elias

Then he sent some pips from Scotland and arrived three days later to kill John's father

Do you see why I'm worried now? He has sent pips to John from London John's enemy is in London already!'

Haven't you ever heard of it? It's a very secret group of Americans from the South

'Watson!' he said, 'I know the names of Openshaw's enemies! And now I'm going to send them a surprise! This will frighten them!' He took five pips from an orange and put them in an envelope

'I'm sending the pips, not from the K.K.K., but from me, Sherlock Holmes, to Captain James Calhoun

I have liked telephones, and here in France we now have so many of them that you are never safe from interruption

He wanted to be away from Paris but near skilled workmen who could build things for his experimental so I offered him one of the old workshops of the factory

Six people from the Air Ministry came to the laboratory and went through all his papers

But we were never able to obtain any information from my sister-in-law

'Protect my boy from what? Don't you understand? I'm here so that Henri won't be the son of a woman who went to the guillotine for having murdered his father! Don't you understand that I would much prefer the guillotine to the living death of this asylum?'

It would mean the end of all ways of moving things from one place to another - not only things but also people

Andre's receiving machine was only a few feet away from his transmitter, in the next room of his laboratory

'Do you remember I once told you about some mysterious flying stones in India? They come flying into houses as it thrown from outside, even though the doors and windows are closed.'

'Yes, Helene! I sent it through the wall that separates my transmitter from my receiving machine

We had a special dinner to celebrate and at the end of the meal, when the servant brought in the bottle of champagne, Andre took it from her.

I knew that Henri had caught the fly because it looked different from other flies, but I also knew that his father hated cruelty to animals and that there would be a fuss if he discovered our son had put a fly in a box or bottle.

Andre had his head and shoulders covered by the brown velvet cloth from the table.

I told them a fly had escaped from the Professor's laboratory and that it must be caught alive

They said so to the police later, and that hunt for a fly probably saved me from the guillotine.

If you cannot find the dark glasses, turn away from the machine and put your hands over your eyes.

Anna is a student from the United States

Rod takes the money and runs from the store.

There is a path from Old Hall, where she lives, to our garden gate, so most people coming from there come to the study window instead of going along the road to the front door.

At that moment, Griselda and Dennis came in and said I must not stop Lawrence from enjoying himself.

I've never met a man more different from his name

Just after she left, Dennis returned from a tennis party

'In fact I was in my garden from five o'clock onwards yesterday and from there, well, I can see everything that is happening next door.'

And Dr Stone came down the path from Old Hall, so they all walked towards the village together

'It's strange,' I said, 'that everyone says the shot came from the woods.'

So when you hear a shot, you naturally think it comes from there.'

'What we want is the true story from both Mrs Protheroe and Mr Redding

'Then there was that shot I heard,' said Miss Marple, 'Yes, the sound was different from the usual sort of shot.'

This morning he had looked like a man free from worry

'Or come from there?'

It was put through from the North Lodge of Old Hall

'Well, we tracked it - and do you know where it came from? Mr Lawrence Redding's cottage!'

'So why was the first call not made from his cottage?' I asked.

And from his cottage he would go through the North Gate

Now you see why the call was made from there.'

A train from London was standing in the station and the train for London was just coming in

We went up the path, and he took a key from his pocket

He had saved Mrs Lestrange from giving evidence at the inquest

I found her here when I came back from that inquest

It was from Anne Protheroe.

I thought that the sounds came from up above but when I called up these stairs, "Is anybody there?" there was no answer, so I went back to bed

I couldn't think of an answer so I took the blue earring from my pocket

'Colonel Protheroe had arranged for a man to come down from London on Monday - tomorrow - to make a full valuation

Then he took a small box from his pocket, took a pill from the box, and swallowed it with the water.

I took a box of matches from my pocket

I also wondered whether Inspector Slack had returned from Old Hall, so I went to the police station and found that he had

'Yes?' I knew that it was easy to hear the bell from outside

You must understand that I heard this from someone who knows the truth.'

