"We live in a pestilent world, Dutch," Rader had muttered without provocation as the two policemen sped down County Road 19.  The cop car rolled past stone fences, burnt hayfields, old skeletal windmills decimated by rust.  Kent "Dutch" Peterson, who up until then had been counting fence posts in a state of happy obliviousness, looked up.  Rader paid his partner no notice, so Dutch did not give him a response; he doubted if one had been expected.  Gradually, he turned his attention back to the dry Kansas countryside that was whizzing by at 75 miles an hour.  The road they were traveling on was rugged and patchy and in a perennial state of disrepair.  Its surface was dotted with raised pancakes of newer asphalt and sunken divots that jarred the car each time it cruised over them.  The road snaked its way through small towns and rural land, offering passage onto arteries even less conditioned than it.  It was onto one of these narrow side roads, Dearborne Road, that the lumbering beige cruiser turned and continued its journey.  Under an oppressive mid-day sun, through sweltering heat that distorted the air in front of them, they rode, but slower now as they kept their eyes on alert.  They were looking for #1404, a lane way that they had been assured would be marked by a battered silver mailbox.  The mailbox would have the name 'Eldridge' crudely stenciled to the side in red paint.  Dutch adjusted the thermometer in the car in a futile attempt to cool himself -- the air conditioning had seemingly dipped to its nadir.  He slumped dejectedly.  Rader's dark eyes, hidden beneath his sunglasses, were focused and intense and his lips were pressed together tightly, rendering them almost unnoticeable. 

We live in a pestilent world, Dutch.

If the scene they were going to investigate was anything like it was supposed to be, then yes, they certainly did.

There had been a frantic, almost indecipherable call phoned in to the station.  Neither Dutch nor Rader had actually taken it, but the mad urgency in the man’s voice had been conveyed to them vividly enough.  Nutcases, Rader had confided to Dutch when they started out.  Loonies.  A dime a dozen.  Rader hadn’t bought the man’s story.  Neither had Dutch, for that matter.  Who would?  It was a doozy.  But that didn’t mean that things at the Eldridge farm weren’t horribly wrong.  The man who had called identified himself as Joseph Eldridge; the purpose of his call had been to report the death of his younger brother, Sammy.  The circumstances, if they were to be believed (it was a big if) were curious...and grisly.  According to the man, who had stammered his story out in choking machine-gun bursts, Sam Eldridge had been the victim of a premeditated homicide.  That was bad, sure, but it murder in and of itself was no stranger to them.  But the lines became blurry after that.  If Joe Eldridge was to be believed, then this murder was much more bizarre than any other they had investigated.  According to Eldridge, his brother Sammy had been killed by their pig, Clive.  On purpose.

Loonies, Dutchie, Rader had said, whistling and moving his index finger in a circular motion beside his temple.  Crazier than a pack of rats that have lived beneath the shithouse for too long.  Where do these people come from?

Once again, Dutch had no response, other than a shrug.

He looked at his watch.  It was twelve-fifteen.  Ideally, they would have been sitting down to their lunch right now (their boss Ray Cole had waved his ham sandwich at them mockingly as they’d left -- Ham, boys, ham sandwich.  Ya want to bring it with you?).  Instead, they were off to some rundown backwoods slum to either verify or debunk a lunatic’s story, and proceed from there.  After they got a chance to assess the scene, they would notify the county coroner.  Dutch, who had gotten most of the cellophane wrapping off his sandwich when the call had come through, was sensing that the scene awaiting them would have an adverse affect on his ability to eat when he got back.

Ham sandwich, Cole had giggled.  Ham might be the last thing you boys wanna see after today.  Here, take a knife and fork with ya.  The crowd behind him had burst out laughing and so Dutch grinned and flipped them the bird automatically.

"I see it," he announced.  Rader nodded and applied the brakes.  A large silver mailbox beckoned, glistening in the sunlight.  'ELDRIDGE' had been painted in block letters.

Dutch mused on how the 19 provided a vivid and accurate depiction of the various rungs on the social ladder in Dale County, Kansas.  It was funny how the standard of living could degenerate so precipitously.  When they had begun their journey, they had driven past large upper-middle class homes and quaint brick bungalows with nice cars in the driveways.  In the countryside, sprawling and prosperous farms.  By the time they'd turned off onto Dearborne Rd., however, the standard of living had plummeted.  Small rundown farm homes and trailers dotted the landscape, front lawns were littered with debris, and old silos stood in awkward isolation, deposited seemingly at random.  The traffic had gradually decreased --Dutch realized that they hadn't met a single vehicle on Dearborne.

They crept up a long unpaved lane that wormed between a towering cornfield and a parched hayfield.  Dutch could see the roof of a house up ahead, partially obscured by a monolithic oak.  To its right, he could see what he assumed was the roof of a barn.  Sun splashed off of its tin surface in blinding bursts; the rusty weather vane atop it seemed to be standing in a field of light.  Dust billowed up around them as they drove, like souls rising forlornly from the plains of battle, and Dutch covered his mouth.  When at last they rolled around the final curve and into the front yard of #1404 Dearborne Rd., Rader shifted the vehicle into park, and shut it off.  The officers glanced at one another ominously.

“It’s going to be an interesting afternoon,” Dutch muttered, surveying his surroundings.  “I think I can say that with some degree of certainty, don’t you?”

Rader grinned but said nothing.  He folded his sunglasses and hung them on his breast pocket.  They stepped out of their cruiser together, doors slamming shut in unison.  The heat was intense and suffocating; the early afternoon sun beat down on them, unobstructed.  Stay indoors, the weather people were warning.  Particularly if you have a respiratory related illness.  Drink lots of fluids.  Their cream-colored officer’s uniforms shimmered in the sunlight, contrasting starkly with the green fields of corn and hay that surrounded them on three sides.  Dark stains of sweat already soiled Dutch’s cotton shirt, running down his back and soaking his armpits and chest.  He hooked his thumbs in his pants, and looked around.  He whistled. 

A time-ravaged farmhouse loomed ahead of them.  Murky windows stared out dumbly from it like cataracts.  The tin roof was rusted a burnt orange color (some of the shingles were loose; they clapped against the plywood beneath) and all around the old house common weeds sprang up.  Its weather-blasted surface was a ghastly faded grey, like a wasp’s nest.  It was book-ended by a deteriorating barn (the one whose roof they had seen from the road) and an old tin shed. 

