I pulled the beam through the darkness, searching for anything moving, but everything moved in the shadowy dance just beyond the edges of the flashlight. On tiptoe, I crept through the maze of boxes and along the wall of pink insulation in the direction of the dead dog. My heart leaped with every cloud of dust I stirred up with my bare feet, every scratch on my arm from the stiff branches of the Christmas tree, every spider web that tugged at my face.

The dead dog still lay ...