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Early on Friday morning of the week from hell, Danny is awakened by a loud metallic thud followed by the rev of a car engine with either a bad muffler or no muffler at all.

The clock on his nightstand says it’s 2:19 AM.

He gets up, grabs the flashlight he keeps in case of power outages, and goes to the front window of his sitting room.

Nothing is stirring out there except for a cloud of moths circling a pole light standing tall between the park’s office and laundry.

Oak Grove (where there are no oaks) is fast asleep.

That loud thud has awakened nobody but him, because it was meant for him.

Danny opens the door.

He sometimes forgets to lock up at night, but he supposes that after Plains Truth and Jalbert’s little show in the IGA last night, that will have to change.

He goes down the concrete steps and clicks on the flashlight, searching for the source of the thud.

It doesn’t take long.

There’s a divot in the trailer’s aluminum shell, just below the frosted bathroom window.

Danny surmises it was the window his nighttime visitor was aiming for.

There’s a smear of red in the deepest part of the divot.

Danny runs his light down the side of his trailer, and there on the gravel is a brick.

Wrapped around it and secured with a twist of wire is a note.

Danny knows what it’s going to say, but squats and pulls it free anyway.

The message is short, written in either black crayon or a felt-tip pen.

GET OUT YOU FUCKING MURDERER. OR ELSE.

Danny’s first thought on reading this is Not on your life.

His next is Oh really? Is this a movie? Are you Clint Eastwood?

Standing here at two in the morning with a threat in one hand and the brick that delivered it at his feet, getting out of Manitou seems not only reasonable but attractive.

His friend Becky—a friend with benefits—is through with him, she’ll keep sweet little DJ away from him as if he has the bubonic plague, and he’s lost his job.

Bonus attraction, it seems like half the town has Covid.

He doesn’t much like the idea of being driven out like Cain after he murdered his brother, but this trailer park is nobody’s idea of Eden.

It might be time to give Colorado a try.

He thinks Stevie would like that.

He wonders if that noisy car he heard going away was Pat Grady’s Mustang.

It might well have been, but what does it matter?

Danny goes inside and back to bed, but first he locks the trailer’s door.