text: [Themes: horror, action, horror]
  
  The holiday dinner has been over for more than an hour, but Gertrude and Ophelia are still busy cleaning and putting away the leftovers. Another Thanksgiving for the record books, but what a strange beast this one has been: it was just yesterday that you picked out the headstone for your father's grave, but the dessert that your mother passed out this afternoon was nothing less than the last remaining pieces of her wedding cake from the previous weekend.
  
  Emotional whiplash is a bitch. The loss of a father should be a major event in a young man's life, one that permits no shortage of time in the bereavement process. There was his business to settle, the final arrangements to be made, the disposition of the family farm to execute — not to mention simply coping with the daily reality that your father is no longer around, and never will be again.
  
  But this was a period that was cut short when your mother and your uncle announced their marriage less than a month after the funeral.
  
  People raised their eyebrows at the news, sure, but rather than sharing the revulsion you felt, the general consensus among your friends and neighbors was that these two adults should be allowed to cope with the tragedy in their own way. Therefore instead of sympathizing with you, everyone at the wedding was happy for the newlyweds — and more than one person actually scolded you for not checking your "moodiness" at the door.
  
  The problem is you have no idea what to call anyone now, so you've abandoned all pretense at addressing people by your relationship to them. Your mother, who once said the old country song "Stand By Your Man" was one of the truest songs ever written about marriage, is now also your aunt; and Uncle Claude — the bachelor "fun uncle" who always participated in your family vacations and many of the other happiest moments of your childhood — is now your step-father. The concept of an "aunt-mother" and "uncle-father" is too surreal to process, so you have long since dropped the formalities. You know your family on a first-name basis now: Gertrude and Claude.
  
  There is one more bizarre circumstance adding to the confusion that is now your life. After the flooding that ravaged homes all along the Mohawk River and West Canada Creek on Halloween this year, your father's long-time assistant and his children have moved in with you. Paul Onius has been working on the Elsinore Farm as long as you can remember. You went to school with his son Larry, although your friendship soured long ago when he realized you had a crush on his sister.
  
  As for Ophelia... well, what the two of you know, but which no one else should ever know, is that shortly before your father died your relationship became much more than just a "crush." Unfortunately, all that got put on hold when first your father died under suspicious circumstances in the west hayfield, and your dear mother became your new aunt. Even though your erstwhile lover has now set up camp in your basement, your head has been in too weird a place to be much of a lover.
  
  Currently, in the wake of the holiday feast, the Elsinore farmhouse is segregated by gender: the women in the kitchen, the men in the den watching the Bills take on the Cowboys. It's the type of division that you're told shouldn't exist anymore, but this evening no one but you seems to notice the irony. You stand by the door of your own home, with no clue how you fit in here anymore. It is as if you are surrounded by strangers — even if everybody present is someone you have known all your life.
  
  A synchronized cheer erupts from the den, as Claude, Paul, and Larry react to something on your dad's television.
  
  "Hammie!" you hear Claude shouting to you. "You're missing a great game! The Bills just scored a touchdown. We're tied at seven in the second!"
  
  Back when he was Uncle Claude, he was one of your favorite relatives; as a kid, whenever he came to visit, his arrival was always a harbinger of imminent fun. But now that he has moved into your parents' bedroom, it makes you want to shout in rage every time you hear his voice. More than once you have thought of driving your old Chevy off a bridge into the Mohawk River, or straight into the path of an oncoming semi, if that would put a satisfactory end to all this bullshit.
  
  When you don't respond, you hear Claude muttering to Paul and Larry. "I don't know what's gotten into that kid. Heaven knows I try reaching out to him, but he keeps shrinking away."
  
  "It's not natural for a young man to grieve so long," Paul agrees. "He needs to be a man about the Old Man's death and get over it."
  
  On the other hand, Ophelia and Gertrude are painting quite the picture of warmth and happiness. You can hear them talking about favorite recipes and past exploits in the kitchen, as if they are and have always been old friends. Ophelia lost her mother long ago, and so having someone like Gertrude to confide in has been a welcome change for her. It is tempting to join your old lover, but then you remember how much you have come to despise your mother. All you would do is spoil this moment the two women are having, so you choose to leave them be.
  
  Instead you stick your feet into your boots and silently exit the door, deciding that what you need is some fresh air. It is a cloudy evening, with remnants of snow on the hill across the road. Darkness comes early at this time of year, and whereas just four months ago you and your father were busy making hay for your dairy herd at this same hour, it is now already the dead of night.
  
