“They got shut down,” Erickson said. “Carbon monoxide.”

“Seriously?” I said. “Are they okay?”

“They’re fine,” he said. “They’ll probably be back in the building by tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, that’s good,” I said, scribbling away. “One last thing: Why are we trapped in this town?”

“We’re not trapped,” Erickson said. “People who have reason to travel out of the area can still take the north road.”

“Really? I got stopped trying to take my friend to the hospital.”

“Well,” he said, “I know there’s a list. Again, not our jurisdiction.”

“What’s their motivation for keeping us inside?”

“Panic,” Angela blurted out. “We don’t deny that strange things are happening. But we’re safe, and everything is fine. We don’t want people outside to freak out about something very simple.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Why would the people outside panic? What about the people inside?”

The phone rang, and the other female officer answered it, then cupped her hand over the receiver and announced, “We’ve got another one.”

“That’s the second in three hours,” Angela said.

“Another what?” I asked.

“Right, you’re the veterinarian’s kid,” Erickson said. “It’s another dog, though they’re saying this one might be a coyote. They should be able to tell the difference, I think, but whatever it is, it’s going crazy down in front of the library.”

“We’ve been getting a lot of those calls,” Angela said.

“What do you think is going on?” I asked.

“Ask your mom,” Angela said with a shrug.

Officer Erickson, putting on his jacket, said, “I heard they might be strays who got hungry and aggressive while we were evacuated and no one was here to feed them.”

“My dog wasn’t,” I said.

“Well, maybe this really is a coyote,” Angela said. “They’re dangerous, you know.”

“Yes, I’ve heard,” I muttered. Big help these folks were turning out to be.

“Well, I’ll see y’all,” Officer Erickson said as he walked toward the door.

“One more question,” I said, my pen poised over the pad. I thought of asking them about Ishango but decided to keep it more general. “You’ve got animals going crazy, a neighborhood blown up, a bridge blown up, the newspaper shut down for carbon monoxide poisoning, and a town that people can’t enter or exit. Should we really accept this as business as usual? And do you think the military is at all acting oddly?”

“That’s two questions,” Angela grunted.

Erickson, though, exchanged a thoughtful if wary look with the other officer. “Define ‘oddly,’” he said.

I folded my arms. “However you want to interpret it.”

He leaned forward with both palms atop the countertop and said in a low voice, “Between you and me, there’s something wrong with a bunch of ’em. Almost like they’re pretending to be normal, yet that makes them seem all the more off. Don’t quote me on this. You better not quote me on this. But, off the record, it’s almost like they’re pretending to be human. You know?”