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on the back.
    Once they were out the front they turned left and sprinted down First. Without slowing, they crossed Kennedy, back into the Elms, back across the football field and the baseball diamond, back onto Seaview Avenue, and back up the hill toward home.
    Once they were back at Judy’s Ann felt safe, at least for a few minutes, she told herself. She was exhausted, the cancer stealing her strength. She had to lay down, just for a few seconds. She literally fell on the sofa.
    “ Are you all right?” J.P. asked.
    “ I’m fine, I just need a little rest.”
    “ Okay.
     
     
    * * *
    J.P. settled back in his mother’s favorite chair, remote in hand, and channel surfed, changing channels at least three times a minute, but he couldn’t get that Ragged Man out of his mind. How could Ann rest at a time like this? She must really be tired. He didn’t want to think about it, so he decided to get something to eat, but before he got to the refrigerator, he heard an animal sound from outside. He pulled a kitchen chair over to the sink, climbed up and looked out the window and saw the black shape of a big dog slide into the bushes that grew between the garage and the house.
    J.P. loved to play in there.
    Like a flash he was off the chair and through the kitchen to tell Ann. Halfway to the sofa he heard the scratching at the front door and screamed, “Annie, something’s outside!”
     
     
    * * *
    “ What?” she said, nerves taught.
    “ Listen,” he whispered.
    Ann heard the scratching at the door.
    “ It’s the Ghost Dog,” she said. “It belongs to the Ragged Man.”
    “ What are we gonna do?”
    “ Sit tight for a second,” she said.
    For the longest minute in her life, Ann sat, J.P. by her side, listening to the scratching and scraping at the door. Then whatever was out there growled a low rattling, rasping whisper, barely heard by the duo inside. “Smell—your—fear.” A hideous phlegm-filled gurgle.
    “ That’s the Ragged Man,” Ann whispered.
    J.P. shuddered.
    Ann’s adrenaline was flowing before her feet hit the carpet, her racing mind taking her back to the night with the dingoes in Australia. She was afraid then and she was now, afraid that fear meant death and she wasn’t ready.
    “ Are you okay, Annie?”
    She couldn’t answer, because she wasn’t okay, her hands were trembling, her skin was clammy with sweat and a searing pain was ripping through her chest.
    She knew the end was near. She wished she could see Rick and his beautiful smile one last time, but instead all she saw was the glint of the summer sun reflected into her eyes from the silver, shiny blade of the Jim Bowie knife the Ragged Man was holding up for her to see, just outside the window.
    J.P. picked up the phone. “Annie, the phone doesn’t work,” he whispered and she heard the fear in his voice. “Someone cut the line.” He looked Ann in the eyes and she saw the boy fight the fear away. “I’m going for help.” He dashed to the door, slid the bolt and screamed when he saw the Bowie knife sitting on the front porch. Then he jumped over it and ran.
     
     
    * * *
    Jaspinder Singh watched as Sheriff Sturgees cradled the phone, then turned to Rick Gordon and Judy Donovan. The phone call had done something to him. The straight shoulders now sagged. The hard set of his jaw was gone. His glaring eyes were now dim. In thirty seconds the call had transformed him from a steaming battleship to a lumbering barge. He started to say something, then stopped. He turned away from Judy as he fished out some bills from a shirt pocket and faced Jaspinder Singh behind the counter.
    “ Can I have a pack of Camels?” he asked, handing over the money.
    “ It’s that bad?” Singh knew the sheriff only smoked when he was severely upset.
    “ It can’t get any worse, Mr. Singh,” the sheriff said. It was plain for them all to see that the Sheriff was suffering some kind of mental anguish. He was fighting hard to control the tremor