Polpis Road was dark and an early morning fog sent pale exploratory tendrils out from under the pines. Skip Pedders repeatedly clicked the headlights from high- to low-beam and back again, speeding up and slowing down, trying to follow the road's nearly invisible surface. His driving style made Tiffany feel carsick.

"High beams won't help, Skip, you just lose your night vision. Like I told you, just keep them on low and follow the center-stripe home. If you go off on the shoulder you'll feel the difference - it's sand. The tires will go soft."

"How d'you like to drive?" Skip snarled. "I'd be glad to let you do this. Why do I always have to play the chauffeur?"

Sarcasm trilled an arch into Tiffany's voice. "No, Skip, no, you're doing a fine job, a fine job. Please, carry on."

"Then stop bitching about it, will you? Jesus Christ!"

"I am not bitching about it." Tiffany hugged herself, wishing she had remembered to bring a sweater. It was too early in the season for her sleeveless linen dress. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult? But no, I mean, why listen to me? I've only lived on Nantucket my entire life."

Tiffany caught Skip's grimace with her peripheral vision. It was the only warning she had before he wrenched the steering wheel hard right and deliberately drove the car off the road toward the roadside shrubbery. As the tires left the pavement, the car bounced twice, causing the seatbelt to cut sharply into Tiffany's exposed collarbone. "Skip!" She shrieked, raising both hands to protect her face. "What are you doing?"

The car skidded to a stop as he stood on the brake, the headlights illuminating an oak thicket scant inches from the front bumper. "That is it! I have had enough!"

Tiffany unlocked her door and scrambled into the night, the heels of her sandals sinking deeply into the loose gravel. "Son-of-a-bitch! You almost wrecked my car!" Unsteadily, hand over hand, she moved around the front of the vehicle, struggling to retain her balance while leaning on the car's warm hood for support. The headlights lit her angular face into a two-dimensional mask of shadowy pools and hollows.

"Skip! Give me the fucking keys! I'm not putting up with any more of your crap!" Skip shut off the engine, opened his door and slid out from behind the wheel. He looked down at the keys in his hand and hefted them twice. "You want the keys, bitch? Here, go find them."

"No! Don't do that!" Tiffany watched the keychain disappear into the dark woods. "God! You're such a child! Why do you have to act like this?"

"I am what I am. Deal with it." Skip strolled out onto the road, swinging both arms loosely and clapping his hands. "Enjoy the walk home, bitch."

"Asshole!!" Tiffany screamed. "You are such an asshole!"

The cooler night air wrapped around her shoulders and kissed Tiffany's bare skin. She shivered. Stepping carefully into the pines, she pushed aside the lower dead branches searching for the keys. Hopefully, they hadn't gone too far in. A broken prickly branch scratched the back of her hand and Tiffany drew back, moaning a little and licking the scratch to ease the pain. Her saliva felt thick against her skin, and she was disappointed to realize she was losing her buzz. Great, just great. Now she would have trouble falling asleep. She straightened up to look for Skip and barely made out his silhouette in the swirling fog. He was marching unsteadily back to town, finally taking her advice and following the road's center stripe.

Tiffany hooted. "Have a nice walk home, asshole! It's only six miles! And don't bother looking for me - I am not coming to pick you up!"

She returned to her task, sure that Skip had tossed the keys over by that big dead pine. She hadn't actually seen the keys fall, her eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, but she was pretty sure that had been his line. Carefully, she stepped along a narrow sandy track, moving deeper into the shadow of the trees. Wouldn't it be a laugh when she finally found them! Even though it was out of the way, she would definitely have to drive back to town now, honking and waving as she passed Skip on the road! Have a nice walk home, asshole! Ha! That would show him who was right!

A branch snapped in the darkness to Tiffany's left. It was a big snap, too, a deliberate snap, not the sound of a dead branch breaking in the wind. Tiffany straightened up to listen. It was probably a deer. Everyone knew the woods were full of them.

The second snap stopped her in her tracks.

Tiffany stood alone in the night feeling a sparkle of panic tingling up her spine; she fought it back. If Skip thought he could frighten her, he had another think coming! Besides, come to think of it, hunting for the keys in the dark without a flashlight like this was stupid, a waste of time. She should go back to the car and use her cellphone to call a cab. She had a spare set of keys back at the house, and she could come back in the daylight to pick up her car. Now that was thinking! Didn't it make more sense than stumbling around in the dark?

