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ROADKILL
  by Jack Hillman
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  The cat raced through the field on his way home, following the
enticing scent. Hunting had been good, satisfying the hunger of
both stomach and psyche. Now it was time to mate. The scent of the
female drifted over the grass in a beckoning wave that drew him in
irresistibly. He raced out onto the road without a thought just as
the pickup truck turned the corner. The front wheel broke his back.
The rear wheel crushed his hips. He never even felt it.

  The crow was picking at the feline remains when the sleek
speedster whipped around the turn. The bumper caught the bird
glancingly as it rose from the corpse, snapping a wing and wrenching
its spine. The feathered body lay in the weeds along the road in the
hot sun for hours before dehydration reached its limits. The weak cries
of the bird frightened off any other predators until, at last, the
bird slipped unconscious and died.

  The dog ignored the body of her enemy on the road and picked up
the feathered remains in her mouth. She needed food while she weaned
her pups in the old culvert up the road. The sudden appearance of a car
caused her to jump out of the road and drop her burden. Several cars in
a row made her decide this meal wasn't worth the risk.

  The bodies lay on the hot asphalt in the baking sun, drying out
before the maggots could dissolve the flesh from the bones. Then, as
the evening shadows appeared, clouds rolled across the sky in a sudden
summer shower, drenching the area with torrents of rain. It fell much
too fast for the parched ground to absorb and ran off in rivers across
the landscape. The bodies of the bird and cat were carried by the
current into the ditch on the lower side of the road. Then, with the
other debris washed from the roadway, they flushed into a storm sewer,
headed for the river in the distance. But an accumulation of brush
formed a webbing across the pipe several hundred yards from the road.
The corpses were caught and held, with other debris, as the water
receded at the end of the shower. The body of a pup had joined the
macabre collection.

  An endless stream of insects and the hot summer sun combined
to turn the bodies into dried flesh hanging on the hardened remains
of the skeletons. The brittle skin, fur and feathers hung from the
mass of brush for weeks until they heard the call.

                               *  *  *

  ". . . Then I reached up under her blouse and unsnapped her bra,"
Jed Miller boasted to the crowd sitting under the porch roof. The
young men were listening to the latest in a series of tall tales about
teenage mating rituals while they passed the time on a hot Saturday
afternoon.

  "Yeh, right, Jed," answered one of his pals. "With her father in the
next room." The group laughed with little malice and even Jed smiled
at his attempt to put one past them.

  Jed looked out past the group and put his empty bottle down on the
wood deck of the store. A better target for some fun had just arrived.

  They called him Jake, but no one really knew his name. He drifted
into town on odd days, buying a few staples, then drifted back into
the hills. No one knew what he did for money, although more than a few
suspected him when the rash of break-ins hit the summer before. Nothing
had ever been proven, however.

  Children had tried to follow him back into the hills; young boys
daring each other to count coup by stealing some small item from the
cabin, young girls giggling and shaking with feigned horror at the
stories the boys told. Jake ignored them all. He seemed to disappear
once he entered the woods. No one found his cabin. No one could follow
him once he entered the woods surrounding town. He seemed to melt into
the trees.

  The last few times Jake had drifted into town, an old yellow hound
had followed behind the man. The dog moved as slowly as Jake and paid
as little attention to the people they passed.

  "Hey, Jake," Jed called out, "Stop and have a beer with us."

  The group laughed as they turned to watch the old man's reaction.
Jake ignored them as always, prompting further attempts. Each of the
young clods attempted to outdo each other with vulgar assessments of
Jake's habits. When Jake gave them no satisfaction, they turned on the
dog.

  The hound had stopped outside the store, knowing it was forbidden
entrance. It lay in an untidy heap by the doorway, ignoring the calls
and thrown rocks as its master had. Basking in the Fall sunlight, the
yellow hound lay in a bony pile, looking more dead than alive except for
the occasional deep sigh of relaxation.

  But the older rowdies had reached their limit with the old man
and his dog after weeks of taunting. This time they followed Jake as
he left the store with his packages, the dog trailing behind. Jake
never acknowledged the banter and made his way past the edge of town,
headed for the woods and safety.

  "I'll show him," Jed said as he got into his truck. He raced past
Jake and the dog, coming as close as he dared. As Jake turned off
the road and into the trees, it finally happened.

