The shuttle takes the bridge across the Connecticut River and turns north, heading through frozen fields and past a restaurant. It stops outside a dilapidated, whitewashed wooden building in the federal style, apparently condemned. Nothing remains of the baseball field next door except a twisted fence beside overflowing dumpsters.
The students make for a postcard-perfect New England church up the street. According to your maps, J.L. Heaney's workshop is less than a mile away. And indeed, after ten minutes of walking, you pass a midcentury truck half-buried in snow and then find yourself in front of a blackened ruin: a house burned down to its foundations.
Someone needs to update their maps.
You examine the house, but nothing remains except a few scorched bricks where a chimney once stood. But there's an old wooden barn nearby.
You're just considering where to explore when something moves in the treeline on the far side of an empty field. Maybe something has followed your shuttle across the river. Or maybe a local is getting ready to dome you with his grandfather's rifle if you take one step onto his property.
I focus on the investigation. The barn: I check out the barn.
I'm not afraid of Banes or bullets. Ready to Change if I have to, I walk into the field toward whatever it is.
I need to investigate, but I don't want to get ambushed. I stay low and on the far side of the barn from the baleful presence and conduct a search.
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