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discoveries along the way.
    They found a dog’s food bowl in the basement, but no sign of the animal. They also found an array of very useful power tools in the workshop: jigsaws, drills, routers, and even a nail gun. The nail gun would be especially handy for building barricades since it is somewhat quieter than a pounding hammer.
    In fact, Brian is thinking about other uses for that nail gun when, all at once, he hears a noise that instantly frosts his scantily clothed body in goose bumps.
    The sound is coming from above him, on the other side of the ceiling.
    It’s coming from the attic.

 
    THREE
    Upon hearing the noise—almost subconsciously identifying it as something other than the house settling, or the wind in the dormers, or the furnace rattling—Brian sits up on the edge of the bed.
    He cocks his head and listens more carefully. It sounds like somebody scratching at something, or the faint sound of fabric tearing in fits and jerks. At first, Brian feels compelled to go get his brother. Philip would be the best one to deal with this. It could be the kid, for God’s sake … or something worse.
    But then, almost as an afterthought, Brian stops himself. Is he going to puss out again … as usual? Is he going to run, like always, to his brother—his younger brother, for God’s sake—the same individual whose hand Brian had once held at the crosswalk every morning when the two of them were grade school kids at Burke County Elementary? No, goddamnit. Not this time. This time, Brian is going to grow a pair.
    He takes a deep breath, turns, and searches for the flashlight he had left on the bedside table. He finds it and switches it on.
    The narrow beam shoots across the dark bedroom, spreading a silver pool of light on the opposite wall. Just you and me, Justin, Brian thinks as he rises to his feet. His head is clear. His senses are crackling.
    The truth is, Brian had felt incredibly good earlier that night when he had concurred with his brother’s plans, when he had seen the look in Philip’s eyes, like maybe Brian is not a hopeless loser after all. Now it’s time to show Philip that the moment in the kitchen was not a fluke. Brian can get the job done just as well as Philip.
    He moves quietly toward the door.
    Before leaving the room, he grabs the metal baseball bat that he found in one of the boys’ bedrooms.
    *   *   *
    The papery rustling noises can be heard more clearly in the hallway, as Brian pauses under the attic hatchway, which is a glorified trapdoor embedded in the ceiling above the second-floor landing. The other bedrooms along the hallway—filled with the deep snores of Bobby Marsh and Nick Parsons—are situated on the other side of the landing, on the east side of the house, out of earshot. That’s why Brian is the only one hearing this right now.
    A leather strap hangs down, low enough for Brian to jump up and grasp. He pulls the spring-levered hatch open, and the accordionlike stairs unfold with a pinging noise. Brian shines the flashlight up into the dark passage. Dust motes drift in the beam. The darkness is impenetrable, opaque. Brian’s heart chugs.
    You fucking pussy, he thinks to himself. Get your pussy ass up there.
    He climbs the steps with the baseball bat under one arm, the flashlight in his free hand, and he pauses when he reaches the top of the ladder. He shines the light on a huge steamer trunk with Magnolia Springs State Park stickers on it.
    Now Brian smells the cold putrid odors of must and mothballs. The autumn chill has already seeped into the attic through the seams of the roof. The air is cool on his face. And after a moment, he hears the rustling again.
    It’s coming from a deeper place in the shadows of the attic. Brian’s throat is as dry as bone meal as he climbs to his feet on the threshold. The ceiling is low enough to force him to hunch. Shivering in his underwear, Brian wants to cough but doesn’t dare.
    The scratching noises stop, and then start