'You couldn't hear anyone sneezing in my study from your gate,' I said.

'Oh, yes! When we lived in Westmorland, I had a surgery not far from his house

I've been trying to protect Mrs Lestrange from anything that might upset her

Then I thought of something, and I took from my pocket the shiny brown stone I had found in the woods

'This,' I said, 'must be from Miss Marple

The second possibility is, of course, that he was sitting at the desk writing a note, but it must have been a different note from the one that was found

'She came back from the inquest and found Lettice Protheroe here

I'm on my way home from town

'Is that where you are speaking from?'

'On the floor - where it had fallen from his hand.'

'She returned from London on the 6.50 train.'

At five-thirty, he telephoned the vicar from the North Lodge, pretending he was the wife of a dying man.

She took the pistol from the pot, came up behind him and shot him

Poor Mr Hawes felt more and more guilty about taking the money from the collection.'

'The one from Mr Redding's cottage to Mrs Price Ridley?'

The coincidence was that the call was made at exactly the same time as the pretend shot from the wood

'However,' she added, 'I'm going to be very serious and well behaved from now on.'

She had at last told the police that she had taken the suitcase to the woods, but had thought she was protecting Dr Stone's archaeological discoveries from his enemies.

No one gave a thought to possible threats from other planets.

The planet Mars, I need not remind the reader, goes around the sun at an average distance of 224,000,000 kilometres, and receives from the sun half of the light and heat that is received by this world

It was also not generally understood that because Mars is older and smaller than our Earth, and further from the sun, it is nearer life's end as well as further from its beginning.

Its air is much thinner than ours, its oceans have become smaller until they cover only a third of its surface, and from its far north and south the ice is steadily moving forwards

In fact, he compared it to the burning gases that might rush out from a gun.

That night, too, there was another sudden cloud of gas from the distant planet as a second missile started on its way to Earth from Mars, just under twenty-four hours after the first one

I told Ogilvy, and he took my place and watched the cloud of gas growing as it rose from the surface of the planet

It may be that the gases from the firing caused the Martians inconvenience

Coming home, a group of party-goers from Chertsey passed us, singing and playing music

If I had looked up I would have seen the strangest thing that ever fell to Earth from space, but I did not

It was, however, still very hot from its flight through the air and he could not get close to it

He could hear movement from inside but thought this was due to it cooling down

By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men were already walking to the common to see the 'dead men from Mars'

I heard it first from my newspaper boy at about a quarter to nine and I went to the common immediately.

At that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the Thing had come from the planet Mars, and I felt impatient to see it opened

I failed to find Lord Hilton at his house, but was told he was expected from London by the six o'clock train

Groups of people were hurrying from the direction of Woking

I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit.

The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within

There was a loud scream from a woman behind

I half-turned, still keeping my eyes on the cylinder, from which other tentacles were now coming out, and began pushing my way back from the side of the pit

I could not take my eyes away from these creatures.

And then, coming from the direction of Horsell, I noticed a little black group of men, the first of whom was waving a white flag

Slowly a dark shape rose out of the pit and a beam of light seemed to flash out from it.

Then flashes of bright fire came from the men, and I realized that the Martians were using some kind of invisible ray

Suddenly, like a thing falling on me from above, came fear

My terror had fallen from me like a piece of clothing

'What news from the common?' I said.

'What news from the common?' I repeated.

'Haven't you heard of the men from Mars?' I said

'The creatures from Mars.'

I remember the dinner table that evening very clearly even now: my dear wife's sweet, worried face looking at me from under the pink lamp-shade, the white cloth laid with silver and glass, the glass of red wine in my hand

If, on that Friday night, you had drawn a circle at a distance of five kilometres from Horsell Common, I doubt if there would have been one human being outside it, unless it was a relation of Stent, whose emotions or habits were affected by the new arrivals

A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey Road, Woking, saw a star fall from the sky into the woods to the north-west

At about three o'clock I heard the sound of a gun, firing regularly, from the direction of Chertsey

At about six in the evening, as I had tea with my wife in the garden, I heard an explosion from the common, and immediately after that the sound of gunfire

She looked away from me downhill

Three went through the open doors of the Oriental College and two began running from house to house

The sun, shining through the smoke that rose up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood-red and threw an unfamiliar bright light on everything.

