He never quite got there.

He tripped on a stone, recovered his balance, and walked on. The farm was barely a mile away, but tonight the road seemed twice as long. Overhead the stars were so bright he felt he could hear them. His grandfather always said to him when he was a lad, “Listen to the stars, Willie. Can you hear them? Just listen.”

And he would listen, over the ordinary night sounds of rats in the feed bins or a stoat hunting in the hedgerow, a horse moving in its stall. He could have sworn he heard them.

A stone rattled on the road behind him, and he turned to see what was there. Nothing but his imagination. At this hour of the night, he had the road to himself.

His mind was clouded with the beer he’d drunk. His wife would have something to say about that. He shook his head to clear it, but it was no use.

He tripped again, and swore.

A voice quietly called his name. Jeffers whirled to see who it was, peering through the darkness, but for the life of him he couldn’t bring the pale face into focus.

“Do I know you?” he asked after a moment.

“You did. Once.”

“Sorry. I don’t remember.”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

Jeffers nodded. “Coming this way?”

“No. Good night.”

He turned and plodded on, leaving the man standing there. He wanted his bed, now. The beer was making him sick.

Something flashed briefly in the starlight, seeming to fly over his head. And then it had him by the throat, and he was fighting for breath, twisting and shifting furiously, but the thing at his throat bit all the harder, and in the end it was no use.

William Jeffers was the first man to die.

Three nights later, Jimmy Roper was in his barn, sitting up with a colicky cow. Dandelion had always been prone to the ailment, with a temperament that was easily unsettled, but she was his best milker and worth the trouble to keep her healthy. Her calves carried that trait, and she had done much to improve the quality of the dairy herd.

He was tired. It had been a long day, and it would be longer still before he could seek his bed. But he had learned patience after taking over the farm from his ailing father. One waited for cattle and for crops and for time to shear. One waited for sun and for rain and for a still day to harvest. If he’d had a choice he would have worked at the brewery, but as an only son, he had had to fill his father’s shoes.

He heard the squeak of the barn door and leaned around the edge of the stall, to see who was there. “Pa? Is that you? I told you I’d come to your room as soon as I saw to things here.”

There was no answer. His father shouldn’t have walked that far. He’d be out of breath, shaking.