There’s some beautiful writing here and I’m been waiting for a particularly dramatic section that didn’t reveal too much of plot.
(Ham on movement)
I made my move without regret. I drifted the outskirts and made my way to the side of the house where I had followed the girl the night before and went around back. I expected a dog, something wet-mouthed and starved crazy for living flesh to flash out and grab me in the guts with hot teeth. I thought my heart might stop at the thought and I breathed through my mouth.
No extra words, no fancy words, but the drama is exhibited by language that gets right into the middle of the scene and sets it with minute details: "wet-mouthed and starved crazy" makes me see, feel, hear, and fear this dog though the dog does not even exist except as Ham’s imagined expectation.
At this point in the story I’m hitting links I’ve followed before, because of my method of reading crablike, checking out links and following them out before backtracking and taking the main trail I’ve chosen. Some links produce new data, but even the ones that I’ve seen before serve as reinforcement, may mean something in retrospect that they hadn’t before. It’s like flipping back to a page you recall with a question brought up by the page that you’re on.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology