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my intended destination. Stepping from the road seemed
to awaken in me a lateral curiosity, an off-plumb bit of
wonder—about life after Jack Lantern, after the Shepherd,
after my mother. Surely, the prospect of a disappointing
climax to the game had entered my mind, that the contest
was merely the pretext for something less than the sustained
wonder of an eternal child. But the sharp disconnect from
purpose, the crowd of stones holding down the dead,
allowed me to focus on another, altogether different specter
of the unknown. The moment felt like a temptation, to do
something else, to wander away from the game. I knew Jack
wouldn’t mind. His Halloween was forever, and forgiving of
any act of defiance, so long as it flouted the machine of it all.
My mother was dead—I’d killed her myself, as I had the
rest of my family. We were already free. As free as death and
the Deadworld would allow. I could go anywhere. I could
spare Jack the death I’d given every Wolf I’d encountered
since I’d set foot in the game. I might be forgiven for
such a thing, for allowing a wonder like Jack to continue,
unabated. I should point out that such thoughts were not
rationalizations, excuses for avoiding the death Jack might
very well serve me. I was prepared to die, if not terribly
pleased by the prospect—not of dying, but the possibility of
failing, failing us all. It was ultimately that fear that would
put me back on the path of Wolves. Fear generally has its
way with us, one way or another.
Something about this new presence was growing
familiar, but it was no Wolf. This was something else. And
the impulse to pursue it was also something else, beyond
mere curiosity. I’d felt it before, when I destroyed the white
son of the Dead Mother—when the Shepherd intervened
for the proper continuance of its Game. I wondered at how
many other Wolves had been summoned for such reasons, to
defend our game. I was also forced to wonder at how much
my free will was engaged in my decisions, having now

360 | Mark Anzalone