But he was scared. More scared than he'd been the first time she came out here, when he had much more to lose.

"We made a deal," the woman said.

"And you welshed," he spat back. "I know you and your weird sisters took my Barbara from me. I don't know how you managed it—poison in her food or some kind of black magic—but I've known for quite some time. After what happened to the Hinkley woman, I guess I made up my mind."

Mavis cackled. "And you told them everything."

"That's right." The joints in his fingers felt suddenly numb, as if they might come loose of their own volition and drop the rifle at his feet. He gripped it tighter. "Everything I know about you and your Mother. I suppose you didn't want that, did you?"

The moonglow brightened her smile within the shadow of her face. "Quite the opposite. You did exactly what we hoped you'd do, Doctor."

Ry didn't quite comprehend this. It was the Tanner woman who'd contacted him, not the other way around. Mavis and the others couldn't have planned for them to meet.

She's lying, he thought. But he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

"Still," Mavis said, "it won't do for us to have you around, spreading your lies."

He sneered. "Lies? You know as well as I do, it's the gospel truth."

The rifle juddered suddenly in his hands, as if something had gotten hold of it, something he couldn't see.

He cocked the lever without meaning to and looked down in abject terror as his own calloused hands jerked the barrel upward, moving of their own volition—or more correctly, of Mavis Lynch's.

The pigs squealed in their pens. Something upset them. He heard their hoofbeats in the dirt as they scurried anxiously.

Could they feel it? Could they sense the wrongness of this woman?

Hot liquid filled his briefs. For a moment the shame of having soiled himself surpassed his fear. Then the barrel slipped under his jaw, cold black steel scratching the snow-white bristles on his jowls, angling his chin toward the rafters.

I'm ancient history, Barbara, he thought. I'm just too old and too damn pooped to fight anymore.

In the moonlight, Mavis Lynch smiled.

The squeals were joined by heavy thuds, metallic rattles. By God, the hogs were throwing themselves at the gates of their pens.

"I'm coming home, Bar—"

His index finger curled suddenly, squeezing the trigger.

The gunshot cut his wife's name short and cleaved his jaw in two. Torn flesh flayed outward. Skull fragments, burnt flesh, shattered teeth, chunks of brain and blood painted the old gray barn beams.

His body collapsed rigidly like a felled tree, thumping down on loose hay and trampled dung.

For a long moment, Mavis stood looking down in mild distaste at the doctor's twitching corpse. The right eyeball hung from its shattered socket. The left eye had rolled inward, giving him the appearance of trying to look at the raw meat where his nose had been.