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he picked up was his slingshot. As he straightened, he wondered if the dog whose eyes he’d glimpsed earlier belonged to the girl.
    As if in answer to his thought, he heard a soft sound behind him, and once more he turned, ready to fight or run.
    And once more he froze in place.
    Standing on the other side of the clearing, right where he’d stood a moment before, was an animal. Big and gray, with eyes the color of a winter moon.
    It was not a stray dog.
    It wasn’t a Stinger or a gator or a bear.
    And it wasn’t a little girl.
    The thing that stared at him with those cold eyes was a wolf.

M ilo’s mouth went dry and his heart nearly froze in his chest.
    The wolf was only twenty feet away.
    He could get a stone out of his pouch, load it into the slingshot, aim, and fire. But could he do it fast enough or hard enough to stun the wolf before it could close the twenty-foot gap between them?
    Not one chance in ten billion.
    Milo was absolutely certain that if he tried, the wolf would kill him. No question about it. This wasn’t a contest he could ever hope to win.
    The wolf, seeming to sense his thoughts, wrinkled its muzzle to show him all of its razor-sharp teeth. There were a lot of teeth in that savage mouth.
    The wolf took a single step toward him. Slow and careful.
    â€œNo!” said Milo.
    The animal paused, and those pale eyes narrowed for a moment as it cocked its head to listen to what the wind had to say. Milo turned too, hearing it now. Off to the northeast of where they stood, there was the sudden sound of voices and footfalls. No rabbits or falling branches this time. It was the unmistakable sound of people moving through the forest. Milo had no idea if that was the girl returning, or that brute Oakenayl, or if it was his friends—Shark, Lizabeth, Barnaby, and the rest of the pod.
    He turned back to the wolf.
    But it was gone.
    The woods were empty, and there was no trace at all that it had ever been there. Not a print, not a bent strand of grass.
    Beyond that spot, the burned clearing waited to be explored, the wreckage waited to be examined, which was why Milo and his pod were here.
    However, all he could do was stand in the place where the girl had been and stare at the spot where the wolf had stood, trying to understand what had just happened.
    He was not, however, able to understand a single thing.

FROM MILO’S DREAM DIARY
    I had the dream about the party again.
    It was different this time. Not sure what that’s about. It was the same for a long time. Now there’s new stuff happening.
    It started the same way. With lots and lots of food.
    Shark and I were sitting at a big picnic table. There was so much food. More than we ever have at one time. More than we have in the whole camp, even in the storage carts. Months’ worth of food. Roasted turkeys and boiled hams, grilled ribs and pots of boiled crabs. Shark had a steak so rare it almost mooed when he cut it. A mountain of mashed potatoes and an even bigger one of yams. Every kind of vegetable. I couldn’t even name all of them. Bowls of gravy and a foot-long tray of bread stuffing that was baked crisp along the top, the way Grandma used to make it.
    I miss Grandma. I hope it was quick for her when the bombs fell.
    She would have liked the party. It was crazy, ’cause I kept being hungry and kept being able to shovel more food down. So good. And we threw scraps to Killer, too, who was hiding under Shark’s chair.
    The dream always starts happy like that.
    We heard a sound in the sky. Like thunder. We all knew it wasn’t, but nobody said anything. We were too busy eating.
    I remember Dad was there too.
    He’s always so tall in my dreams. Taller than I think he really was, but I don’t remember. I was smaller when he got lost. He was talking to Mom, not looking at me. But it felt good to have him there.
    Is he still out there somewhere? Is he still alive?
    I hope so. I prayed about it for a