She stood at the counter, pouring Gravy Train into Peter's old red dish. As always, Peter came strolling in at the sound. The Gravy Train was fairly new; up until this year the deal had always been Gaines Meal in the morning, half a can of Rival canned dogfood at night, and everything Pete could catch in the woods in between. Then Peter had stopped eating the Gaines Meal and it had taken Anderson almost a month to catch on – Peter wasn't bored; what remained of his teeth simply couldn't manage to crunch up the nuggets anymore. So now he got Gravy Train … the equivalent, she supposed, of an old man's poached egg for breakfast.

She ran warm water over the Gravy Train nuggets, then stirred them with the old battered spoon she kept for the purpose. Soon the softening nuggets floated in a muddy liquid that actually did look like gravy … either that, Anderson thought, or something out of a backed-up septic tank.

'Here you go,' she said, turning away from the sink. Peter was now in his accustomed spot on the linoleum – a polite distance away so Anderson wouldn't trip over him when she turned around – and thumping his tail. 'Hope you enjoy it. Myself, I think I'd ralph my g – '

That was where she stopped, bent over with Peter's red dish in her right hand, her hair falling over one eye. She brushed it away.

'Pete?' she heard herself say.

Peter looked at her quizzically for a moment, and then padded forward to get his morning kip. A moment later he was slurping it up enthusiastically.

Anderson straightened, looking at her dog, rather glad she could no longer see Peter's face. In her head her grandfather's voice told her again to leave it alone, it was dangerous, and did she need any more string for her beads?

There are about a million people in this country alone who would come running if they got wind of this kind of dangerous, Anderson thought. God knows how many in the rest of the world. And is that all it does? How is it on cancer, do you suppose?