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moved around the front and stopped at the hood of the woman’s truck. It had already been raised and propped open.
    Mary Beth watched her dad duck his head under the hood, and then her eyes were drawn to the boy’s. He looked to be around her age, and something struck her as funny about him. Unlike her, he didn’t appear to be scared. Even his mom had been scared, so how could he look so calm? He smiled at Mary Beth. Not the kind of smile that a boy from school had once given her where his face had turned red before he looked away. This was something scary, something strange.
    “Mommy,” Mary Beth said. “Mommy, I’m scared.”
    Her mother looked into the back seat and smiled at her daughter. “I know, sweetie. So am I. But everything is going to be fine.”
    A loud crash and a scream drew Mary Beth’s attention outside, and her mother turned back, as well.
    “Oh my God, Charles!”
    Her father lay motionless on the engine. A man towered over him, holding the truck’s hood in his hand. He pushed it all the way up, then slammed it down onto Mary Beth’s father again. A grotesque crack sounded through the air, and her father’s limp body slid down the front of the truck, onto the ground. Mary Beth’s scream harmonized with her mother’s.
    Panting, her mother jumped over the center console, into the front seat. When she went to shut the door, another man appeared, holding it open.
    “No!” Mary Beth’s mother cried.
    Laughing, the man reached in and pulled Mary Beth’s mother out of the vehicle. Mary Beth cowered into the corner of the back seat as her mother’s kicking legs disappeared and her scream moved into the open air. Tears flowed down Mary Beth’s face, and she felt a sudden sense of vulnerability; a type of fear that she’d never realized.
    Bang .
    The loud noise startled Mary Beth and she sat straight up.
    Her mother screamed, “No!”
    Mary Beth looked to the front of the truck and saw one of the men aiming a gun at the ground. Her eyes moved down to see the quivering legs on the asphalt. Her father’s legs.
    Bang .
    The man had pulled the trigger again, and her father’s legs had stopped moving.
    “Daddy?” Mary Beth whispered.
    Her mother continued to wail, looking back toward Mary Beth. She urged the people to leave them alone. But moments later, she was out of view, taken to the other side of the truck. Mary Beth heard her mother cry out, followed by a loud ‘thump’.
    Bang.
    Her mother stopped screaming.
    Then the car door opened, and the woman, laughing hysterically, stuffed a sock into Mary Beth’s mouth and blindfolded her. Mary Beth bit down on the sock, trying to scream out, before she was picked up, and tossed into the stiff metal bed of the truck.
    The engine, apparently working just fine, roared to life, and the truck pulled away.
    Mary Beth never got the chance to confirm with her own eyes whether her parents were alive or dead. Instead, the terrifying people who’d abducted her dragged her off to a farm where she was sure she’d spend her final days.

CHAPTER SIX

    Mary Beth’s story left a dark cloud looming inside of the van. No one spoke.
    The story made Gabriel think of Katie and Sarah. As scared as Mary Beth and her mother had been at the moment when their world had been turned upside down by this demonic plague, at least Mary Beth’s father had been there for them. He was confident that Katie would put Sarah first and make sure that she was safe, of course, but he also knew the way Katie typically handled stressful situations. Many times, she would overreact before thinking things through. He should have been there. His palms sweating, he gripped the leather-covered steering wheel tight. The further toward the coast the group drove, the more anxious Gabriel became. And though they were making progress toward him getting home, he still felt so far away.
    The voice next to him broke him away from his thoughts.
    “You want me to drive?” Jessica asked. “You drove