One of them landed on top of the car, claws digging through the metal. I tried to slam the shotgun into the head of the one at the window, lost my grip and the gun. I didn't have any more shells anyway. Broken glass from the window was everywhere, and blood ran into my eyes, down my arms.
    The boat was close; I saw an embankment coming up on the side of the road and wrenched the wheel to one side, the car left the ground and soared toward the punt. It was going to overshoot. I pushed the door open and bailed; a wolf snapped at me in passing before the car hit the water with a tremendous crash, and I landed hard on a pile of timber, scrambled to my feet.
    "What the hell was that!"
    "Hey; it's Mrs. Roberts!"
    "There were wolves on that—"
    The big wolf was pulling himself onto the boat. With shaking hands and possibly a sprained wrist I grabbed the pistol from my coat pocket and fired a round into its head. No blood, but it fell away with a yelp and vanished under the dark water.
    
    The townspeople were approaching with lights and weapons.
    "Maybe you should go talk to them; I'm a little unpresentable," Kane suggested. Adam was slightly less covered with blood; he found his coat and hat and went out to meet the mob while the vampire located the mill's pulper. Good way to start, he thought cheerfully, and flipped on the machinery.
    Gentle townspeople, Adam began.
    "Hey, it's the big guy. His shirt's torn up again," someone muttered.
    "Probably means they been fightin' over the other guy's wife again," someone replied knowledgably. Someone in back was waving a pitchfork.
    Yes, I'm sorry you have to be witness to this, the gorilla decided to run with that. Our horrible personal lives; I assure you it will have no reflection in our report.
    "We're not sure that we—"
    "Yes we do, we want the money," another hissed at the first speaker.
    Please, return to your homes.
    Convinced by the eloquence of his gestures and probably somewhat thrilled by the sordid nature of the business, the crowd allowed itself to be diverted. Adam went back and got Joe for them, explained that he had fallen into the lake and needed medical attention, and soothed their renascent fears.
    Meanwhile, Kane was almost humming to himself as he pushed a wheelbarrow full of... stuff to the burn pile and lit it. Should pretty well do for you. Glancing down at himself, he shrugged and threw what was left of his shirt into the flames as well.
    
    "Turn... the boat... around," I panted.
    "Mrs. Roberts, what happened?" the foreman dashed up.
    "Turn the boat around."
    "We'd better do what she says, she's got a gun."
    "She just jumped old man Jenkins' car over our boat!"
    "Wolves were chasing her," someone else noted.
    I saw the one I'd shot drag himself up onto the shore as they turned the punt; he stared at me for a moment before disappearing into the shadows.
    "Right." I put the gun away and started brushing myself off, trying to think of a story and failing miserably. I do have to admit that I felt quite the agent at the moment, though I'm sure more experienced persons would have handled it all far more subtly.
    "What happened?" the foreman still wanted to know.
    "Poltergeists," I told him. It was on the official form, after all. The best way to get out of this was probably to faint, I decided, and under the circumstances it wasn't very hard.
    
    "What happened to you guys?" the foreman wanted to know when the punt pulled back in to the dock. "Mr. Roberts, your wife drove old man Jenkins' car out, jumped our boat with it, jumped out, then she said 'poltergeists' and passed out."
    "I'm not sure why she said poltergeists," he shrugged.
    "Where's Joe? And old man Jenkins?"
     "Joe went back to town. I'm not sure where Mr. Jenkins is at the moment."
    "He probably brought Joe back down to town."
    "But in any case, we reached an agreement with him. We're going to buy that load off you."
    The foreman stared at him. "He said I had to get it up to his house right away... I wish he would make up his mind."
    "Cash," the vampire told him.
    "Oh."
    "How much is that load?"
    "Two hundred dollars."
    Well, there goes the discretionary fund... for the year, but it would be worth it. "If you'll come back to my hotel?"
    The foreman jumped at the chance to make the night into something profitable. "Certainly! Mr. Jenkins is going to be picking this up?"
    "We're going to have it shipped down to Bath, take it with us. Going to use it to show to some of the people who might be interested in investing."
    The foreman beamed. "Well, that's great! Come on, you heard him guys, let's go!" Before the night was out, a couple of trucks had been rounded up, the timber emplaced, and the trucks taken down to the hotel, where the visitors could keep an eye on it.
    
    
    November 18
    
    We are all feeling much better after some rest. Will remain in town a couple more days at least before we remove the timber; it will be warehoused and never seen again. People are concerned about what might have happened to Mr. Jenkins, and of course there is my flamboyant destruction of his car, explained away with the story that I had been trying to catch up to tell them about the agreement and to turn the boat, lost control of the car when the wolves attacked. The townsfolk tend to stare at all three of us, but they look away very quickly if we notice.
    We still have werewolves in Ambajejus, and we still haven't made it up to the forest where the lights have been seen....
    

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