Thirty-one years ago, Bill Buxly, aka Buxly the Butcher, went to trial for killing his family. He was found guilty, and sentenced to die for those crimes. Now, Janet Hale, a recently divorced nurse, has purchased the house unaware of the brutal murders that took place there so long ago.

Can Lucy-Fur protect her boy from an angry ghost who wants to possess him? Can Michael fight through the madness and terror to find out what really happened? With the help of his babysitter and her Ouija board, he is going to try.

This isn’t your average haunted house novel, this is a trip into the mind of a man who spent a few years in a solitary cell. Don’t think you know what is going to happen, for in this creepy, edge of your seat horror/thriller not everyone is who they seem… even the dead.

Download the sample and start reading now.

***Formerly released as The Butcher’s Boy, under the indie pen name Michael Robb Mathias, this title won the 2011 Readers Favorite Award for Horror Fiction. Out of respect for Patrick McCabe, and Thomas Perry, who have similarly titled books, we have changed the name and reverted to the author’s favorite pen name. The audio and paperback versions are still available under the old title “The Butcher’s Boy,” by Michael Robb Mathias here at Amazon.

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

Chapter 2

Summer 2011

“Is it big?” Michael asked his mom as he navigated the labyrinth of boxes that were stacked in the living room.

He was eleven years old, still wearing his pajamas, and unsure whether to be upset or excited about moving to a new house two hundred miles away.

“It’s huge, Michael,” his mom’s smile went a long way toward smoothing the edges of his worry.  “The yard is huge too.  Lucy will love it.”

“Is it like Dad and Sheila’s neighborhood, all packed in with other houses and stuff?” he asked as he slid up onto a stool at the bar.

Lucy, a healthy black Rottweiler with a spiked collar, sauntered out of the bedroom she shared with her boy.  She scoffed at the boxes then waggled over to Michael and nuzzled his offered hand.  Lucy and Michael had been inseparable even before the divorce, but now they were joined at the hip.

“No way Jose!” his mom slid a glass of the good stuff over to him as if they were in an old Western saloon.

After Michael took the first gulp of milk, he gave her an open palmed gesture that implored her to elaborate about the new house.  She put a bowl of cereal in front of him and her eyes sparkled with her smile.

“The yard is as big as four of the yards in Summerwood.”  Her happiness bubbled over and she did a skipping dance step on her way back to the fridge.

Michael giggled. It had been a while since she had felt anything resembling this sort of elation.  Michael could sense her joy and the feeling was contagious.

*** * ***

Ms. Janet Hale, formerly Mrs. Janet Wilson, had just finished nursing school a month ago and already she’d found a great position at a modern hospital.  The house she’d just purchased was huge – the lot was over two and a half acres, and it was near the end of a block with open fields across the street.  It was almost like looking out at the country.  She couldn’t believe the deal she’d gotten on the place.  Sure, it was old, and the only neighbor was an elderly retired woman, but there was a tall wooden fence that ran the length of the property line on that side.  It was three hours away from home, but Janet thought that the change of pace might help Michael out of the slump he’d fallen into.

The divorce had been hard on both of them.  First there was the discovery that Jack was having an affair.  Try explaining that to a nine-year-old boy.  Then there were the long terrible months of arguing and crying before she finally mustered the courage to walk away.  That was followed swiftly by the lawyers, the telephone fights, and the mercifully brief battle for custody.  The only home Michael had ever known had been sold, and for the last year and a half, the two of them, and Lucy, had been living in the little uptown apartment.  It was time for them to move on, to put the bad times behind them and start a new life in a new place.  She only hoped that it wouldn’t be too much for Michael to handle.  He’d already been through enough.

The divorce had paid for her tuition and now all those long nights of studying were reaping dividends.  She wasn’t just a nurse’s aide anymore; now she was a Licensed Practical Nurse.  Even better, she was an LPN employed at a relatively new hospital in a cozy family town that boasted one of the best high school graduation rates in the country.  She hoped that Michael was ready, because the deal was done, the boxes were packed, and the movers were due at any moment.

