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had to set foot in Brinkley Springs again, except for the occasional holiday when home on leave, had his mother not gotten sick.
    The cancer had been slow but deadly, ravaging her body one cell at a time with unerring precision. The doctors down in Beckley had discovered it by accident. Mom had gone in for a checkup while Donny was still on his second tour in Iraq. They’d discovered a lump in her abdomen, but had assured her it was merely a lipoma, a benign tumor composed of nothing more than extra fatty tissue. And they’d been right. The lump they’d removed was benign, but the tumors they discovered beneath it during the operation were malignant. So were the ones that followed.
    His father had died when Donny was ten years old. He’d been coming home from work late one night after a full day of cutting timber on Bald Knob and had rolled his truck down a mountainside between Punkin Center and Renick. After plunging eighty feet, there wasn’t much left of him or the truck. Investigators were never able to determine what had happened. Maybe a deer had run out in front of him. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe another car had run him off the narrow road. Or maybe it had just been one of those things—dumb luck, the kind that altered lives forever. In any case, no matter what the reason, his father had never come home that night.
    His mother had never remarried. As far as Donny knew, she’d never even dated again. He had no siblings, so when his mother got sick, he’d returned home, come back to Brinkley Springs to take care of her. He slept in his old bedroom. At night, after his mother was asleep in a haze of painkillers and sedatives, Donny had lain in that old bedroom and stared at the ceiling. It felt like a prison, and with each passing night, the walls had seemed to draw closer.
    Mom had lingered for just over a year. They’d tried various treatments, but none of them had worked, and some of them had made her sicker than the cancer itself. In the end, she’d succumbed. Donny had been by her side in the hospital when it happened.
    Now she was gone, and in a minute, as soon as he climbed back in his pickup truck and started the engine, Donny would be gone, too. This time for good.
    “I’m sorry, Mom.”
    The street lights blinked out. Donny stared up at them, waiting for the illumination to return, but it didn’t.
    “Fucking town. Nothing works around here anymore. Even the lights are dead.”
    Something screamed in the night. Donny jumped, startled. It sounded like an injured woman or child. The cry came from the woods, shattering the stillness. After a moment, he realized what it was. The shrieks belonged to a screech owl. He’d been terrified of that sound as a young boy, but had forgotten all about it in adulthood—as adulthood had given him all new things to be afraid of.
    “Damn it.”
    With a third sigh, Donny turned away from the house and clambered up into the cab of the truck. The seat springs groaned as he climbed inside. He slammed the door, rolled the window down and slipped his key into the ignition. He was about to start it when someone called his name.
    “Donny? Donny, wait!”
    Surprised, Donny leaned his head out the window and glanced behind him. The streetlights still hadn’t returned, and at first, all he saw was a shadow. Then, as the figure drew closer, he recognized it. Marsha Cummings was hurrying down the street toward him. Her flip-flops beat a steady rhythm on the pavement.
    I must be tired, he thought. I didn’t even hear her coming. How could I not have, with her wearing those flip-flops?
    Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, Donny turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened.
    “Shit.”
    He tried it again, but the engine refused to turn over. When he tried the headlights, he found that they were dead, as well.
    “Donny,” Marsha called again. “Wait a minute, goddamn it!”
    Sighing a fourth and final time, Donny let his fingers fall away from the keys. He