She was no longer screaming, but was crying, sobbing, tears and snot pooling in the various indentations of her face.

The skull of a possum was placed on her chest.

As if in a dream, she heard the sound of Hube’s truck in the drive and then in front of the house, heard him slam the pickup’s door and call out her name. For a very brief fraction of a second, she considered yelling at the top of her lungs, telling him to get out of here, save himself. But her love was not that altruistic and she did not want to die alone here with these monsters. She wanted her husband to save her, and she screamed out his name: “Hube!”

“Patty?” he called.

“Hube!”

She wanted to say more, wanted to be able to impart additional information, wanted to tell him that he should bring his shotgun from the truck so he could blow these monsters to Kingdom Come, but her brain and her mouth could not seem to get it together and she just kept screaming out his name.

“Hube!”

She was raised up, tilted forward, and was able to see her husband dash around the corner of the house and run into a wall of the clown creatures. They leaped onto his head, onto his chest, onto his arms, dragging him down. Weapons were lifted, bones and baseball bats, skulls and horseshoes.

The one on the stump jumped up and down, ordered Hube’s murder in the voice of a string quartet.

They beat him to death with the sound of a symphony.

Michigan

This was the life.

Jennings followed the guide through the brush, bow extended. Last year, he’d taken Gloria to Palm Springs, and the year before that to Hawaii, but this year, by God, he’d put his foot down, and they’d booked their time share in northern Michigan. He was going to do something he wanted for once, and if that meant that Gloria had to either watch videos in the condo or shop at The Store in this little podunk town, then so be it.

He’d arranged for several short hunting trips during their two-week stay. One daylong duck-hunting expedition. One overnight bear hunt.

And this one.

A three-day bow hunting trip.