“We’re on an island,” Dutch remarked, and it was true, though he noted that rusted farm implements and old machinery on wooden blocks stood in for coconut trees and treasure chests.  They were a sorry substitute at best.

Rader grunted.  “We are, Dutchie.  That we are. And there’s our castaway.”  He nodded towards the house.  An elderly man rocked back and forth on the porch, wild-eyed.  He complimented the tattered appearance of the place perfectly, looking as much a part of it as the splintered window frames or the loose tin shingles or the sun-bleached ironweed and ragweed populations.  The man’s silver hair sprung out abstractly, like busted bedsprings, and his chin and jaw-line were covered with days-old salt and pepper growth.  Tanned skin hung from his face like well-worn leather, a victim of age and the elements, and he continuously and intensely clasped and unclasped his hands.  One corner of his mouth went tick..tick..tick; drool dribbled out.  He barely raised his head to acknowledge the presence of the policemen.  Instead, he kept his gaze trained alternately on them and the tin shed off to his left, and the officer’s right.  Dutch and Rader turned to regard the shed as well, taking mental notes, as good cops will.

“That’s where he said his brother is,” Dutch whispered, and Rader did not reply.  “I can just imagine how hot it is in there.  That’s a tin roof, and I think all the siding is tin, as well.”

If there’s a body in there then its swollen up like a tire tube.  In heat like this.  That passed between them unspoken.

Rader nodded, lips pursed, and they strode forward confidently.  He waved his hand in salute as they approached the old man

“Awful hot one, eh, old friend?” he asked, with little cheer, breaking the silence.  “A guy on the radio says this is the hottest June 28^th we’ve had in Kansas since 1974.”  He shook his head.  “You believe that?”

The old man mumbled something indecipherable.  Rader, undeterred, continued.

“Are you Joe Eldridge?” he asked, more a statement than a question.

The old man lifted his head, muttered, “Ayup.”  The word was not so much spoken as it just plopped out of his mouth, as if some invisible force had pushed it past the barrier of his lips like a man forcing a stolen car over the edge of a quarry.  He turned to glance at the shed again.  His right eye spasmed open and closed.  Don Rader glanced at his partner and made a quizzical face, shaking his head in disbelief.               

“Then you’re the one who called our station a short while ago.”  Rader put his hands on his hips (a subtly defiant pose) and rocked back, his best ‘Don’t forget who’s in charge’ look.  Eldridge seemed neither impressed nor offended.

“Yes, I am.”

“Good.  Then my name is Officer Rader, and this gentleman beside me is Officer Peterson.  Joe, do you mind if we have a seat?  I think we’ve lots to discuss.”

Eldridge replied that no, he didn’t mind at all, and so the men joined him on the porch.  He gestured to a row of old lawn chairs; Dutch and Rader regarded the flimsy chairs with apprehension.  Cautiously, they sat down. 

Dutch pulled out a lined yellow pad and a pen.  This is a disaster area.  This place should be condemned, he thought.  His initial scan of the surroundings had failed to impress upon him exactly how decrepit the surroundings were.  Paint that had faded to a dull lemon yellow lay cracked and peeling on the front door, the front steps and the porch boards were rotted right through in places (a Scottish thistle probed from one of these holes like a periscope breaking the surface of the ocean), all the windows seemed to have been shattered.  An old rolled-up rug lay morosely against the outer wall, rotten and moldy.  Dutch puckered his lips when he saw a long leathery tail disappear into it.  You got rats Joe, he thought.  Rats.  And bats.  In the belfry.  He tilted his head back and detected a sour odor.  The scent made him pucker his lips in disgust.  It was just prominent enough to make its presence felt but not strong enough to be unbearable; when Dutch was four, his grandfather had a gangrenous foot and this scent reminded him of that.  Dutch wondered if there might have been a dead bird or a dead rat beneath the porch baking in the heat and losing its smell to the atmosphere as it decomposed.  Glade Plug-In for Jeffrey Dahmer, he thought.  If there was something down there, Dutch doubted that the old man could smell it.  It was as if his mind was a bunker and someone had tossed a grenade in.  Boom.  Flashpoint.  Bring the National Guard in with their spaceman suits to sift through the smoking remains, searching for any signs of life.  Dutch watched him with a mixture of sympathy and revulsion.  The man’s face seemed to be moving beneath the surface of his skin.  He couldn’t remember having ever seen an expression of such dread on another human beings face (although he admitted it was not typical of him to store such information).  He saw that there was more than simply dread in the old mans features, and it disturbed him.  Fear, definitely, and fatigue (he looked like he hadn’t slept for two days) but worse, when he looked in the man’s eyes, something that should have been there was missing, hidden, or gone for good, as if there had been a short in the man’s cerebral network.  Dutch half expected to see wisps of smoke trailing from his ears.  Maybe he’s insane, he surmised and then he chided himself.  Maybe?  His mouth kept jerking spasmodically, and his right eye was blinking at uneven intervals.  Dutch wondered if he would even be able to string together a coherent sentence.

Did Rader sense any of these misgivings?  Probably not.

“That was a hell of a yarn we heard on the phone this morning,” Rader said.  He shook his head and laughed.  “You say that your brother was murdered?  By a pig?  C’mon Joe, we’re grown men, here.  We know a fish story when we hear one.  You must know that.”

The old man stared into Rader’s eyes, and to his credit his gaze never wavered, but he did not respond.  Dutch, who had been partnered with Don Rader on the force for years, saw a familiar expression creep subtly into his face, one easily missed by someone unaccustomed to working with him.  It was smarmy, arrogant, and distrustful and it straddled the line that crossed over into the land of Pissed Off.  I don’t really believe what you’re telling me, it said, so make me believe you.  “Let’s hear your story then,” he added wearily.

Joe Eldridge spoke.  His voice was steady.

“Yes, we’re grown men aren’t we now?” He chuckled.  “So of course we know it ain’t possible, a pig murderin’ a man, now ain’t it?  It just ain’t possible, so it couldn’ta happened, now, could it?”  He spat the words out, and the sarcasm inherent in them was not lost on Don Rader.  His eyes narrowed into knife edges at the old man, who seemed to care little.

