The dog, or what I thought was the dog, moved again. It was a dirty white, low to the ground, and I stood up and kept barking. When I wasn’t barking I was yelling for Janet and Chrissy. I spoke to them like I’d speak to them back home, as if they were standing in front of me. But they were nowhere. And I, as Jack, felt gone, too.

The white thing flashed again, closer, much closer. Within lunging distance. The next time it appeared I catapulted myself at it, arms wide, meaning to grab it in a bear hug. Time slowed as I flew through the air, toward the thing I thought was the dog, the reality-healer, whatever, and I could see each nanosecond crawl by in a scarlet suspension, my own blood.

I missed. I landed facedown, arms empty. For a moment I just lay there, panting. Then I heard a sharp crack, and the bark of a nearby tree jumped off its trunk.

I knew a gunshot when I heard it.

Brown tile floor. Hernan’s blood in the grout.

I stood up this time. Turned around. But it was always too late.

I heard another crack, and the lights blinked out.

The world was gone. Now there was only pain, and my skull was full of it, a sack of fire ants climbing in and out of it. When I came awake I could see nothing but a gray mass with a rough texture. Cotton. Someone had wrapped cotton around my eyes.

“Hey now,” a voice said, frightening me. It was not Chrissy’s or Janet’s voice. A stranger. I grabbed at my eyes, tore off the covering.

I was in the main house, on the living room floor near the wall. Dull afternoon light blurred across the bare floor. I’d never gotten around to furnishing it. The folding chairs I used years ago were still propped up next to the fireplace, collecting spiderwebs that glinted in the light.

“Do you live here?” the voice said. I could tell she was tall by the way she knelt down beside me. I gaped at her, the fact of her. An intruder. Her head was buzzed except for a long hank of hair on top that was slicked back and twisted into a knot at the crown of her head. From head to toe she was clad in camouflage, the hunting uniform I remembered my father wearing every fall. Her face was smudged with greasepaint or dirt. She nudged my shoulder. “Hey. Are you okay? Can you talk?”

Slowly I sat up and leaned against the wall. The bandage in my hand, which I’d ripped from my eyes, was stiff with blood. I touched my brow and my fingers came away wet and red. Seeing my stained fingers, she smiled sheepishly. “I thought you were something else. Sorry about that. Lucky you got away with just a graze.”

“A dog? Did you see a dog?” I was murmuring, my voice was thick and slurred.