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should make me happy, because if it’s true, then it means that I’m not crazy. If she’s experiencing things too—enough that she suddenly wants to move—then that’s proof right there that I’m not losing my mind. Right? If so, then I should be ecstatic. But I’m not. I’m not because this is my family we’re talking about, and we probably should move and I can’t afford to do it. I’m supposed to take care of them and provide for them and protect them, and in this case, the best way to do those things is to buy another house and get the hell away from here.
    I wish sometimes that I still had a real job, a job where I operated a machine or moved boxes around, and got a paycheck every week for my efforts. A job with health insurance and a 401K would be nice, too. It would be awesome to have a job where people didn’t email me at the end of the day, after I busted my ass for eight hours, and say, “Your last book sucked. When are you gonna write another zombie novel?” But I’d even put up with that, as long as the job gave me a steady enough income that I could buy us a new home.
    Earlier this week, I tried to get a job like that. I went back to two of my former employers—the foundry and the loading docks. Neither one of them were hiring, on account of the economy. The Human Resources Director at the foundry said, “You must be a millionaire from all those books. Why would you want to come back to work here?”
    Life is nothing more than a series of lyrics from Bruce Springsteen songs.
    This is good whiskey. Woodford Reserve. Big fucking bottle. I believe I will have some more. I believe, in fact, that I will drink this bottle dry tonight.
    The people in those stories don’t move out because they can’t. They’re trapped.
    So am I.
     

    ENTRY 9:
     

    The third bit of strangeness occurred around the end of March. In truth, I’d again forgotten all about the accident. Oh, sure, I thought of it for a second when I went up to get the mail or pulled in or out of my driveway. The cross was kind of hard to miss. The floral arrangements had since withered and died, but the marker was still there. So while I did occasionally think of the accident, such thoughts were fleeting. They weren’t even fully-formed thoughts. If anything, they were just echoes.
    I’d even forgotten about the mini-cyclone the leaves had formed. Cassi had taken to smoking inside, but as I said earlier, I hadn’t put two and two together at that point, and didn’t know why she’d changed her routine. I thought it was because of the cold weather.
    The third occurrence was an incredibly vivid and detailed dream. I know that I dream all night. I’ve been told by Cassi, ex-girlfriends, my ex-wife, one-night stands, cellmates, my old Navy buddies and anyone else who has ever slept beside me that I’m restless at night. I kick and twitch and talk in my sleep. Not mumbling. Not whispering. No, I have loud, boisterous and elaborate dream conversations. Sadly, I never remember them. It’s rare that I remember any of my dreams. But I remembered this one. It happened in March. Here we are, months later, and I still remember every detail.
    In the dream, I was sitting out on our deck after dark, smoking a cigar and looking up at the stars twinkling down through the tree limbs. I do this quite a bit in the waking world, so the dream was pleasant enough. Max was sprawled in my lap, and I was petting him with one hand and holding my cigar in the other. My dog, Sam (who was the inspiration for Big Steve in my novel Dark Hollow , as well as many other things), was sprawled at my feet. There was a glass of bourbon on the table in front of me. Crickets and spring peepers were chirping over in the swamp, and in the distance, I could hear the soft, muted roar of the trout stream. Eventually, I became aware that Max and I weren’t alone. I heard the glider rails squeak, as if someone was slowly rocking back and forth. I turned around and there was a