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“No. NO. Absolutely not — put me DOWN⁠—”

The fox lifted him off the boards. It struggled a bit with the size of him, but it managed to get a good enough hold to carry the ghost away, stuffed doll swinging from its jaws.

“I am not FOOD!” the ghost bellowed. “I am your friend! We’re friends!”

The fox did not release him. It crossed the drive at a happy trot, and the world swung with every step — gravel, sky, gravel, sky — and the ghost did the only thing he could do, which was thrash his flippers and scream.

“You TRAITOR! I kept you company for YEARS!”

The fox’s trot lengthened into a lope.

The garden went by upside down. The foxgloves went by. The overgrowth was coming. This would end in a burrow somewhere, a dark hole in the ground, full of kits who would chew on the ghost for the rest of time. Nate wouldn’t even know where to look. Nate would come out when his filming was done, and find the porch empty, and think…

Think what?

The ghost didn’t know. All he knew was that he could not end like this.

“NATE!” the ghost screamed. “NATE! HELP! NAAAATE!”

The house stood silently.

The fox reached the fence line.

“NATE, YOUR SEAL! THE FOX HAS YOUR SEAL!”

Behind them something banged.

The front door.

“HEY!” Nate’s voice yelled in the distance. Boots hit the porch steps, then gravel, fast. “Hey — drop it! Drop him!”

The fox glanced back without slowing. Its jaws tightened and it burst into a sprint.

The world began to blur.

“Oh no,” the ghost muttered, panicked. “No no no⁠—”

The fence flashed past. The overgrowth swallowed them — stalks and shade and whipping green — and the ghost caught one last upside-down look at the yard behind them.

Nate was vaulting the fence.

The ghost had never been so relieved to see anyone in his entire afterlife.

“HERE!” he screamed. “WE’RE HERE! FOLLOW THE FOX!”

“I SEE THE FOX,” Nate yelled back, from much closer than expected.

“RUN FASTER!”

The fox ran faster.

“NOT YOU!” the ghost yelled.

It was no use.

The brush tore past on both sides. The fox ducked under a fallen branch without breaking stride, wove between two stumps, and then the ground opened at the base of a dead tree and the world went dark.

They were in a den.