Free The Luck Uglies by Paul Durham

it been doing that all night?
    She tiptoed carefully, whispering compliments and sweet words as she approached Shady. She was just about to pick him up when he darted into the yard, faster than she had ever seen him move. All she saw was his blue collar speeding past the henhouse. She ran to follow but the collar kept going, over the wattle fence of their backyard. Rye’s words were no longer complimentary or sweet.
    She hurdled the fence and watched the collar now well ahead of her. Shady was heading up the path along Troller’s Hill. Once he got to the top he would have two options. To the right was Miser’s End Cemetery—a forgotten old graveyard that everyone said was haunted. Rye hoped he would go that way. Her heart sank as she saw the blue glow stop at the top of the hill. Shady chose to go left and headed down toward the bogs.
    The bogs were not pleasant under the best circumstances, and Rye tried to avoid them even during the day. They were damp and full of moss, hip-deep in places. It was easy to get stuck if you weren’t careful. Snakes and bloodsucking insects made it their home, and if the beasties didn’t bite you, the plants would. Carnivorous bog plants trapped and ate things with their leafy mouths—frogs, birds. Folly said her brothers found one so big it nearly ate one of their hunting dogs. Rye didn’t quite believe that. Of course, that wasn’t the worst thing Folly said someone saw in the bogs.
    Chasing after Shady, Rye didn’t have time to think of any of those things. She knew if she lost sight of Shady’s collar he would be gone forever. He still had a healthy lead and pulled farther away as she splashed through the dark, knee-deep water. The salt fog was rising, making it difficult to follow even a glowing beacon. She was shivering, her clothes soaked from the spray of her footsteps. She pushed herself as hard as she could, but her feet stuck in the layers of moss and muck until she could barely move. The blue light faded away.
    Rye stopped and threw her arms to her sides in frustration. Running was pointless. Her stomach churned as if she might be sick again. The night had left her head dizzy and disoriented. She listened. Frogs. The hum of a thousand insects, even this late in the season. Somewhere in the distance she heard a splash.
    â€œShady!” she called in despair, as loud as she could.
    The bog went silent. The frogs—even the insects—stopped humming. Rye felt a shiver run up her spine. Then it went up the back of her neck. It was a centipede. Blech. She swatted it off.
    Then she saw something. A faint glimmer on the ground in the distance. She couldn’t tell if it was blue, but it was most certainly a light. Rye pushed through the muck as best she could. As she approached, she realized the light was coming from a mound of earth, dry ground sitting up out of the wetness of the bog. Carefully, she crept up to the clearing. It was a small, smoldering fire, made with loose twigs and logs and encircled with stones. Over the fire, some sort of animal cooked on a crude spit.
    Rye had a horrible thought but quickly determined that it wasn’t a cat. Maybe a big hairless rat or weasel. It looked even less appetizing than the sea lion. Someone must have been hungry, as there were already large bite marks in its haunches.
    The fire appeared to be recently abandoned. Rye looked around for any clues as to who might have made it. There wasn’t much of a camp, but in the dim light she could see a small leather pouch no larger than her fist lying next to the fire. It was tied shut with a horsehair rope. She crept forward carefully and picked it up. She untied the cord and peeked in. The three items inside were quite unusual. Rye was inspecting them so closely that she didn’t notice the long, nasty-looking club on the ground beside it. The one with the bent iron nails jutting out in all directions.
    There was another splash. Rye peered