“Is it as big as a football field?”  Michael asked.

“Imagine a football field with a house built in the middle of it,” she replied.  “The back of the backyard touches one street and the front of the front yard touches another.  The driveway is long and straight, and it runs right past the house to a garage apartment. There are huge oak trees in the backyard too, and a shed.”

Michael seemed excited now.  He picked up his bowl and drank the sweetened milk from it with a slurp that caused Lucy to turn an anxious circle on the kitchen linoleum.

“What’s a garage apartment?” he asked.

Janet took a can of dog food from the counter and put it in the opener.  Like most Rottweiler’s, Lucy’s tail had been bobbed.  Because she had no tail to wag, her whole rump waggled back and forth when she was excited.  She ate two cans of food a day and was eager for the first of them.

Over the grind of the can opener Janet answered Michael’s question.

“It’s an apartment built on top of a garage that isn’t connected to the house.  I was thinking that maybe we could fix it up and rent it to a college student or something.”

“Oh,” Michael had apparently lost interest in that aspect of the new place. “Can I build a tree house?”

Janet was saved from giving her dutiful: “We’ll see,” by the ring of the doorbell.

Lucy gave the door a look and a deep rumbling growl but didn’t leave the kitchen.

“It’s the movers,” said Janet.  “Here, put Lucy in the bathroom while I let them in.”  She pounded the thick glob of Alpo out of the can into the dog’s bowl and handed it to her son.  Lucy followed him as if he were carrying sirloin.

Only when the dog was secure in the bathroom did Janet dare answer the front door.  They hadn’t named her Lucy-Fur for nothing.  If Lucy felt that Michael was threatened in even the slightest way, the hackles on her back stood out and a growl as low as thunder rumbled forth.  Even as a puppy she’d been protective of her boy, but since the divorce and the long nights with Michael crying while clinging to her neck, the dog had become his guardian in every sense of the word.  Lucy hadn’t attacked anyone yet, but her menacing snarl had caused more than one pizza guy and many a stranger to turn and walk quickly away.  It was another of the issues that Janet hoped the new environment would change.

They helped the movers load and mark boxes all day then crammed into the U-Haul and hit the highway.  A few grueling hours later, under an orange-blue dusky sky, they pulled into the driveway of their new home.  Michael was asleep and the moving truck wouldn’t be there until morning.  Janet didn’t even have the key yet, but she wanted Michael to have a chance to see it before they went to the motel.

Lucy stirred beside her, and by the distress in her wiggling Janet could tell that she had to pee.  She gently woke her son and then stepped out into her very own, and very un-mowed yard.  Cutting the grass, she realized, was going to be a chore.

“Wow, it is huge!” Michael said as he nearly fell out of the truck.  Lucy was right on his heels. “Is the power on?  Are we going to have cable?  I have to have Internet you know, for school reports, and that kind of stuff.”  Michael and the excited dog made their way past the kitchen door toward the garage apartment at the rear of the house.

Standing at the end of the driveway and looking down it at the garage apartment put the rectangular two story house to the left, literally in the middle of the yard.  The house was sided with slatted wood and had shutters on windows that would eventually have to be replaced.  Janet figured that a few coats of paint would go far toward making it presentable.  Along the right side of the driveway there was a tall wooden fence, on the other side of which was another concrete drive just like hers. The old woman’s house was the last on the block; beyond it there was a field, and then the edge of a forest. Supposedly there were train tracks back in the woods somewhere.  The street ended in a misshapen, curb-less circle of asphalt.

Janet cocked her head and strained to listen.  Someone was playing a piano – Mary Had a Little Lamb in slow, single notes, as if a child were pushing the keys.  A glance at the neighbor’s house revealed that all the lights were off.  It was after 9:00 p.m.  The elderly woman had to be asleep, but the piano sounded too close to be coming from anywhere else.  There had been an old upright sitting in the front room of the house when she’d looked at it with Mr. Parker last week, but the sound couldn’t be coming from her place. Could it?