“My brother Sammy was a drunk,” he added before Rader could offer a rebuttal, and he paused to take a deep breath.  He flinched nervously in his chair; it was as if he expected God to hurtle some cosmic debris at him for debasing his brother.  “He was bitter about everything in his life, everything around him, everything about him.  He brooded constantly about everything he didn’t have, and was never gonna have.  That was the root of his problem, really, but it was compounded by the fact that he didn’t know about nothin’ else.  He couldn’t have done any more with his life no matter how hard he worked or how determined he was (which, mind you, wasn’t very) because he simply didn’t know nothin’ else but here.”  He swept his hand in a half-circle.  He spoke clearly and deliberately, belying Dutch and Raders expectations.  Dutch smiled a little, surprising himself in the process.  It was kind of nice when people exceeded your expectations, as opposed to the other way around.  “Everything you see here was everything Sammy knew.  But of course, the main thing he knew about it was that he didn’t want it.  He wanted something more from life, and tried to convince himself that he could drag himself out of the mud, but I think there was a small part of his brain, buried deep in the back of his skull somewhere, that knew the real truth.  And when it spoke it drove him into a deep depression.  You see, he couldn’t go to college, ‘cause he never went to high school.  He didn’t go to high school cause he had to work to keep the farm going, but at its peak this farm was like a dying man attached to a respirator with tubes runnin’ in-n-outta his nose.”  He sighed wearily.  “So how do you better your lot in life, when you don’t know what else is out there, and even if you do, it’s just beyond your grasp, like trying to remember something you saw in a dream?  Huh?  How do you do it?  Well, I sure don’t think you can.  Life is a lot like quicksand in that regard.  Life around here, anyway."

Rader didn’t move -- his eyes were fixed firmly and unyieldingly on old Joe Eldridge, like a spider watching a fly struggle in a web -- but Dutch nodded.  There are some large ruts in the road of life, all right, and you sure don’t want to get your wheels caught in any of them, he thought.  Because without a little bit of luck to push you out, you could be spinning in place for a long time.  He couldn’t imagine the life these men had to contend with every day of their lives, although as a police officer he was privy to enough examples of like situations.  It was sad.  But, as the French were fond of saying, C’est la vie.    

Eldridge continued.  “I was taught to work hard, and believe in God, because he doesn’t care how much money you got or what your title is.  And when your card turns up, and He decides to stick, well then all the things you never had down here become inconsequential.  That’s what I was taught.  Ayup.  But Sammy, well, he didn’t see it like that.  I guess he just got hardened by everything.  So he turned to the bottle.  Of course, that only made things worse.”  Dutch nodded and thought, There’s a tale that’s being played out in taverns across America even as we speak.  Without the man-eating pig, of course. 

Eldridge went on.  “The more he drank, and screwed his life up, making it even harder on himself, the more his bitterness grew.  And that just led him to hit the bottle harder.  Like a snake eating its tail.”

Dutch and Rader nodded somberly, and urged him to continue.  Dutch scribbled key parts of the conversation in point form.

“The two of us have lived our entire lives here, working the land.  But as anyone in a situation similar to ours would know, you just seem to keep working harder and harder, but making less and less.”  He stopped and looked to the officers for reassurance, and they nodded as if they understood exactly what he was talking about.  Of course they didn’t, even if some socially responsible part of them wanted to think they did; they were financially comfortable and gainfully employed, and had been for their entire adult lives.  Both had also come from respected, upper-middle class families. 

Eldridge’s old eyes sparkled with a lunatic gleam, and a stream of drool descended softly from the curled rictus of his lower lip.  The shadows had slowly shifted, causing a burning slant of sunlight to strike Dutch’s neck.   As casually as he could, he shifted away from it.  Rader sat intently, chin resting on his knuckle.

“We used to have livestock here, but we couldn’t support that anymore a’neither.  Used to have beef cattle and chicken, goats and sheep too, for a couple of years at different times.  Mostly as a hobby, I guess.  Or a maybe for peace of mind or pride, something to convince us that we were doing our part to keep the wheels of society greased.  Yeah.  I guess that’s a more reasonable explanation.  We had pigs, too.  Now the only animal we own,” and he craned his head towards the shed and nodded, “is in there.  That pig shed.”

Dutch and Rader turned to each other, and their thoughts were identical.  Here it comes.  Man the doors, batten the hatches.  Ray Cole appeared in Dutch’s mind like a viper, grinning madly and waving his ham sandwich around.

“We sold all the beef, just trying to keep our heads above water, sold the chickens, and sold the pigs.  But we kept Clive.  Just as a hobby, really.  I don’t care who you are, or what you do for a living -- a man’s gotta have a hobby of some sort or another.  You’ll never convince me otherwise.  Besides, it doesn’t cost much to keep one pig.”

He shook his head sadly, and cleared his throat.  His fingers were pressed together, mimicking a steeple.  Dutch wondered, what was he thinking?  What was going through his tired old mind at that instant?  It doesn’t cost much to keep one pig, he had just said.

Not much, no.  A couple of bucks here for feed, a couple of bucks there for upkeep, an hour or two a day in time spent.  And oh a human sacrifice every couple of years or so.  You know...just to keep the wheels of society- Eldridge family society- well greased. 

“But Sammy hated the goddamn thing,” he continued.  “Every time he went in to feed it, round nine-thirty or ten in the morning, he’d give her two or three good licks, just out of spite.  He was always drunk anyways, and he’d usually miss and one leg’d go high up into the air, and he’d fall on his ass.”  He laughed, an unpleasant sound.  “And that’d just make him madder.  I’d watch from the doorway sometimes, and it got to be that the pig’d just stay balled up in the corner, waiting for him to leave.  After Sammy’d left, I’d stay behind outta sight, in the little hallway which separates the pig stall from the outside, and damned if that pig wouldn’t wait a good fifteen to twenty minutes before going over to his trough, no matter how hungry it was.  Fifteen, twenty minutes!  It was that scared of Sammy!  And he’d be in the house, sprawled out on the floor with booze runnin’ on him, sprawled out, laughing to himself until he passed out.” 

Dutch cringed.  Was he really expecting to eat something when they got back to the station?  His appetite was deserting him by the second.

“He’d wake up round five and then he might wander down to the bar, which is two and a half miles northwest up the 19, and the walk would help his hangover, almost clear it our completely, but not quite.  He’d be there ‘till he passed out or ran out of money or got into a fight and they kicked him out, all three on a good night, and then sometimes Terry Coleman’d drop him off at the end of the laneway, or sometimes he’d just use that inner homing signal that all drunks seem to possess and I’d find him out cold on the front porch when I came out in the morning.  Funny, he could make it that far, I don’t know why he couldn’t go thirty more paces and end up in his bed.”

Dutch glanced over at Rader, whose face was stone-like in its calmness.  But Dutch had worked with him for years and knew his tendencies, and he understood that right about now his partner was starting to lose his tenuous hold on his patience.  Story time is fine and dandy, he would be thinking.  But get to the point.  And soon.

“Quite the life, all right,” Rader agreed.  There was a steely edge to his voice.  “Keep goin’, Joe.”

"But sometimes he’d just sit out here on the porch, watchin’ the fields and the crops, watchin’ the road, smelling the air.  It smelled so fresh out here, so clean -- air like that could purge a man’s soul.   Anyways, he’d sit out the porch, always with a bottle in his hand of course, and he’d usually pass out in his chair.”

Rader tilted his head back, and wrinkled his nose.  He cocked an eyebrow at Eldridge.

“It doesn’t smell fresh now.  What do you think, Dutch?  Do you smell that?” he asked.

“Yes.  I do.”  

“That smell’s been in the air for a while now,” Eldridge told them.  “Things have been weird for a while now.  And not just the smell in the air.  Other things, too.

"It got to the point where I think that pig’s fear of my brother had grown so much, and gotten so strong, that it crossed some invisible boundary and turned into anger.  Something like drinkin’ yourself sober.  And somethin’ changed in there too, inside the pig barn.  You could feel it.  Sammy’d always used to joke that bein’ inside there was like walkin’ around on Mars.  He’d said that because the way the sunlight gets filtered through the one small window in there, and with all the slop and fly dirt that’s in there anyway, everything seems to be covered in a reddish-brown tint.  We used to think that was kinda neat, and it was an inside joke between the two of us, but it became creepy.  And gradually, it came to feel like you weren’t on Mars, but maybe in some cavern in the bowels of hell, or something like that.  It was as if that pig’s anger and misery had become a stain that washed over everything in there, painting it.  And maybe all a Sammy’s anger and misery, too, for that matter.  You could really feel it when you went in there, somethin’ you sure didn’t want to breathe in, kinda heavy, but kinda soft too, at the same time- almost not there -- but, Dear Christ, you could only wish that it wasn’t there.  You could only wish that it wasn’t there.”

Eldridge’s hands began to violently shake.  Dutch reached over and gripped his forearm to steady him.  The time seemed right for some words of reassurance, Don Rader and his impatience be damned.

“Take your time, Joe, if you feel like you have to.  The important thing is to get this out, not the length of time it’ll take you to do so,” he suggested calmly.  Rader turned to him, bemused.  Dutch winked at him, Fuck  you, Joe Boo, and Rader rolled his eyes melodramatically.

“We’ve got all afternoon,” he added.

“I’m okay,” Eldridge replied, though clearly he was not.  Dutch snuck a quick glance over at the pig shed, which sat stupidly under the burning sun, poking out of the dusty earth like a rotten tooth. 

What surprises are you holdin’ in there for us, old girl?  You’re just like a Christmas present, aren’t you, just waiting to be unwrapped.

“Yep, at a certain point, that pig’s fear turned to anger.  Right around the same time the air got that poisonous stink to it, and I began to feel weird and uncomfortable in there.  Sammy, though, he took no notice.  Only thing he could smell or sense was where his next drink was, and how it was gonna taste goin’ down the gullet.  But he did notice that Clive didn’t seem so scared no more.  He did notice that.  ‘Cause when Sammy’d go in to fill the trough, the pig’d be right there, not in the corner tryin’ to be as invisible as it could be.  Instead, he’d be right up at the pig trough, waitin’ with these dull, yellow eyes, like it was saying Screw you I don’t care anymore.   I’ve taken the worst you have to give and I’m still kicking.  I don’t care anymore.  I’m not afraid of you anymore.  Sammy didn’t like that.  So he’d lace into him, and somethin’ fierce, I mean.  Somethin’  fierce.  But the pig, all he’d do was turn his head casually, like someone turning away from a kiss.  He didn’t bother to protect himself at all and then when Sammy got tired, he wouldn’t run away to the corner.  No, he’d just stick his neck through the trough, polite as you please, and start eatin’ like nothing had ever happened.”  Eldridge slammed his fist into his open palm.  He was rolling now, captured in the awful recount of events like a dinosaur in tar.  “And that pig shoulda been sore,” he rasped.  “Whether or not he wanted to show it, he shoulda been sore, but I began to think that he wasn’t sore at all.  I began to think that the pig did not feel pain anymore, didn’t feel anythin’ anymore, anythin’ but hunger and anger and hate.  A lot like my brother, for that matter.  So Sam’d just stare at him dumbly, kinda pissed off, kinda surprised, but mostly thirsty.”

Eldridge stopped briefly to catch his breath.

“But after about a week of this, he couldn’t stand it anymore.  He couldn’t for the life of him understand why the pig wasn’t ascared of him, and he didn’t like it.  So he’d lace into him, catch his breath and his gather his bearings, and lace into him some more.  One day, I’d had enough and told him to stop, and he laced into me.”

A-ha, Rader thought to himself.  He sent a subtle nod in his partner’s direction, and it was noted.  The plot thickens.  He smirked.  He’d be damned if they were going to leave the old farm with an undernourished pig as the chief suspect in a homicide.  It was like putting a puzzle together -- you could fuss forever trying to force the wrong pieces into slots because they just looked so good, so appropriate in certain positions, but then like clockwork a large piece could always be counted on to fall into place.  Sometimes it just took a little interrogative elbow grease, was all- although he doubted that they would be classified super sleuths for solving a case such as this one.  In Rader’s mind, there were two fairly obvious scenarios which would’ve spelled out Sam Eldridge’s demise, if in fact there really was a Sam Eldridge, and if in fact he really was dead.  One, the old man in front of them was responsible, through accidental or more sinister means.  Or two, he’d simply died of natural causes, maybe by having a heart attack or a stroke or possibly by falling and striking his skull.   

“Has he ever hit you before?” Dutch asked, on cue. 

Eldridge waved his hand dismissingly.  “Ah, we’d rassle sometimes, heck, we’ve gotten into fights sometimes, but this was different.  He wasn’t just angry, he was furious.  Furious and confused.  Embarrassed too, and that was probably the worst of it.  I couldn’t take watchin’ him hurt the pig like that, but I didn’t want to get in his way.  So what did I do?  I just made a point of not bein’ around when he went in to feed him.  I’d go in later on in the day to pet the pig and talk to him.  So he wasn’t lonely.”

