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I hadn't heard the story. Not all of it, anyway, not back then, just the first few words. I didn't want to hear it. I might have been the last one, around here anyway, who hadn't been told. I'd had some close calls, but I was strong and I could run fast. When one of them tried to hold me down while the other cleared his throat and started talking, I pushed him away. When they both tried to catch me, I got away and hid.

Most of the time they went about their business, like lions ignoring gazelle. But then, just walking down the road, or out to my truck -- just being ordinary -- they'd come at me, two of them; always two. I saw their eyes change. The lion was hungry. Through some glint I hadn't mastered, back then, they realized I'd never heard the story, and then it started. And then I ran.

One said to me once, with that big blank smile they had, "Why won't you hear us out? You don't know how it ends." A good question; but I knew that if I heard them out it would be too late: I'd be one of them, one of the Changed.

How it began: I was on a job with Miguel, a plumber like me, in some West Texas county so God-forsaken the locals referred to Lubbock as "The Big City." We were taking a break, sitting on some asshole's weedy excuse for a lawn and drinking Gator-Ade because it was really hot that day, when two strangers walked up to us. At first, I thought they just wanted directions, or maybe they were owners who didn't like to see sweaty workmen like us parking our butts and not hard at work every minute. But that wasn't it.

They started by asking us how we were doing, which was of course none of their damn business and irrelevant to anything anyway, and then they launched into a story. It started with a line from an old song: "Once there was a way to get back homeward." Just then my boss drove up and waved me over to him. The owner, he said, had looked at our work and said it was done OK, but now they wanted something different. Pissed me off, but it would mean an extra few days' pay, which made the annoyance go away pretty fast.

By the time I got back to Miguel, the two strangers had left. Miguel was staring at his bottle of Gator-Ade like he'd never seen it before.

We ripped out the plumbing, which was easy because it was all builder-grade and like to come apart in your hands anyway, and started over. I forgot about the strangers, though Miguel was acting odd, preoccupied. I began to get the feeling that the strangers had taken him away, all but the flesh, and put something -- different -- in his place. He'd stopped swearing, for one thing, and turned down a beer I offered him after work one day.

Three days later, when we'd finished the job and were loading our tools onto the company truck, one of the strangers showed up. Miguel exchanged glances with him, then they turned toward me. Miguel cleared his throat, put on a kind of glassy smile, and said to me "Tyler, you got to hear this. 'Once there was a way...' " That's when I remembered the blank look he'd put on, how he'd acted -- acted 'gone' -- after that. That scared me good, and I got out of there fast.

So that's how it began. Didn't ever get paid for that job 'cause I ran, but being a plumber in this country meant I'd never have to go hungry. Three thousand years of civilization, more or less; why couldn't somebody invent a flush toilet that worked every time?

Place to place installing sinks here, fixing toilets there. I learned how to avoid the Changed; didn't need for them to begin the story, just caught a glimpse of their faces. Got so I could spot them, most of the time, before they figured out I wasn't Changed.

Once in a while I thought I could settle down, like in Clay County last April, a pretty nice place to call home: plenty of clay and not many people, although a good long haul to anywhere that could use my skills. I was there a good four months before I saw a Changed. Only one, but I knew there must be two. Or more. By May, there were more, so I left. I felt like I was on that old TV show about a fugitive, but it didn't seem that anyone was trying to track me down. Not then it didn't.

I thought of going to the FBI, but who'd believe me? Anyway, the government would be the first thing they'd take over, wouldn't it? They did that in all the thriller movies, anyway.

I ran across Julie in a used car lot in Tonkawa, Oklahoma, a town where the high school kids cruise around downtown, all three blocks of it, every Saturday night, stop in the middle of the street and rev their engines over and over. I heard that the local beauty queen had run away with some fellow because he'd promised to take her to Ponca City; that's how grim this place was. Anyway, I was poking around the lot, looking for something to replace my old beat-up Ford F-150. The salesman's face made it pretty obvious that he didn't think much of my attire or my chances of having ready money. So he was acting hoity, as if he were some kind of elitist instead of just another sorry son of a bitch like me. Just then, what should drive into the lot but an F-150 in lots better shape than mine, with a really beautiful woman at the wheel.

She told the salesman she wanted to sell her truck, and they started haggling. He offered her a laughably low price, and she laughed. He offered a little more. She didn't budge. He got pissed at her and walked off. So I sidled up and offered a fair price. She countered. I stared into those dark eyes. "Yes," I said, "Yes." She blushed, and laughed, and held onto the keys while I counted out my money.

So we did the deal. I offered her a lift and we lit out in my new truck before the salesman could come back. Served his ass right, getting nasty with such a beautiful woman.

Julie and I saw quite a bit of each other after that. Gingerly, in her bed one night, I mentioned the Changed, afraid she'd think I was a nut case. She looked at me thoughtfully.

"Yes -- sure. Now that you mention it, I've seen people looking a little odd lately, coming up to me. I guess I've been lucky; I just assume they're hitting on me, and walk away."

"Good for you!"

"Still, aren't you curious?"

"About?"

"About the story. Wouldn't you like to hear it?"

"No!"

"Oh, come on!" She started tickling me. That led to laughter, then on to other things.

I dreamed I was hearing voices, a man and a woman.

"Now?" the man asked.

"Tell it now," the woman answered.

The man cleared his throat. "Once there was a way..." he began.

I jolted awake. A stranger, a young man in a white shirt and tie, was hovering over me. Julie was holding my hand and smiling. For a few seconds I couldn't think what to do. The young man kept on. I'd never heard this much of the story before. It was more than just words from some old song. I felt I was being pulled in, losing control, losing my self, losing Tyler Jones, something new being created in my place. Just before it was too late, I leaned up in bed and shoved him as hard as I could. He pitched backwards and landed on the floor, hit his head pretty hard. Julie stared at me, still smiling.

