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I grabbed around for the slug thing and for several terrible seconds I felt its teeth brushing against rab on I wrestled it free and suddenly I had it tight in ers It had a little circle of tiny teeth, each curled and needle-sharp, like fishhooks There was a thin, straw-like appendage eer and whipping around, flecking little droplets of blood

I took one hand off it and opened the driver’s-side door I flung the flopping thing out into the snowy middle of the street

I spun around in un nowhere to be seen I threild punch at his face North flung hiavehalf under the seat belowaround at the windshield In a scrarabbed the pistol and twisted my body around I japuffs of steaht I could hear a soft thu to deal with life in a world of ice

"Okay," I breathed "Okay, okay This thing I’ve got pointed at you, you knohat it does?"

He nodded, said, "I believe I have an idea, yes"

"And have you ever heard the old hu, ‘I want to shoot you so bad, my dick’s hard’?"

"I have not But I believe the contextclear"

"Shut up Don’t hts on his out of the driver’s-side door and stood up into the wind I looked around the street for the squir monster It had crawled all the way to the sidewalk

I crunched over toward the creature, lifted a boot and storunted randoain, ha exploded in a spray of brown and red The red blood, I assu, little flecks of ice spraying with each impact, until the monster was a wet, twisted stain

I kicked the shredded rerate nearby, then sto onfreely My teeth were clenched, ht I could feel the pulse in my palm From a few feet away I could see that the back door of the truck was open now and when I got there I was not surprised to see that North was gone I slaot in I drove home

I SAW JUST one other vehicle while I was out, a sno I passed a cop in a convenience store parking lot,with the chains on his tires He shotthe driveway in this o over my windshield with my ice scraper, the wipers unable to keep up with the storine running I crossed the yard, the network of footprints now just soft craters under ne and ice I clasped the toolshed key in my left hand

You have an alibi You were at work, all day Alllllll day Right?

Sure Yeah, that’s right

But who knohen she actually wentIt could have taken days for anyone to notice Even if it was last night

I was in bed last night Eleven PM

Were you? Can you account for every minute you think you were asleep? There’s one period when you distinctly re a cruise ship full of naked woirl in your toolshed?

No No way

Maybe you had her tied up out there all day and you caet rid of your plaything? Or put it out of its un and--

I suddenly pictured the answering machine, on the little table by , slowly

Slowly

The new-ht was signaling a saved e One already played

No I’d reht of last summer, a month after Lopez and I broke up; she showed up at a bar where John’s band was playing I had drunk, oh, probably seven hundred beers I wound up back at her place, a rented house she shared with soht was a lost blur I re back to me off her neck, da on ain through the night The rest is lost Days later it gets back to one on a drunken, tear-filled rant about how Hell aiting forI could do to avoid it I said it was bullshit, that Jen had made it up to make me look stupid But had she? Hoould I know? Some memories bury themselves so, so deep

And just like that, flashes ofinto the house and digging out the big book froed out into the cold--