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the topic soon turned morbid.
    “Oh, how awful!”
exclaimed the lady holding the newspaper.
    “What?” her
husband asked.
    Without looking
up she said, “You know that man they found in the alley in Fairhaven yesterday
morning?” The words Fairhaven and alley immediately caught my
attention.
    “Yes.”
    “Well, he never
regained consciousness, and now he’s slipped into a coma. He’s been identified
as a Western student, but they won’t publish his name until his family has been
notified.” She looked up and caught my horrified expression. “Oh dear, hadn’t
you heard?” Another wave of apprehension swept over me, and I shook my head.
“Oh, it’s really awful. It looks like this young man was outside in the rain
all night – you know, the night of the terrible thunderstorm.”
    With my mouth
hanging open, I nodded and listened in stunned silence, finding it difficult to
scan their items.
    She pointed to
the article and kept on talking. “Anyways, they aren’t releasing a lot of
information, but it says here there was no evidence of foul play; although,
they did find two empty bottles of Safire in the alley.”
    “Outrageous,”
her husband said angrily, shaking his head. “That Safire crap is fused with
enough malt liquor, vitamins, and caffeine to wake a dead person.” He banged a
few cans onto the belt. “If you ask me, I think these new energy drinks are
responsible for all the strange illnesses surfacing across college campuses.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Tell me you don’t drink that stuff.”
    “Uh, no sir,” I
said, wide-eyed.
    “Good, and don’t
start.” Emphatically, he waved a box of pasta in the air.
    The woman
grabbed the pasta box. “Honey, there hasn’t been any link between those drinks
and the hospitalizations. It’s more likely it is some new strain of human influenza.”
    I didn’t follow
the news very closely, but it would have been near impossible not to have heard
about the incidents they were referring to. Over the last few years, an
alarming number of people, mostly students, were being treated for mysterious
medical conditions, like severe disorientation or complete memory loss. A few
had even died. Experts didn’t have any answers, which made it that much more
terrifying and perplexing. But nothing like that had occurred in Western
Washington. Until now.
    “Well Louise,”
the man rolled a cantaloupe onto the belt and put the grocery divider down, “I
hope that’s not the case.” He took a deep breath and pulled his wallet out of
his pocket. “At least the young man is not dead. Whatever the cause, let’s just
hope it wasn’t foul play. We don’t want a serial killer on the loose here like
they’ve got across the border.” He looked at me and shook his head.
    “Mmm hmm,” I
murmured, with a nod. I hadn’t heard anything about a serial killer in Canada.
    “That’s for
sure,” the lady agreed. She pointed at the newspaper again. “It says here it
will be a few weeks until the toxicology reports come in. I just hope the dear
boy wakes up from the coma before then.” She stretched the paper out. “Strange.
It says he was covered with muddy paw prints, and they don’t know what to make
of that.”
    My eyes popped
open at that bit of information, and I tried to remain calm. I was relieved
when they finally left, but I couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection
between the Mastiff and the comatose student. The fact that he’d been out
during the same storm as me and the jogger and had been covered with paw prints
seemed way too coincidental. And I didn’t believe in coincidences. What
bothered me most, though, was that I still hadn’t been able to figure out what
the Mastiff and the bare-chested guy had been after that night in the alley.
    Three o’clock
rolled around before I knew it. Jessica and I clocked out together and she
said, “Thanks for all your help today. Let’s do lunch…like this week.” I nodded
and she added,