A scream tore from Margot, building and winding until she thought she would go deaf from it. She scrambled backward, but her shoulder hit a trunk, blocking her path.

The golden retriever’s tail swung once, twice, and strands of fur fell from the decaying flesh beneath.

Her heart felt as though it had stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to look away from the dead, squirming eyes.

It’s not Marsh.

It wasn’t Marsh; it couldn’t be. She was going to find him and save him and everything would be okay again.

But then the thought hit again, harder, and this time with a ring of truth.

It’s not Marsh.

Marsh’s collar had been blue to match his leash. An orange collar hung around this dog’s neck, decayed and faded and almost falling loose. It had once held a name tag, but it had been lost at some point, a bent metal loop all that remained.

This was another dog. Its body shape was different. Broader. Even through the caking mud sticking its fur into clumps, she could see its coat was darker than Marsh’s.

A thought came to her mind, spawned by the shade of orange the collar must have once held.

“Clementine?” she whispered.

The dog responded, lifting its head, its peeling paws carrying it a step closer.

She knew this dog. Marsh’s ancestor, the golden retriever her parents had owned when she was a child. The source of her love of dogs.

Dead for more than a decade. Somehow not yet gone.

Queasiness ran through her in waves. She sagged, lowering her head, trying not to choke as her lungs filled with the wet scent of death and rot.

The dog’s black tongue smacked over its tattered lips as it turned away again. It was decaying before her eyes but somehow didn’t seem to notice.

It wasn’t suffering. That was a small mercy but one she was grateful for.

Something moved through the trees at the opposite side of the clearing. One of the dead ones emerged. A woman, her hair matted from dirt, grime crusting beneath her fingernails and in every crease of her skin.

She was different from the others, though. She wore a formal purple-and-white dress. Although it was muddy and torn, it wasn’t yet decaying off her body, not like the other corpses. Her mouth was stitched closed with black thread. Her wide eyes, the lids shredded, had a sheen of gray across the corneas, but they weren’t entirely bleached. A dark pupil and iris were visible beneath the surface.

Margot choked. She’d seen that dress before. Once several days before and then again in her dreams. Both times inside the funeral home’s dim viewing room.