She started walking back to the safety of her car. She was almost out of the trees Ð she could even see part of the road from here; this whole episode was silly, really. All this childish panic over a deer! She could see the car's headlights, she was almost back to her car; how she would laugh about this tomorrow over her cappuccino! She was nearing the edge of the trees, she was almost home free when she heard a sound carried on the very breath of the wind: a whispering sound, soft and almost tuneless. Someone nearby was whistling. It was an insistent, toothy whistle, and Tiffany recognized the melody instantly. Someone nearby was whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Instinctively, Tiffany dropped to her knees, feeling the gritty bite of pine needles and coarse sand through the silky mesh of her stockings. Cautiously, she raised her head to risk a glance and saw someone crossing through the high beams of her car's headlights. Tiffany ducked back down. Whoever it was, it sure wasn't Skip, playing a joke. Skip had been wearing khakis and this man was dressed in jeans and Wellington boots. The toothy whistling continued and suddenly Tiffany was plunged into darkness. The Whistler had switched off the headlights.

Tiffany swallowed drily, running over in her mind what she had heard about The Whistler. If she remembered right, he had never actually attacked anyone; the police said his goal was to simply scare women, not harm them. Okay. So, right now, yes, she was scared, but she was not harmed. She felt the dry sand beneath her sweaty palms and clenched her hands tight, taking in a slow, steadying breath as she realized she had an advantage The Whistler didn't know about. She had grown up in nearby Polpis Harbor, and she knew the bridle paths and sandy roads through the center of the island like the back of her hand. So, okay, maybe right now she was scared, but if she could just ease away from the road she was betting 10-to-1 she could lose this creep out on The Commons.

Tiffany slipped off her sandals and held them in one hand, giving herself a mental pat on the back for having the presence of mind to hold on to her shoes since once she hit the road again she would need them for the long walk home. This whistling son-of-a-bitch wasn't getting the best of her! Silently, ducking low, Tiffany retreated into the deeper darkness under the trees.

She kept herself bent and followed a sandy trail between two big pines. As she headed inland the trees thinned out and the softly rounded landscape of The Commons began. A slipper moon provided enough light to see, and most of the mounds were crowned with dense thickets of cockspur hawthorne and field thistle. Tiffany felt grateful for the cover the thickets provided because anything that broke up her silhouette against the moonlit skyline was a bonus. For the first time in what seemed like an hour, Tiffany grinned. See? Having four brothers to teach you Hide and Seek had been a good thing!

The trail widened into a curve and Tiffany felt a wave of relief. Even in the darkness, she knew where she was! She had found the bike path leading to the center of the island and Altar Rock. Now, if she just followed the path for a bit, it should meet up with Altar Rock Road, and then she could cut left and head toward Polpis Harbor and home. She released a sigh, and as she considered her fright, Tiffany felt her anger grow. She would certainly tell the police about this when she got home! Chrissakes! What did they get paid for, anyway, letting creeps like this Whistler character run around loose scaring people?

Indignation helped Tiffany pick up her pace. She supported her heavy breasts with her forearms and broke into a steady jog, moving along the level bike path. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and it amazed her to think that here, in the middle of an island full of thousands of people, there wasn't a light to be seen. The darkness was so complete it could have been two hundred years ago. As she moved the breeze picked up, carrying with it the mineral tang of lowland salt marsh. Tiffany shivered. Tonight, she would definitely take a long, hot shower before slipping between the sheets. This chill was going through to her bones.

She rounded another curve and paused to check her bearings. The bike path ahead split into a Y. The right arm, Tiffany was sure, went upland Ð the path to Altar Rock. She moved left, hoping to run across Polpis Road soon. The truth was she was getting tired, and her pedicured feet were sore. The breeze softened and died, and Tiffany detected a darker, earthier undertone to the night air. This was the right way home; she knew it. That peaty smell was the Windswept Cranberry Bog. Satisfied, Tiffany turned left and headed in the new direction, beginning to dream of the warm downy comfort of her pillow-soft queen-sized bed, of her 800-thread count linen sheets, of the relief of simply closing her eyes and putting this god-awful night behind her when the toothy whistling began again. Tiffany snapped alert, her skin slicked with a sudden cold sweat. "Fuck off, asshole!" she shouted. "I'm not afraid of you!"

