He had run often since coming to these woods years before. His route was never the same, no concrete destination or purpose. He ran mostly when memories of the hellfire grew too near, ran as if to widen the gap separating him from them. But today was different. Today he ran from a sense of wrongness, a feeling that something was out of balance. He was a huge man but his feet made only the slightest impression in the hard-packed Maine snow and his steps produced barely a sound. The old ones had taught him that anything was possible if one achieved balance, that of the spirit as important as that of the body and the world about. The three existed as one, none set into place unless all were. Today all were not. Because something was coming. Not a great beast with dagger teeth and razor claws; something less defined but equally deadly. He could liken this feeling only to that which often preceded an ambush in the hellfire. He had survived on those occasions by heeding the sense of imbalance when it came, slight tremors which warned him when Charlie was about to spring from one of his innumerable tunnels.
