Or his wife calling up to him that dinner was on the table.

Or the screams of his children as he descended naked to the first floor, the added weight of his belly creaking each stair.

He couldn’t hear his wife shouting, asking what was wrong, was he in pain, that they had to get him to a doctor.

He was unaware as he stumbled out into the night and scanned the dusk-dimmed horizon, searching out the highest point.

The water tower at the edge of Franklin’s land.

Without thought or sensation, McCafferty ambled across the fields, walking straight over crops, husks cutting at his legs and arms, sticks stabbing his bare feet. By the time he reached the tower, his ribboned skin was leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

With nicked-up limbs, he pulled himself off the ground and onto the ladder. He made his painstaking ascent. From time to time, a blood-slick hand or a tattered foot slipped from a rung, but he kept on until he reached the top.

He crawled to the middle of the giant tank’s roof, his elbows and knees knocking the metal, sending out deep echoes. And then he rolled onto his back, pointing that giant belly at the moon. His eyes remained dark, unseeing.

His chest heaved and heaved and then was still.

For a long time, he lay there, motionless.

There came a churning sound from deep within his gut. It grew louder and louder.

And then his body split open.

The massive pod of his gut simply erupted, sending up a cloud of fine, red-tinted particles. They rose into the wind, scattering through the air, riding the current toward his house and the town beyond.

What happened to Hank McCafferty was terrible.

What was coming for us was far, far worse.

Entry 4

ENTRY 4

It was later that same night when Patrick came to get me in the barn.

Gripping the baling hooks at my sides, I stepped through the rolled-back door into the night. My brother’s face was turned to the east. That bitter breeze kept blowing in across the fields.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Patrick raised a hand for silence.

A shift of the wind brought distant noises. Hammering sounds. And then, barely audible, the squeals of children.

“McCafferty’s place?” I asked.

“Sounds like it.”

“Do we wake Uncle Jim?”

Patrick turned his gaze at me. “And if it’s just the kids messing around, playing a game? You wanna be the one to tell Jim sorry for dragging him outta bed, knowing the workday he’s got tomorrow?”

I spit to clear the bitter taste from my mouth. “Then why do we need the shotgun?”

Patrick headed along the side of our ranch house toward the McCafferty place. “’Cuz what if we see a buck along the way?”

I didn’t smile.