Even though the snow had stopped hours ago, the roads were still a mess. Even where the ploughs had passed, the streets were treacherous and cars crawled along to avoid accidents. It only got worse up by the State Park. Denton steered with white knuckles, maneuvering around the bends. The tires drove on pillows of snow and never seemed to make contact with the asphalt. He was certain that if he hit the brakes, he would end up over the guardrail, tumbling down the embankment.

All that time in the car, with no better company than the incessant whine of homogenized Christmas Carols, Denton began to think about what he was going to find up there. Or rather, what he wouldn't find. From the moment the old man in the shelter had mentioned Mt. Nazareth, he had felt its pull. There was a resonating connection between the man known as Ray and the cow mutilator. Demons in the woods, devils in the trees. But now in the clear light of day, his certainty deserted him.

Whatever reason the drifter had to go there, it had nothing to do with that disturbed young man who built that shack. The kid had probably chosen to worship his bull demon because of the folk tales people told about the place. The stories had mixed in with his own delusions and formed an outlet for his psychosis.

Besides, the old man never said that Ray had mentioned devils there, only that he was going to live on the mountain. And he never even went there. He stayed behind and went mad instead. Then the Bexhill Guerrillas had dismembered and burnt him. If anything Nazareth would have been a refuge if he had gone. He would still be insane, but alive.

Denton thought about the timeline. Had the boys gone back for him that very night, after the trip to the hospital? Or had they plotted and planned, striking days or weeks later? At first in his confusion, Denton had wondered how it was possible that they were already on the lookout for the eights—or the star and the moon, as they called it—when Ray was the first one with the disease. But even though he was the first to be infected, Alfred Reynolds hadn't been the first victim. Agatha Radcliff must have already been dead on that night, and Danny was already weaving Gasher's tale in with reality to ease the guilt and spread the paranoia. Then along came that man running onto the road with blood pouring from his head, and a story about a devil attacking him and circles of hell drawn under the train bridge. Denton got as far as the road would allow. The way forward was impassable by car. He got out and started making his way on foot through the snow. The only indication that there was a road at all was the uniform border of trees on either side of a strip of white.

What am I supposed to do now?

Even if by some miracle there was an answer, a clue, one iota of evidence, he couldn't search the whole mountain. He wouldn't have been able to do that even in the summer, when it wasn't shrouded in fresh snow. It was too big, too impossible.

Perhaps if he just went to were the shack had been. If he could just appease his own superstitions and make sure there was nothing out of the ordinary there. Then he could call it a day and go back.

It all looked so different: the leafless trees, the blanket of white. Would he even be able to tell where the shack had been? How far down the road was it anyway? In the 4X4, the ride had been five, maybe ten minutes. The trooper couldn't have been going more than thirty. So what was that? Five miles or so? He'd never make it five miles. Not through fourteen inches of snow. It was a fool's errand. And just because he was the biggest fool of all, it didn't mean he had to carry it out.

He turned around looking at the woods. They seemed far more beautiful than they did haunted—heavenly rather than hellish. A great sense of peace filled them. Tension drained from Denton's shoulders as he relaxed and breathed in the cool, bright air.

All this was to avoid going to the hospital, he realized. Stopping at the shelter, searching the Radcliff house, coming up here, it was all just to delay what he knew would happen.

The police would completely dismiss what he had to say about the disease. No one would believe him that the infected were joining up and conspiring against the town. They would lock him up and study him like some curious specimen. His future would be filled with therapists, psychiatrists, group counseling, and anti-psychotics. They'd probably prescribe thioridazine first and then switch him to haloperidol when that didn't work.

Perhaps that's what scared him the most. He knew what they would do. He knew exactly what was to come. And as the virus ate away at his brain and eroded his personality, they would treat him like any other lunatic. They would humor him and ask him about his feelings and his parents. They would even give him crayons, so he could draw as many eights as he wanted.

All the while, the illness would be spreading—stealing the sanity of more and more of the town. It would be moving to other towns, other states, other countries. Until there was nowhere to be safe from it.

No place for Linda to be safe from it.

Up on the ridge there was movement. He wasn't alone.

He shielded the sun from his eyes and tried to get a better view. At first, he couldn't see anything, then the figure took two steps and came out from behind a tree. It had horns.

The head turned and came into profile. A fearsome snout exhaled steam into the air. The breath looked black against the brilliant azure sky. The figure took another slow, cautious step and stopped. Its legs were long and spindly. Then in a blink of an eye, it moved from stillness into action. As if it heard some silent warning, it sprang off over the rise.

Denton released the breath he was holding with a deep sigh. He almost laughed.

"Just a deer," he said aloud, to reassure himself. Back at Cornell, he had taken a course called Myth and Psychology.

It was one of the standard components of fairy tales and old legends that a hero would encounter a stag in the forest and follow it. It would lead him to a clearing in the woods and then transform and reveal some mystery.

