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front of the ramshackle
home of Mr. Tucker, as before the front door open behind a
screen.
    “ Is this it?” Lance asked with a
glance.
    Mary only nodded, then they ran
forward.
    Stopping outside the entrance, Lance
used the flashlight to bang away at the wooden frame around the
screen door. “Mr. Tucker! Are you there?”
    The sound of the forest at night was
the only answer, the muted cackle of distant birds, insects
chittering away beneath the underbrush.
    Lance hit the door again. “Is there
anybody in there?”
    Still, no response.
    Lance looked to Mary, both of them
shaking and nervous.
    “ What do you think?” he
asked.
    “ I ... I don’t know,” she said. “I’m
afraid to look.”
    “ I know what you mean,” he said, “but
even if something has happened to him, we’ve got to look. Maybe
there’s a phone, or even a gun. All these old guys have shotguns or
hunting rifles, don’t they?”
    All Mary could do was shrug as the
tears continued down her face.
    Seeing he could get no real answer
from her, Lance faced the door again, reached out and eased it
open. The hinges squealed as if they had not been oiled in
years.
    “ Mr. Tucker,” he said again, though he
didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t receive one.
    Giving a nervous glance back the way
they had come, and seeing no immediate threat, Lance pulled Mary
inside and closed the screen door.
    Letting go of her hand and flashing
the light around, he found themselves in a worn living room with
ancient carpet and cheap, battered furniture. Shining the light
around, he also found a giant floor television set like something
out of the fifties. Moving the light around further, they found a
dead body.
    Mary gasped.
    It was Tucker. He was sitting on a
couch with torn cushions, his mouth hanging open, his eyes closed
but facing straight ahead while one of his arms hung over to one
side.
    “ Weird,” Lance said, easing forward in
slow steps and never taking the flashlight off the waxen sheen of
the dead man’s face.
    “ What ... what’s weird?” Mary
stuttered.
    Lance stopped in front of Mr. Tucker.
“He doesn’t look like he’s been hacked or stabbed or anything. He
just looks ... dead.”
    “ Like from natural causes.”
    “ Looks that way.”
    Mary came up next to Lance, wrapping
an arm with his. “Could it be coincidence?”
    “ I don’t know,” Lance said. “Should we
turn him over. Maybe he got stabbed in the back.”
    “ There’s no blood, not that I can
see.”
    Backing away, leaving Mary with the
body, Lance shined the light around the room some more. “Maybe
we’ll never know what happened to him, but we’ve got to find a
phone, or a gun.”
    “ Tucker,” Mary said, standing
motionless and staring at the dead man.
    Lance turned the light on her. “What
did you say?”
    “ Tucker,” Mary said. “I’m starting to
remember.”
    “ Remember what?”
    “ It was that old story, that old
tragedy,” she said. “Remember me telling you about it?”
    “ You mentioned something today, but
what’s that got to do with --”
    She cut him off. “Tommy Tucker. That
was the kid’s name. I just now remembered it.”
    “ What kid?”
    “ The one who was burned up in that
fire thirty years ago.”
    Lance looked none the wiser. “I’m
sorry, Mary, but I’m not following you. Look, there’s no telling
when that psycho will --”
    The front window exploded inward,
glass and wood sailing like shrapnel throughout the room as a heavy
object flopped from outside onto the floor.
    Lance raised an arm to shield his
face, but several small shards impaled his flesh through his
clothing as he backed away. Screaming again, Mary threw herself
against the wall behind Lance, protecting her from the worst of the
spraying glass and splinters.
    When the thing through the window came
to a stop, Lance shined his light upon it.
    He couldn’t help but cry out, and Mary
kept on screaming.
    It was Gloria’s body, the throat
sliced open so wide the