Looking back up the street for the source of the music she saw that her property was separated from the newer tract houses on the other blocks by rows of thick healthy pine trees.  She decided that the song was drifting from the neighborhood beyond them.  She also decided that a riding mower was in her near future.

She walked to the small covered patio, and as she stepped up onto the porch the piano music faded from her mind.  She wasn’t sure now that the sound hadn’t been coming from inside of her house.  It was almost as if her stepping up on the porch had startled the person from their playing.

She shivered away her sudden unease then looked out at the road and the field-like expanse of the empty lot across the street.  She noticed a drab, well-lit building for the first time. She figured it to be a postal sorting facility because there was a row of old boxy mail trucks parked behind a high chain-link fence. She was glad that it was on the next street over. She didn’t want to hear vehicles pulling in and out all of the time.

“Mom!” Michael’s frantic voice came from the darkness somewhere behind the house.  Lucy’s savage growl was unmistakable and had a seriously alarmed quality to it.  Janet was sprinting around the corner and down the drive before she knew it.

“Mom, there’s a man!” Michael sounded desperate now.  “No Lucy, wait!”

“Oh God!” a pitiful sounding male pleaded.

Janet ran past the little door that opened from the kitchen into the driveway and turned the corner into the back yard.

“Keef it off me boy!” a disheveled looking man demanded. He was huddled on the sagging covered deck that extended from the rear of the house. “I dint do nuffin to you.”

“Who are you?” Janet yelled.

The man threw his head her way and she saw that his eyes were bloodshot.  Had he been inside playing the piano?  He seemed as if he’d just been woken from a deep slumber.  It was dark, and he looked like a wino or a homeless man.  His clothes were tattered and his hair was a matted tangle.  He was definitely terrified of Lucy.  The dog was at the edge of the deck with her teeth bared and growling.  Janet’s cell phone was in her hand and she was about to dial 9-1-1 when the man answered her question.

“I been helfing Mr. Pfarker clean the flace up.”  The words were slurred and came out in a whimper.  Some of his front teeth were missing and spittle sprayed when he spoke.  “Make it stoff.  I dint do nuffin,” he pleaded.

Janet relaxed a bit.  Mr. Parker had sold her the house.  The man on the porch was obviously just some local drunk.

“Lucy!” she called out sharply.  Immediately the Rottweiler responded by relaxing her stance.  “Down Lucy, that’s it, that’s a good girl,” she continued soothingly, as Lucy stepped back and gave Michael an uncertain look.  “Get her Michael, before she hurts him.”

Michael eased up behind his dog and took her by the collar.

“I don’t know or care who you are,” Janet told the man.  “This isn’t Mr. Parker’s house anymore.  If I see you here again I’ll set Lucy on you. Now go.”

The man hesitated until Janet nodded for him to leave.  He ran into the darkened backyard and Michael had to fight to keep Lucy from bounding after him.  Janet almost stopped him to ask if he’d heard the piano, but she caught herself.

“Was he a bum?” Michael asked with wide excited eyes.  “He was watching me pee.”

Janet shivered with a mixture of pity and disgust while working to calm her thundering heart.

“I don’t know what he was.  Let’s go get an ice cream.  I think the motel has a pool. Mr. Parker will be here in the morning with the keys and we’ll make sure that man knows not to come back.”

“He’d better not come back or Lucy will tear him up,” said Michael.

As if to reinforce the truth of her boy’s statement, Lucy let out a single bark of confirmation. She then trotted back to the U-Haul waggling her behind as if nothing had happened.

Chapter 3

The next day the house didn’t look nearly as charming.  The bright unforgiving light of the sun revealed the lackluster state of the place.  The old white paint was peeling and would have to be well scraped before a new coat could be applied.  The roof would need replacing before winter too.  Window sills needed caulking and the wooden porch was rotting to the point where Janet feared the planks might break through.  All of that, and the idea that a new lawnmower would cost her nearly two grand, had her worried. Money was going to be tight for a while because she had put most of hers into buying the place. She tried hard not to let her concerns show though because Michael was having the time of his life.

