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_ What's the worst thing you've ever done?_

_ I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing..._

--Peter Straub,Ghost Story

The deep crimson blur that took up so much of Parker's visual field eventually reconciled itself into the form of a large, nattily-dressed dragon, familiar only by reputation. The Akita did his best to ignore the figure, as he'd been doing his best to ignore everyone and everything since he'd been brought here. The "here" was a hospital room, conspicuously absent any patient in the other bed and with a stout lock on the door, bars on the narrow windows, and a cop just outside. He knew why, although he didn't let himself think about it. He was prepared to ignore everything outside of himself, for as long as it took, and he didn't care how long that would be. He didn't care about anything at this point. He couldn't. It was no longer possible. It simply couldn't be allowed.

"Zachary, this is Dr. Benedict Spenser." A voice introduced the newcomer. Parker knew the voice, not that it mattered.

"Hello, Zachary." That must be the dragon speaking. Manicured. Fussy. "The Dean has asked me to come talk to you. More importantly, I hope that you'll talk to me. It's important that we understand what happened on the football field last night."

Nothing to say. Nothing even to listen to.

"Zachary, let me put you a bit more in the picture. I am a licensed, qualified, and very successful psychotherapist and hypnotist. I shan't bore you with a list of my accreditations, nor my many important court cases, fascinating though they may be. Suffice it to say that I have won the title of_amicus curiae,_ in this and other cases. Anything you say to me will have doctor/patient privilege, with the judge's full knowledge and permission. Yes, that's 'judge,' as in 'here comes the.' You are being held here in the hospital and facing criminal charges, unless we can find out how to keep that from happening. That will require your cooperation, but anything you say to me cannot be used against you. Do you understand?"

Nothing. So much nothing.

A burst of flame in front of his face caused the Akita to shout, throwing up his arms to protect his muzzle and whiskers. Slowly lowering his arms again, he glared at the dragon with utter contempt.

"You're not suffering from locked-in syndrome, Zachary, nor any form of PTSD so strong that you've gone catatonic. You can see, hear, feel, react, and given the sharp response of your vocal chords, I'd wager that you can speak as well. So let's cut the shit and set about helping you."

"Fuck you."

"From the look of you," the dragon rumbled, an eye ridge arched for effect, "it might be fun for both of us. But at least we've gotten off to a start. You_can_ speak. My job now is to get you to want to speak."

The Akita shifted himself in the bed, putting his back at a better angle and shifting his tail to one side. He thought of a retort or two, but again, silence was the best answer.

"I can see you two will get along fine." The well-dressed wolverine moved toward the door. "I'll leave you to it. I can't be part of doctor/patient privilege."

"Thank you, Nelson." Once the door had closed, leaving the two alone, the dragon helped himself to the other bed and sat down upon it with more fluid grace than such a large creature should have. "So, pup... let's get to know one another."

"Time to play doctor?"

"I had the impression that's a sore subject with you."

The Akita ground his jaws together, barely refraining from openly growling. He pulled himself together once more, punching briefly at a pillow (presumably to make it fit him more comfortably), and pushing himself back down into a mattress that had clearly seen better days.

"Then let's start with basics. Zachary Harmon Parker, 21, senior majoring in mechanical engineering. Sports scholarship, snapped up from the Bulldogs of Baldwin City, Kansas, to fill in a much-bedraggled offensive line. Meteoric rise through the ranks, reasonably good scores in your classes, kept your muzzle clean, very quiet on or off the field. Good prospects for the pros, I'm told. Small town boy makes good." The dragon smiled easily. "Horatio Alger on your reading list?"

"You memorized my file?"

"I read your file; for a dragon of my tender years, that's quite sufficient." Benedict, despite hospital edicts and some definitions of common courtesy, allowed a singularly self-satisfied wisp of smoke to float delicately upward from his rounded nostrils. "You have several files, as no doubt we all do in this nigh-Orwellian paradise. One for the college administration offices, one for the athletic department, thinnest of all - so far, at least - the one for the local police authorities. They're looking for whatever records you might have elsewhere, but something in me informs that they'll come up wanting. Why is that, Zachary?"

"Wouldn't know."

"Are you a ghost?"

No reply.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

No reply.

"I ask because you have all of the traits of someone who is haunted by something, or someone, or perhaps more like somewhen." The dragon canted his head slightly sideways, as if looking for a new perspective. "Ghosts are more real than people give them credit for. Whether they're real in a Richard Dawkins sense is another debate entirely; they're real enough in our heads that they have quite the profound effect. They cause us to add up all of the various jerks and jabs and daily insults to our hearts until finally something goes too far. Like last night. Zachary, what happened on the football field last night?"

