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else’s. I reached down and picked up an orange scarf and a pipe, obviously decorations Timmy had scrounged up for his creation.
     
    As I looked at the scarf, I suddenly heard a loud bristling sound. Glancing up, I noticed that the small pine tree near the other yard was swaying ever so slightly. The wind was calm at that moment and I didn’t see any critters running about. Shrugging, I started to look back down at the ground and then abruptly froze. I started getting that same feeling in my gut that I had out in the woods the day before. Although I couldn’t hear or see anything, I sensed something.
     
    Standing out in the Stephens’ backyard, in broad daylight, in the town that I have lived my entire life, I had the sudden feeling of fear.
     

Chapter Five
     
    As I stood there, I had an impulsive urge to flee. But there was no reason. I told myself to stop acting like an absentminded old fool. I was perfectly safe. Then, something moved. Or at least I thought it did. I essentially felt it more than I saw it. I tried to lift my feet, but they felt like they each weighed a hundred pounds.
     
    Spinning around, I looked in all directions but saw nothing. But whatever I was feeling, it was intensifying. Suddenly my feet sprang to life and I trudged through the snow as fast as I could and practically leaped onto the concrete patio.
     
    I stood there for a moment, catching my breath. For some reason I felt safer standing on the solid concrete than I did in the knee-deep snow. Then something grabbed my shoulder.
     
    I yelped and spun around to see the face of Agnes Humphrey staring at me with skeptical eyes. “Fred?”
     
    “Hi Agnes,” I managed to say.
     
    “What in the world are you doing in Mrs. Stephens’ backyard?” She barked, her gray hair hanging down over her face like a shaggy dog.
     
    “Oh,” I smiled as if she had just told a joke. “I, a…I was driving along and thought I saw some kids messing around in the yard.”
     
    Agnes glanced over my shoulder at the empty yard. “Kids?”
     
    “Yeah,” I stammered. “I must have scared them off. Everything seems fine now, though.”
     
    She eyed me suspiciously. “There were some kids here earlier, took down Timmy’s wonderful snowman.”
     
    “Really?” I sounded appalled. “Well, best keep Timmy inside for now.”
     
    “I will,” Agnes said. “See ya, Fred.”
     
    “Okay, bye-bye,” I said as she closed the sliding glass door. Then I stood there, not wanting to leave the patio and not knowing why. It was the first time ever that I actually considered the notion that I might have been cracking up. After all, I was getting up there in age, I thought.
     
    I walked to the edge of the patio and, sighing, I stepped down into the deep snow. After I took a step, then I took another. And then another. Before I knew it, I was back at my little Honda. Then I was pulling into my driveway.
     
    As I walked up to my front door, I heard my name called. Turning, I saw Larry Wallace. He wore a gray jumpsuit that bumped up and down against his large body as he jogged in place on the shoveled sidewalk. His pudgy fingers tightly gripped a blue dog leash. At the end of the leash was Larry’s Rottweiler, Spike.
     
    “Oh, hi Larry,” I responded. “How are you?”
     
    “Fantastic,” he replied as he adjusted his blue headband. “Ten pounds and counting!”
     
    “Great,” I said with false enthusiasm. “Keep up the good work.” In addition, lose another three hundred pounds fatty, I thought sourly.
     
    “Will do, see ya!” He said and shuffled along.
     
    I felt guilty about the thought I just had about Larry; that wasn’t like me. But I was going through my own problems at that moment. For no reason whatsoever, I had suddenly become frightened of the snow. I thought about calling Doctor Adams and actually making an appointment. Maybe it was my blood pressure. It also could have been a half dozen other physical ailments, some of which I