Originally assigned to help her unload the smaller boxes from the U-Haul, Michael had quickly been re-delegated the task of staying out from under foot and inspecting the backyard fence for Lucy sized gaps.  Even on the thick chain that was connected to one of the trees, the big dog had Janet nervous.  Michael was only half heartedly doing his job.  He returned three times to tell her about something new he’d discovered out back.  None of it had anything to do with the fence.

The dirt-floored shed at the far end of the property had a small tree growing inside it, he told her.  The trunk had penetrated completely through the roof and this had kept Michael fascinated until he discovered the storm cellar.

“It’s like King Tut’s Tomb was on Discovery, only there’s no gold,” he said.  “There’s all kinds of neat old junk in the boxes down there. Look,” he proudly displayed a rusty old pocket knife he’d found. His face was streaked with dirt and his bob of blond hair was a mess. “There are spiders too.”

The latest report was that the toilet in the garage apartment worked just fine, but there was no toilet paper to be found.  Knowing that he was going to get a scrubbing and a thorough looking over for ticks and spider bites later that evening, Janet didn’t even bother to ask him what he’d used to wipe himself with.

Mr. Parker had left the key in the mail box for them, but the movers wouldn’t be there with the appliances and the furniture until tomorrow.  Janet didn’t mind.  There was a lot of cleaning up to do before the big stuff went in, and there were plenty of smaller boxes for her and Michael to unload.

“Michael,” she called out.  “Come on honey lets go get some lunch.”

Lucy came tearing around the side of the house and nearly tackled Janet with her playful aggression.  The dog seemed a little nervous and when Janet heard Michael calling back to her she immediately understood why.

Michael was up in a tree.  Way up in a tree.  He was so high that she could see him in the backyard over the top of the two story house.  She took in a deep breath and tried to remind herself that he was just an eleven-year-old boy and that boys climbed trees, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“I found part of an old tree house up here mom!” he hollered.

“Get down, Michael! Lucy is off of her chain, and if you fall you’ll break your neck!”  Janet found herself angrily storming down the driveway like her own mother used to. By the time she reached the backyard she had calmed herself somewhat.  Michael had gotten himself down to a reasonable height by then, but Lucy was still nervous about it.  She ran to the trunk of the tree, put her front paws on it, and barked up at her boy.

“I’m OK, mom. Jeesh,” Michael called down.  “Where are we going for lunch?”

“We can’t go in anywhere with you looking like that bum from last night, so I guess it’s Mickey Dee’s.”

Michael swung out of the tree like a monkey and fell into the happy bundle of fur that was waiting to greet him.  He gave his mom a sheepish grin, but she suspected it wasn’t for climbing the tree.  It was because Lucy had slipped her collar and that could have been a dangerous thing if the wrong person wandered up.

“What do you think about yellow paint for the house?” Janet asked him, letting him know that she wasn’t that angry.

“Yellow is a girl’s color, mom.” Michael made a face.  “Do I have to paint my room yellow?”

“Yellow is just for the outside, silly. Now let’s load ourselves up and find those golden arches.”

Later in the afternoon, after the last of the boxes had been unloaded and some semblance of order had been imposed on the house, Janet stood staring at the place where she was certain she had seen an old upright piano the first time Mr. Parker had shown her the house.  The paint on the wall was slightly dirtier in a rectangular shape and the carpet less worn, but that could have been caused by a number of things.

Shrugging it off, she let her thoughts return to her more immediate concerns and dialed the number of the moving company on her cell phone.  Not only were they bringing her appliances and her furniture, but they were delivering her car too.  It wasn’t much, just an old white Honda Civic four door, but it was far easier to maneuver than the behemoth U-Haul she had nearly destroyed the fast food drive-through with.  On the fourth ring a woman answered and confirmed the 10:00 a.m. delivery.