  Sam Jenkins threw a stone that hit the dog on the back, causing
him to jump to the side. Unfortunately he jumped out onto the road
just as the truck roared past on its last attempt to hit/miss Jake. The
hound bounced off the front bumper like a ball from a tree, landing in
the brush at the edge of the road without a whimper.

  Jake set his packages down on the trail as the rowdies crowded
around Jed's truck, wondering what the old man would do next. Jake
knelt down by the dog, confirming the obvious: the dog was dead. Jake
took the pile of bones and skin in his arms and stood, looking at the
crowd around the truck. He carefully looked each of them in the eyes,
memorizing the faces. He looked at Jed and Sam a long time. Then Jake
turned and walked into the woods without a word, the packages left lying
on the trail, of lesser importance than his companion. Within a minute,
he was lost in the trees.

  Some of the boys piled into the truck and headed back into town to
find another target. The rest decided to call it a day and leave
problems as they were.

                               *  *  *

  I was home, working in the yard at the time, but the story was all
over town in a few hours, the grapevine being as good as it was. I
stopped work as I saw the young boy next door try to get in without my
seeing him. When he noticed my look, he stopped and came over.

  "You don't have to say it, Sheriff," Jimmy said as he looked
carefully at the ground. "We screwed up big time."

  "You want to tell me what happened?" I asked, motioning him to the
porch and a seat.

  "We were just sitting around shooting the shit 'til Jed saw the old
man come into town. Jed's had it in for Jake for a while, I don't know
why." Jimmy recounted the happenings carefully, just like I had taught
him to report what he saw around town. Another case of a decent boy with
a poor choice of friends. "I know we owe Jake, but I don't know what to
do about it."

  "For now, just stay away from that bunch like I've told you. I
think you mother's got a fair amount of work to do around the house
that should keep you out of trouble until I can talk to Jake and work
something out."

  "Okay, Sheriff, sounds fair." Jimmy got to his feet and headed across
the yard. He stopped about half way home and turned. You could see the
tears in his eyes, trying not to come out. "I really am sorry, Sheriff."

  I waved and nodded. As I watched him walk into the house I realized
again how much he looked like me.

  The next day, I tried to find my way through the woods to Jake's
cabin, without success. However he did it, Jake was still keeping the
cabin a secret. I never could find the place on my own, only when he
took me there himself. Along about noon, a yellow hound walked out from
between two trees in front of me, watched me for a minute or two, turned
and walked off, stopping after a few steps to see if I was following.
I was.

  Within minutes, we were at the cabin. I wasted several minutes
calling Jake and knocking before I tried the door. As it swung open,
I knew the old man was gone. All that remained was a small package
sitting on the table in the middle of the cabin's single room. I walked
into the cabin and looked at the package. It had my name on it. The rest
of the cabin was empty of all furniture and possessions. It was like no
one had ever lived there.

  I opened the package carefully. Inside was a short note in Jake's
crabbed handwriting and a cloth wrapped object. The note was to the
point.

  "They killed my dog," Jake wrote. "They only care about themselves
and how much death and destruction they can cause. I've had enough."

  My hands were shaking and I had to set the package down rather than
drop it. The last line on the note, separate from the rest and almost
at the lower edge of the page, caught my eye.

  "Take care of my dog, boy."

  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Sitting in front of the cabin
was a dog that could have been the hound's offspring, and probably was.
Jake had left this animal in my care, it seemed.

  While I sat, I opened the cloth bundle in the box. Inside was a
stone knife and an old necklace made of bear claws and water polished
stones. The knife felt strangely warm while the necklace was cool. I
slipped the necklace over my head since it was too large for a pocket
and wrapped the knife in the cloth before thrusting it through my belt.
I walked outside to check on the dog.

  The yellow hound sat about fifty yard away from the cabin, waiting
for me to come to it rather than moving to meet me. As I walked over to
the dog, I noticed a burnt ring on the ground, with a coffin sized pile
of ashes in the center of the ring. Somehow, I knew what it was.

  "Oh, Jake, what have you done," I said to myself.

                               *  *  *

  Jed Miller was a good mechanic. He could fix any car, usually
without going any further for parts than the junkyard at the edge of
town. People in town knew he would go into partnership with his father
as soon as he managed to get through high school.

