Petunia's front paws plant hard, her whole body a loaded spring. Bob almost stumbles into her, his sneakers skidding on the damp leaves. The old Whitfield house looms behind them, its windows dark and empty, a skeleton of a place that's been dead longer than Bob's been alive. He follows her gaze. At first, nothing. Just the usual patch of dirt and weeds, a rusted rake handle sticking out of a pile of debris. But Petunia's not wrong. She's never wrong. Then Bob sees it. A small, metallic disc, no bigger than a poker chip, half-buried in the soil. It pulses with a faint yellow-green light, rhythmic and slow, like a heartbeat. Bob's teeth ache. That same metallic hum he felt behind the shed yesterday, the one that made Petunia growl at the corner of his room last night. He kneels. Petunia whines low in her throat, but she doesn't stop him. Her nose twitches at the thing, then at the air, then back at the thing. Bob's hand hovers over it. The light pulses faster. "Easy, girl," he whispers. His fingers are close enough to feel the warmth radiating off the metal. It's not hot—it's alive. Like the warm device Johnny found under his tour bus seat. Like the strange coin near the old well. Bob doesn't touch it. He looks at Petunia. Her dark eyes meet his, and for a moment, he feels like she's trying to tell him something—something important, something urgent. But the hum in his teeth is getting louder, and the light is pulsing faster now, almost frantic. He pulls his hand back. The light steadies. The hum softens. Bob looks at the Whitfield house. At the dark windows. At the way the shadows seem to crawl along the rotted porch. He thinks about Johnny's radio broadcast last night, about the claw marks in his bedroom wall, about the way the dirt behind this house was warm and bare just a few days ago. Petunia nudges his elbow. She's right. They shouldn't be here. Bob slips the disc into his pocket. It pulses against his thigh, warm and steady. He doesn't know what it is, or who left it, or why it found him. But he knows one thing: the valley is waking up. And whatever's coming, it's already here.