Nine-year-old Jacob is playing in his friend Whitey’s yard when Whitey’s dog Maggie stumbles out of the forest with terrible wounds. Terrified that she’s going to die, Jacob runs to get his father, who takes him back to collect Whitey and Maggie. At Jacob’s house, they wash and bandage her wounds, and his father notes that whatever did this to her meant to hurt her, not kill. He hints that Whitey’s abusive, alcoholic father may have been the culprit, and Whitey stays with them for a few days until his father comes to collect him.  A few weeks later, Jacob and Whitey are wandering through the woods when they come upon a deer carcass that has been ripped to shreds and smells of rot, similarly to Maggie. They run home to their parents and Jacob tells his father, who warns him to stay close to the house. Still, a few weeks later the kids are again playing in Whitey’s yard when he finds a boot with a foot still inside. Even without the rest of the body, they know it belongs to Whitey’s father. The other parents rush over and decide to go after the monster while the kids recover inside, but Whitey bolts after them and Jacob chases him. They find the men circling a horrible creature on an iced-over pond, and even though they shoot at it, the bullets don’t seem to have any effect. Finally the ice breaks and the creature disappears, the men crawl out, and they go home. Whitey gets passed around households for a while, but money is tight because of the Depression and eventually an uncle comes to take custody. Over the next few years, Jacob tries to write a letter to Whitey to ask if he remembers the creature, but his uncle responds that he’s in juvenile prison. Jacob’s father goes to World War II and dies in combat. Jacob meets his wife, falls in love, and has a child of his own. On his eightieth birthday, his granddaughter gives him a book of Wisconsin legends, in which he finds a picture of the creature they saw all those years ago. That night he dreams of Whitey standing at the pond where the monster disappeared.