  But Jed had trouble keeping his mind on school. When he wasn't
working on a car in the shop, he could usually be found with his
buddies, sneaking beers behind the wrecks on the far side of the
junkyard. They'd cut classes and slip off in the middle of the day to
sit among the shattered bodies, dreaming of what they could do with a
"real set of wheels". They sat behind the wheels of pickup trucks and
battered sedans and dreamed of Ferraris and BMWs, talking about the
dull people in town and whatever movie starlets had captured their
attention this week, drinking beer from the can like it was fine wine.

  Today, Jed was working by himself since he really was working and
his buddies knew if they stayed around they'd be drafted for manual
labor. Jed had a can of beer poised on the fender of the beat-up Chevy
as he worked with the wrench to take out the carburetor. The car in the
shop didn't need the whole carb but it was easier to scavenge for parts
than repair the old one. Jed had been working on the junker for an hour
and was getting hot in the afternoon sun. He stopped to take a pull on
the beer before taking hold of the wrench for a solid tug. The wrench
slipped and Jed slammed his knuckles against the firewall.

  "Goddamn, sonuvabitch, piece of shit," Jed yelled at the top of
his lungs. The knuckles were skinned and hurt worse than they were
damaged but Jed colored the air anyway. As he took a semi-clean rag 
from his back pocket to wipe his hand he noticed the dog.

  The yellow hound sat watching Jed intently.

  "What are you looking at?" Jed yelled at the dog, without
effect. The hound just sat watching the young man. Jed picked up a
rock from the ground. He pulled his arm back to throw but turned
suddenly as he heard something close behind him. The eight point buck
caught Jed squarely on its rack, skewering most of the vital organs but
missing the heart. Jed screamed as the stag lifted him off the ground
with unnatural strength. He didn't notice the broken ribs sticking from
the deer's side.

  In fact he only noticed the hound sitting calmly, watching, as
the stag dropped its screaming bundle onto the hood of a nearby junker,
neatly sliding Jed onto the broken antenna. Jed spasmed twice as the
metal spike punctured his heart and slid out the front of his chest. As
his arms flung wide on the hood, the antenna snapped at the base and the
boy slid off the fender to end propped by the side of the vehicle. The
antenna pulsed with the last contractions of his heart until a stream of
blood poured from the end of the tube, draining the last life from the
body.

  The stag looked over to the hound. Slowly, with a measured step,
the yellow hound walked over to the crumpled form. The stag watched
the hound as it urinated over the corpse. Then, as the hound turned
and walked away, the stag nodded in an almost human gesture and
collapsed in a pile of dried bones and rotting skin next to the bloody
pile that had been Jed.

                               *  *  *

  "Geronimo!" came the loud cry, followed by an even greater splash.

  The bank of the river was level at this point but decades of wear
had dropped the water to several feet below the edge of the bank. That
made the drop from the rope swing respectable enough to raise a splash
ten or twelve feet into the air. The group had been swimming since they
ducked out of school at noon and now there was only an occasional splash
followed by some serious beer guzzling. Four single-minded poker players
sat off to one side on an old blanket. The remaining two took turns
drinking from a quart bottle and swinging out into the water.

  The crew was intent on their fun and never noticed the movement
in the high grass surrounding the trampled earth of the swimming area.
The youngest member of the group had just launched into the water when
the yellow hound walked out of the brush and sat facing the group on the
blanket. The hound sat waiting until one of the poker players looked up
and noticed him.

  With a howl that snapped heads around, the hound signaled the attack.
Out of the high grass came a horde of animals: raccoons, possums, cats,
dogs, even a bobcat. They made straight for the drunken swimmer and the
poker players and rolled over them like a wave. The swimmer in the river
was trying to dodge a crow and two smaller blackbirds that had already
torn a flap of skin loose on his head. He stayed under water as long as
he could, but every time he surfaced the birds attacked until the crow
locked its claws in the boy's eyes and forced the screaming head under
water to drown him.

  The poker players found the blanket under their feet shredded by
dozens of snakes that ripped through the covering and fastened fangs
and teeth into arms and legs. Black snakes wrapped around necks and
squeezed with uncharacteristic strength, strangling the four before
rattlesnake poison could take effect.

  The other swimmer struggled to his feet only to be knocked down by
barn cats that flew into his face and ripped eyes and flesh like some
demonic shredder. Once on the ground, he was attacked by other beasts,
ganging together to leave nothing but a bloody puddle in the dirt.

