He couldn’t believe they were wasting a single moment of time on this. He leaned back against a stack of heavy cardboard cartons, and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to at least keep his face straight. First Jennie and her cute little stagetricks, making the door slam on me, and now this. And if I don’t at least listen to them, they won’t listen to me.

The guys on Calligan’s construction project had all gone back to work the day before yesterday—against his advice—when Calligan had promised to cordon off the particular corner of the property that seemed to be “sacred ground” now that the cops were done playing at evidence-gathering. He’d been dead set against them going back, on the grounds that they were playing right into Calligan’s hands, but some guy named Rick had said stubbornly that if they didn’t go back to work, it would pretty well prove that Calligan was right about one of them being in cahoots with terrorists. “The best way we can prove we’re innocent is to act like we’re innocent,” he had said, over and over, until the rest agreed with him.

But now, from all the stories being told here, as soon as they went back, everything started to go bad again. Not just heat from Calligan, either, although the bastard was there every minute of every damned day, supervising everything himself. Probably making certain nobody slacked off, although the guys said he told them he was watching for more sabotage. No, it seemed like every time somebody turned around, there was one accident after another.

Weird stuff, too; stuff that couldn’t have been like the dozer explosion. Holes opened up right in the path of equipment, big ones, and equipment would fall in and have to get hauled out, wasting time. A load of steel pipe broke its straps and came down right on one guy, who was lucky to get off with a broken leg. Every piece of heavy machinery was out of commission by the end of today, with gaskets blown, fuel lines leaking, hydraulics shot, piston arms broken. Something had gotten into the dynamite shed and chewed on every single stick, letting in damp—which made them likely to be unstable and useless. The only thing stupid enough to chew on dynamite was a possum, but there weren’t any holes under the shed or in the roof big enough to let a possum get inside. And it was a good thing that the guy going after the dynamite had looked it over good, or the bad sticks could have killed someone.

He hadn’t heard such a litany of woes since Hurricane Andrew.

And of course, every single one of those accidents was “proof” that the Little People were angry, that there was a curse on the project.