Feeling better about things, Janet dialed another number on a whim.  She felt foolish all of a sudden and was about to hang up when an elderly sounding man answered.

“Parker residence. This is Cecil Parker speaking.  How may I help you?”

“Mr. Parker, this is Janet over at the new house. Well the old house,” she chuckled.

“Oh, yes, Janet.  Is everything all right over there?”

She felt stupid calling him about an object she may, or may not, have seen, but curiosity was getting the better of her.

“Sort of, Mr. Parker. When you first showed me the house I thought I saw an old upright piano in the front room, and I was wondering if you had it removed?”

“No, no I don’t recall a piano ever being in the house.  Is there a problem?”

“No, not about the piano.”  She shook her head to clear the silliness from it.  “There was a man here last night.  He said you hired him to clean up.  He was passed out on the back porch and he frightened me and my son quite badly.”

“Oh, my,” Mr. Parker’s voice was tinged with embarrassment.  “I’m very sorry about that Ms. Hale.” He sounded sincere and continued slowly in a kind, grandfatherly tone. “That was Willie Tee. I hired him after you last looked at the house, but he shouldn’t still be hanging around.  Will you be staying there tonight?  Should I come by?”

“No, our furniture won’t arrive until tomorrow so we’ll be at the Shamrock Inn at least one more night.  Mr. Parker, why was he still here?”

“Before you start to worry your pretty head over it, let me explain,” said Mr. Parker. “The man, Willie Tee is what we call him, is… ah… how do I put it kindly?”  The old man sighed and then cut to the chase.  “Willie Tee is retarded Ms. Hale.  He’s a drunk and he has no family.  He usually sleeps down by the railroad T-junction in an abandoned train car.  I’ve paid him to help me a few times, more out of pity than need.”  Mr. Parker seemed ashamed that he had needed the help a retarded laborer. “I truly apologize.  I hope he didn’t scare you folks too badly.”

“Well my son’s dog almost ate him, but other than that we’re fine.”

“Good, I’ll take care of it, Ms. Hale, I promise.  I should have known he was sleeping there while the house was vacant.  They won’t let him drink over at the Hope House where he’s supposed to stay.  That’s why he hides out down by the train tracks.  Be sure to tell your boy not to go down there messing around by himself.  Transients come through there on them trains all the time.  The sheriff does a good job of keeping them away from town, but the track line is federal land and the county has no jurisdiction down there.”

“I think Michael’s dog scared him pretty badly,” Janet clenched her jaw at the idea that Mr. Parker hadn’t told her about the transients before she signed the papers on the house.  She couldn’t be mad at him about it though; she could only be mad at herself.

“Please tell that man that we don’t want him around here again.”

“I will, Ms. Hale, and I am truly sorry about all this.  I’ll stop by tomorrow and take the boy for a walk down that way so I can show him where it starts to get unsafe.  He should know for himself where the sheriff can’t go. I still have the garage keys here anyway so it won’t be an inconvenience.”

“OK, Mr. Parker, we’ll see you then.”

Michael wanted to sleep at the house and was about three minutes into a temper tantrum over it when Janet reminded him that there was a pool at the motel.  It took a few more minutes, but Michael dropped the attitude and herded Lucy out to the U-Haul.  A moment later, while Janet was locking the doors and wondering about the retarded vagrant and the missing piano, Michael started laying on the horn.

After she turned the key on the deadbolt of the kitchen door and started storming up the driveway to scold her insolent son, she heard a single angry chord resound from deep inside the house.  It was as if someone had just mashed their hand on the bass keys of a piano.  Her heart pounded and she started to go back, but then the horn beeped again and in the silence that followed she heard nothing but the crickets and the persistent call of some unfamiliar night bird in the trees out back.  Then a pair of frogs groaned out long and low and she decided that had to have been the odd harmony she’d just heard.