"Let us help you, Tyler!" she said, but by then I'd grabbed my pants, wallet, and keys, run out heart pounding like it was red-lining 8000 RPM, jumped in my truck and took off, wheels spinning and pants flopping around in the rider's seat. I didn't stop till I hit Arkansas.

Forrest City was a handsome town, more modern-looking than anything fifty miles around. It had hunched itself up on a bluff just above the floods that came every few years when Old Man River took it in mind to overflow its banks. But by the time I got there I could tell that the town had mostly Changed. I put on my best blank stare and got on with a small general contractor. I was getting used to being among the Changed. They didn't catch on, didn't ask "Have you heard the story?" or anything like that. But among themselves, as I overheard them once in a while, they said things like "Guess we should get on over to Turner Circle." "Got the house number?" "Right here. Right after work, OK?", leaving me wondering if this was part of a Changed plot, or just a poker game they didn't want the sheriff to know about.

I'd been in Forrest City a couple of months, mostly repairing showers and toilets. One day, as I was leaving the home of a toilet I'd just fixed, I saw some people looking at my F-150. One was writing down the tag number. Since I hadn't been in any accidents and wasn't parked illegally, I thought maybe I'd hurt that young stranger more than I knew, and the law was after me. Or maybe it was just that I still had Texas tags, and that was some kind of violation. These people could be the Changed, could be the law, maybe both. I hid behind a bush and waited till they'd left. Then I got in my truck and headed back to Texas as fast as I could, only stopping to smear mud on my tags, front and rear. I took back roads most of the way, finally stopped in a tiny place I drove clear through before I realized I'd passed through it. This was East Texas, as the few locals that still lived thereabouts were happy to remind you at every opportunity, where they've got trees and shrubs, not just sand and cow patties. At least that's how they talked about everything in the state west of Dallas: sand and cow patties.

I ditched my tags and picked up another couple at the local junkyard. Now, that wouldn't stand for a minute if the sheriff called it in, so I was ultra careful to go slow, signal all my turns, and drive in other ways real Texans never did.

I survived quite a while in East Texas. Changed my name slightly so it could be just a typo, but different enough to fool a computer, maybe. Bought a little home. Acquired a tall girlfriend named Micki, short for Meredith. Micki was kind of strange, but lots of fun. She was one of the few people I couldn't tell if they'd Changed or not, but just as a precaution in those cases I always assumed they'd Changed and acted the same. Turned out, to my surprise, that she hadn't. She'd been faking it just like me.

It must have been real torture for her to tell me that she hadn't Changed, seeing me do so good an imitation. But finally she did tell me, waited for who knows what to happen. Now, I had got used to being suspicious of everybody. I wouldn't put it past a Changed to pretend not to be one, just to get me to confess. So I hedged and hawed, and very slowly, over a couple of weeks, we finally did get to trust each other. I told her about Julie, about how badly I'd misjudged her, how it almost led to my downfall. Micki told me about her husband back in Campbellsburg, that's in Indiana, how he'd Changed their three kids and was after her, too, the night she ran away wearing just her slip, with ten bucks to her name.

So Micki and I shared our secret. We could have left it at that and been happy for a long time, because we were both pretty good at faking, pretending to be Changed; even hung out with them at times. But it didn't happen that way, because charity finally overcame caution.

We'd become friendly with another couple, Mark and Judy Danneman. More a mission of mercy, because they weren't Changed and didn't come on as Changed, and did a really poor job of pretending. It was just a fluke they hadn't been ganged up on and Changed. So it came about, gradually and without our actually deciding to do it, that Micki and I became the Dannemans' protectors. Covered for them. Steered them away from danger. Tutored them on how to behave. We even talked, though not very seriously, about hiding them in our attic and bringing them food every day. Protecting them was scary, but the sense of danger made it thrilling, too.

We could tell that the strain of faking it, of putting on the blank smile, was wearing on them, especially Judy. The more we taught them the better they got, but the more poor Judy stressed out. We did an amateur shrink bit on her, got her to act out in private, get it off her mind so she could carry on in public. That worked. Until last Sunday.

The four of us were having dinner at the county seat, in the only Mexican restaurant in town that wasn't a Taco Bell. Judy was acting more and more jumpy during dinner, downing two or three margaritas. Suddenly, she jumped up from the table and started screaming at everybody in the place.

"I'm not like you! I'm human! I'm a God-damned human being!" We tried to hush her up, but she kept raving. Mark shoved a napkin in her mouth, but she spat it out.

From all corners of the room they came toward us, the diners, the waiters. They stood around us, smiling, looking fondly at Mark and Judy, and at Micki and me. They laid hands, gentle unbreakable bonds, on the four of us, held us down. Two of them stepped forward, and one began to intone the first words of the story: "Once there was a way ..." I struggled, I yelled, I shook with fear, but couldn't throw them off. The story continued, knelled in my ears like death.

I hadn't heard the story before. Not all of it, anyway, just the first few words. I didn't want to hear it now. But I did hear it, all of it. Halfway through I could feel what was happening, but it was too late. Why had I run? Why had I fought so hard? Who needed to be Tyler Jones, anyway?

The next day, two men drove to an address on the west side of town. They got out of the car, walked up to the front door, knocked. A woman answered. A boy who looked about 12 was standing behind her, holding a little girl's hand. The men smiled. Very politely, one of the men asked the family how they were doing.

He knew the answer already, because Tyler Jones was home.

Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home.