  That's odd — where are the dogs? Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were put out just before dinnertime, since the temperature was relatively mild and space was needed in the dining room while the table was being set. Then no one remembered to let them back in. Normally these two mutts would be jumping at the door, especially if they smelled food. If they haven't, then something must be majorly wrong.
  
  You find the two leads in the driveway, where they should be. But there is no movement. There should be a dog attached to each end — a hungry and cold dog, at that. But that's their own fault, if they forgot to pester for reentry into the house. You follow the first lead toward your truck, expecting to find Rosencrantz taking a nap underneath. But there is nothing — the end of the lead has been snapped off!
  
  The other lead is pointing toward the tool shed, as if Guildenstern was running to hide behind it. And to your alarm, the end of this lead has been severed, too.
  
  Two dogs are missing, and somehow two cable leads have been cut. The points where each cable was severed is not clean; the ends are mangled and frayed, as if violently torn apart. You wish there was still snow in the driveway, but the blacktop leaves no tracks. However, it seems obvious just by the placement of the two leads that each dog was running for its life in opposite directions — each as far as his lead would allow.
  
  This is not good. You know the old stories well, and what strange things are said to lurk about in this valley on cold evenings. Mostly they remain underground, posing a threat to nobody — except the odd water main or buried cable. But there are times when they come to the surface, and when that happens it means they are hungry for more than just grubs, earthworms, and roots.
  
  You hold your breath and listen. Cars on the Thruway about two miles away; a jet flying somewhere overhead. The gentle lowing and rustling of the cows in their stalls, down in the big pole barn.
  
  And the rustling of something big out in the hayfield.
  
  You've never seen one of these beasts yourself, and of course no one has ever managed to take a picture of one. Therefore they remain the stuff of legends: everyone knows they exist, but the experts deny it, citing the lack of evidence. Tracking one down would be the one highlight of what has been a dismal year. Of course, this is assuming that your assumptions are correct, and that they have deoured your dogs.
  
  And if the stories are true, this is probably not a situation you should investigate on your own.
  
  > head back in the house and tell the others about the dogs.
  You are wearing nothing but a hoodie, and the evening is growing cold. You are in no condition to go prowling around the fields of the Elsinore Farm looking for mysterious creatures in the night. Perhaps you hate almost everybody inside that house, but the news you have to share pertains to them as much as it does you.
  
  The door slams shut behind you, and you jog with your boots still on into the den. The Bills and Cowboys are still filling up the giant TV screen.
  
  "The play's the thing," Claude is saying. "If Buffalo is going to break open the game, they gotta make this play."
  
  "Guys," you say, and all three men turn with surprised expressions to look at you. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead!"
  
  "Dead?" Paul says. "Didn't anybody remember to feed them?"
  
  "I'm not saying they starved," you say. "I'm saying they're dead."
  
  "Hammie, my dear son—" this is Claude speaking "—I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make."
  
  "Dear Uncle Father, perhaps if you could be so motivated to get off your ass and come have a look, you can see for yourself."
  
  In the words your grandmother might have once used, Claude is a puke — but this is the same grandmother who brought your former uncle into the world, so perhaps Gramma might have seen things differently in this particular circumstance. But you can't stand the bastard, or the way he swept in and took over the farm by marrying your mother before you had a chance to legally inherit the place. Therefore by your estimation you are under no obligation to make a pretense at liking the bastard.
  
  But your proclamation about the dogs has caught the attention of the kitchen, and now Gertrude has entered the den. "By all means, do show us, Hammie. Claude, I hung your jacket up in the closet."
  
  A moment later the entire household has stepped out into the driveway, where you present as Exhibits A and B the frayed ends of the steel cables, where each of the two dogs should be. Larry seems especially bored, as if he were expecting to see actual bodies. Gertrude watches politely from the porch, as if she is having a hard time seeing what the issue is, but wants to feign interest anyway if this is important to you, he only child. But Paul and Claude are taking the evidence to heart; each man is holding one of the severed leads and pondering the mangled ends.
  
  "This isn't natural," Paul says.
  
  "No, most certainly it isn't," Claude says. "I suspect foul play."
  
  "But who?" Paul asks.
  
  Claude knows the stories about them as much as you do. In fact, back in the days when you actually liked the asshole, he was the one who told you some of the tales about the vicious beasts that came up from the ground on cold nights when the earth was frozen. So what he says next takes you by complete surprise.
  
