Shadrack woke in the morning, to the sounds of Sheba scratching at the door of the Winnebago, begging to go out. He was still dressed in slippers, pajama pants and a white t-shirt, but did not bother to change. He slipped her collar and leash on, and opened the door. "Her ya go girl." She bolted out the door, pulling him out the cigarette heavy atmosphere of his home, into the clean air of the forest. His mother already sat in a camping chair, a cigarette in her hand. She was wearing a colorful sarong and had a cigarette in one hand and a copy of People in the other.

"Morning Shad," she called, puffing on her death stick. "Morning ma," he called back, before letting the dog pull him off into the forest a few yards. She was after the scent of rabbit, and he smelled it too. He sniffed the air, and the wolf inside him approved of the scent, and wanted to run free with Sheba.

The sun was breaking over the mountains, in the distance, and trickling down into the forest, glinting off the moist maple leaves. There was wet underbrush, indicating that it had rained in the morning, and Shadrack cursed as it soaked through his slippers, thinking he should have changed. He had been sleeping and had not heard the rain though.

Once he was dressed, they were heading into town, his mother to apply at the local restaurants, and himself to study at the public library. There was a GED test coming up at the local state college, in a month, and he intended to pass it this time. He had only failed by a few points the last time he took it. After that, he could work in mechanics' shops, rather than just doing odd jobs as he could find them. That was the goal. His mother deserved better than this old beatup RV, and he planned to earn enough to buy her a new one, even if he had to build it himself.

Once the dog had calmed down, and was done with her business, he returned to the RV to get cleaned up and dressed. After two weeks of dry camping, it was good to take a real shower again. He dressed in blue jeans, high tops sneakers and a t-shirt with a British flag on it.

Exiting the RV, he found his mother already breaking out the motorbike from the trailer, the RV had pulled. It was an old Harley, in good working order, painted black. Soon they were headed into town, with him driving and his mother riding passenger. He had not been comfortable in a car, since he was fourteen, despite the fact that they were relatively safer than his motorbike. That was the year he had almost died, when his drunken father hit inadvertently committed suicide, by driving into an oak tree.

They pulled into the beautiful Pennsylvania town of Hemlock Grove. It was a little town, with three main streets and a small high school, on the edge of town. They turned on to the main street, passing a pharmacist, a bookstore, a pizza parlor and a laundromat. At the end of the street there was an old time, metal sided dinner and that was where they were headed.