No reply. The pup shifted on the bed. Nothing very comforting about the bed. More jerks and jabs, all in the uncomfortable places. Like something poking at him, poking at his insides, poking around where it didn't belong.

"We have enough witnesses to know that you were provoked." The dragon crossed one leg over another with a strange sense of oversized grace. "More and more comments, more specific each time. Advanced neurotics are dazzling at that game; they aim unswervingly at the point of maximum vulnerability. Something, in your case, to do with homosexual activity."

The Akita blinked hard.

"Tell me about it, Zachary. There's no shame here. My reputation precedes me everywhere; you must know that I'm gay, and contrary to public opinion, I don't hump every male who crosses my path. You're in no danger from me, either directly or through association. What you tell me stays here. So ... is that the ghost that you're trying so hard to exorcise?"

Parker worked hard at not looking at the dragon. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"We already know that you were trying to talk with Jerry Bunting. He's said nothing other than that you had asked to see him." The voice changed enough to reveal the smile in it. "Knowing Jerry as I do, I suspect I know the circumstances under which he gave you his calling card. Library basement?"

The pup felt his fists clench.

"Been down there myself, from time to time. Could have been me you'd found there, given a few changes in fate's frivolous nature. Still, you got what you were looking for. Jerry's good, isn't he? Knows how to treat a stiff cock. He's been good enough to provide his talent to me once or twice, although we never really became lovers. I think he worries too much about academic issues, and that's understandable. Moral turpitude ain't what it used to be, after all." The drake waved a dismissive claw. "That's neither here nor there. What I don't understand, my postmodern Portnoy, is why his servicing you - I'm assuming that you didn't reciprocate - would contribute to so much rage. So much past. That must be one helluva ghost, Zachary."

"Shut up."

"Was it really so bad, Zachary? A single instance, maybe more than one... doesn't make you gay. And I'm reasonably sure that you haven't seen Jerry again, so it can't have been he who your tormentor was referring to."

"Shut the fuck up."

The dragon made little clicking noises with his tongue. "A little experimentation in your youth, perhaps? How far did it go? Who was it, Zachary? Or was it all a dream, just a fantasy that you can't quite get shut of..."

"I said shut the fuck up."

"You want me to stop? Tell me what happened. To stop the questions, you must answer them. To bury the ghost, you must face it."

Parker put two fists to his temples and pushed in, hard, pushed almost as hard as the claw...

"What happened last night, Zachary?"

The fists dug in, and the claw, the claw was just there, just waiting...

"Do you need help remembering? I'm sure we can find something to help stir your memory. The local constabulary has quite a few 'after' photographs of the Shepherd. I might even be able to bring him in to visit."

The Akita whirled his head toward the dragon, a growl at his lip.

"Oh yes, he wasn't able to travel too far after your attack. They've patched him up well enough. Just so you know, I'm not allowed to see him. You may have heard the term 'lawyered-up' on all those police shows? First words out of his muzzle. Almost the last; they've had to wire it shut for a while." The dragon leaned toward the pup, his eyes holding Parker's closely. "We really need to talk about this, Zachary."

For a long moment, gazing into the dragon's eyes, Parker let himself wonder what harm would come in talking about it. Explaining. Giving the details. Telling the story. Finally telling the story. Telling about that worst thing, that most dreadful thing... And then, from deep inside, he felt something like a very large paw... a large claw... a very large black claw reaching from inside his own head to grip his body and yank it sideways. With a sharp cry, he pulled his head away from the dragon's gaze, putting both of his own paws up to rub his eyes hard.

"Are you all right?"

"Fuck off, why don't you?"

"You do set yourself up for double entendre." Parker heard the dragon sigh. "We already have as much of the story as we can piece together from witnesses. If you're going to help yourself, or if we're going to help you, we've got to get the rest of it from you. I've got all evening, and should I need to, I can come back tomorrow."

"So it's a waiting game."

"You're going to try to outwait a dragon? Not wise, dear boy."

"I'm not your dear anything," the Akita growled. He felt long, slow thumping inside his head and his chest, like a drum, or a metronome, or someone else's heart. "I think maybe I want a lawyer now."