  When the screams stopped and the only sounds left were the buzzing
of flies come to attend the unexpected feast, the animals all faced the
yellow hound. The hound nodded its head and turned to walk into the
woods as the attackers collapsed into piles of broken bones and rotting
skin. The call had been answered. Their work was done.

  The hound's was not.

                               *  *  *

  I had started back home immediately. The hound followed for a
while, but soon ran off into the woods, ignoring my calls. I felt sure
he would turn up at my house later that night. He seemed to know exactly
what he was doing.

  I stopped off at the office on my way through town and heard about
the carnage at the river from my deputy. The poor man was almost
hysterical. I could understand why: he had found the remains and one
of them had been his own boy. He kept shouting that he was going to get
the SOB who did that to his son. I left him in the care of his wife and
went on home. The reports on this one could wait for morning and a
better inspection of the site.

  As I walked into my yard, I saw the young hound lying beside my
porch, staring at the young man next door as he worked. The dog knew
the way home better than I did, it seemed. I set the knife and the
necklace on the kitchen table as I went by and took out a pan of water
for the dog, going back inside to look for something to feed him.

  I set a plate of two day old meatloaf in front of the dog and sat
on the steps to look him over. The hound sniffed the plate and the
water and trotted over to me, lying down on the step by my feet. I
reached over and scratched him behind the ears then got up and went into
the house. I paused at the sink to rinse off my hands and get a glass of
cold water. As I soaped my hands, the faint odor of burnt fur rose from
the water. I shrugged. The dog must have found a burn off up in the hills
and rolled in the ashes. I tried not to think of the obvious source.

  I sat down at the table and looked at the gifts from Jake in
the bright light of the fluorescents. The knife was some type of dark
stone, like obsidian but a different color. Holding the knife up to the
light, I could see a faint reddish tinge to the stone. It was nothing
native to this area, I was sure. The necklace was more understandable.
The claws were clearly bear claws and the stones were a collection of
water-washed quartz, jasper, granite and one piece that could have been
part of an old soda bottle. The stones had been set into carved settings
of wood or bone and strung on leather thongs. It could have been Indian
work, but something about the entire piece bothered me when I considered
that. I knew a bit about Indians of the area from talking to Jake and
from reading on my own. I was no expert but I knew more than most people.
Besides, Indians didn't use soda bottles for necklace decorations. This
piece was made for a purpose, I felt.

  I checked on the dog and then went to call the state police. I
wanted to know what was going on in town and they owed me a few favors.
This was more than just rabid animals.

                               *  *  *

  "Looks like he was lifted and dumped onto the car," I commented as
the county coroner finished his exam. The dents in the fender showed
fibers from Jed's pants caught in the rust.

  "Looks like it. The antennae went right through the heart like he
came straight down on it. It's those other punctures that bother me
more." The coroner pointed to the pattern of the holes in Jed's chest
as he lay slumped against the fender. "If I didn't know better, I'd
swear they matched the pattern of that rack." He gestured at the
skeleton of the deer laying to the side and I felt a shiver, again.

  When Dave Miller had called and said he found his son that
morning in the junkyard, I was worried. When the coroner put the
tentative time of death as prior to the events at the river, which he
had also examined, I was even more worried. I walked over and examined
the stag. I had seen enough dead deer in the woods to judge this one
dead for several months. The broken ribs sticking through the remains
of the skin seemed to show it had been hit by something before it died.
The bones had been broken while the animal was alive, not after the
fact. I checked to be sure the photographer had gotten pictures of the
corpse and picked up the skull, antlers attached. As I looked closer, I
got my answer. There was blood on the tines. I carried the rack over to
the body. Without touching the chest, I held the tines in position.
They matched.

  "Oh, shit," the coroner said. "How do you figure this one?"

  I turned to the man carefully. "You keep this to yourself," I said,
eye to eye. "We don't need a lot of wild tales floating around."

  "Sure, sheriff, no problem" he answered as he carefully packed
his kit to leave. "Nobody'd believe me anyway." He placed the skull
and rack in a big specimen bag and put it in the wagon for evidence,
such as it was.

  Now all I needed was a suspect. And I was pretty sure who that was.

  I was also sure he was dead.

  Jimmy was home, working on the flower bed around the porch while
his mother supervised when I arrived. I nodded to his mother, careful
to observe the small town propriety for a married woman with her husband
out of town.

