I LIFTED AN ABANDONED mug off the counter and ran the faucet. Tepid water spit as I swiped the inside with a sponge, washing away the faint coffee stains that ringed the glazed bottom. The dry field burned gold outside the window in the late afternoon sun. From my spot at the kitchen sink, I could see the barn, a hulking, ugly, half-rotted thing. Bushy weeds grew on the soft roof shingles in staggered patches. Small black shapes—swallows, I figured—flitted in and out of the exposed rafters. They'd go like that until dark.

     "One, two, three..." I whispered the seconds, waiting for the thoughts to come. It happened this way, anytime I stared too long at the whipsawn hay barn, its paint peeling in scabs off the hewn board and batten siding. The steeply-pitched wagon shed attached to its outer wall glared at me. The door stood open on a broken top hinge, creating an asymmetrical void I couldn't help but acknowledge. An undeniable line was drawn between the distant, constant hum in the rear of my mind and that barn. Whenever we locked eyes (because there were days I swore it watched me too, a wild, stalking animal), the hum swelled, clogging my ears with static.

     Then the images came.

     Violent snapshots. Blood. A knife. A kid-goat entangled wire, ribs lacerated and heaving. More blood. Maggots wrestling on a carcass—the goat, maybe? Blood. A rope. Booted feet carved rows in the sand. Rewind. A goat. Light flickered, and I saw myself smash the mug in hand. My shaky fingers searched out the jagged handle from the belly of the dirty sink.

     Once I had it, I stabbed myself in the eye.

     My grip flexed on the coffee mug. I shook my head to free the...thoughts and carefully set the cup far back on the counter, away from possible accidents. I shut off the faucet. The lightbulb in the ancient Frigidaire Cindy had insulted earlier that morning, winked at me as I snagged a can of soda off the shelf and kicked the heavy door closed again.

     In the living room, Asa sprawled on his back. The shag carpet under him flattened around his outline. One arm was slung over his face, hiding him. His fingertips were black. The television was on. Muted. Multi colors flashed silently, illuminating the shadows near the two-tiered, metal TV cart. I climbed over my brother, stepping awkwardly to avoid the pieces of paper strewn like buoys.

     "Is that for me?" Ada asked without removing his arm.

     "Nope."

     "You said you were getting water."

     I sat on the couch, a long, low piece of furniture smattered in oversized mustard and orange paisleys, and tucked a barefoot under me. "Changed my mind," I said, cracking the aluminum tab to sip peppery bubbles.

     Asa lifted a sheet of paper and blindly smacked it against whatever part of me was within reach. A kneecap. I hesitated. His thin frame was a forgotten pencil about to roll under the couch. I took the paper.

     "How's your headache?" I asked, absorbing the deft charcoal smudges he'd bent into a human face on the wrinkled, white surface. There was no doubt he knew who'd he recreated. The shapes were definitive. The jawline and eyes were far too specific to be a random inspiration.

     Asa moaned.

     "Who is this?" I flipped the portrait toward him.

     He sat up, facing the TV, folding his legs into a crisscross in one smooth motion. "I think he's your killer."

     My fingers tightened on the soda can. "You better fucking explain."

     "I saw him—them—at the creek." Asa rested his forehead against the heel of one palm. "Um...Ma was...um...with him."

     "Shut up. That's not funny."

     "I sweartogod I'm telling the truth, Amy."

     "Why didn't you say anything before?!"

     Asa rolled his eyes to look at me, "I just wanted to forget it happened."

     I bit down on the retort that simmered under my tongue. The can's tin sides bowed in my grip. Soda eked out the tiny hole in the top like black blood, tracing the grooves around my knuckles. I decided to entertain his story. Lying wasn't a skill Asa had mastered, but sanity wasn't a gold star on the Shippy chart, either.

     One thing was a hundred percent certain: Something had happened to him in SuperSaver beyond a panic attack, even if I didn't rightly know what.

     I tested the idea. "How did Polly look?"

     "Pissed. Super pissed off."

     Nope. I couldn't. The notion of our mother expressing indignation from beyond the grave, removing fault, and prolonging her feigned perfect persona in the afterlife was not a reality I would consider. It was not my peace.

     "Asa, who is this man?" I said more forcefully than intended.

     "I don't know. I saw him at the creek, and the Shadowman showed him to me in the grocery store."

     Here we go again...the Shadowman. Shadowman, Shadowman. I'd swallowed that bullshit for most of my life, choking on his name like a horse-sized pill. As imaginary friends went, the Shadowman was a pragmatic excuse for regret. Whatever bad thing happened, he caught the blame. And I thought my smoking habit was one hell of a coping mechanism. Asa had me beat.

