That lifted a frightening weight from my shoulders. I took a deep breath.“Wait,” Wayne scratched his chin. “I think you mean venomous.”“I di...d, thank you,” Peter chuckled.“And boiling? That can’t be right,” I tried.“No, that’s perfectly fine,” Peter countered.The silence didn’t go on for as long as I felt it did. I realized I was being waited on.“They gave me a hard ‘no’ on leaving. I’ve only got one choice: be the best for them.” Wayne looked dubious. “Expect the best from them,” I added. That. It reminds me of a story I read once, but that’s what we figured. An infestation. Sounds dirty, doesn’t it? The mere word gives me the creepy crawlies: INFESTATION. Whether rats or roaches, it’s never a good word. The kids started up with stories about little men. Kenny even said he saw one. Kathy heard them whispering under her bed. You know, typical kid stuff. They didn’t say if the little men were elves or leprechauns or gnomes or fairies or what. They just called them “little men.” “I heard. ‘Someday I’d, you know, like to work in a place like this.’ ‘What kind of work do you plan to do, Cindy?’ Dean asked. ‘I’m gonna be a secretary,’ Cindy replied. She squirmed against him, continuing to rub her firm young breasts against his arm. ‘I’m doing really good in the secretarial courses in school.’ ‘I bet you are!’ Dean thought, ‘I bet you’re probably number one in your class at taking Dick-tation.’ He smiled to himself. He was going to find out, wasn’t he? And very, very soon. The. The heel order brought him over to my side.“Well trained dog there,” Paul observed.Leaning down, I gave Shadow a rough pet and told him he was a good boy. “He was originally trained as a working military dog. We got together at the VA in Tacoma. The rest is history.” After checking Shadow’s food and water, I checked Margarite and Jughead. Adding hay and water as needed.“That’s a right pretty appaloosa, Matt,” Paul observed.“Yeah, I picked Margarite up from an old Indian horse trainer in Nevada..