He was going from house to house, warning people to leave.

Leatherhead is about twenty kilometres from Maybury

I was even afraid that the last shots I had heard might mean the end of our visitors from Mars

I have no doubt that this was the third of the cylinders they had fired at us from Mars.

All these things prevented me from making a sensible decision.

I stopped in the doorway, at a safe distance from it.

That was the story I got from him, bit by bit

As the dawn grew brighter, we moved back from the window where we had watched and went very quietly downstairs.

In fact, apart from ourselves, there did not seem to be a living person on Maybury Hill.

By Byfleet station we came out from the trees and found the country calm and peaceful in the morning sunlight

Then, from a different direction, a fifth one came towards us

The headless machine marched on, swinging from side to side

Thick clouds of steam were pouring from the wreckage, and through it I could see its long legs and tentacles moving in the water.

Looking back, I saw the other Martians walking down the river-bank from the direction of Chertsey

Thick black smoke was rising to mix with the steam from the river.

The Heat- Ray came down to the water's edge less than fifty metres from where I stood

Then I saw the four of them carrying the remains of the fallen one between them, now clear and then later faint through a curtain of smoke, moving away from me across a great space of river and fields

He spoke suddenly, looking away from me.

It was clear to me that the great tragedy in which he was involved - it seemed that he had escaped from Weybridge - had driven him to the edge of madness.

'Are we far from Sunbury?' I said, very quietly.

'Are we far from Sunbury?'

It ended with the words, 'Although they seem frightening, the Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and don't seem able to do so.'

Even the afternoon papers had nothing to tell apart from the movement of soldiers around the common, and the burning of the woods between Woking and Weybridge

My brother was not worried about us, as he knew from the description in the papers chat the cylinder was three kilometres from my house

On the Saturday evening, at Waterloo station, he learned that an accident prevented trains from reaching Woking

I have read, in another description of these events, that on Sunday morning 'all London was panicked by the news from Woking.' In fact, this is simply not true

He learned that several unusual telegrams had been received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had suddenly stopped

'They come from Weybridge and Walton, and they said guns have been heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that soldiers told them to move out at once because the Martians are corning

On Waterloo Bridge a number of people were watching an odd brown liquid that came down the river from time to time

Men came running from buses to get copies

Going along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, my brother saw some of the refugees from West Surrey

My brother walked from Westminster to his room near Regent's Park

The sound of guns continued from time to time and after midnight there seemed to be lightning in the south.

The sound of drums came from the army base in Albany Street and bells were ringing in every church

Unable to learn what was happening from his window, my brother went down and out into the street, just as the sky turned pink with the dawn

And from this paper my brother read that terrible report from the commander of the army:

There is no safety from the Black Smoke except by running away.

When he saw them, the curate made a frightened noise and began running, but I knew it was no good running from a Martian and I crawled into some bushes by the side of the road

There had been no explosion, no answer from the guns

A man later told me that he had watched from a church roof as the smoke filled his village

They did this to the black clouds near us, as we saw in the starlight from the upper window of an empty house

They only used the Heat-Ray from time to time that night, either because they had a limited supply of material for its production or because they did not want to destroy the country, but only to defeat its people

You can see the quiet expectation, the officers watching, the gunners waiting with their horses, the groups of local people standing as near as they were allowed, the ambulances and hospital tents with the burnt and wounded from Weybridge

And as time passed and the engine drivers and firemen refused to return to London, the people turned in growing crowds away from the stations and onto the roads running north

After trying unsuccessfully to get onto a train at Chalk Farm my brother came out into the road, pushed through the hurrying lines of vehicles, and had the luck to be at the front of a crowd which was taking bicycles from a shop

So he escaped from the worst of the panic in London and reached Edgware at about seven

Realizing from his face that a fight was unavoidable, and being a good boxer, my brother hit him hard and knocked him back onto the wheel of the cart.

