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least he’d be able to enjoy some state-subsidized pecan pie. Even though he had no official authority without the Council’s mandate, and even though everything had to be reported to his contact at The Point on a quarterly basis, Grim did hold the executive power in Black Spring, and one of his talents was to pry up subsidies from what he called the Bottomless Pit. The annual salaries of the seven HEX employees were paid out of this pit, as were the four-hundred-something surveillance cams and their operating system, the filtered server with Internet access for the entire town, a couple of very successful parties (with excellent wine) following Council meetings, and free iPhones for everyone under the compulsory reporting regulation who preferred to use the HEXApp instead of the 800 number. This last had made Robert Grim the most celebrated man in Black Spring among the younger population, and he could often be found daydreaming about some random young (and usually long-legged) brunette from town coming to the control center to explore the legendary proportions of his cult status amid the piling props still reeking of seventeenth-century decay.
    Robert Grim had always remained single.
    â€œBy the way, we got an e-mail from John Blanchard,” Marty said as Grim was getting ready to leave. “You know, that sheep farmer in the woods, from Ackerman’s Corner.”
    â€œOh, God, him,” Warren said. He raised his eyes to heaven.
    â€œHe says his sheep Jackie gave birth to a two-headed lamb. Stillborn.”
    â€œTwo-headed?” Grim asked incredulously. “That’s horrible! That hasn’t happened since Henrietta Russo’s baby in ‘91.”
    â€œHis e-mail kind of freaked me out. He went on about prophecies and omens and something about a ninth circle or whatever.”
    â€œIgnore him,” Warren said. “At the last Council meeting he said he had seen strange lights in the sky. He said that ‘the ignorant and the sodomites will be punished for their pride and greed.’ The guy is nuts. He sees omens in morning wood.”
    Marty turned toward Grim. “I mean, should we keep it? Here’s the photo he attached.” He clicked on his touch pad, and a photo of an ugly, fleshy, dead thing in the dirt appeared on the big screen—and, sure enough, you could easily discern two deformed lamb’s heads. Jackie hadn’t even wanted to lick off the membrane. Half cut out of the photo and somewhat out of focus, she could be seen eating hay and refusing to give the fetal monster the time of day.
    â€œUgh, what a freak,” said Grim, and he turned away. “Yes, have Dr. Stanton take a look, and put it in formaldehyde along with the other specimens in the archive. Anybody else up for pecan pie?”
    A unanimous “yuck” came from all the staff members, so at first Grim didn’t hear that Claire was the only one who didn’t say “yuck,” but “fuck.” He had already grabbed the doorknob when she repeated it: “No, seriously, Robert. Fuck. Marty, give me the Barphwell parcel on full screen.”
    Marty dragged the photo of the dead lamb away and the movers came back into view.
    â€œNo, do the cam at her parcel, D19 … 064.”
    Grim went visibly pale.
    The security camera was located on the lamppost in front of the Delarosa bungalow plot and offered a view of Upper Reservoir Road that sloped down through the edges of Black Rock Forest. The moving van was parked on the right, and you could see the workers picking up boxes and disappearing from the bottom of the image. The rest of the street was empty, except for about twenty yards farther up, on the left. Standing on the lawn of a low-lying house across the street was a woman. She wasn’t looking at the movers but was staring down the hill, motionless. But Robert Grim didn’t need to see her up close to know that she wasn’t staring at all. Panic