Rader rolled his eyes, and elbowed Dutch.

“But something was changed with Clive.  His eyes were dead, almost.  He’d just stare at me when I was in there.  No reactions.  And you could see, underneath, anger.  And, I think, maybe somethin’ worse.”

He stopped and looked down, shakin’ his head.  The three men were silent.

“Terry Coleman had an uncle, who lived outside Topeka.  Now this guy wasn’t the sharpest tool in the toolbox, at least according to Terry.  But he walked the straight and narrow, church, family, honest day’s work, and so on and so forth.  One day though, somethin’ must have got crossed up in his brain, because he came home at supper time and shot his family dead.  According to Terry, he then pulled up a chair to the kitchen table, and with his wife and three kids scattered on the kitchen floor around him he opened up the paper and started readin’.  Lady next door, who’d heard the shots and called the police, said that she heard him yell more than once, askin’ when in hell his supper’d be ready while his wife lay dead on the floor.  Then he blew his own brains out.  Nobody could understand how such a simple, but decent man could commit such an atrocious act.  But Terry told me one day, not long after, mind you, that he was convinced that there must have been a tear in the fabric between the earth and hell, just for a moment and no matter how small, and that the devil himself might’ve managed to stick his smoldering rotten finger through and caress him.  He couldn’t think of any other reason.  And he was convinced that what had happened once had happened before, and would happen again.  I told him that I thought he’d read that in one of those papers them Jehobies Witnesses hand out, and that he should stop drinkin’ and go home to bed since he had to get up for work the next mornin’.  Told him he was full of crap, too, and that he’d scare his own family babbling such foolishness.  But now, I just don’t know, maybe there was a grain of truth to what he told me.”

Rader looked at Dutch, who raised an eyebrow.

“I know the case you’re talking about, Joe,” Rader cut in.  Dutch knew the case, too.  It was big news in sleepy little rural Kansas, and had been for a while.  Dutch supposed that by now it had slipped into the back sections of the papers, but the story had enjoyed a good run.  Reporters had gotten fat off of it.  It beat blue hell out of covering the rutabaga contest at the fair.  “That old guy just stopped taking some medication that he should have been taking.  That was all.  There’s no use going into the specifics of it because, quite frankly, it’s none of your business.  It wasn’t something too many people knew about, at any rate, although I gather that there were a few that did know, and wished they’d done something about it sooner, before everything played out like it did.  But no Joe, no tears in any fabric, no gateways to hell.  This is life...not the Twilight Zone.  And believe me...there are things that happen under the sun that Gene Roddenberry and Stephen King and the guy who writes “The X-Files” could never think up.”  He folded his arms and cleared his throat.  Agitation was creeping into his voice.  “Now, are you gonna tell us anything useful, and soon, or are we gonna have to do this investigation without your cooperation?  Because I promise you that is not a pleasant way to proceed for anyone involved.”

Eldridge’s wasted eyes fixed firmly on Rader’s.  Dutch could see the muscles of his partners jaw harden and rise from his skin like hives as he intensified his gaze in response.

"What’s today?  Wednesday?”  Joe Eldridge asked. 

“Yep.”

“Then my brother Sammy went in there Monday morning, and hasn’t come out since.”

“Why not?” Dutch asked, and Rader shot him his ‘Dutchie, you fuckin’ dipshit’look.

“He’s dead,” Rader responded before Eldridge could.  “What happened to him in there, Joe?  Can you tell us that?”

The old man nodded.  Dutch thought, Sure, he can tell us, all right.  But he’s already covered ‘The Pig Shed From Dimension X-307’ and the guy who killed his family because the devil made him do it.  God only knows what’s coming up next.  Clive the Pig kills his tormentor, with help from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and an inspirational speech from Rocky Balboa.

“I stopped goin’ in there altogether just about a week ago.  I didn’t like bein’ around Sammy when he was in there, and Clive was, well, different.  The air in that pig barn was different, too.  Poisonous.  And heavy.  And it was so hot in there, hotter than it should have been, even at this time of year.  I really think that if I could go in there in the middle of January, it will still feel like an oven.  And everything was moving, too, although you could only see it through, what do they call it, peripheral vision?  Yes, peripheral vision.  The walls, the floor.  Like running water.   I thought I saw a smile on the south wall one day, through the corner of my eye, but when I turned to catch it, everything was normal.  Or at least as normal as that is.”

His eye was twitching uncontrollably, flapping like a butterfly wing.  He swallowed.

“And once, I was sure someone was whispering in my ear.  Telling me to slit my throat.  And I could hear his -- or its -- teeth click.”  He pulled his lips back and mashed his teeth together.  Spittle started to froth from the cracks.  “Click-click-click,” he said shrilly.  “Click-click-click.”

I’m watching a man go insane right before my very eyes, Dutch thought.  It’s like Larry Talbot turning into the Wolf Man.  His hand slid instinctively towards his belt, where his pistol was sheathed.  

At that point, he lowered his head, so that he was staring at the planks on the porch, and closed his eyes.  He remained motionless and silent for almost a minute, rocking.  Then he resumed his tale.

“But, of course, there was no one else around.  No one else but Clive.  So no, I didn’t make a point of going in there.  I avoided that place like the plague.  And Sammy never questioned that, if in fact he even noticed that.  But on Monday morning, Sammy forced me to go in.  And maybe something else forced him to force me.   I don’t know.  Anyways, on Monday morning, he could barely stand, and his head was screaming, that’s what he told me.  Told me to grab a couple a buckets of feed, ‘cause he was gonna keel over if he hadda carry ‘em all himself.  Said he wasn’t sure what they had slipped into his drink last night, but it must have been good because he blacked out at ten, and when he regained his vision, it was four-thirty in the morning and he was halfway home and there was puke like pea soup caked to his shirt and his pants.  He almost fell twice going into the pig shed, and had to rest against the wall inside to gather his bearings.  Then he climbed into the pen.  Dumped his pails into the trough, and I dumped mine in.  He stared at Clive and cursed him, and wound up to give him a boot.  The pig was starin’ at him kinda funny, but kinda excited too I thought at the time, and now I know why.  There was an extra gleam in its eyes.  Sammy wound up and kicked through but all he hit was air and he landed hard and awkward.  I heard him groan and swear and start to pick himself.  He’d done it a million times before.  But not this time.  This time, like a shot outta a gun, the pig sprung on him, and Sammy practically vanished beneath it.  Clive had gotten big.  Clive had gotten really big, really fast, and that was something else that scared me.  I heard Sammy swearin’ and cursin’, surprised and angry, and I could see him hitting the pig, trying to move him off.  And at first, I didn’t know somethin’ wasn’t right, and I thought, ‘Good for him, he’s getting just what he deserves.’  But then all of a sudden Sammy wasn’t cursin’ or swearin’ anymore.  Sammy was screamin’.  I stepped in to look closer, to help him, but God have mercy on my soul, I was terrified.  Then Clive looked up at me and there was blood all over his snout and Sammy was screamin’ to beat hell.  And behind the pig, on the wall, I swear there was a set of eyes.  And one of them winked at me.  And I turned to run, scared out of my wits, but for a second, just a second, I couldn’t find the door to get out, because the door wasn’t there.”

