Frank breathed in the cool crisp air and smiled. When both women had been at home, he’d been browbeaten any time he’d moved a muscle. Now that Kathy had left for school, he had a little more breathing room.

He loved his daughter dearly, but he was glad she was back at school—where she needed to be. Besides, he’d had enough of her and Megan bickering with each other. Neither one would ever admit it, but those two women were exactly alike.

Kathy had been gone a week, and ever since then, he’d been back to rolling out of bed before dawn, trying to regain the strength he’d had before he’d gotten sick. The deep aches he’d felt in his joints had mostly gone, and even though he’d not spoken much about it, he’d figured that he would have been six feet under by now. But if he still had some life left, he was going to live it, not while it away in bed or sitting in a chair.

Nor was he going to waste it with a bunch of doctors. Megan wasn’t happy about that, but she too had tried to reach the administrator at the clinical trial, and had had no more success than he had. So for now at least, he was free to do as he pleased.

“I’m not going to waste this second chance at living my life waiting around for doctors,” Frank said to nobody in particular.

As Frank walked the quarter mile to the nearest pasture, Jasper ran in circles, his breath blowing jets of steam in the early dawn. “You look like a steam engine puffing away like that, you crazy dog.”

The dark-brown Labrador yipped with excitement as he continued running around, expending some of his boundless energy.

Frank crested the hill between him and the pasture—and stopped suddenly. Jasper stopped beside him and let out a long, low whine.

Frank peered ahead and his blood ran cold.

He picked up the pace and Jasper began barking like mad. He leaped in front of Frank, almost making him trip.

“What the hell!”

Frank sidestepped Jasper and his heart fell into his stomach as he looked past the near edge of the fenced-in pasture.

The day before, there had been over one hundred healthy head of cattle in the pasture, all of them pregnant, with birthing expected to start in less than a month.

“It can’t be,” Frank groaned as he panned his gaze across the frost-covered pasture. All of the animals were lying on their sides, motionless.

“Holy hell!” Frank nearly jumped out of his skin when his radio buzzed. He pressed a button on the two-way radio and said, “Yes?”

“Frank, I asked you to wake me. I was going to make you breakfast and—”

“Megan! The breeding cows are dead. All of them. The entire—”