The blue dog returned later that night.

Gordon gaped, amazed as the animal (or was it?) limped toward the veranda and squatted at the bottom step, casting it's rueful gaze up at him through the late Autumn twilight.

The lantern above the parlor door flickered. Light and shadow dosie-doed around the veranda and Gordon rose from his creaking chair to wary feet.

"Hey, what's wrong with the lights?" Darby's voice drifted from a distant room.

Gordon glanced from the dog to the faltering lantern and back again. But where the animal (it was an animal, right?) had been only vacant shadow remained, a darkness made more complete by the dog's absence than the night which deepened around it.