     "Oh, shit." Asa gasped and fumbled for the TV remote cockeyed on the carpet. He flicked the audio on and raised the volume. A lilting female voice flooded the living room:

     " ...a young man about nineteen years old in an encounter, witnesses have described as nothing short of terrifying..."

     She had a  perm. Dark brown hair spiraled off her scalp to escape the next blistering appointment. Her suit was a slate blue, the shoulder pads prominent shelves on either side of her slim neck. Casey Cain was a reporter for the local news. A loose personification of one. I'd known her in high school, and her flare for the dramatic made any story she reiterated sound compelling.

     A rough sketch of Asa's face flashed up on the screen. My teeth clenched.

     "I don't look like that, do I?" he asked.

     "Go check the mirror," I muttered, pulling my weight off the couch.

     "Aunt Cindy is gonna flip when she sees this. I can't believe this is how I made it on TV."

     "You thought you were gonna end up on TV?"

     Asa shrugged.

     I waited for his attention to reconnect with the interviewees on the flickering screen. "I'm heading out. I'll be back late."

     "Are you going to the police?"

The hair on my arms prickled. Anxiety, maybe? A cheap thrill at my quiet plan discovered. "How did you know?"

     "I didn't think you wanted my drawing for a keepsake."

      I pinched the portrait tighter and leaned to hand him the nearly-full soda can, "Here. Don't wait up for me."

      "I never do," Asa said and continued watching.

THE BUS STOP AT the end of the street was a lonely place to linger on a Wednesday evening. In another version of life, I would be heading to work dressed in noxious green. The late heat simmered close to the bricks. The sidewalk expelled whatever it had caught off the sun that day like debriding a wound. I waited, alone, under the shaky metal STOP sign. The last traces of orange light stretched over the hillsides in farewell.

     When the bus came on time, I knew George was behind the wheel. He lent me a curt nod, hand on the door trigger. When I cleared the first step, he swung it closed, and the bus started rolling. I paid the fare and took a seat.

     There were three other passengers onboard. No, Judith. (I later learned that her absence was caused entirely by me). A guilty relief pinged in my chest. I didn't think I could handle seeing her, not with the events from the last six hours still fresh in my mind, like the scent of mown grass.

     Thirty minutes and two stops rolled by. I watched the parking lot of the DimeStop from behind thick, grimy glass. Dalen's car sat alone. I envisioned him scrubbing floors and dating the frozen food, happy to be alone. I'd already received my voicemail that morning. Dalen's voice cracked between rounds of static:

     "...reopening for the weekend. First night shift, Thursday 6:00 sharp, Shippy."

     Great. There would be the freaks and the sickos, for sure. Lookie-loos. Possibly good for business. I might get a raise out of it. After the Ted Bundy case, hearing about all the fan letters and presents he received in prison, I was prepared for the number of rando-Polaroids our dumpster was about to be in. As general manager, Dalen would be wise to put up a visitors' corkboard for people to leave a copy. Maybe I'd suggest it to him.

     George dropped me off across the street from the police department in his usual, timely manner. I exited. Asa's drawing folded neatly in my jacket pocket. I paused for a quick smoke. Dusk fell with the grace of an old, dirty sheet, sucking in and conforming to whatever shapes were under it. It struck me then that I never phoned to check if Lopez was even on-call. Nothing had made me think otherwise until I stood under the arch at the entrance.

     Fate—or whatever—could decide. I was there to complete my mission with whoever would listen.

     I went inside, snuffing the cigarette in the public ashtray atop a trash can before I passed the threshold. The doors closed behind me, and I was in limbo. There was something half-formed about police stations—especially at night. Not an office building. Not a hospital. Somehow, a combination of both. The room was ill-fitting. I walked across the beige flooring to the heavily carved wood counter labeled "Information."

     An equally beige woman was caged behind the counter. She flipped papers with the dexterity of someone trying to carve meaning from the mundane, stacking them efficiently in whatever order was required.

     I cleared my throat on approach. It was surprisingly quiet in the hallway, a marked difference from the early morning bustle I'd witnessed twenty-four-odd hours earlier. The woman heard me and looked up, unsurprised. A pair of cat eyeglasses clung to her face, a strand of plastic beads looped behind her neck, keeping her glasses on a garland always within reach.

     "Can I help you?"

     I opened my mouth to reply when a sharp whistle cut me off. We both looked to my right. Officer Lopez stood in a doorway that branched off the main hall, his foot keeping the door itself ajar.

     "Shippy," he said and waved me over. "It's fine, Goldbach. I can help her."

     The woman named Goldbach returned to stacking her papers, and I hurried toward my objective.

     "What's going on?" Lopez asked as the door fell closed behind us. We were in a comfortable office, not an interrogation room like the last time. From the family pictures on the desk to the weird collection of taxidermy animals (a dusty wood duck on a log and the bust of a rabbit with horns held my attention for longer than I liked), I realized we were in his personal corner. The nameplate on the desk was a second revelation.