He stopped and regained his breath.

“The door wasn’t there,” he repeated.  “But then I saw it, and I ran out, and I haven’t been back in there since.”  He looked up at the officers, with his mouth hanging open.  “I left him in there.  I left my own brother in there to die.  God help me.”

It’s all out now, Dutch though grimly.  Dear God.  We wanted it, we got it.  I expected something terrible, but I never in my wildest dreams expected that. 

“Wow,” he remarked, taken aback.  “That’s one hell of a story, Joe.”  He rubbed his forearms...in spite of the heat, the old man’s story, as unbelievable as it was, had chilled him.  His arms were pebbly with goose bumps.  He turned towards his partner to gauge his reaction.  Rader was staring at the old man and shaking his head.  He was unimpressed and had the look of someone who's been fooled one too many times.  Dutch waited patiently for his response.

"I don’t know,” he whistled through pursed lips.  He shook his head softly.  “I just don’t know.”

No answer came from the old man.  His story was out, and he looked physically and emotionally spent. 

Like a woman who’s just given birth, Dutch thought and almost snickered in spite of the grim nature of the story he’d heard.  He caught himself.  To the whopper of all whoppers.

“You really expect us to believe that horseshit, Joe?”  Rader asked.  His voice had risen a notch, but it still possessed a calmness that was almost angelic.  Or serpentine.

Who’s the loony here? the man in his head asked.  That was a question that he had trouble answering.

I think that they both might be.  But in different ways.

“You really expect us to believe all that horseshit?  Huh?”

Joe Eldridge looked up sharply, but did not reply.

“You realize we’re gonna have to go into that pig shed, don’t you, Joe?” Rader asked.

Eldridge nodded.  His face pinched in on itself, like he was having severe chest pains, but he nodded.

“And you realize that you’re coming in with us, don’t you?”

The old man said nothing.  That, apparently, was an option he had not considered.  Or, perhaps, would not consider.

Rader grunted.  Smiled.  “Well, you are,” he said, and turned away, his voice trailing.

Dutch Peterson put his pad in his pocket, and stuck his pen in his breast pocket.  He took a deep breath, and took a couple of steps back from the porch.

The whopper of all whoppers.

Then why am I so creeped out?

There was simply no way the old man’s story could have any truth attached to it. no way.  Eyes in walls and man-eating pigs.  It might make great entertainment for a Saturday Night Creature Feature, but for the here and now it held little to no relevance.  This was not the Saturday Night Creature Feature.  This was real life, and as dangerous as that could sometimes be, at least you didn’t have to worry about monsters and haunted pig sheds. 

Again, Dutch Peterson asked himself the question: Why am I so creeped out?  Why is my skin crawling?

Joe Eldridge was not drunk now, nor was he a drunk in the present tense of the word.  Of that, Dutch felt supremely confident.  That confidence did not extend to the man’s sanity.  Perhaps that was what was unnerving him: being in the presence of a lunatic.  It reminded him of the electric globe he had seen at a science exhibit in high school.  You placed your finger on it and the current, though harmless, made your hair stand straight up.  There had been a dancing liquid electricity in the air, fat and heavy like the air created by a humidifier.  There was a dancing electricity around Eldridge as well.  Or maybe it wasn’t him…maybe it was the place.

It’s all in your head.  Buck up.  There’s a job to be done.

He snuck another nervous glance at the pig shed.  It loitered off to the side in mocking indifference.  He frowned.  He was actually quite unnerved, a raw emotion of which he hadn’t truly experienced in some time.  He was mildly annoyed with Joe Eldridge for stirring it from within him.  His prediction of an interesting afternoon had already come to fruition, and he decided that he would be more than satisfied if the surprises ended there.  Then it struck him.  It came out of the blue, like a giant wave battering a shoreline and he understood that he was much more than unnerved.  He was terrified.

Because there is poison in the air, isn’t there?  Just like the old man said.  You smelled it, didn’t you?  You tasted it.  There’s a leak somewhere.  And I think you know where.

Again he looked towards the pig shed.  Yes, he admitted.  Yes, I think I just might. 

He chided himself for his misgivings.  It was mid-afternoon and a hot blue sky blazed above them.  They were standing in a rural yard, out in the open.  His partner was with him...his gun was with him.  They had seen nothing to indicate the presence of a person other than the old man that they crowded around.  And yet here he stood, glancing about cautiously, feeding every ounce of visual data into his memory, and looking for any excuse not to go into the pig barn.  He wondered if Rader felt the same.  Probably not, he surmised, and told himself that he should follow Rader’s example.  But as he turned, he sensed the rustic hopelessness of the place and he felt an eerie claustrophobia wash over him.  He closed his eyes and rubbed them.  He could hear the jackhammer thudding of his heart; arteries in his calves pulsed madly.  It was like a bad drug flashback from college.  He reopened his eyes and found himself staring in the direction of an old truck with four deflated tires.  It was resting reflectively beside a rust-specked tractor that had it=s front axle propped up on blocks.  Invasive weeds grew up around them, in between them, in through them.  To Dutch, they seemed to be two weathered amputees commiserating with each other in a shady place, somewhere down near the end of the line.  They sat forlornly, but the Chev’s shattered headlight was an eye, directing an all-knowing wink at Dutch Peterson.

We all go to shit, Dutchie, don’t ya  know, it coughed, and it wasn’t a question.  Don’t ya know.

Dutch shuddered.  Yes, he thought, I think I do know that much.  And some faster than others.  He rubbed his holster.

Rader sidled up against him, and gave him a nudge.  Dutch was shivering.  He hoped that Rader didn’t notice.

“Well?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.  “Don’t tell me you forgot to bring the straightjacket.”

