"Just make sure you cuddle close, boys. It gets awful lonely on your own in the woods."

"We've got the dogs to keep us company. Over."

"Yeah, but you should see what I'll have. Nighty-night, boys."

"Roger. Ten-four. Out." The sergeant brought the walkie-talkie down.

"Aw, go screw yourself," the second man grumbled. He wasn't certain if he meant the man up in the helicopter or the sergeant, but the sergeant grinned at him, and so the second man decided, raising up his hand to make an obscene gesture toward the far-off roaring of the helicopter. Soon the noise dimmed, becoming fainter, at last inaudible, and the men now looked at one another. Throughout the afternoon, they'd heard the chopper roaring near them in the mountains. They had gradually become accustomed to it, at last so familiar with it that they hadn't been aware that they were hearing it. They heard it now, though, or rather heard its absence, and they missed it, somehow incomplete without its reassuring presence. "Let's get moving," the sergeant said. He reached for the leash he'd handed over, and they let the dogs go on, straining to keep up with them.

"What a way to spend a weekend," someone said.

"Saturday, and hell, we won't be back at least till Sunday evening."

"Well, if you boys worked as good as you complained," the sergeant told them, "we'd have found this Bodine long ago."

The dogs began to slacken and then cower.

FIVE

It was crouched behind the deer cage, watching as the black and white police car reached the end of the lane, stopped a moment, and then drove toward the swimming pool. The thought of water made it gag again, and when it crawled out from its cover to be certain that the car continued moving, it saw people diving from the high board, splashing into the water, and it had to turn away to keep from retching. There were people over by the swings and slides, children and a mother. They were laughing. A man and a woman strolled toward the deer cage. In the cage, the deer had long since shifted toward the side away from it. They stared at it, their withers rippling nervously, and it was bothered by them just as much as by the people coming near. It only wanted to be on its own, to hole up somewhere safe, to stop the spasms racking through it. Finally the man and woman reached the deer cage, and it scurried through the bushes up the slope. It dimly recollected that a walkway angled across the slope above there, and it reached the walkway, wooden steps that cut up high across the slope, and it was running up them. In the sunlight, it pawed at its eyes and squinted. Once it stumbled, falling, and it scrambled up on all fours, rasping, whining. Then it reached the top, and it could see the mansion over there. Once its mother had taken it here to visit the place, a big, tall, old-time house with many rooms and stairways, and it still retained the image of those dark corners, all those sheltered crannies it could hide in. Squinting far around, glancing toward the park down there, the people, it shivered and turned toward the mansion again. It saw the trees around the place, the bushes, and the gravel driveway that led up to the front steps, and it saw the car parked in the front, and it was ducking toward the bushes, moving closer. All those shadowy rooms. The front door suddenly came open, and it paused among the bushes. Now a man came out, and he was talking to a woman. They had boxes in their hands.

"The afternoon's been slow. I don't think anyone will come up now."

"Well, I've got guests. I can't stay any longer."

They closed the door. The man reached to put a key inside the lock.

"No, I didn't tell you," the woman said. "Eva phoned to tell me she couldn't find her key."

"Well, she can get mine from me in the morning."

"No, she wants to do her work before tonight. She has to go away tomorrow."

"I can't leave the place unlocked," the man said.

"Only for ten minutes. I expected her before this."

"If vandals get here sooner, you know how the owners will react."

"From what I hear, they still have plans to sell the place. It doesn't make a difference."

"Just remember. It was your idea."

"Such a gentleman."

They started down the stairs.

It crouched behind the bushes, watching as they put the boxes in the car.

"I'll drive you home," the woman said.

"No, that's all right. I need the walk. So when's your next shift?"

"Not for two weeks. Sunday afternoon."

"They've got me chairing meetings."

"Well, I'll see you later."

Nodding, the man walked down the gravel driveway, and the woman got in her car, driving past the man. She blared her horn. The man waved, and soon both the man and car were out of sight.

It waited just a while. Then it crept out from the bushes, running toward the porch. It huddled by the steps and looked around, then scampered up the steps and turned the knob, and it was in there.

Very quiet. Everything smelled musty. It remembered the large big hallway, bigger than the living room at home, and there were tables, stacks of papers to one side, and a box where people put their money in.

Its mother had, at any rate, She had explained about historical societies and how an old house like this had to be preserved for people to appreciate the way things used to be. It hadn't understood the words exactly, but it sort of had the sense that this old place was special, and it hadn't liked the musty smell back then, but now it did.

The hall was shadowy, rooms on both sides, old-time furniture in there, guns up on the wall and maps and faded oval photographs. It listened, but there wasn't any movement in the house, and it crept forward. Now it faced a big room with the longest table it had ever seen, big-backed chairs along it, plates and glasses set out, knives and forks and more spoons than it understood, as if a party soon would be here, people eating. There were ghosts here, it was sure, but oddly, that was comforting. The staircase wound up toward the second floor, a caged-in elevator to the side. Its mother had explained about the elevator, how the platform rose without an engine. You simply had to pull down on the rope that dangled in there, and a pulley then would turn to raise you. But the cage had boards across the front, and anyway it never would have stepped inside there. All those bars. The place was too much like a trap.

It walked a little farther, pausing as the floor creaked. No, it had made that noise itself. There wasn't anybody in here, and it wondered where to go. Up the stairs or to the cellar. No, the cellar would be a trap as well, and boards creaking, it was inching up the stairs.

But it stopped as the front door opened. It turned, the daylight out there strong, painful, staring at the man who stood within the open doorway. This man had just left. He'd walked until he'd disappeared along the gravel driveway. That was why there hadn't been a warning, why there hadn't been a car sound to alarm it, and it hissed now as the man came forward.

"Yeah, that's just what I expected. Leave the door unlocked, she says. God damn it, kid, get out of here."

It hissed again.

"What's your name? I'm mad enough to call the cops."

It growled then, and the man hesitated, frowning.

"None of that damned stuff. You get your ass on down here."

One more step. The man was at the bottom of the stairs. He reached, and it was leaping, body arcing down the stairs to jolt the man and send him sprawling.

"Hey, God damn it." But the man apparently expected that it next would try to scramble past him toward the open door. The man lunged to the side to block it, his neck uncovered, and it dove in straight below the chin.

"Jesus."

They struggled. It could feel the blood spurt into its mouth. It gagged again. The taste was not unpleasant, even in a way compelling, although the choking was an agony. It chewed and swallowed, gagging.