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The sound came again, like the
trill of a beach whale drying up amongst

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the kreas, soap and sagebrush.
What the hell is that? It's,

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no doubt some kind of flying insect
or other, Jimmy reassured his wife Deborah,

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who was half covered by a quilt
and hair threaded through pink plastic curlers.

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It's driving me up the wall.
Can you make it shut up?

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Jimmy pivoted off the bed and he
pulled his legs through a pair of levi,

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securing the buckle of the belt he'd
left inside the loops. Given the

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nature of the mountain lions and dope
fiends, he opted to bring us thirty

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eight special. If you don't come
back in half an hour, Debora joked,

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I'm sending search and rescue. The
clock read ten point fifteen, and

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apart from the occasional hoot of an
owl or the chirp of a cricket,

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the night had fallen into a hush. Deborah was starting to feel anxious about

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her husband going out into the darkness, giving his age and frail condition.

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I better not find you, rattlesnake
bit, Deborah scoffed, as if a

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simple fall wasn't her husband's greatest threat. Woman, I've made it eighty two

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years with nary a broken bone.
Now go back to bed. Feeling slightly

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patronized, Jimmy flashed her a crooked
smile and slid his slippers on. He

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was suddenly a boy again, preparing
to stalk cicadas parked on the fence post.

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After a period of pacing and finally
parking himself on the aluminum lawn chair,

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boredom began to set in. In
order to quell it, Jimmy started

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kicking over rocks in hopes of discovering
scorpions or lizards. However, there were

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only beetles and ants to be found, and then he took the spotting constellations

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scattered against the tableau of the desert
sky. He was ready to call it

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a night and head back to bed
when someone walked into view. Jimmy and

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Deborah's long driveway spilled across their acreage
like ribbon unweun from a spool. A

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street light lit up their mailbox.
At the intersection of the driveway and the

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dirt road. There, bathed in
light and dust, stood a figure resembling

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the bastard child of a coyote and
a man, and draped over its chest

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was a vest composed of beads,
the kind carved out of bone. It

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stood upright on two legs, like
annibus of old. What in the goddamn

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hell, Jimmy whispered to himself.
The hair on his arms perked up and

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eyes squinty to get a better look. As he advanced in the direction of

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the brute, making every effort to
stifle the sound of crunching quartz bubbles.

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He looked back to make sure the
doors and windows of his home were closed.

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The Deborah was safe. The air
was heavy with the pungent odor of

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trees of heaven that bordered their driveway, reminiscent of burnt rubbers smeared with a

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rancid peanut butter. The beef's snout
quivered as if to catch a whiff.

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Jimmy recalled his grandmother's tales of supernatural
beings such as these, though he always

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assumed the stories were intended to scare
the children into returning home before dark.

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With a twist of its form,
the thing arched its head backward, jaws

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gaping wide to the point of dislocation. Jimmy expected it to howl like a

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wolf, but instead, like a
banshee, it issued the call he'd been

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sent out to silence. If he
hadn't been watching the scene, he might

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have assumed it was steam escaping from
a teapot, or the distant whistle of

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a freight train. And as he
inched closer, adrenaline surged through his veins

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and his bowels knotted up inside of
him. Has the devil come for me?

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He wondered? Would it do me
any good to shoot it? We

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wrestle, not with flesh and blood, Jimmy thought as he stood motionless,

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his fear heightened by the drumbeat of
his own heart pounding in his ears.

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But against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this

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world, against spiritual wickedness and high
places. What if I miss, he

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pondered. With his hands poised on
the trigger, Jimmy stood ready to discharge

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his firearm in the event the monster
lunged at him. And what if there's

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more of them than I've got bullets
for? Jimmy's eyes widened as he realized

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as the friend was clutching a lifeless
mammal maybe a squirrel, and not a

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pull, but a hand bearing four
primate like fingers and an opposable thumb.

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The head of the small prey had
been gnawed on to the point where only

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a skull remained atop its body.
He took a deep breath and closed his

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eyes, and under his breath he
muttered a prayer, he that Dwelleth in

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the secret places of the most High, shall abide under the shadow of the

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Almighty. I will say of the
Lord, he is my refuge and my

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fortress, my God, and in
him I will trust. Suddenly, the

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cane had pricked its ears and cast
its gaze in Jimmy's direction. The beast's

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expression, whether smile or snarl,
was indistinguishable to Jimmy. All he could

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make out was the display of bare
teeth and the fact that he'd been spotted.

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Do you want to play it?
Croaked? Jimmy pulled his gun from

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its holster and fired two bullets in
the entity's direction. Startled and unable to

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discern if the bullets found their mark, the shots proved effective. Nonetheless,

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the being dropped its prey and lowered
down on all fours and took off running,

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pitching a wake of dust into the
air. No longer illuminated by the

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street lamp, the creature vanished into
the darkness beyond Jimmy's line of sight.

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Jimmy stoodn't shocked for some time,
his senses alert to every sound and movement.

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Eventually he managed to rouse himself from
his days to sit down on the

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stoop, and as the minute stretched
into an hour there was no sign of

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a dog man's return, he decided
it was safe to go inside. Jimmy

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clicked the bedroom light on, waking
up Deborah. What was it, jim

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did you get it? She rubbed
her eyes. I didn't see nothing dead.

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Must have been some heartbroken half drunk
on his daddy's after shad, But

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I wasn't about to go following him
into the Jimmy fell silent. Deborah had

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already drifted back to sleep.