Clare slid the papers into her backpack without looking at them and turned to go. She stopped at the door and looked back at him. He expected to hear a “thank you,” but what she said was “I’ve been in Missoula for almost a month, but I haven’t had the nerve to drive up to the reservation.”

Dale had amazed himself by saying, “I go up to Glacier and the reservation every fall. I could show you around there if you want.”

Clare had looked at him with that neutral, intense stare of hers, and then turned and left without another word. Later, after he came to know her as well as he could—perhaps as well as anyone could—he realized that she had probably decided to have an affair with him at that moment.

Dale awakens to a loud banging.

He looks around. He is in the study—he’d fallen asleep in the chair—and with the exception of the single desk lamp, the farmhouse is dark. He does not remember dozing off or what he was working on here when he fell asleep. The ThinkPad is turned off.

The banging is coming from upstairs.

To hell with this. Dale is suddenly very angry. He looks around for the baseball bat, but he’s left it in another room or it has rolled under the bed.

The banging intensifies.

Dale leaves the lighted study and walks down the darkened hallway, up the narrow steps. A pale light glows through the yellowed plastic.

He pulls out his pocket knife, selects the sharpest blade, and makes rough incisions through the plastic, diagonally, X marks the spot. He tears at the layers of brittle plastic with his hands until he rips a hole, widens it, tears plastic from the frame.

The air wafts out from behind the plastic and it carries the scent of lilacs and decay. Tutankhamen’s tomb. Dale steps through the torn plastic, feeling the strands of the brittle stuff trying to hold him back, and then he is standing on the faded runner in the upstairs hallway, the stale air still rushing past him and downstairs as though he had opened an airlock.

There is one open door on his right, two on the left. The light is coming from the rear room on the left.

The banging has stopped.

Still holding his small utility knife, Dale strides down the hall, pausing to glance in the first room on his left and the open door to his right. A small bedroom to his left, an even smaller bathroom to his right. Both rooms are dark. The light from the rear bedroom flickers like candlelight.

Pausing in the doorway, Dale peers around the door frame.

A tall bed, a massive chest of drawers, a low dressing table with an opaque mirror, a flickering kerosene lamp on the dressing table, and a hand-built closet—painted a faded yellow—that seems strangely familiar to Dale. The windows are so heavily curtained and draped that no hint of moonlight or sunlight could find its way in. Holding the pathetic little knife ahead of him, Dale crosses to the bed.

There is a dark outline there on the age-tarnished quilt. At first Dale thinks it is a figure, then he sees it is merely an indentation in the quilt, but as he steps up to the high bed he sees that it is more than an indentation.

The center of the bed has sagged into a deep hole shaped in the form of a man. Or of a corpse laid out there. Even the pillow is dented down a foot or more into the mattress, the hole shaped like the oval of a human head. Dale hears the slightest noise from the deep indentation and leans over the bed, trying to ignore the stench—the same death-smell he had encountered on his first moments in the house—and wishing that he had brought a flashlight.

The bottom of the human-shaped pit in the mattress is crawling and oozing with life. Maggots. Worms.

Dale backs away, holding his free hand to his mouth, glancing behind him at the dark hallway.

The old oil lamp flickers as if to a strong breeze, the light almost going out but then steadying at the lowest glimmer.

The banging resumes—louder, wilder, more insistent. It is coming from the hand-built closet in the corner.

Dale looks at the closet and realizes that it is a huge coffin, crudely painted yellow and set on end. The door splinters and begins to open as he watches.

Dale awoke to a loud banging.

He sat up. He was not in the study, but in the basement, the heavy Norton anthology lying next to him on Duane’s old bed. The console radio was still whispering static and music. It was not night. Midmorning light shone through the narrow windows at the top of the basement wall.

The banging resumed.

Dale looked around for the crowbar or baseball bat and remembered that he had left both of them upstairs last evening. He shook his head, ran his fingers through his tousled hair, and went up the steps and through the kitchen toward the banging.

Michelle Staffney was knocking at the side door.

Dale rubbed his face and opened the inner door.

“Dale, I hope you don’t mind that I dropped by.” She looked him up and down.

Dale shook his head and stepped back, welcoming her into the kitchen. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Sorry for the way I look, but I must’ve fallen asleep last night. I was downstairs on. . . I mean, I didn’t really go to bed last night. I fell asleep reading and listening to music. What time is it. . . ah, Mica?”

“Michelle will do,” said the redhead with a slight smile. “And it’s about nine-thirty. I guess you were tired.”

“Yeah,” said Dale. He crossed to the refrigerator. “Like some orange juice?”

“Sure.”

“Take your jacket off. Just set it on the chair there. Do you want some breakfast?”

“No thanks, Dale. I already ate. I just wanted to give you an invitation. I would have called, but. . .”

Dale handed her a jelly glass half-filled with orange juice. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s sort of hard to get in touch with me by phone.” The taste of the orange juice helped reduce the buzzing in his head. He felt hung over but didn’t remember drinking more than one lousy beer the previous evening. “Invitation?” he said.

“For Thanksgiving,” said Michelle Staffney.

Dale motioned to the kitchen table, and the two sat across from one another. The morning light was weak through the windows. Another gray day.

“Thanksgiving?” said Dale.

“Next Thursday,” said Michelle. “I hadn’t planned to be here this long, but it looks as if I will. I don’t know anyone else around here and I thought that we could. . . well, hell, I don’t know, cook a turkey together. Drink some wine. I don’t know.”

“So are you and your friend throwing a party. . . I’m sorry, I forget her name,” said Dale.

“Diane Villanova,” said Michelle, and looked down at the table. “No, Diane headed back to California yesterday. I just thought it would be nice if you and I. . . I mean, that we not spend Thanksgiving alone. . . but I bet you’re headed somewhere or expecting someone. . . sorry, bad idea, Dale. . .”

“No, no,” Dale said hurriedly. “I didn’t even know that Thanksgiving was coming up. I’ve sort of been ignoring the calendar. Are you sure it’s next Thursday?”

“Pretty sure,” said Michelle.

“I’d love to have turkey together,” said Dale. Well, not really, he thought. It would just remind him of Anne and the girls—the girls would be home from college—and of holidays past and holidays lost.

Something must have showed in his expression. Michelle said, “It’s probably a dumb idea. In fact, my kitchen’s all torn up and I’m not even sure I can get it in working order by Thursday. Diane and I had planned. . . well, this was a dumb idea.”

Dale didn’t know what kind of falling-out the two women had suffered, or why Michelle had remained here in Illinois, but he did know that he’d been a boor. He stood up, showing energy and enthusiasm he didn’t feel at the moment, and walked over to pat the huge old stove. “Let’s cook it here,” he said brightly. “Otherwise I’ll never use anything but the burners on this damned thing. I’m tired of soup. I’d love to share a turkey with you on Thursday.”