by Justin Bell
********
The story was front page material as Strickland figured it would be, though he didn't feel any more enlightened after reading it than he had before.
Apparent animal attack claims two lives
It was a bold headline for the local paper, after all not much happened in this small Vermont town, but even as he scrolled down the local newspaper's website he dug for a small nugget of familiarity. Some reason why those two dead people would have been outside his home in the first place. Even a mention of his name as the owner of the house.
None of it was there.
How was that possible? This was a town with an untimely death once every few years, and here were two fresh corpses and nobody was talking. His name was never mentioned, the victims' names were never mentioned, their occupations, or any kind of proclamation of outrage or what was going to be done to prevent this. None of it.
What the hell was going on?
Strickland didn't know, but suddenly he got the feeling that he would have to be the one to find out.