Chapter 3

    ELSWORTH'S FAMOUS
    SPIDER PETTING ZOO
    OPEN YEAR ROUND
    ALL VISITORS WELCOME

This must be the place, he concluded. Carefully turning up the heavily rutted lane, Johnson wondered what he would find. Perhaps one of the locals playing a joke on the tourists, he mused.

Tall grass slapped at the bottom of the car and rusted barbed wire clung to rotted posts that ran alongside the lane. In the untilled fields, scrubby bushes had sprung up like mushrooms. Johnson tried to imagine what the farm looked like in better days, but it was impossible.

When he reached the top of the hill, the farmhouse looked even more decrepit. Blistered paint hung from the wooden shingles and there was a disturbing sag in the middle of the roof. What once had been the side garden was now occupied by tall thistles and a mass of tangled timbers indicated the former site of the main barn.

Except for the glass still being intact in the windows, the house looked abandoned. Where is everybody? thought Johnson. In response to his question, an old woman dressed in a black skirt and a woolen sweater stepped out the side door. She was gnarled and withered like the lone apple tree that stood in the yard. Johnson guessed she must have been at least 70, maybe even 80 years old.

"What you want?" she spat.

Turning off the CD player and rolling down the car window, he replied, "Is this the petting zoo?"

"That's what the sign says, don't it?"

Ignoring her rudeness, Johnson continued, "Are you open?"

"I'll git Jake. He out back choppin' wood."

He watched as she shuffled down a dirt path and disappeared around a corner of the house. Charming, thought Johnson.

Opening the car door, he stepped out. Despite the poverty, the farm had a certain rustic appeal which reminded him of the house that he grew up in in the country.