“Violet. The pig. She won’t eat. Her eyes are weeping.”
Rick looks down at his own hands. The same hands that pushed the seed into the soil. He notices a small, red blister between his knuckles. He covers it with his other palm.
Rick nods. “I’ll go.”
Rick stands at the memorial grove. He pulls out his old Python revolver from a box of mementos. He checks the cylinder. Six bullets.
They find the source. In the basement, a locked steel door. Behind it, the sound of wet, rhythmic slamming. Rick peers through a small window. His face goes white.
“Then we dig. We reinforce. We don’t panic.”
“And the fences? We lost three feet of the north perimeter yesterday. The mud is pushing them over.”