  "Morning, Debbie, Jim," I said as I took off my hat and wiped the
sweatband. Looking at Jimmy digging away without a shirt to soak up
the sweat running down his back made me even hotter.

  "Morning, Al. Can I get you anything?" Debbie asked, as she dusted
off her hands from the potting soil. "Lemonade?"

  "Thanks, yes. And I need to talk to Jimmy for a bit." She nodded
and went in the house.

  "You heard about the river yesterday?" I asked Jimmy, as he leaned
on his shovel. He nodded. "Well, his father found Jed Miller in the
junkyard this morning skewered by a dead deer."

  "Beg pardon, Sheriff?"

  "You heard right. What I need to know from you is who all was in
that group that went after Jake the other day."

  Jimmy looked a bit sick as the thought sunk in.

  "Jed was driving. Then there was Bill Harvey, Jack Stoner,
Dave Harris, Harry Keller, Dan Davis, Sam Jenkins and Bob Smith." I
counted them off: all the boys at the river except for Sam. And Jimmy,
of course.

  "Anyone else?"

  "No, there were one or two others earlier but they had left before
Jake showed up."

  I stood up as his mother came out with a glass of lemonade. "Okay,
here's the deal: you stay around the house with your mother until I get
back. I don't want you alone at any time. I'm going for Sam and then I'm
going to figure out some way to keep you two safe." I drank the lemonade
without pause. "Thanks, Deb. Keep an eye on the boy and stay near the
house."

  "Sure, Al." Her fingers moved across mine as she took the glass.
"Thanks for watching out for Jimmy."

  I stopped in the house for the necklace and knife. Jake never did
anything without a reason and I had a hunch his present had something
to do with what was going on. I put the necklace under my shirt and
stuck the knife in my belt. The knife was uncomfortable as I sat in the
car, but I wasn't going to take any chances at this point. I drove out
of town, headed for the Jenkins place on the ridge and hoped I was in
time.

  I pulled into the yard at the Jenkins place, in between the rusting
washing machine and the old jeep carcass. I walked up to the door
carefully. There was a silence in the air that I didn't like. The door
swung open just before I reached it, outlining Sam in the doorway.

  "What do you want, Sheriff," he asked, followed by a loud belch.

  "I want you to come into town with me so I can try to protect you,"
I answered as I moved to the door. It was still too quiet for this
time of day in the woods.

  "Don't worry about me, Sheriff," Sam replied, as he reached down
next to the door. There was a pump 12-gauge in his hand when he swayed
upright again. "I can take care of myself."

  "Where's your folks, Sam" I asked, as I looked around the open room
that was the first floor of the home.

  "Gone for the weekend, or the week or something like that," he
answered, not caring much about the situation. "Come on in and have a
beer and sit a while." He reeled back to a chair in front of the empty
fireplace with a battery powered radio in pieces next to it. It had not
been a good day so far, apparently. Sam propped the shotgun against the
chair as he reached for his beer. That's when it hit.

  The back door of the building crashed in, taking the door and sash
to the floor. Sam fell as he tried to grab for the gun, then froze as
he saw what was in the doorway.

  We didn't have all that many bear in the area but every once in a
while one trotted into town to raid garbage cans and I had to go track
it for relocation. The bear that had been hit on the highway was an
occasion everyone knew about. I had trailed it for three days to be
sure it didn't turn rogue. I buried what remained after it bounced off
that semi, fifteen miles from where it had been hit. Now I could see
where pieces of parking light had been driven into the flesh and strips
of chrome from the grill had wedged between the ribs. There was even a
chunk of mud flap hanging from the splintered scapula.

  I drew with a speed Buffalo Bill would have envied and emptied a
clip into the bear's chest as I moved across the room and grabbed Sam.
He had sobered enough to grab his gun and start pumping rounds into
the beast at point blank. I could see chunks of dried flesh being
blasted away from the corpse but it still kept walking forward, on two
legs since the right foreleg was mangled by the truck. As I reached
Sam and reloaded by the numbers, the bear stopped it's advance. Sam
stayed behind me as the macabre invader moved to circle me and reach
the boy. I fired at it's legs to try and slow it down but the only
result was a louder roar from the damaged throat.

  As we swung around with our backs to the ruined door, I pushed Sam
out, following close as the bear matched our moves, still keeping away
from me as it tried to reach Sam. The boy stumbled out the door and
moved to the left, toward the corner of the house. I moved to keep the
bear inside, aware of something deterring it's advance but not sure
what. I kept firing at it's legs without effect as I stood in the
doorway, watching Sam reach the corner of the building. That was when
I hit the end of the clip.