The large form of the dragon shifted off of the bed and stood nearby. "You don't get one. At least not yet. You didn't hear me earlier; I said that you're being detained, that charges are pending, but you've not yet been charged, so you can't duck behind a lawyer yet. You can refuse to cooperate, of course, but that would pretty well end your college career, and your scholarship, the various scouts, the whole future..."

"I can get another scholarship."

"Not bloody likely."

"I'm taken care of."

Something inside the Akita's head rammed like a huge spike into a fresh hangover. He grunted heavily, screwing his eyes shut and falling back into the bed. He was vaguely aware of some movement beyond himself. Someone called for a nurse. Shuffling, movement. Fingers pulling his eyelids open, flickering light, plastic over his muzzle, cool air, colors and lights and movement. Darkness.

* * * * *

Are you a ghost?

The teen Akita stood outside the building, the place that was the old farm-workers' bunkhouse when the property was really being worked in decades past. Most of the acreage was planted and harvested my machines now, a fraction of the staff required, and now mostly as day workers; no need for the faithful old retainers who worked hard for their dollar a day. The bunkhouse was still sound, still had running water and solid walls, had even been improved a little here and there, and Parker preferred it to going back to his foster house in the town on most summer nights. He had worked here in the summers, more each of the past two summers, and it was more than a dollar a day these days, but not much more since it was all unofficial and off-the-books. Everything was unofficial, secret. The word they used most was "private," as in "a private matter."

The Kansas summer heat blazed as the pup stood sweating, stripped to the waist, his matted white fur sticking close to his lean, muscled body, his tongue occasionally obeying the ancient canine methods of trying to lower his body temperature. He hosed off the accumulated filth from his boots, avoiding using the spray to cool himself down too quickly. He'd put in another full day, because some labor couldn't be industrialized. Machines still couldn't muck out stables, tend to horses, keep the grounds neat. He had little to complain about, given that the money helped him indulge his teen whims and the exercise kept him strong between football seasons. The Baldwin City Bulldogs had already picked him for the varsity squad this upcoming year, and he was ready and eager to get started. He'd had to work to make a ticket out of this damn place, and he was ready for whatever that might look like.

He turned off the hose and, just inside the door to the bunkhouse, he used the boot jacks to pull his hindpaws out of the well-worn faux leather that had served him well. Cullen had helped him pick them out from the limited selection of what still prided itself as being a General Store (no SuperDiscuntCenter here, at least not yet). It made sense after all since, although the russet-furred dingo was the same age as the Akita, Cullen had been doing his share of summertime ranch work since he was old enough to handle shovel, rake, pitchfork, and assorted tools. Parker sometimes wondered if it were a form of rebellion against his prim and proper rich-folk parents. For that matter, he sometimes wondered if Cullen's parents ever really saw him at all. The Akita could relate to that feeling, having not known his birth parents and never feeling real bonds with the foster parents he'd gone through - four sets by now, no one willing to adopt him formally, although no one could really ever say why. Maybe it was one of those mystical Not Meant To Be things that one religious family had tried to instill in him. Or maybe it was simply Not Important Enough. He'd managed to get along by drifting, making his own plans. It might prove to be enough after all.

This was his third summer here, and Parker had gone through a great many changes. Notwithstanding the usual adolescent growth (physical, mental, and otherwise), he had begun to really look at his future, his plans, his way to make that life for himself actually come true. And more importantly, he began to get an idea of what family was supposed to feel like. Not that Cullen's parents had much to do with him; he was more like a project of_noblesse oblige,_ the local "poor kid" being given a helping paw. No, it was Cullen himself who had become important. Cullen, who had sat up with him late these many summer nights, helping the Akita form his ideas, molding dreams into actual plans. Sometimes, they planned around the idea of being at the same college together, and sometimes they met up again after school, the pro footballer and the entrepreneur who became successful in his own right, apart from the parents, apart from the old money and the old ranch and the old dust.

"Cully?"

He made his way up the stairs, feeling his damp fur matted against his skin, still occasionally panting in spite of himself. A few of the bunk-rooms had been fitted with ceiling fans that helped to stir the air, and the windows were always open unless a storm was brewing. He was glad that he and Cullen were the only ones who stayed out here these days. Cullen didn't care about them being naked together on these hot nights; it was about the only way to stay cool. That, and soaking in one of the white-enameled claw-foot tubs, themselves retrofitted to using real indoor plumbing. Not really "all of the conveniences," but enough to make the place a few notches above merely livable.

"Cully, you up here?"

