"That's the way it was when Seth Bishop was here. We ain't sure he's not still here." I felt a curious coldness come over me at his words, and at that instant, the house behind me, for all its looming terrors, seemed more inviting than the darkness outside, where Bud and his neighbors stood vigil with weapons as lethal as anything I might find within those black walls. Perhaps Seth Bishop, too, had met this kind of hatred; perhaps the furniture had never been moved back into the house because it made a barrier against bullets.