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kitchen counter. The butcher block for their knives sat at an angle to the sink, the way it always did. Each slot was filled. A black handle jutted out of the empty gash that had taunted her for weeks. None of the knives was missing. The carving knife that had disappeared was back again, as if it had never vanished, never cut into the bodies of three innocent women.
    She began to doubt herself. Had it ever been gone? Had she imagined the missing knife?
    What was happening to her?
    Alison stretched out her hand with her fingers curled like a claw as she approached the counter. She hardly dared to touch the knife, as if it would disappear when she reached for it. But the handle was real and solid. She drew it out slowly, and as she hoisted the blade in the air, her mouth curled into an “O” of horror. The honed silver was covered over and crusted in streaks of dry crimson. It was a killing machine, bloody from its latest butchery.
    “Mom?”
    Alison spun in shock, expecting Michael behind her. She clutched the knife in front of her chest to protect herself. Instead, she saw Evan at the bottom of the steps, studying her with fear in his big eyes. She cried and let the knife fall from her fingers. It clattered to the floor.
    “Oh, my God,” she murmured, running to her son and sinking to her knees. She gathered him up in her arms and smothered him with kisses. “Oh, Evan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. What’s wrong? Why aren’t you sleeping?”
    Evan glanced at the vacant hallway upstairs, where they could see the closed door of his bedroom. His face was grave and mature. He leaned into his mother and whispered in Alison’s ear.
    “It’s the spitting devil,” he told her. “He’s here.”
*
     
    Alison stroked Evan’s hair as she held him. “Don’t worry, honey, you just had a nightmare. You’re safe with me now.”
    Her son shook his head firmly. “It’s not a dream. He’s real.”
    “Did you read something in one of your comic books? Were you looking at them in bed again? I told you not to do that.”
    “I’ve seen him,” Evan insisted. “He lives in my closet.”
    Alison stared at her son in confusion. “Evan, sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
    “He walks around at night,” the boy said. “I hear him coughing sometimes. I pretend to be asleep, but I see him in my room when he comes and goes.”
    “Who?”
    “The spitting devil.”
    “Evan, I’ve told you not to make up stories like that. It’s creepy. You’re scaring me.”
    “No, Mom, listen.” The boy cupped a hand over her ear and whispered again. “I think he wants to kill us.”
    Alison stiffened with dismay. Cold needles traveled up her skin. “Kill us? Don’t talk that way. Why would you say something like that?”
    “I’ve seen him with a knife,” Evan said.
    Alison rose slowly off her knees, like a ghost coming out of a grave, and spoke to her son in a calm, soft voice. “You have to be honest with me now, Evan. You can’t lie or pretend, okay? This is very important. Did you really see a man with a knife in this house?”
    “I told you. He lives in my closet.”
    She stared at the door to Evan’s bedroom above her and tried to bridge the gap between what was real and what was not. Her son had a vivid imagination, fed by his voracious appetite for fantasy books. It was also possible that Evan had seen Michael carrying a knife out of the house and had made up a fairy tale to explain away his father’s behavior. It was a child’s defense mechanism for something he knew was wrong.
    She would have been certain that the spitting devil in Evan’s closet was nothing but a bad dream if it weren’t for one thing.
    The ants.
    The ants living in the ceiling and in her nightmares. Watching her. Tormenting her. Like a million eyes driving her mad.
    What if her paranoia was real? What if her brain had conjured the ants to send her a message? The same message over and over. You’re not alone.
    “Evan, how long have you been