  It happened all at once. I ejected the spent clip one-handed as
I pulled my last one from my pocket. As I slipped the clip home and
released the slide, the bear turned from me to the wall of the
building and crashed through into the sunlight. I had a quick glimpse
of Sam's face, a mask of fear, then the huge corpse landed on him like
a falling boulder. I knew it was too close to fire with Sam underneath,
but some reflex made me reach for the knife in my belt. The cloth fell
away as I swung the stone blade hard into the neck of the bear.

  The corpse fell apart as the knife pierced the leather flesh,
bones falling from their joints and the entire skeleton collapsing on
itself. I dropped the knife and pulled the section of wall off the boy,
hoping for the best. But Sam was dead, crushed by the weight of the wall
and a corpse that walked on it's own.

  As I stood looking down on the remains, something caught the corner
of my eye. I looked up and saw the yellow hound sitting at the edge of
the clearing, watching me. Then it turned and started down the hillside,
toward town. I knew where it was headed.

  I made it back down that dirt road in a new record that cost me
a set of shocks and probably an oil pan. As I pulled up in front of
Jimmy's house I saw something that almost stopped me cold. Sitting on
the end of the sidewalk was the yellow hound, calmly watching the
house. In the yard around the building, front and sides and probably
the back for all I knew, was a crowd of dead animals. They had to be
dead, considering the broken limbs, crushed chests and gaping wounds
that were evident. As I got out of the car, the animals closest to me
moved away. I walked up to the front door of the house, animals moving
from my path, and saw Jimmy and his mother watching through the curtains.
I turned and faced the crowd. People on the street were staring through
their windows but no one moved to help us out. I guess they figured the
sheriff could handle whatever was going on.

  "This is the end, Jake," I said to the hound. "It stops here."

  The yellow beast moved closer to the porch, it's regal steps
parting the army of roadkills like a wave. It stopped at the bottom
of the steps and sat watching me closely.

  "You had a right to be angry," I told the dog. "But that doesn't
give you the right to hand out your own justice."

  The hound snuffed and motioned to the door with it's snout.

  "Come out here, Jimmy," I called through the door.

  "Are you crazy?" I heard echo behind the door as Debbie tried to
stop the boy from coming out. But I think Jimmy understood. He opened
the door and stepped onto the porch, setting the baseball bat down on
the deck. The crowd moved closer.

  "No, Jake," I said. "Keep them back. You've got to hear him out."
I reached down and pulled the necklace over my head, dropping it over
Jimmy's. The hound gave me a stare that was just like Jake, like when
you made a good move in a chess game against him. "Tell him, Jimmy.
Tell him what you told me."

  "I'm sorry, Jake. Really, I am. I know we shouldn't have tried to
hurt the dog. I'm just a dumb kid who screws up sometimes and I'd do
most anything to make it up to you, but you got to leave my mom alone.
And Sheriff Al, too. He was your friend, is your friend. You want
something from me you got it, but leave them alone."

  I looked down at the dog. The hound looked carefully from the boy
to me and back.

  "He's a good boy, Jake. A little stupid sometimes, but he gets that
from his Pa. I can't let you hurt him, just for one mistake. I can't
let you hurt my son."

  I don't know whose look bothered me more: Jake's or Jimmy's. But
I moved in front of the boy and started down the steps to the hound.
Jake turned and looked out across the yard at his army. The he turned
back and without warning jumped for my throat. The weight of the body
pushed me back on the steps and I twisted to try to get out from under
as we landed. My hands had gone for the dog's neck in an old reflex and
I didn't even realize I had the knife in my hand until I saw it sticking
out of the hound's throat.

  In the yard around the house, the animals collapsed into piles of
bones and skin.

  The next day, Jimmy and I took the hound up to Jake's cabin and built
a pyre on the same spot Jake had used. It seemed appropriate.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Jack Hillman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack is a freelance writer, who has been published in BLOODREAMS,
ONCE UPON A WORLD, and GATEWAYS. He writes a bimonthly SF/F column
published in THE MAGAZINE of SHAREFICTION, and his book reviews
appear in POPULAR FICTION NEWS. As a contributing editor to ON THE
RISK, he keeps track of "life".
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