Chapter 4

True to his word, Mr. Parker showed up around 9:00 a.m. with two other men.  One of them was carrying a cardboard tray with steaming cups of coffee, the other donuts.  Mr. Parker introduced the man with the coffee first.

“This is Mr. Duncan.  He runs the Hope House where Willie Tee is supposed to reside.  And this is Oliver.”

Mr. Duncan was fortyish and tall, with dark hair and a solid build.  He was wearing jean shorts and a black ‘Got Milk?’ t-shirt.  His goatee and his collar length hair gave him a rebellious air.  He was definitely not the office type.  Janet could picture him with a tool belt on a construction site somewhere.  She smiled and took the cup he was offering her.

Oliver was also tall, but the only thing holding up his oversized jeans was a thick black dress belt.  His t-shirt was threadbare and gray with the old Dallas Cowboys blue star logo on the breast.  He was pale and very thin.  Janet figured that he might be a resident from the Hope House.

“Just call me Steve,” Mr. Duncan said.  His smile was pearly and drew Janet’s eyes.  “We’re awful sorry about Willie Tee.  We came to see if we could repair Mr. Parker’s reputation by helping you unload, but it seems we’re a little early.”

I bet I can find something for you to do, Mr. Steve Duncan, Janet told herself.

“Mr. Parker,” she said, “you don’t have to feel bad.”  Then she sipped her coffee and turned to Steve.  “The movers are supposed to be here at 10.  I have some bigger boxes that go upstairs and there’s a rolled Indian rug still in the U-Haul; but what I really need is for someone to walk the fence line and see if there are any places Michael’s Rottweiler can escape through.”

Seeing that Steve was now looking around whilst he’d been listening, Janet answered the question that had revealed itself in his expression.

“Michael is my eleven-year-old son.  I think he’s out back planning to build his tree house.”

“I can handle the fence, Steve,” Oliver said.  “Probably a lot better than I can handle the lifting.”

Steve produced a pad and pen from his back pocket.  He handed them to Oliver then started in like a supervisor.

“Make a note of any bad spots in the fence and what you think we’ll need to fix them.  We can get that chore done today.”

“That would be great, Oliver,” said Janet.  “Just let me get Michael to take you around and introduce you to Lucy.”  She went into the house leaving the front door open.

Michael came out and met the men, then brought Lucy around the house to introduce her to Oliver.  Oliver said that he’d once owned a Rottweiler and he took his time letting the nervous dog sniff his hand and take in his docile demeanor.  After that, Lucy let Oliver scratch her behind the ears and then the three of them went looking for gaps in the fence.

Steve got a personal tour of the house while Mr. Parker took his oversized key ring down the driveway and began looking, by process of elimination, for the one that fit the padlock on the garage door.   After the walk through, Janet finished her coffee and promptly began searching the boxes for the ones that went upstairs.  She moved the boxes that went in the downstairs rooms without any help.  She was fit, and though she didn’t have a lot of confidence, she knew that she was somewhat shapely.  The fact that Steve was stealing glances every now and again had her smiling brightly on the inside.

It took them until noon to get the boxes and the rug situated.  The movers still hadn’t arrived so Janet told Steve to go round everybody up for lunch and then used her cell phone to order some pizzas.

*** * ***

When Steve went out the back door and started calling for Oliver, the Rottweiler growled at him. To Steve’s shame he couldn’t remember what the boy’s or the dog’s names were.   It wasn’t his fault, he decided.  He had been staring, sometimes openly, at Janet.  She was definitely a looker.  If she kept up the body language, and the frequent smiles, he was going to ask her to dinner and a movie.  He would wait until the move was finished though. He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, or think that he was continuing his help in exchange for a date.

“Woof!” the dog thundered in mid air before she slammed into Steve’s chest erasing his thoughts and nearly knocking him over.  Only his quick reflexes saved his forearm from her bared teeth.

“Lucy! Here! Now!” the boy – Michael – commanded as he came running up on them.  Lucy’s ears laid back and she went directly to Michael’s side, but her eyes stayed glued to Steve.