Dutch chuckled nervously.  “That’s one hell of a fish story.  And, I have to confess, I’ve really got the creeps.”

Rader smiled coyly and his breath whistled out of his nostrils and the corners of his mouth, like gas escaping from a rip in a hose.

“I don’t blame you, Dutchie,” he said.  “This has all the makings of a Big One.  An All-Timer.  Like that guy in Topeka who shot his family.”  The prospect seemed to excite him.

Dutch nodded, awaiting the instructions from his fearless leader.

“So when we go into that pig barn shortly, I’m going to lead the way, with Joe following alongside me.  He’ll guide me, give me directions.  Okay?"

"Yes.”

“I’ll need you behind us Dutchie.  You’re the eye in the sky.  You keep a close eye on that old fellow.  If you think he’s doing something odd, then you –“ He paused in mid-sentence, and rubbed his chin.  If you think he’ doing something odd!   He laughed.  “Well, Christ, everything he’s done so far could be considered odd!  If he does anything that you discern to be dangerous, then…”  He made a gun with his thumb and index finger and blew out softly -- POOF.  “You’re entitled to protect yourself and me.  All right?  I’m very certain that we’ve got nothing to worry about as far as he’s concerned, but that’s of little consolation to me or you if one or both of us ends up dead.”

“Gotcha,” Dutch responded, and fingered the trigger on his pistol.  “But this old gal’s been out of action for a long time, you know.  She’s liable to blow up in my hand.”

Rader glared at him, feigning annoyance.  “Fuck you, Dutch.”  He started towards Eldridge again, then paused and turned back.  He winked.

“Personally, I think we’re dealing with a couple of faggots.  Maybe he caught him in a precarious situation with the pig.  You know…a sordid backwoods love triangle ends in violence.”

Dutch chuckled softly.  “If I had a nickel --“ He grinned.  “In all honesty though, Rader, what do you think we’re going to see in there?”

Rader struck a pose of contemplation.  “The most likely scenario, least as I see it, is that his brother simply went in there drunk one day and slipped and cracked his head pretty hard on the floor…it’s probably a cement or concrete floor.  Maybe he died instantly, or maybe he just knocked himself out.  I don’t know.  People have been killed by less.  Sometimes something like that is all that it takes.  As far as the pig eating him, whether he was dead or just unconscious, well, what else would you expect it do?  It’s an animal after all, Dutch, and from what Joe told us, probably a very hungry animal at that.  So I do expect to see a scene in there that’s unpleasant, regardless of whether or not we’re dealing with foul play.”

He raised his eyebrow cryptically.

"But failing that, we all know what’s behind door number two.  And that would mean a lengthy stint in the state pen for our friend over there.  That is, if they don’t ship him to the loony bin instead.  But, I don’t know.  I didn’t detect anything over the course of our conversation that makes me believe he could kill another human being in cold blood.  But stranger things have happened.”

Dutch nodded.  His own theory on the circumstances surrounding Sammy Eldridge’s death was no different, and he had been trying to condition himself for a sickening scene from the moment they had taken the original phone call.  But still…

There was something very unsettling about the whole situation.  Very unsettling, indeed.

Because things aren’t right, Dutchie, that’s all, they’re just not right.  Like a pair of pants that say they’re the right size, but no matter what you do, they just won’t fit.

He closed his eyes again, could feel the piston-like pulse in his legs again.

A barely discernible breeze picked up then, just forceful enough to stir the trees.  It sounded like words.

Slit your throat, Dutchie.  Pleeeaaasssse…

Dutch shook his head.  Very unsettling, indeed.

“Now if we get in there, and Sammy’s face has been blown clean off, well, I don’t know too many pig’s that can aim a gun, much less pull a trigger.  Then we’ve got a problem.” 

Was Rader still talking?

“Yeah,” Dutch responded.

Rader raised an eyebrow.  “All set, Officer Peterson?”

Dutch gave him the thumbs up. 

“I’m going to radio back to headquarters first, let them know the situation and know what we’re doing,” Rader said, and then he went to the car and did just that.  That done, he got out and looked towards the farmhouse, where Eldridge now sat like a disciplined schoolboy.

“You ready Joe?” he hollered, and got no answer.  Eldridge merely lowered his gaze and shambled over.

“That’s the door leading in?  That one facing us with the red paint?”  He pointed towards a warped wood door.

Eldridge nodded.

“Okay, then.  You’re going to walk alongside me, Joe.  My partner, Dutchie, is going to walk behind us and I’ll warn you ahead of time, he’ll be keeping an eye on you.  All right?”

The old man nodded, and so Rader continued.  “It’s not that we believe you had anything to do with your brother’s death.  Quite the contrary.  We just can’t take any chances.  Okay?”

“Yes,” he responded, shaking slightly.

“Dutch has a gun,” Rader said, although he didn’t need to.  No follow up statement was necessary.

“Yep,” Eldridge stammered.  Dutch couldn’t be sure whether or not Rader had picked up on it (in fact, he doubted that he did) but he became aware, really aware, for the first time of how terrified Eldridge was.  His voice was barely a whisper and it moved up and down like a rollercoaster. 

Rader, he thought to himself, do we have to go in there?

The old man was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, and Dutch was momentarily convinced he was trapped in the onset of a seizure.  He turned, and the winking truck caught him.

I don’t think you want to go in there, Dutchie, it cooed.  Fear is paralyzing.

I think that you might be on to something, my friend, he thought.  I don’t want to go in there.

And then an almost inaudible chuckling came from the old tractor, filtered through a screen of rust and a film of time.  Grass poked through its deteriorating front grill.  I’m wasting away here, Dutch, it whispered.  But I can still cut a rug.

Yes, oh yes.

A tear in the fabric between Hell and earth, only for a moment and no matter how small.

And then the pig was on him.

In a moment of clarity so pure and profound that it left room for no reaction or emotion other than acceptance, Dutch Peterson realized that he was never going to see his wife or kids again.

They walked towards the barn together, in their predetermined configuration, and the door leading in was quickly upon them.  It loomed, a large wooden rectangle once coated with bright red paint, and Dutch couldn’t help but note that when you really wanted to go somewhere the place beckoned and welcomed, but when you didn’t want to go, it loomed.  The door to the angiogram machine loomed, the cold steel door of the morgue loomed, the door to the principal’s office loomed.   He gritted his teeth.  Rader’s steady arm pulled the rough door ajar, and he slid carefully into the musty shadows within.  Joe Eldridge moved by his side obediently, if a little hesitantly.  Even then Dutch wanted desperately to tear away, but could not.

Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, he mused.  Gathering momentum.  Not being able to stop, even if you wanted.  But oh God, he wanted.  He really, deeply wanted.  He wondered if Rader’s feelings echoed his.  No, he decided.  They probably didn’t.  Rader was cut from a different cloth, and sometimes that was good, but sometimes it was detrimental, too.

The darkness within the pig shed was like a yawning throat, and it coated them under its fine ebony silt.  Dutch squinted as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dramatic shift in lighting.  By Christ, Rader, he thought to himself, if ol’ Joe Eldridge had decided to play his cards now, he probably would have gotten away with it because I can’t see a thing in here.  But gradually, he could.  A pinprick of sunlight permeated the room through a slight hole in the roof and it danced and reflected off of a gleaming object on the floor--

(a bullet)

-- and Dutch’s guard went up immediately.  Rader bent down and scooped the object up off the dirty floor, and rose again.  He held it up for Dutch’s inspection.

“There’s part of his whiskey bottle,” he muttered softly.  “So that part of your story seems to wash, Joe.  Not that I ever found it hard to believe that either you or your brother had a drinking problem.”

Jesus Christ, Rader.  Keep your voice down.  Whoever or whatever is in there will hear you.

He saw that they were in a small hallway, rectangular in shape, the size of a bathroom in a busy restaurant.  It was empty save for two or three bales of straw, a stack of feedbags, and some assorted junk scattered about.

Rader motioned towards another door, the only other door in here, and fixed Eldridge with a frigid glare.  “Through here?” he asked, and the old man nodded meekly.  Dutch could feel the heat from outside on his back.  He had referred to it as suffocating heat this morning, hadn’t he?  That had been rather foolish in retrospect, because now he welcomed it.

Just a second, guys.  I think I forgot something in the cruiser.  I’ll just run out and get it, and then I’ll be right back.  Or maybe I’ll just start the cruiser up and get the fuck out of here faster than an Ethiopian with a food stamp.  One or the other.

He brought his fist up, over his mouth.  He gagged, but the two men in front of him did not notice.  The stench was overpowering.

How the heck any living creature could survive in this is completely beyond me, he thought.

The door.

That the great disappearin’ door I’ve heard so much about?  He was scared.  And fear, as he had been told, was paralyzing.

C’mon Dutchiiieeee.  Slit your throat.  One ear to the other.  Just like a pig.  Just like a stuck fuckin’ pig.

Stop it please.  Oh please stop it.

Dutch thought that he might throw up.

It’s better down here.

No.

Rader nudged the door open softly, like a father checking on his infant son, but taking care not to wake him.  He advanced in stealthily.  Joe Eldridge followed just slightly behind.  Dutch could see the man’s mouth working overtime (tick, tick, tick) and his entire body shaking fiercely.  He might’ve been a man walking the last mile to the electric chair.  Dutch followed them in.

“Fuck me,” he mumbled softly, coming to a halt.

The Mars analogy certainly fit, as did the comparison to Hell.  He could see that now.  A strange reddish-brown tint washed everything in the room.  Like sand, almost, although surely that was an illusion.  Shit --  flyshit, pigshit --  seemed to be spread everywhere, although that had to be an illusion as well.  A wailing face, eyes bulging, mouth open in a silent, gibbering scream was --

Dutch shook his head, and rubbed his eyes.  No. No. No.

In the far corner, sleeping like a baby, was the biggest pig that Dutch Peterson had ever seen in his life.  Coarse black bristles probed out from its body in no discernible pattern, and it was caked in manure.  He watched its chest rise and fall, rise and fall, at ease.  An oily substance coated its snout. 

You know what that is, he told himself sickly.  It was true.  He did. It was blood, blood that had once coursed through Sam Eldridge.  Inspecting closer, he saw that the blood was everywhere on the pig.

Nothin’ like wallowing in your own filth, eh Clivey? he thought, and laughed.  Good times.

He turned slightly, and there in the pen, lying spread-eagled on his back, was the star of the show himself.  Sammy Eldridge’s abdominal organs were missing, and he, too, was covered in shit and blood.  His left foot stuck out abnormally, and one of his arms lay across his chest, palm up.  It may have been broken and twisted at the elbow, or at the shoulder.  It didn’t matter.  He was dead.  Worse than dead, really, completely stripped of whatever small amount of dignity he may have once had, and ravaged.  It was a terrible, dirty death, the worst he had ever seen.  Dutch swallowed.  His tongue felt like a ball of cotton. 

We live in a pestilent world, Dutch.

“Jesus Cock-Knocking Christ in a fucking wheelbarrow,” Rader whispered incredulously as he straddled the gate, and made his way over towards Sammy.  “Son of a bitch.”

Dutch closed his eyes.

Don’t, please, just don’t.

“Rader, wait,” Dutch started, but he was brushed off, and Rader bent down for a closer look at the corpse.  Dutch was very scared and his fear was fast becoming paralyzing.  “Rader, don't...” he tried again, but again he was brushed off.  His partner had found something interesting.  Rader’s face bore an expression of intense scrutiny.  He frowned.  He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and frowned again. 

“Dutch,” he began and his voice trailed off for the second time that afternoon.  He stood up briskly and swiveled to face them.  “The top of his head’s been blown clean off.”

He glared at Joe Eldridge knowingly, but the old man fell abruptly to the ground as if he’d suffered a brain hemorrhage.  He began to sob into his arms, and the wails rose like the swell of an orchestra.  Dutch, momentarily freed from his trance, took a step backwards and unsheathed his gun.

Rader’s angry eyes bore burning holes into the old man’s heaving back. 

“You fucking cocksucking faggot,” Rader spat, eyes narrowed resentfully.  “You --“

“He came after me last night so I shot him!”  Eldridge shrieked, looking up and causing Rader to shrink back momentarily.  Dutch frowned.  Last night?  That didn’t make sense.  According to the old man, Sammy Eldridge had been dead since Monday morning.  It was now Wednesday afternoon.  But really...did anything make sense anymore? 

Rader squinted, and shot him a quizzical look.  “What” he started to say.

And then he began to scream.  Dutch Peterson’s gun slipped harmlessly from his suddenly limp fingers, and reverberated off the floor.  What his tired, frightened senses were now confronted with was not only impossible, it was unthinkable.