Definitely Dead

on my speed dial. If he answered the phone, I’d know whatever was out in the woods was something I needed to worry about.
    But if he was home, he’d come racing over here. He’d hear my call like this: “Oh, Bill, please come save me! I can’t think of anything to do but call a big, strong vampire to come to my rescue!”
    I made myself admit that I really knew that whatever was in the woods, it wasn’t Bill. I’d gotten a brain signal of some kind. If the lurker had been a vampire, I would have sensed nothing. Only twice had I gotten a flicker of a signal from a vampire brain, and it had been like a flash of electricity in an outage.
    And right by that telephone was the back door—which wasn’t locked.
    Nothing on earth could keep me at the sink after the fact of the open door had occurred to me. I simply ran for it. I stepped out onto the back porch, flipped the latch on the glass door there, and jumped back into the kitchen proper and locked the big wooden door, which I’d had outfitted with a thumb latch and a deadbolt.
    I leaned against the door after it was safely locked. Better than anyone I could think of, I knew the futility of doors and locks. To a vampire, the physical barrier was nothing—but a vampire had to be invited in. To a Were, doors were of more consequence, but still not much of a problem; with their incredible strength, Weres could go wherever they damn well chose. The same held true of other shifters.
    Why didn’t I just hold an open house?
    However, I felt wonderfully better with two locked doors between me and whatever was in the woods. I knew the front door was locked and bolted, since it hadn’t been opened in days. I didn’t get that many visitors, and I normally entered and departed through the back.
    I crept back to the window, which I closed and locked. I drew the curtains, too. I’d done everything to increase my security I could do. I went back to the dishes. I got a wet circle on the front of my sleep tee because I had to lean against the edge of the sink to steady my shaking legs. But I made myself continue until all the dishes were safely in the drainer and the sink had been wiped clean.
    I listened intently after that. The woods were still silent. No matter how I listened with every sense at my disposal, that faint signal did not impinge on my brain again. It was gone.
    I sat in the kitchen for a while, brain still in high gear, but then I forced myself to follow my usual routine. My heart rate had returned to normal by the time I brushed my teeth, and as I climbed into bed I had almost persuaded myself that nothing had happened out there in the silent darkness. But I’m careful about being honest inside. I knew some creature had been out in my woods; and that creature had been something bigger and scarier than a raccoon.
    Quite soon after I’d turned my bedside light off, I heard the bugs and the frogs resume their chorus. Finally, when it continued uninterrupted, I slept.

Chapter 4
    I PUNCHED IN THE NUMBER OF MY BROTHER’S CELL phone when I got up the next morning. I hadn’t spent a very good night, but at least I’d gotten a bit of sleep. Jason answered on the second ring. He sounded a little preoccupied when he said, “Hello?”
    “Hi, Brother. How’s it going?”
    “Listen, I need to talk to you. I can’t right now. I’ll be there, probably in a couple of hours.” He hung up without saying good-bye, and he’d sounded pretty worried about something. Good. I needed another complication.
    I glanced at the clock. A couple of hours would give me enough time to get cleaned up and run into town to go to the grocery store. Jason would be getting here about noon, and if I knew him he’d expect me to feed him lunch. I yanked my hair into a ponytail and then doubled the elastic band around it, making it into a kind of topknot. I had a little fan of the ends waving above my head. Though I tried not to admit it to myself, I thought this slapdash hairstyle was fun-looking and kind of cute.
    It was one of those crisp, cool March mornings, the kind that promises a warm afternoon. The sky was so bright and sunny that my spirits rose, and I drove to Bon Temps with the window rolled down, singing along with the radio at the top of my voice. I would’ve sung along with Weird Al Yankovic that morning.
    I drove past woods, the occasional house, and a field full of cows (and a couple of buffalo; you never know what people will raise).
    The disc jockey played “Blue