One minute, Chrissie had been teasing the living daylights out of him, the next she went dead silent. The car slowed to a crawl as they crept closer to the two-story house that squatted in the midst of a collection of smaller structures. He spotted cabins with boarded-up windows, a tattered Army tent, multiple sheds of various shapes and sizes. Nothing seemed to be completely finished; everything was missing siding or a roof or trim or paint.
It was as if a giant kept getting new toys and discarding the old ones.
A rusty tractor, a mini-backhoe, and what looked like a cement truck were parked at the rear of the house—perhaps in an imaginary future garage. If there was a drivable car or truck around, he couldn’t see it.
The house itself was just as unfinished as everything else. It had n