The man he held pulled himself free and ran off down the road in the direction from which he had come.

She fired from six metres away, narrowly missing my brother

'Let's go back to the cart,' said my brother, wiping the blood from his lip.

My brother learned that the two women were the wife and younger sister of a doctor living in Stanmore, The doctor had heard about the Martians at the railway station, on his way home from seeing a patient, and had sent them off, promising to follow after telling the neighbour

He suggested that they should drive across Essex to the sea at Harwich, and from there get right out of the country.

There was a sharp bend in the road, less than fifty metres from the crossroads

My brother, with red whip-marks on his face and hands from the car's driver, got up into the driving seat.

In the evening many people came hurrying along the road near their stopping-place, escaping from unknown dangers and going in the direction from which my brother had come.

Many became stuck together under Tower Bridge, and the sailors had to fight against people who tried to get on from the riverside

People were actually climbing down onto the boats from the bridge above.

These were mainly people from the northern suburbs who had only heard of, but not seen, the Black Smoke.

He was told that the Midland Railway Company had started running trains again, and was taking people north from St Albans

Close to the shore was a large number of fishing-boats from various countries, and steamboats from the Thames

Beyond these were the larger ships - a great number of coal ships, ships carrying goods, and neat white and grey passenger ships from Southampton and Hamburg.

It was very difficult to get her down to the beach, where after some time my brother caught the attention of some men from a steamboat

The little steamboat was already moving out to sea, when a Martian appeared, small and far away, moving along the muddy coast from the south

Looking to the north-east, my brother saw the long line of ships already moving away from the approaching terror

This hit its left side and sent up a black cloud that the ship moved away from

He held it pointing down, and a cloud of steam came up from the water as it hit the ship.

Because rushing out beyond the smoke and steam came something long and black with flames coming from it.

Everyone was shouting and they could hear shouts and cheers from the other ships and the boats

All this time the steamboat was moving steadily out to sea and away from the fight, and when at last the steam cleared, the black cloud got in the way and they could see nothing of either the Thunder Child or the third Martian

In the last two chapters I have moved away from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother

We stayed there all Sunday night and all the next day - the day of the panic - in a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black Smoke from the rest of the world

After trying and failing to keep him quiet, I kept away from him in other rooms in the house.

The top of a Martian fighting-machine came into sight over the house tops, less than a hundred metres away from us

For the first time, I realized that perhaps the Martians had another purpose, apart from destroying human beings

We kept away from the road, moving through gardens and some areas full of trees

Outside and very near was the noise from a machine, which started and stopped.

And then the light came, not through the window, which was filled with earth from the garden, but through a small hole that had been knocked in the wall

For hours we lay there in the darkness, while from outside came the sounds of hammering and then, after some time, a sound like an engine

Instead, they took fresh blood from living creatures and used a tube to put it straight into their own bodies

In three other ways their bodies were different from ours

When I looked again, the busy building-machine had already put together several of the pieces of metal from inside the cylinder into a shape that was very like its own

The arrival of a second fighting-machine made us move back out of the kitchen into the hall, because we were afraid that from that height the Martian might see us through the hole

However, despite the danger, we could not prevent ourselves from going back to look again and again

The curate talked endlessly, and this prevented me from forming a plan of action.

Then we heard him scream and the sound of long and cheerful calling from the Martians.

I moved away from the hole, put my hands over my ears and ran into the hall

The Martians had taken away the digging-machine and apart from the fighting-machine on the far side of the pit and a building- machine that was busy out of my sight, the pit was empty

Instead of staying close and trying to move me away from the pit, the curate had gone back into the hall

In the light from outside, I saw the Martian studying the curate's head

I thought at once that it would know that I was there from the mark of the hammer.

It was like a black snake moving its head from side to side.

There were two ideas in my mind - to get more food and to move, as quickly as possible, away from the pit.

I saw a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but they hurried away from me

Before I went to bed I was very restless and went from window to window, looking out for some sign of them