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"I a totoslowly by Every minute, every second, seeed and days no longer lasted twenty-four hours, but an entire year And every moment that passed, my heart seemed to hurt a little more And insanity seemed a tiny bit closer And my hold on reality slipped a bit farther from reach

I closedsleep, at least, I was numb

I woke to the sound of claws onif they’d finally co yelped and the scratching noise repeated

"Shash?" I called A dog whined outside h of relief And then the afternoon exploded with a single gunshot

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I jumped out of bed and pulled some jeans on beneath my T-shirt, slipped my feet into Kat’s old flip-flops, and ran into the barn The chickens flapped their wings at the sight of me and scampered to the far end of the coop

"Mrs Carpenter?" I called as I darted past the to the house, I leaped up the steps to the front porch Shash ca

"Mrs Carpenter!" I yelled, twisting the doorknob It was locked, and in ht my house key The curtains were drawn and the house appeared to be deserted, but her truck was in the driveway I pounded on the front door withthe button over and over again She didn’t answer Fiveon the freshly painted front door until my knuckles were bruised

I jumped down the porch steps but paused before I’d taken two steps So one officially insane I squeezed my eyes shut so hard my head started to hurt, then opened the of protection I’d put around her house the night before--were gone

Sick towhite mound of animal skulls had been piled beside the back door All around the pile, the daround had been scratched up, the weeds pounded down flat

I tried the back door, desperate to get in It was locked, too

"Mrs Carpenter!" I yelled, cupping h the junipers and whispering past the aniet into the house,fro toward the barn, but a crunching sensation beneath round and wiggled lass shimmered in the weeds I looked at the house Thetoto the frame Attached to one of the shards was a cluround and hacked away the jagged glass reh the brokenShash leaped through behind lass Mrs Carpenter’s bed was trashed, with springs sticking out of the barelopsided on its hinges, the door fraripped the toppled bedside la the lah the busted door frarandfather clock filled the house I crept down the hall and past the kitchen, my flip-flops silent on the wood floor As I entered the living roo rain Tiny white particles settled onto it, like ash fro doard It coated the wood floor and furniture I glanced up and frowned In thehole

I took two steps forward and pressed a hand over an to convulse uncontrollably Soh un case lay Duke, his lifeless body grotesquely twisted, bare patches of bloody skin visible where the copper fur had been torn from flesh Beside him lay Mrs Carpenter, face ashen, eyes closed, a rifle in her hands She looked like a pile of skin, bones, and clothes Shash lay at her side, his head between hiseyes

"Mrs Carpenter?" My voice was as shaky as s She didn’tmyself for reality, I crossed the room and knelt at her side

Her skin was cool beneathher creased cheeks Her eyelids fluttered open and she hugged the gun to her chest Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she said

I leaned closer, put my ear by her mouth, and waited A spass, crossed the roo the operator the address, I hung up the phone and sat by Mrs Carpenter again, brushing her tangled hair away fro," I whispered, hardly able to talk over the knot in ain Her icy hand foundBroken" She et your attention," sheand tears found their way to ht up in my own fear anddown on my shoulders made it hard to keepfrom the barn"

Sirens blared outside and car doors slammed I unlocked the front door and opened it Shash jurowled deep in his throat, and started barking Before I could stop him, he sprinted out the door and disappeared, his crazed bark fading the farther he got from the house

"Shash!" I called as two paramedics and a police officer came into the house Shash didn’t coainst the wall and watched as the paramedics examined Mrs Carpenter

"She’s dehydrated and her hip is broken," one said They put an IV into her ared my ears to block out her feeble screa