“Do you want something, Sheriff?” Unlike the day before, Dale’s pulse did not race. He felt completely calm.

“Why’d you lie to me, Stewart?” snapped Congden. “I ought to fucking arrest you.”

“For not telling you my real name?” said Dale and smiled.

“For misrepresenting yourself to a peace officer,” wheezed Congden. His fat fingers continued tapping at the grip of his revolver. Leather creaked.

Dale shrugged and waited.

Congden squinted at him. “I remember you, Stewart. You and that fucking bunch of weasel friends of yours.”

“Watch your language, Sheriff,” said Dale. “You’re a public servant now, not the town bully. Get nasty with me and I’ll swear out a complaint.”

“Fuckyour complaint,” growled Congden, but he looked around the garage to see who was listening. The brrrpp-brrrppp of the air wrench putting on the Land Cruiser’s lug nuts sufficiently covered the conversation. “And fuck you, Stewart.”

“You have a nice day, too, Sheriff,” said Dale and turned back to watch them lower his truck on the lift.

Congden walked toward the open garage door and then paused. “I know where you’re staying.”

Dale was sure that he did. It was a small county.

Congden walked away and Dale called after him, “Hey, Sheriff—any luck finding those punks who just cost me more than three hundred dollars?”

C.J. Congden did not look back.

The beautiful morning had shamed Dale. The snow had turned into sleet during the night, the sleet into rain, but the morning dawned sunny and warmer and sweet-smelling. Dale went out to breakfast at a pancake house across the parking lot from the Comfort Suites. The food was good, the coffee was good, and the waitress was friendly. Dale read the morning Peoria Journal Star and felt better than he had in weeks.

War Memorial Drive became Highway 150 outside of Peoria, and Dale drove the Buick the back way to Elm Haven, leaving the window open to air the cigarette smell out of the car. He was surprised to note that half of the trees still had their leaves and that those leaves still held deep fall colors. It was a beautiful day.

Just at the edge of Peoria’s western limits—about ten miles beyond the city he’d known as a boy in Elm Haven—there was a plaza with a hardware and a sports store. Dale visited both and came out with a thirty-six-inch crowbar and a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. He tossed both in the trunk of the Buick and drove on to Duane’s farmhouse.

The fields on either side of the approach lane were wet and sweet-smelling. Dale stopped the Buick in front of the house, but there was no way he could tell if the upstairs light was on in all that blazing daylight. He pulled to the side, parked the Buick, retrieved the baseball bat from the trunk, and walked up to the side door.

It was locked, just as he’d left it. Dale let himself in and stood in the kitchen a moment.

“Hello?” He heard the slightest echo of his own voice and had to smile. He’d be damned if he’d yell “Is anyone there?” just before the supernatural killer in the hockey mask jumped out to cut him down.

He searched the first floor. Everything seemed to be as he’d left it. He went down into the basement. No hockey-mask killers there. He remembered that he’d stored his Savage over-and-under down here in two pieces, but after checking that the pieces were where he’d put them, he decided not to add it to his Louisville Slugger arsenal. Besides, he’d thrown away the only shotgun shell.

Dale went up the stairs.

The layers of yellowing plastic were intact. Dale checked the nails and staples around the wood frame, but they had not been pulled out or replaced. The frame itself had been nailed into the door frame at the head of the stairs—decades ago. Dale pushed against the plastic, but it yielded only slightly, crackling a bit. If someone had visited the upstairs, they’d not come this way.

Not if they’re human.

Dale had deliberately phrased that thought to amuse himself, but in the darkness of the stairway, it didn’t seem that funny. He leaned closer to peer through the heavy plastic. The vague outlines of a hallway and a table. Sunlight through thick curtains. Nothing moved.

Dale pulled out his multi-use knife and set the longest blade against the plastic. He hesitated a second and then folded the blade back and set the knife back in his pocket. He laid the baseball bat against the yellowed plastic and tapped it lightly. Let sleeping dogs lie.

As if on cue, there came the scrabble of claws against the linoleum downstairs.

Dale whirled, bat raised, just in time to see a very small black dog run from the parlor hall into the kitchen.

“Jesus Christ!” said Dale, his heart pounding.

He clattered down the stairs and ran into the kitchen just in time to see the outer screen bang shut. He’d left the inner door open and the little dog had been able to push the screen door out.

Dale ran outside and stood on the stoop, bat ready. He half expected the small black dog to be out of sight—a delusion—but there it went, running hellbent-for-leather toward the outbuildings behind the farm, its little black ass wiggling as it ran.

Dale almost laughed. He’d been ready for the undead killer in the hockey mask and instead he’d found a lap dog. Whatever the little thing was, it was definitely a dog and definitely a shrimp—terrier-sized, but short-haired. All black except for a glimpse of pale or pink on its muzzle. Short ears.

“Hey, dog!” yelled Dale and whistled.

The little black dog did not slow down. It disappeared through a hole in the first outbuilding—the one Dale remembered Duane calling the chicken coop.

If the dog was in the house, why didn’t I find it when I searched?Dale shook his head but walked out to the chicken coop.

The shed was a mess. The door had been wired shut—Dale had to unwrap a yard of rusted wire—but one side of the structure had rotted away between the wood and the foundation until the hole was large enough for that dog to slip through. But it was a runt of a dog.

Dale propped the door open and looked in the coop. “Jesus Christ,” he said again, softly this time. He took the gold Dunhill lighter out of his pocket and flicked it on, holding the lighter high. There was just enough light to see by, but not enough to show detail. He walked back to the farmhouse and returned with a flashlight.

The interior of the coop had a fossilized layer of chicken manure mixed with embedded white feathers. The roosts were empty and the straw was ancient. The boards, walls, and floor were covered with dried blood, aged to a deep brown patina. There was no sign of the dog.

“What the hell happened in here?” Dale said aloud, but he knew the answer. Fox. Fox in the henhouse. Or a dog. He had to smile again. Not this dog. It was too small. Hell, a chicken could have beaten up this little black dog.

Dale looked in all of the roosts and niches, but no black dog. On the west wall, however, there were more slats missing. The pooch had probably run right through the chicken coop.

Dale went out into the bright sunlight and wonderful autumn air and checked in the mud at the west end of the coop. Sure enough, tiny dog tracks crossed the lot toward another of the handful of small sheds and outbuildings.

Well, I guess it isn’t a ghost dog. It left tracks.

He tried whistling and calling again, but no dog appeared. Knowing that he should be hauling his groceries in, Dale checked out the other sheds.

The dog’s prints had disappeared here where grass grew, but the second shed had an open door. Dale’s flashlight flicked across hanging harnesses, hanging blades, hanging saws, hanging butchering equipment. All of it was rusted.

The next shed boasted a padlock, but the hinges had given way and Dale merely lifted the door to one side. Inside was a circa-1940s electrical generator, a mass of black cables, and half a dozen gas canisters. Only one of the jerry cans held gasoline. Dale checked over the generator, but even a cursory inspection with the flashlight showed insulated wires that had been chewed through by mice, rusted and corroded points, missing leads, and an empty fuel tank. Behind the generator shed was a huge oval fuel tank set low in girders—obviously a fueling station for the farm equipment. Unlike the other sheds and equipment, this gas tank looked as if it was still in use; the rubber hoses and nozzles had been maintained or replaced, which made sense if Mr. Johnson next door stored his tractor and combine in the barn and still tilled this land. Dale rapped on the two hundred-gallon tank. It sounded full. He had to remember that if his Land Cruiser ever ran out of gas.