A rustling. Movement in the dirt. Oh, why hadn’t she brought a flashlight?

She reached forward just enough to nudge one door open more widely. Enough to let in a little more of the moonlight.

There he was. Lying half in a bed of soil, his face raised to the doors, eyes sunken and fraught with pain. She saw at once that he was dying. Her Ansel was dying. She thought again of the dogs who used to sleep here, Pap and Gertie, the dear Saint Bernards she had loved more than mere pets, whom he had killed and whose place he had willingly taken…yes…in order to save Ann-Marie and the children.

And then she knew. He needed to hurt someone else in order to revive himself. In order to live.

She shivered in the moonlight, facing the suffering creature her husband had become.

He wanted her to give herself over to him. She knew that. She could feel it.

Ansel let out a guttural groan, voiceless, as though from deep in the pit of his empty stomach.

She couldn’t do it. Ann-Marie wept as she closed the shed doors on him. She pressed her shoulder to them, shutting him up like a corpse neither quite alive nor yet quite dead. He was too weak to charge the doors now. She heard only another moan of protest.

She was running the first length of chain back through the door handles when she heard a step on the gravel behind her. Ann-Marie froze, picturing that police officer returning. She heard another step, then spun around.

He was an older man, balding, wearing a stiff-collared shirt, open cardigan, and loose corduroys. Their neighbor from across the street, the one who had called the police: the widower, Mr. Otish. The kind of neighbor who rakes his leaves into the street so that they blow into your yard. A man they never saw or heard from unless there was a problem that he suspected them or their children of having caused.

Mr. Otish said, “Your dogs have found increasingly creative ways to keep me awake at night.”

His presence, like a ghostly intrusion upon a nightmare, mystified Ann-Marie. The dogs?

He was talking about Ansel, the noises he made in the night.

“If you have a sick animal, you need to take it to a veterinarian and have it treated or put down.”

She was too stunned even to reply. He walked closer, coming off the driveway and onto the edge of the backyard grass, eyeing the shed with contempt.

A hoarse moan rose from inside.

Mr. Otish’s face shriveled in disgust. “You are going to do something about those curs or else I am going to call the police again, right now.”

“No!” Fear escaped before she could hold it in.

He smiled, surprised by her trepidation, enjoying the sense of control over her that it gave him. “Then what is it you plan to do?”