More instinct and poor coordination than combat skills I rolled backwards, my flailing leg sending Sebastian hurtling over top of me and into the dark cabin. A noise half whimper and half gurgle met me as I scrambled to my feet and around. Back out of the shadowy hallway he came again, this time slowly as he dragged a now mangled, badly fractured back leg.

My abandoned rifle lay in the living room, all but inaccessible with the dog lumbering between us. Likewise, my machete rested on the kitchen table. Fortunately, my uncle who decorated the place had left a mounted fox on a sturdy wooden platform in the entryway.

Sobbing like a teenage girl at a pop concert I beat my dog to re-death, knuckles white around the forelegs of a grinning vixen whose glass eyes seemed to mock my efforts. Only after I managed to stop the beating and get my sobs under control did I notice the shuffling steps approaching the door.

Good dog, I mused to myself, Led ‘em right to the boy in the well, didn’t ya.