Dripping sounds came from the bathroom, as if someone had left a tap on. Cullen must have already claimed one of the tubs. Parker smiled, didn't blame him a bit. The dingo had warned him about a surprise visit from his parents that afternoon, and the Akita doubted that it had gone all that well. Something had been bothering Cullen for a long time now, about the future, and about their various plans; some of their talks had been quiet, deep, secrets whispered in the dark... that was how he remembered it, anyway, the soft talks about The Future and What It Might Hold. Not all of it was according to what Cullen had said his parents had in mind, and Parker knew that things were starting to build toward One Of Those Talks. Parker had never had the infamous One Of Those Talks With The Parents scenario, but he'd been forced to read the various books in lit class, and all he really knew about it was that it rarely ended well. Or maybe that was just fiction, and everything would be fine.

The Akita stopped by his shared bunk-room and stripped off his well-worn boot-cut denims with quick and decisive moves. That was better already - a little breeze from the ceiling fan trying to wick away some of the sweat from his soaked body. He sneezed fitfully, precisely five times as if programmed to do so, as some hardwired canine instructions responded to the changes in temperature, perhaps a sneeze from the dust coming off of the now discarded pants. He grinned as he spoke to the air. "Didn't run one of the tubs for me too, did ya? I mean, come on, common courtesy.."

It was you.

Parker stopped, his ears forward. Soft words. Not quite a whisper. Like a voice, except that it wasn't a voice, not really, not like...

"Cully?"

The dripping sound seemed louder, and something small and ancient and feral curled up in Parker's stomach and set a portion of his brain to chittering softly in the deep silence of bunkhouse. Naked, his thick wet fur shifting rapidly across his body, he padded slowly across the short distance to the beds, three of them unused and bare and dusty, a fourth one his own, still unmade and somehow more unkempt than before, as if someone else had been lying there for some little time, and the fifth one Cullen's, carefully made (which it rarely was) and somehow unused (which it surely should have been). The Akita, sharply-curled tail beginning to twitch in time with his accelerating heartbeat, muzzle still open and tongue panting to help fight the heat, leaned down to touch the pillowcase. His pads, though damp, reported a crispness usually defined by cotton fabric having had too much starch and remaining untouched for an extended period of time.

Impulsively, he pivoted back toward his own bed, yanked up the light blanket and brought it to his nose. His own scent, yes, and Cullen's ... he thought it was Cullen's ... something mixed together, salty like tears, and musk, and sweat, and coppery, like the smell of a small pup's fistful of old pennies clenched too tightly for too long on a hot summer day...

Drip... Drip... Drip...

"Cully...?" Parker squeaked out the name. The space had become darker, as if the sun had decided to start falling several hours earlier than it should. Still air felt sluggish and damp around him. He looked up to the ceiling, finding no fan there, seeing corners of a ceiling starting to hide in night shadows, long bedraggled strands of old spider's webbing clinging undisturbed in the thickening gloom. Papers on the wall, old and abandoned - a feed store calendar, years out of date, and newspaper clippings, and snapshots that should have stayed in the scrapbook, the old scrapbook, the place where memories were allowed to fade, or to be disproved.

Are you a ghost?

_ It was you._

The Akita's legs felt heavy, rubbery, turning slowly toward the bathroom and moving him there whether he wanted to go or not. His heart beat faster, his fear racing through him even as his steps dragged and resisted all that they could. Seconds took minutes, the twilight fighting with the low flames of hot coals in grates where the buckets of water were heated for the old clawfoot tubs. Three buckets were overturned near the one tub that was occupied with a lone, still figure silhouetted against the bare wooden walls.

What's the worst thing you've ever done...

The small, ancient, feral thing in Parker's belly rumbled louder, flopped over with the sensation of something slimy, of gorge rising, of a sound trying to rise from so deep within that it could not be brought out without ripping living tissue from its source. The Akita became aware of a weight in his paw, heavy, unfamiliar, unwelcome. The old revolver dropped to the floor with nothing more than a single loud thunk. He stared at the unmoving body in the tub, his mind trying to make sense, to understand, to know how, to remember, to know that there was something he was supposed to do, he had to do something, he must do something about the body in the bathtub, the canine body in the bathtub with a bullet hole in the center of the forehead, and the dark and bloody water all around staining the otherwise white fur, the bright white fur of a young male, a young Akita male, who stared empty-eyed back at Parker as if he knew him, because he had to know him, because he'd known him all his life...

And as Zachary Parker stared at his own murdered body in the ancient claw-foot tub, it became clear what he had forgotten to do.

He screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.