“I didn’t do anything,” Steve stammered through his shakiness.  Seeing how calm, and in control Michael was unnerved him even further.

“She doesn’t know who you are,” Michael told him.  “If I wasn’t here to stop her you’d be in real trouble.”

As if to punctuate the statement, Lucy pealed out a series of angry barks that brought Janet to the back door.

Steve saw the boy glance at his mother who was frowning above her crossed arms. Michael slapped his thigh and dropped to one knee to sooth his dog.

“Good girl, Luce,” he said.  “That’s a good girl.”

Oliver came sauntering up to the scene.

“You see a ghost?” he asked Steve with an amused grin on his thin face.

“That’s not funny, Ollie,” Steve snapped.  “That dog just scared the shi… I mean scared the crap out of me.”

Janet stepped out of the back door.

“A big muscle-bound guy like you afraid of a little dog?” she said.

Steve felt his face flush with embarrassment.

“There’s nothing little about that dog,” he said a little more sharply than he intended as he pushed his way past Janet and went back into the house.

“Lucy stays out back while we eat,” Janet told Michael.

“What about me?” Oliver joked.

“You can come inside, Ollie.”  Janet chuckled.  “You look like you could use a few slices of pizza.  Now come on in and wash up guys.”

“Sorry, Luce, I’ll bring you a piece,” Michael said as he went in behind Oliver and his mother.  Lucy snorted her contempt at being left out, but she lay down at the foot of the door, with her ears raised.

The pizza arrived at the exact same time as the movers.  While the first loads of furniture were carried in by the two moving company employees, Michael, Oliver, Steve and Mr. Parker enjoyed slices of pepperoni while Janet ordered the poor men around.  They would never forget being two and a half hours late to her house.

After a quarter hour of Janet’s wrath, both Steve and Oliver felt sorry for the movers and began helping them.  Mr. Parker still hadn’t found the keys to the garage and left for his home office to try and find them there.  He promised to return shortly and left Michael with the remainder of the pizza.  Michael promptly grabbed Lucy a slice and went out the back door. Lucy was nowhere to be found.

He called for her several times and, after getting no response, he set the limp slice of pizza on the porch and went to the single place in the fence that he and Oliver had found where Lucy could escape.  It was behind the garage in an area overgrown with vines, but Michael braved the foliage and crawled under the rotted boards into the neighbor’s property.

He emerged into a tangle ten times as thick as his own yard.  Standing waist deep in shrubs, he found himself in near darkness.  He could barely see the neighbor’s house due to the untended jungle.

“Lucy, come on girl,” he called out.  “Come on, Luce!”

With each step he took his confidence faltered a little bit more.  It always did when Lucy wasn’t close at hand.  At school, restaurants, the mall, or other places dogs weren’t allowed to go, he always had an inner terror threatening to overwhelm him.  He didn’t even want to think about how bad it would be at a new school.  When Lucy was close though, he had no worries – she was his protector.  She would attack or stop at his command and that gave Michael a certain power over the world.  She would gladly give her life for him, and he for her, which was the only reason he was braving the creepy yard to look for her.

For over a year, during the divorce, he had wrapped his arms around her neck every single night and cried himself to sleep.  Lucy sensed Michael’s pain and she rarely left his side.  She didn’t like being separated from him any more than he liked being away from her, which was why this situation had Michael screaming on the inside.  Luckily, as he came out of the dense overgrowth into a small mowed area, he heard Lucy noisily trampling through the shrubbery toward him.

Lucy danced an excited circle around Michael, telling him that she was glad to see him too.  Then she darted away toward the neighbor’s house where an ancient looking woman was emerging from the crooked back door carrying a broom.  Such was the hunch in her back that Michael thought she might be a witch.

“Thomas?” the woman called out hoarsely.  “Tommy, is that you?”  She used her hand to visor the afternoon sun from her eyes as she looked out across the yard.  Her gaze fixed on Michael and his heart froze in his chest.  “Come on out of them trees, Tommy.  You’ll have ticks and poison ivy and Lord knows what else.”

