If the flea market was filthy during the day, at night—closed up and empty—it was menacing. Sleet started on our drive into town, and ice patched the lot by the time we arrived. The pink glow of parking lights were spaced far apart, gaps of black pavement and blacker night between. Anything could be in those gaps. Anyone.

The roller rink looked dark and hulking, its neon sign, missing most of the letters, as dim as a jumble of scaffolding. When was the last time that sign was lit? There was no one around. I parked the truck. In the distance, we could see the lights of the gas station: a glow above the trees, hazy yellow like an egg.

“There’s a giveaway,” Grayson explained. “Tonight at the gas station. They’re passing out bottled water.”

“Why?”

“People’s pipes have frozen. Someone told me about it when we waited for propane.”

“Why are they doing it so late?”

“That’s when the water truck comes.”

“Let’s hurry,” I said.

I had stashed the grow light in a duffel bag and we each hefted one of the handles. Lugging the light between us helped warm us up. It felt like we were moving music equipment, setting up for some band. Or maybe moving a body, cut up into bones. As soon as I had this thought I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I slowed down for Grayson. He shuffled to keep up, his boot scrapping the asphalt. I felt better once we had stepped into the trees, into cover—that was in my blood, the impulse to hide, to sneak. If you keep secrets for a living, you start keeping them all the time. You keep secrets for practice, for no reason at all.

We went a little deeper into the woods, to the base of the rise where the Pumpkin King had placed his wares. Their orange glow would have lit up the darkness at least a little, but I didn’t see anything, not a single pumpkin. He had taken his stuff home, or sold it. We rested the duffel bag on the ground. Grayson bent to adjust his boot.

“How’s your foot?” I said.

“It’s fine.”

It was fine every time I asked.

“Where is he?” Grayson said.

I looked around. Shadows fell into a ditch, rocky with ice and an old tire. I checked my phone. There was no reception, of course. “I’m going to look at the top of that hill,” I said. “He told me to find his trailer around there. You stay here with the light.”

“You sure about this?”

“I’m just going to that ridge. You shouldn’t walk more than you have to. If anyone comes...” I thought of the gun back home in the ground.

“I’ll be fine,” Grayson said. “Stainless-steel boot, remember?”

I glanced around the bottom of the rise one more time, then climbed to the ridge.