The back of the free-range chicken coop at Hicks Chicken Farms is burnt to a crisp. The whole back wall is black, and there’s a hole in the bottom left-hand corner of the wall. It’s a pretty sizeable hole, too, which is a bit of a puzzle. Given the decent shape of the front of the coop—no char marks there—it doesn’t seem like the back of the coop burnt for long enough for that part of the wall to cave in or anything like that.

I squat down on the ground. Since the coop is mounted up on a small trailer bed, this puts the corner of the coop about at eye-level. Peering in, I can see a piece of burnt plyboard on the floor. A couple of them, actually.

And I can see the chickens.

They’re all dead, but I knew I’d find that once I realized I couldn’t hear any chickens on what was supposed to be a chicken farm.

They look awful, too. Most are burnt at least a little bit, and the ones nearest the hole are the worst. Chicken houses don’t normally smell great, to be completely honest, but the burnt-feather-and-flesh stench coming out of this coop is making me ill. Plus, beneath that smell of charred wood and chicken is something acrid and sulfuric—brimstone.

I take a quick inventory of the chicken house and then stand back up. “How many chickens you normally keep in this coop?”

“In this pasture? ‘Bout twenty. I’ve got a couple other coops, but I moved ‘em all to the back pastures after what happened last night.”

Well, that’s good to hear. I’d been starting to worry that this man’s entire livelihood had gone up in flames. But the fact there are three chickens unaccounted for confirms what I’ve been thinking since I’d gotten that whiff of brimstone while we were walking down here.

I can barely get the word “hellhound” out of my mouth before Tate’s daughter Emmakate starts squealing. Not in fear, though.

“I wanna see it! I wanna see the hellhound!” She’s so excited when I tell them that she jumps up out of her chair and almost slops her lemonade down the front of her shirt.

“No, you don’t,” says her daddy. “I don’t want you sneaking off looking for this thing, you hear me? It’s dangerous.” Tate looks up at me for confirmation.

I take a sip of my own lemonade and consider how to do a bit of damage control without quashing the kid’s natural curiosity. I try not to make a face as I swallow. Holy shit this stuff is sweet.

“Trust me, Emmakate,” I begin. “I totally get it. Hellhounds are pretty neat. They’re huge, they can breathe fire, which is obviously cool,” I add when her eyes get wide and her mouth gapes open. “But they are very dangerous, like your daddy said. They’re extremely territorial, and they’re just plain destructive.”

She frowns a bit and grunts in protest, as if I’d maligned her pet dog.

“What I mean is, they seem to like to set stuff on fire just because they can. I mean, fire is part of their foraging behavior, too, but they’ve also been observed just setting shit—I mean, stuff—” Emmakate giggles, and her dad sighs a little—”on fire during non-foraging behaviors as well. That doesn’t make them bad animals, it just makes them more dangerous to us.”

Emmakate’s still snickering when she asks me, “What’s forging?”

Oops. “Foraging,” I correct her. “It means what animals do when they go looking for food. Hellhounds like to use fire when they forage. Sometimes they’ll set fire to another animal’s home to make it run out so they can catch it, or sometimes they’ll use it to corner an animal they’ve been chasing, or cut off its path of escape.”

Emmakate seems satisfied by this explanation, but unfortunately, she also seems more interested than ever. I hesitate, because I don’t know if I can or should promise what I’m about to promise, but I just don’t want this kid running into the woods after this giant, fire-breathing dog.

“Tell you what,” I say, glancing over to Tate, “if it’s okay with your daddy, once I’ve managed to contain the hellhound, I can see if I can arrange a visit for you—” She gasps and jumps out of her chair again. “As long as you do two things for me.”

“Anything,” she breathes, positively quivering with excitement.

“One, you have to promise to do everything that I say. Once it’s contained, the hellhound may be a bit jumpy, and we’ll still have to be careful around it even if it’s secure in a cage. Okay?”

She nods, too excited to speak.

“And two, you have to promise me that you won’t run off and try and find this thing on your own.”

She looks a bit crestfallen at that, and I can tell there’s a war going on inside her head. While she’s quiet, I look over at Tate to see whether I’ve overstepped my bounds. He looks a little annoyed, but is watching Emmakate the same as me. When she finally squares her shoulders and mutters, “I promise,” he looks up at me and nods.

“All right then,” I say, and stand to leave. “I’ll be in touch. And Tate, you can message me in the Gig Hunter app if you see anything else. I’m going to check on a few other gigs in the area that I’m thinking might be hellhound-related, too. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.”

Once I’m back in my truck, I double check the Gig Hunter app and mutter a small shit under my breath. Looks like someone else snagged the Mitchell Farms gig, which is weird, because I didn’t think there were any other hunters in the area. The Tuskeegee National Forest gig looks like it’s still open, though. I’ve got a buddy over there, Alex—maybe if I just pop over there and say hey, they’ll go ahead and accept my bid.

I put my phone down and put the key in the ignition. Emmakate’s still there on the front porch, and she waves goodbye at me as I put the truck in reverse. As I’m waving back, I can’t help but think of seventeen charred chickens and hope the kid will keep her promise.