Abruptly, the whistling stopped and The Whistler stood up on the mound immediately to Tiffany's right. Startled by his unexpectedly close proximity, Tiffany staggered left and her big toe snagged on a foxgrape vine. Flinging her sandals wide, Tiffany fell on both knees in a flailing effort to save herself. Losing all sense of balance, she landed flat on her face with a splash. Sputtering, she pushed herself back up and the thick vegetative mat she was lying on undulated slowly in response as it flooded with six inches of stagnant, marshy water.

"Shit!" She was really cold now, and soaking wet. Remembering childhood warnings, Tiffany rolled over onto her back and sat up on her heels. Everyone knew that cranberry bogs were shallow, only eight inches deep. To get out, all you had to do was stand up. So Tiffany stood up and her slim legs broke through the peaty organic crust. She found herself treading cold deep water instead. Fear iced Tiffany's stomach as she realized the truth: she wasn't in a shallow cranberry bog - she had tripped straight into Satan's Tub, one of Nantucket's bottomless kettle ponds.

Desperate, blinking, her eyes stinging from the acidic water, Tiffany dug her manicure into the bog's rubbery surface, scrabbling for a purchase. Groping, increasingly frantic, she felt for a root, a vine, anything that would help her pull herself out of the bog. She shook the stinging water from her eyes and saw The Whistler still standing on top of his mound, just standing there, watching her struggle.

"Help me!" she sputtered. "Why won't you help me?"

The Whistler reached into his jacket and deliberately unwrapped a fresh pack of cigarettes. He shook one cigarette free and carefully placed it between his lips. A small bright flame illuminated the darkness and Tiffany heard The Whistler blow out the match with a long controlled exhalation.

"Goddamn it, help me!" Tiffany panted, fighting panic as cranberry vines and red maple root systems started to snarl her legs. Their scratchy insistent clutching made her skin crawl. An acrid layer of clay coated the back of her tongue and Tiffany tried to spit the bitter taste from her mouth. She had one last chance, and she knew it. Like everything else, she would have to stay calm and do this herself.

Tiffany pulled her feet free of the tangling roots and raised her knees, rolling out flat on her stomach. She floated on the surface, her lower lip barely bubbling clear of the water. She swam toward a dark line of bulrushes, breaststroking gently, knowing the rushes defined the very edge of the bog. Extending her hands out in front, Tiffany parted the knotted root clumps and ignored the slimy mugwort, sinking her fingers deeply into the soggy peat bank. As she struggled, her body floated vertical and Tiffany leveraged her legs by bending her knees and digging her toes into the mud. She heaved herself forward and up, up, forward and up, desperately searching for any grip. Greenbrier thorns ripped into her fingers and she ignored the pain, crawling forward steadily and digging in with her elbows and knees and finally freeing her hips from the sucking bog.

On firmer ground, Tiffany paused, spent and puking brackish water. Strands of luminous algae hung from her eyelashes and the bog puddle she was sitting in smelled like a cheap leather wallet. Tiffany gagged and choked and looked around. The Whistler had vanished. Tiffany was cold now, and very, very tired. Her teeth began to chatter. She sat up, still half in and half out of the bog. Resting all her weight in one place was a bad idea, and the fragile bank collapsed, sending her sliding back down into the bog engulfed in a roiling wave of muddy black peat and dead pin-oak leaves. Cold mossy water closed over Tiffany's pale face and she sank below the surface, surrendering a line of warm silvery bubbles.

Once more, giving it everything she had, Tiffany sputtered to the surface. She scrabbled at the peat bank, reaching for twigs, thorny brambles, roots, anything at all. "Goddamn it! I am not ... going out ... like this!" Using her toes, her knees, her elbows, Tiffany bucked herself back out of the bog, fighting for every inch. "My God!" she panted. "Oh, God! Oh, God!" Worming her way through the mud she pulled herself free of the bog for the second time. Retching, breathless, Tiffany lay face down, sobbing, spitting, and blowing muddy snot from her nose. She pushed back her ropy hair and glanced down at her torn and bloodied hands, curled in pain, her French manicure ripped to the quick. "Oh my God. What a fucking train wreck ..."

She felt his presence again even before she heard anything. The low soft whistling began and Tiffany glanced over her shoulder. The Whistler was standing in the darkness right behind her.

She tried to smile, and failed. "Oh, God..."