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Chloe, they hit painfully close to home. Her mind drifts to Oz, halfway around the world. A “vague but heavy fear” is definitely what she’s feeling.
    “Mommy, keep reading,” says Eli. He’s nestled in bed beside her under the covers. It’s one of the novels that she and Oz have been reading to Eli, a few pages a night, ever since they were in the Arctic. “Why did you stop?”
    “Just lie there, honey. Something tells me you’ll fall asleep pretty soon.”
    Chloe sets down the book, walks to the door, and is about to turn off the light…
    When she hears a loud scratching noise coming from outside.
    She’s used to the occasional sounds of wild animals trying to find their way in, but tonight it’s alarmingly loud.
    She nervously peels back the bedroom window curtains—and gasps.
    Through a crack in the boards between the glass and wrought iron grate she glimpses at least five or six furry, reddish-brown creatures scurrying up the side of the building, tongues dangling out of their mouths, fangs glistening in the moonlight.
    She tries to stay calm. She reminds herself how safe she and her family are—relatively speaking—inside this modest Paris apartment, the one in which she grew up. Every door and window has been heavily reinforced and is kept locked practically around the clock. Beyond the fact that all possible entry points had been sealed up,  just a few nights ago, after stomping to death a dazed rabid mouse that had managed to crawl in through the shower drain, Chloe even plugged up much of the apartment’s plumbing, too.
    Still, the sight of this pack of feral animals—dogs? wolves?—scrabbling up the side of her building fills her with quiet dread.
    For good measure, Chloe checks the screws securing the iron grate over the window, making sure they’re nice and tight. Satisfied, she smooths out the curtain.
    “ Bonne nuit, Eli,” she says to her son. “Good night, my love.”
    He responds with a gentle snore. The boy is fast asleep.
    Chloe tiptoes back to the bedroom door, which is suddenly pushed open from the other side. Marielle, her stepmother, is standing at the threshold.
    “ Maman? What is it?”
    At first Marielle doesn’t speak. She simply blinks, clearly confused.
    “I…I’m sorry. I was looking for the bathroom.”
    Chloe sighs. Looking for the bathroom? She’s lived in this apartment for forty years. Clearly her forgetfulness is getting worse. Chloe has suggested they see a doctor, but Marielle has refused. Not that they could get an appointment even if they wanted to. Practically every hospital in the city is strained to capacity treating victims of animal attacks. An old lady with early-stage dementia isn’t exactly a top priority.
    “It’s all right,” Chloe says soothingly. “This is Eli’s room. My old room, when I was a little girl. Remember? The bathroom is that way. Second door on the left.”
    “Of course it is,” Marielle says, waving her stepdaughter off with a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. But then she adds, with a bashful smile, “And I only had to open every other door to find it.”
    Marielle pads back down the hall. Chloe gives Eli, dozing soundly, a final look. He deserves a better world than this, she thinks, turning off the light.
    Headed to the kitchen, Chloe suddenly hears vicious growls and violent scratching coming from the other end of the apartment—along with her mother’s bloodcurdling screams.
    “No, no!” Marielle is shouting. “Chloe, Jean-Luc, help!”
    “Maman!” Chloe yells back, rushing to find her.
    On her way down the hall, she notices that the guest room door is wide open…the pantry door is wide open…and to her horror, the front door is wide open, too.
    Chloe understands immediately what’s happened. In her stepmother’s absentminded search for the bathroom, she has done the unthinkable.
    She’s just let in the animals.

Chapter 12
    “Maman!” Chloe shouts again, rummaging frantically around the