Johnson carries a .45.

It’s not a bad neighborhood. My parents let me stay out after dark and I’ll do the same if the good lord ever blessed me and the missus with the latter of little feet.

No, Johnson’s old hole puncher only ever sees use in the winter. That’s when the ice forms, nice and thick, over the lake. When we go fishing.

Ice has been getting thinner recently. Older days you had to bring a five foot drill, now we just bring a hammer. A big hammer, the kind used for breaking concrete. The neighbors always laugh, make jokes about “compensating”.

The neighbors haven’t seen what’s under the ice. You can hear it at night sometimes, the scrabble of bony fingers just below the surface. Or you could, back when the ice was thicker.

Johnson carries a .45.

I think it’s about time I do the same.