The shed doors. The lock and the chain. She stood there, listening, her fist pressed hard against her mouth until her front teeth started to hurt.
What would Ansel do? Would he open the door if it were she inside? Would he force himself to face her?
Yes. He would.
Ann-Marie undid the lock with the key from around her neck. She threaded out the thick chain, and this time stepped back to where she knew he could not reach her-past the length of the runner leash fixed to the dog pole-as the doors fell open.
An awful stink. A godless fetor. The stench alone brought tears to her eyes. That was her Ansel in there.
She saw nothing. She listened. She would not be drawn inside.
"Ansel?"
Barely a whisper on her part. Nothing came in return.
"Ansel."
A rustling. Movement in the dirt. Oh, why hadn't she brought a flashlight?
She reached forward just enough to nudge one door open more widely. Enough to let in a little more of the moonlight.
There he was. Lying half in a bed of soil, his face raised to the doors, eyes sunken and fraught with pain. She saw at once that he was dying. Her Ansel was dying. She thought again of the dogs who used to sleep here, Pap and Gertie, the dear Saint Bernards she had loved more than mere pets, whom he had killed and whose place he had willingly taken...yes...in order to save Ann-Marie and the children.
And then she knew. He needed to hurt someone else in order to revive himself. In order to live.
She shivered in the moonlight, facing the suffering creature her husband had become.
He wanted her to give herself over to him. She knew that. She could feel it.
Ansel let out a guttural groan, voiceless, as though from deep in the pit of his empty stomach.
She couldn't do it. Ann-Marie wept as she closed the shed doors on him. She pressed her shoulder to them, shutting him up like a corpse neither quite alive nor yet quite dead. He was too weak to charge the doors now. She heard only another moan of protest.
She was running the first length of chain back through the door handles when she heard a step on the gravel behind her. Ann-Marie froze, picturing that police officer returning. She heard another step, then spun around.
He was an older man, balding, wearing a stiff-collared shirt, open cardigan, and loose corduroys. Their neighbor from across the street, the one who had called the police: the widower, Mr. Otish. The kind of neighbor who rakes his leaves into the street so that they blow into your yard. A man they never saw or heard from unless there was a problem that he suspected them or their children of having caused.
Mr. Otish said, "Your dogs have found increasingly creative ways to keep me awake at night."
His presence, like a ghostly intrusion upon a nightmare, mystified Ann-Marie. The dogs?
He was talking about Ansel, the noises he made in the night.
"If you have a sick animal, you need to take it to a veterinarian and have it treated or put down."
She was too stunned even to reply. He walked closer, coming off the driveway and onto the edge of the backyard grass, eyeing the shed with contempt.
A hoarse moan rose from inside.
Mr. Otish's face shriveled in disgust. "You are going to do something about those curs or else I am going to call the police again, right now."
"No!" Fear escaped before she could hold it in.
He smiled, surprised by her trepidation, enjoying the sense of control over her that it gave him. "Then what is it you plan to do?"
Her mouth opened, but she couldn't think of anything to say. "I...I'll take care of it...I don't know how."
He looked at the back porch, curious about the light on in the kitchen. "Is the man of the house available? I would prefer to speak with him."
She shook her head.
Another pained groan from the shed.
"Well, you had damn well better do something about those sloppy creatures-or else I will. Anybody who grew up on a farm will tell you, Mrs. Barbour, dogs are service animals and don't need coddling. Far better for them to know the sting of the switch than the pat of a hand. Especially a clumsy breed such as the Saint Bernard."
Something he'd said got through to her. Something about her dogs...
Sting of the switch.
The whole reason they'd built the chain-and-post contraption in the shed in the first place was because Pap and Gertie had run off a few times...and once, not too long ago...Gertie, the sweetheart of the two, the trusting one, came home with her back and legs all ripped up...
...as though someone had taken a stick to her.
The normally shy and retiring Ann-Marie Barbour forgot all of her fear at that moment. She looked at this man-this nasty little shriveled-up excuse for a man-as though a veil had been lifted from her eyes.
"You," she said. Her chin trembled, not from timidity anymore but from rage. "You did that. To Gertie. You hurt her..."
His eyes flickered for a moment, unused to being confronted-and simultaneously betraying his guilt.
"If I did," he said, regaining his usual condescension, "I am sure he had it coming."
Ann-Marie burst with hatred suddenly. Everything she had been bottling up over these past few days. Sending away her children...burying her dead dogs...worrying about her afflicted husband...
"She," Ann-Marie said.
"What?"
"She. Gertie. Is a she."
Another tremulous groan from within the shed.
Ansel's need. His craving...
She backed up, shaking. Intimidated, not by him, but by these new feelings of rage. "You want to see for yourself?" she heard herself say.
"What is that?"
The shed crouched behind her like some beast itself. "Go ahead, then. You want a chance to tame them? See what you can do."
He stared, indignant. Challenged by a woman. "You aren't serious?"
"You want to fix things? You want peace and quiet? Well, so do I!" She wiped a bit of saliva off her chin and shook her wet finger at him. "So do I!"
Mr. Otish looked at her for one long moment. "The others are right," he said. "You are crazy."
She flashed him a wild, nodding grin, and he walked to a low branch of the trees bordering their yard. He pulled at a thin switch, twisting it, tugging hard until it finally tore free. He tested it, listening for the rapierlike swish as he sliced it through the air, and, satisfied, stepped to the doors.
"I want you to know," said Mr. Otish, "I do this for your benefit more than mine."
Ann-Marie trembled as she watched him run the chain through the shed door handles. The doors started to swing open, Mr. Otish standing near enough to the opening for the pole chain to reach him.