  "I'll bet you anything it was the Fortinbras kids. You know, from up in the Town of Norway."
  
  "That seems like a long way to come down here just to steal a couple mutts," Paul says.
  
  "It's not so far as you might think," Claude counters, dropping his lead back on the pavement. "Just take Route 8 through the village of Poland, and you can be in Utica in maybe half an hour. Maybe an hour, tops, between their place and ours."
  
  "But why would they do such a thing?" Gertrude asks from the porch.
  
  "How would I know? Maybe they're still upset that we got the Chobani contract and they didn't."
  
  You almost never noticed Ophelia standing behind you, trying to get your attention. She seems hesitant at first, perhaps fearful of either your reaction or that of her father, but while Claude and Paul are discussing the most direct route between Elsinore and Norway she steps forward and whispers into your ear.
  
  "This had nothing to do with Tyler Fortinbras," she says.
  
  You turn to look at her.
  
  "It was them," she says. "Just like in the stories."
  
  "HAMMIE!" Claude shouts, apparently after several repeated attempts to get your attention.
  
  "Yes, mother?" you say, hoping he takes the bait. But he doesn't.
  
  "Hammie, I need you to come with us to Norway," he says. "We plan to have some words with Old Man Fortinbras, and the more of us who are there the stronger an impression we'll make."
  
  "I don't really think—" you start to say.
  
  "Hammie, you should go!" Gertrude encourages. "The change of scenery will do you good."
  
  Sure. Being stuck in a car with the bastard as you go on a pointless errand will make you forget the death of your old father and come to love the new one.
  
  "I insist on it," Claude says.
  
  Ophelia, on the other hand, is shaking her head and mouthing the word no, as if she has some other plan in mind. But when her father sees this, he steps forward and intervenes.
  
  "My dear daughter," Paul says. "Perhaps you should go inside. It's cold out and you aren't wearing a coat."
  
  This leaves you with a decision to make: go with Claude and Paul to Norway, or defy everyone and see what Ophelia is trying to tell you?
  
  > go to Norway.
  "Let us go to Norway, then, dear mother," you say, trying one more time to bait Claude. This time it works.
  
  "I am your loving father, Hammie," he says.
  
  "My mother," you correct him. "Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so you, sir, are my mother. Come, for Norway!"
  
  But the trip turns out to be an unmitigated disaster.
  
  At first, the only cause for complaint is the fact that you're stuck in the back seat of Claude's Dodge Stratus, forced to listen as he and Paul theorize why Tyler Fortinbras might have taken your two dogs. And if he did do it, then why cut the cables? Why not just release the hooks? Tyler is about your age, and not nearly as spiteful as these two idiots seem to believe. But you don't interrupt, thinking maybe they'll figure it out for themselves when they get to Norway and meet the guy in person.
  
  But the real problems begin when you get to Poland, the village on the West Canada Creek where routes 8 and 28 split. Claude's GPS has you going up Route 8, but when you get to the side road leading into Norway you are stopped by an orange sign announcing the closure of the road — almost certainly due to a washout from the Halloween storm. There is a detour, but this has you going back through Poland to get on Route 28. Norway itself is tucked away up in the foothills of the mountains, and by the time you reach the right road leading to the Fortinbras Farm the Stratus runs out of gas. Leave it to Claud to miss that kind of a detail.
  
  "I don't have cell service," he says. "Are you getting any bars?"
  
  "No, I got nothing," Paul says. "What about you, Hammie?"
  
  "Nothing for me, either."
  
  You are in the middle of nowhere. The last gas station you passed was miles away, and Claude grudgingly concedes he needs to hoof it to a nearby house and ask to use the phone so he can call AAA. Being Thanksgiving, you expect it will take even longer for service to arrive since many businesses are closed.
  
  While you are waiting by the side of the road, you hear the sound of something big running through the nearby field. Your first thought is that it's a deer, but deer don't tend to run unless they're provoked, and even then it is rarely in a single direction. Whatever this is, it's big and in a hurry.
  
  In the shadowy night, the beast bursts through the staghorn sumac bushes lining the road, right in front of the Stratus. For a second as it charges across the highway it is lit up by the headlights. You see a dark creature the size of a buffalo, with feet as broad as a catcher's mitt. Each toe ends with a massive claw that would put Freddy Krueger to shame. Then it disappears into the darkness on the opposite side of the road.
  
  "What was that?" you say.
  
  "I don't know, but I think I'll sit in the car until your father gets back," Paul says.
  
  It's a very long wait.