But this wasn't a fairy tale and Denton wasn't a hero. It was just a deer that ran off because it got spooked.

In spite of every sensible reason, Denton began climbing up the ridge. As he struggled up the incline, he rationalized his actions: I'll just take a look from the top of the hill. One look, then I'll head back to Bexhill. He wouldn't search the park or even attempt to find the spot the shack had been. He would just get a high vantage and see if anything strange caught his eye. It would be just as irrational not to go up because the deer had passed that way, he told himself.

The snow that covered the slope was bad, but what made the going really tough were the wet leaves under the surface. Like a layer of slime, they fought to trip him up every time one of his boots sank too deep and came into contact with them. He cursed as he pulled himself up the hill using the trunks of saplings for support.

At the top, the ground immediately dropped back down, leaving only a narrow ridge. Denton stood there and gaped at the vista before him. The stag had led him to a glade.

At the bottom of the hill was a clearing, roughly circular and surrounded by trees. Nothing broke the silent plane, except for a trail of hoof prints. The deer was already at the far side and making for the security of the forest. Unlike fairy tales, it wasn't waiting around to talk. Denton's wonder was soon replaced with harsh self-awareness: he was chasing ghosts up here. What was he hoping to find: a demon dancing around in the woods? A smoking crater with a glowing meteorite embedded in it? A talking animal with the answers to the riddle of the virus?

It was only a State Forest. It was woodland, nothing more.

It was time to stop finding distractions and be a man. There was nothing left to do but go back and face the music.

Is that a cabin down there?

He peered down. Yes, there was a structure off to the right of the glade. Who would build something all the way out here?

There was an answer to that, which he didn't want to think about. But that boy was locked up in a mental institution. It couldn't be him.

Denton slowly picked his way down the slope, diverting away from the deer tracks to head toward the cabin. Going down was much easier than the trip up and he soon found himself on flat ground, walking level with the building. The gray wood blended in with the trees, making it difficult to make out the details.

The closer he got, the clearer it became that it was only a shed. It was small, only about eight feet wide and ten feet long. There was one door in the front and no windows. Stenciled on the door was the State's seal and "MN0053."

It must be used by park services and probably filled with tools.

A perverse idea entered his head that he should knock. What if someone was in there?

And in the moment as he examined it, he was certain there was someone inside, someone who wanted Denton to enter. It was like a voice whispering in his ear.

Denton rubbed his face with his hands. What was happening to him? He had to fight this thing inside of him trying to rob him of his sanity. It was a tool shed. There was no one there.

Next to it, he came upon a trail that proved to be a much easier route to the road and his car than a return trip over the hill would have been. He didn't relish the thought of heading back to civilization, but it was time.

On the drive home, the Christmas music finally got too much for him, and he began cycling through the stations, until he came upon one discussing the storm.

"...estimates that four hundred people are still without power. Northeast Electric says that it is hoping to have it restored to all the homes in town by this evening, but isn't making any promises for those in the rural areas. In the meantime, stay warm and stay safe. And keep your dial tuned here to WBNZ, Bexhill's all 90's music station." There was a prolonged organ intro, then electric guitars kicked in. Denton's finger sought the scan button, but he stopped himself and brought his quivering hand back to the steering wheel.

By all strange fates, he actually knew this song. It was the Afghan Whigs. Linda used to play the album in her small apartment in Brooklyn.

He was in town for a date. Linda was making dinner for him for the first time. Mussels steamed in white wine seemed so exotic at the time. The most adventurous seafood Denton had eaten before then was shrimp. She stood slightly hunched over the stove with both hands on the pan's handle, shaking the pile of shells and sauce over the burner. She swayed her head gently back and forth to the music. Her short, light brown hair fluttered in the air and around her face. Denton leaned against the counter taking another sip of the Pinot Gris, as the stereo sang about saying goodbye and disappearing into the night.

The lyrics, with their hints of revenge, began to bleed in with his recollections of the Gasher story. That was what the sheriff was trying to do in the end: kill himself before he was gone and get revenge on those that had destroyed everything he loved.

He picked up speed on the highway. Pieces of a plan rapidly began to form in his head, like a puzzle he had just deciphered the key to.

What good will I do anyone from a hospital room? Bexhill will become ground zero for a plague of madness, while I wither away. While I am medicated and analyzed, Kaling and Radnor will be out there spreading the disease, gathering their forces. While I still have my sanity, I need to stop this. End it and make sure it never reaches Linda.

The exit for Westfield came up on the right, and he merged into the cutoff lane. The large yellow sign for The Home Shop could be seen from the overpass. The massive hardware store sprawled out next to a strip mall with all the liveliness of a tomb. It should have everything he needed. There was a lot of work to be done and not a lot of daylight to do it.