     "Lieutenant Lopez," I read the name out loud. "Shit, I didn't know."

     "In name only," he said, adjusting his belt before sitting behind the desk. He gestured toward a worn-out office chair facing him across the wooden divide. "I still do the same old business."

     "I hope it came with a raise," I said and perched on the edge of the seat.

     "Modest at best. Why are you here, Shippy?"

     Reaching into the satin lining of my jacket, I produced Asa's drawing. Looking down at the folded square of paper, I didn't know how to explain it. My focus had been on proving Asa right or wrong—I didn't care which as long as I got an answer. But most people wouldn't understand my brother and his...quirks. I wasn't entirely sure I did.

     "Amy?"

     I swallowed and unfolded the sketch. "Um, my brother thinks this might be your serial killer."

      Lopez sat up straighter, his elbows coming down on the desktop. "How so?"

     "He...he saw this man in a dream."

     Even I wouldn't believe that.

     Lopez took the drawing, his face serious. "I can give it to the guys downstairs and see if we have any matches on file. Maybe we booked him. I can see about sending a copy to other stations, too." He laid the drawing down and threaded his fingers together, resting them on top. "Is there anything else?"

     I frowned, suspicious. "That's it? I just told you he had a dream of a rando face."

     Lopez nodded, "And I believe in taking any lead seriously. I don't think you're the person to waste my time, Shippy. I know you're not telling me the entire truth, but I also believe this has to do with what happened to Asa today."

     "You heard."

     "Who didn't."

     I gritted my teeth, uncomfortable, "I'm still unsure about what happened."

     Lopez leaned back in his chair. He studied me for a moment in a detached, thoughtful way, like an accountant running numbers, then, in a quick movement, he slid open a desk drawer and withdrew a handful of beads.

   He laid a rosary in the space between us. An ivory-colored crucifix hooked to one end. I shifted in my seat. A dull ache started in the small of my back, and the familiar panic of being trapped stirred in my chest.

   "I don't carry this because I'm Catholic," Lopez said.

   "Yay?"

   "There are things that exist which cannot be explained. I've seen them. In your house. And if your brother thinks this is the face of evil. I believe him."

    Pain, white-hot, squeezed the base of my spine. I tried to focus and put the two Lopez' into one. He was talking, a frustrating, muffled sound. I touched the chair under me, the desk. I wanted to stand and run.

    Then the lights went out

    ...Click...

    and the desk lamp switched on by itself. 

    I know it did. I never moved. Not an inch. And it couldn't have been Lopez because as quickly as the lights went off whoomph and the industrial-style metal lamp with a saucer hood and a skinny, skinny neck flicked on, he'd disappeared.

     I was alone.

    The chair creaked under me, more from my ragged breathing than my movement. As I said, I hadn't moved an inch. Silence burned my eardrums like cigarette butts on soft skin. One minute ticked by; I heard it fall off a clock somewhere and skitter into a corner. When my eyes finally focused, I saw the rosary curled in on the desktop how Lopez had placed it, except instead of a maudlin-Jesus glowing white on his alabaster resin cross, fastened at the end of the fifty-nine wood beads was a finger.

    A severed finger.

    And not the nice kind like the close-ups of the slim and professionally manicured digits in a dish soap commercial. I couldn't be that lucky. This finger was long and bony—a flightless bird on display. The greyed skin was stained dark yellow by nicotine, capped by a ragged, oval nail. There was no blood at the stump, just more grey meat at the sight of a clean cut right before the third knuckle.

    I almost managed a laugh. A small, strangled squeak crept out my nose, shattering the quiet. The finger flexed in response, arching like a living thing. It tapped once, twice, on the desktop. Each collision shedded ash. On the third strike, a heavy bang, metallic and angry, exploded behind me. I ducked instinctively, twisting to see my attacker.

    There was nothing. No one.

     The rest of the office was still—a regular postcard of expectations. I could make out filing cabinets, a couch, and an old fashion three-tier cart with a coffee maker. Lopez's productivity requirements were few.

    I turned back around.

   The rosary and the finger were gone. Under the cold calm light of the desk lamp, a word loomed, scratched shakily in the wood grain:

     Guilty.

    I inhaled and shut my eyes against the letters. No. No. No.

    "Is there anything else?"

     My eyelids flew open. Incandescent light flooded my senses. The desktop was empty sans a spread of papers and Lopez's elbows, a coffee cup with a cracked handle, and Asa's drawing.

   No accusations. No rosary. No ungodly fingers.

   I felt myself nod. I felt the stiffness in my back and my neck as I stood.

     "Yeah," I said. "That's all."

       (That's all I'd ever tell.)

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