Thirty Miles South Of Dry County by Kealan Patrick Burke

at my back.
    “There’s only one person in this town can help you, but it’ll cost you to talk to him. Maybe more than you’re willin’ to pay.”
    I turned. Her eyes caught and held the candlelight and for just a moment I could see how a man could fall head over heels in love with her. “Who?”
    “His name’s Cadaver. Or at least that’s the name he goes by. You’ll find him up at Eddie’s Tavern. I’m sure he’ll be expectin’ you.”
    “I thought Eddie’s burned down?” I asked, recallin’ the tales of magic and murder that had reached out all the way to Sven’s the night the fire had claimed the bar.
    “It did.”
    * * *
    As soon as I stepped out of Iris’s place into the thickenin’ fog, the hair on the back of my neck prickled. Then I heard a sound, kinda like someone peggin’ small stones on the pavement. Tryin’ to find the source of it were a waste of time, because the fog made it seem as if the noise were comin’ from all around me.
    Iris had directed me back toward the southern edge of town, back where I had come in and a squat hill nearby the fog had kept hidden from me. There, she said, I’d find the remains of the tavern, so with no other options, and despite the strange sound and the sensation that someone were standin’ real close and takin’ in everythin’ I did, I pushed away from the door and started that way.
    I felt like a swimmer, had to resist the urge to reach out and part the fog like it were nothin’ more than big, dirty gray sheets someone had hung from the sky, and for most of the walk I had only the vaguest sense that I were goin’ in the right direction. I didn’t stop though, not once, because all the while that odd tickin’ sound followed close behind me. A couple of times I got the impression of somethin’ dark and low to the ground and I wondered what Milestone’s stance might be on wolves within the town’s limits. I figured given all I knew by then, it wouldn’t have surprised me none to find that such a thing were perfectly fine and dandy.
    Whether by luck, or because I were supposed to, I came to the edge of town and hung a left. The fog had lessened a little so I could just make out the uneven rise of a small hill before the top of it got lost in the low clouds. Only then did I stop. Not because I wanted to, mind you, but because the aches and pains from the day before made themselves known in the worst way. I were out of breath, feelin’ my age, my joints achin’ and even with that growin’ feelin’ that somethin’ terrible were bearin’ down on me, I had to rest. If the fog suddenly split wide and some nightmare creature came flyin’ at me with teeth and claws gleamin’, well then I figured the pain would be over mighty quick anyway.
    There was boulders here and there linin’ a rough path up the hill and I sat myself down on one of them, my lungs hurtin’, heart beatin’ faster than I could ever remember. I put a hand to my chest and took a deep breath that tasted like wet leaves, blinked the sweat from my eyes, and waited.
    Click, click, click, click.
    Whatever it were, it were close now.
    I waited, resistin’ the urge to run, knowin’ I’d never make it, and turned my head in the direction of the sound now that it were clear where it were comin’ from.
    Click, click, click, click.
    Closer.
    A small voice whispered to me to run anyway, to at least try, that of all the horrors I could imagine comin’ out of that fog, none could be worse than dyin’ right here, alone, in this godforsaken place. But for once, I were too old and too tired to run, too tired to even rightly be scared. So I stayed where I were, and I kept on waitin’.
    Then it came. Not leapin’, not snarlin’, not bound for my throat with razor sharp claws. It trotted toward me, and when I saw it, I couldn’t help myself, I laughed out loud and shook my head, the swell of relief tellin’ me I’d been more scared than I’d let on.
    It were a dog, a Black Labrador,