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stands on the threshold of the attic with the axe in his right hand. “Move away from it, Brian.”
    â€œYou think it’s—”
    â€œThe missing kid?” Philip whispers, cautiously moving toward the object. “Let’s find out.”
    The scratching noise, as if stimulated by the sound of voices, surges and rises.
    Brian turns toward the tanning bed, braces himself, and raises the baseball bat. “He might have been hiding up here when he turned.”
    Philip approaches with the axe. “Get outta the way, sport.”
    â€œI’ll take care of it,” Brian says bitterly, moving toward the latch, his baseball bat poised.
    Philip gently steps in between his brother and the tanning bed. “You don’t have to prove nothing to me, man. Just move outta the way.”
    â€œNo, goddamnit, I got this,” Brian hisses, reaching for the dusty latch.
    Philip studies his brother. “Okay, whatever. Go for it, but do it quick. Whatever it is—don’t think about it too much.”
    â€œI know,” Brian says, grasping the latch with his free hand.
    Philip stands inches behind his brother.
    Brian unlatches the enclosure.
    The scuttling noises cease.
    Philip raises the axe as Brian throws open the lid.
    *   *   *
    Two quick movements—a pair of blurs in the darkness—shoot across Philip’s sight line: a rustling of fur and the arc of Brian’s bat.
    It takes a second or two for the animal to register in Philip’s heightened senses—the mouse darting out of the glare of the flashlight and scurrying across the fiberglass trough toward a hole gnawed in one corner.
    The baseball bat comes down hard, missing the fat, oily-gray rodent by a mile.
    Pieces of the bed’s switch panel and old toys shatter at the impact. Brian lets out a gasp and recoils at the sight of the mouse vanishing down the hole, slithering back into the inner workings of the bed’s base.
    Philip lets out a sigh of relief and lowers the axe. He starts to say something when he hears a little metallic tune playing in the shadows next to him. Brian looks down, breathing hard.
    A little jack-in-the-box, thrown by the impact of the bat, lies on the floor.
    Triggered by the fall, the tinny music plays a few more notes of a circus lullaby.
    Then the toy clown pops out—sideways—from the fallen metal container.
    â€œBoo,” Philip says wearily, with very little humor in his voice.
    *   *   *
    Their moods improve slightly the next morning after a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs and slab bacon and grits and ham and griddlecakes and fresh peaches and sweet tea. The fragrant mélange fills with entire house with the welcoming odors of coffee and cinnamon and smoked meats sizzling. Nick even makes his special redeye gravy for the group, which sends Bobby into ecstasy.
    Brian finds cold remedies in the master bedroom medicine cabinet and starts feeling a little better after he downs a few DayQuil capsules.
    After breakfast, they explore the immediate vicinity—the single square block known as Green Briar Lane—and they get more good news. They find a treasure trove of supplies and building materials: woodpiles for fireplaces, extra planking under decks, more food in the neighbors’ refrigerators, cans of gas in the garages, winter coats and boots, boxes of nails, liquor, blowtorches, bottled water, a shortwave radio, a laptop, a generator, stacks of DVDs, and a gun rack in one of the basements with several hunting rifles and boxes of shells.
    No silencer; but beggars can’t be choosers.
    They also get lucky in the undead department. The houses on either side of the Colonial are empty; their residents evidently got the hell out of Dodge before the shit had gone too far down. Two houses away from the Colonial, on the west side, Philip and Nick encounter an elderly couple who have turned, but the oldsters are easily, quickly, and