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with blood, kicked and strained, flicking little droplets on the highway. A surviving baby possum was digging into its mother’s stomach. Transfixed, Paul watched the little blood-covered baby worm its way through cartilage and sinew as it tried to burrow inside the corpse.
    At first he didn’t want to credit the smacking sounds for what they were, yet the sounds and the frenetic twisting of the baby possum’s body could only be the little devil feasting on its dead mother. Buried as it was from the shoulders up, it was inching its way to the heart.
    Appalled by the burrowing cannibal and forgetting his revulsion, Paul endeavored to yank the baby out of its mother’s corpse. Try as he might to get a finger hold on the kicking feet or the twitching tail, the baby eluded him. He didn’t want to get too close, lest its crimson head appear and bite his finger. At this thought, he felt the mother’s body shift.
    Paul cried out and stumbled away as the mother’s face rose and snapped at his arm. He landed on his rump and stared at her in shock. She bared her teeth at him and hissed. Then, instead of batting away her feasting child, she lay back and appeared to rest. Soon, two more surviving babies were swarming over the dying mother and digging out scraps of flesh on which to feed. The smallest possum chewed on one of the mother’s teats and drank the blood that sluiced forth instead of milk.
    Paul looked down and found that his heels were resting in the pool of blood. He shivered and scrambled away. Then, hearing the sounds of lips smacking and voices chittering, he drew himself to his feet and scuttled back inside his car. As he drove away from the scene of the accident, he found that he was fully awake.

Chapter Three
    When Paul came to an opening in the forest, he made out a wooden mailbox whose carved, ornate letters spelled out WATERMERE.
    Finally.
    He signaled despite being the only living soul for miles. When the Civic left the thick gravel and disappeared into the woods, its wheels aligning with the twin tire paths that doubled for a road, he felt an odd twinge of recognition. The hickories and oaks and maples leaned over the road like knights with swords drawn, admitting their king.
    And wasn’t that the truth? Unless the pictures the lawyers had sent him had been doctored in some way, Paul was about to take possession of a mansion. He chuckled, giddy with disbelief. He was a modern-day baron, a landed count.
    Bushes thwacked the Civic, reeling him back toward reality. He’d need to do something about the flora threatening to overtake the lane. He knew Myles had been an old man, but he still could have employed someone, a local kid maybe, to keep the road from going to seed.
    The woods opened up, and all he could do was stop the car and stare.
    Watermere was beautiful.
    He couldn’t believe that this sprawling Victorian home was his.
    As Paul pulled forward, he took it all in. Though majestic, the house needed work. He noted the way the porch awning sagged, the cracks in the brick façade, the dead ivy. He doubted the old man had spent much time on upkeep in his twilight years. He studied the detached double garage up ahead and wondered whether either side was occupied.
    Paul stopped, threw the car into park. Getting out, he entered the side door of the garage. Flicking the switch, he saw it was empty. The closed air smelled vaguely of kerosene. He scanned the wall for the automatic door opener but couldn’t find one. Then, he spotted the rope attached to the garage door lying there on the floor. He crossed to it, bent and lifted.
    The garage door roared up on its tracks. It made a frightful racket, but something about the noise appealed to him, as though he were announcing his ownership of the house by startling it awake.
    Climbing back into the Civic, he shifted into gear and rolled into the stall. He cut the engine and got out, relishing the simple pleasure of housing his car in a garage. It was the first