Michael didn’t know what to do.  Who the hell was Tommy?  Lucy returned and pranced around at his feet.  She seemed as uneasy as he was.  The fact that she wasn’t growling or barking only served to alarm Michael further.

Using the broom as a walking stick, the old woman hobbled to the end of the porch.

“Who’s there?” she asked.  “Tommy?  Is that you?  Billy?  Billy, where is Thomas?  What have you done with him?”  Her voice had taken on an angry tone.

Michael put his hand on Lucy’s collar to still her.  He didn’t think the old crone had actually seen him yet.  She looked to be growing very agitated.  She finally turned and started back into her house, but right when she crossed the threshold of the back door she stopped and started sobbing.

“Oh God, no.”  Her voice was a sorrowful whine.  “Oh, Tommy, no.”  She hiccupped then stumbled forward and disappeared into the darkness of the house.

Michael didn’t hear anymore from her.  He bolted back through the brush toward the hole in the fence.  Holy crap, he thought.  That lady is nuts!

He looked down to see if Lucy was close, and he was relieved to see that she was right there beside him.  She moved ahead and led him to the hole, then quickly disappeared through it.   Michael dived like he was sliding into second base and pulled himself through right behind her.  He didn’t even care that he sliced himself open on an exposed nail.

As soon as he caught his breath Michael went to find Oliver.  He wanted the hole boarded over so that he never had to go back there again.

His mom headed him off in the house before he could talk to Oliver though, and her concern over his cut and his filthy state landed him in the bathtub.  He spent the afternoon being pampered and tended by Doctor Mom and her tackle box full of first aid supplies, while Steve, Oliver, and the movers finished their business.

Michael fell asleep downstairs and only roused briefly when Steve carried him up to his new room.  Lucy looked uncomfortable with that, but Mom scowled to keep her in check.

Michael dreamed that he was in the old lady’s yard again, only this time she raised her broom stick up high like and lurched off the porch toward his hiding place.  When he turned to run he tripped and fell over a tangle of roots.  No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get back to his feet, and when the crone was upon him her face twisted into a ghoulish snarl.  Her maw gaped wide exposing rows of sharp pointed teeth.  The broomstick transformed into an axe, the heavy blade slicing through the air right at his face.  Michael woke with a start just before the axe cleaved his skull.

He was freezing.  The room was icy, so cold that he could see his breath when he exhaled.  This alarmed him and he sat up in bed looking around at his unfamiliar surroundings.  His first instinct was to feel for Lucy.  She was there nestled against his hip and sleeping soundly.  Then Michael looked down at the foot of his bed where a figure stood eyeing him curiously.

It was a boy of about the same age and stature as Michael, but this was no ordinary child; it was a wavering ghost of a boy.  Michael would have screamed but his throat was too dry.

There was nothing threatening about the ghost’s gaze, but Michael was no less terrified because of it. The apparition reached a hand toward him and Michael scooted back, waking Lucy.  The ghost looked as if it were about to speak, but the dog snarled and snapped at it.

“Billy…” the ghost’s eerie voice sounded just before Lucy shot through its smoky form and sent it swirling away into nothingness.

Angry and confused, Lucy recovered from her crash landing and went into a frenzy of barking and sniffing.

Michael realized it wasn’t cold anymore.  In fact it was sweltering.  He was struggling to breathe and couldn’t peel his eyes away from the spot where the ghost boy had just been standing.

Mom burst into the room, her eyes taking in everything.

“What is it?” she asked.  “What happened?  Are you two all right?”

Lucy yipped in response as Mom came to Michael’s side and pressed her palm against his forehead.

“Oh baby, you’re burning up,” she cooed. “You must have had a fever dream.  Will you be all right while I go find some Tylenol?”

Michael nodded, but he wasn’t sure if he would ever be all right again.  He knew he hadn’t been dreaming, and so did Lucy.

Continued….

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