At the door, Michaela glanced nervously into the foyer. Then back at the floating squids, and jerked the door open, darting inside.

Kevina was last, slamming the door behind her. As she did, Michaela opened the locker, handing her the last of the rifles and a spare magazine of cartridges.

“You know how to use that?” Michaela asked, indicating the rifle.

“Used one to cull seals off Ostrov Belaya Zemia for the polar bear feeding program.” She worked the bolt, figured out how the gun loaded. “It was an automatic, not a bolt gun.” She found the tang safety, flicked it back and forth. After that, it was pretty simple.

Michaela stepped up, looked her hard in the eyes. “You understand, don’t you? These things. They’re no longer our children. Felix is not your boy. It’s a monster. Our kids are dead, Kevina. The slime has taken them, is directing them through some kind of sounds we can’t hear. Right, Vik?”

Vik nodded where she was staring uneasily down the stairs toward the second level. “That thing that looks like my Sheena? Or the one that looks like Felix? It’s taken their minds, Kevina. That’s what killed Bill Martin, Anna Gabarron . . .” Her expression collapsed into a confused grief.

“Tried to kill me,” Michaela added hotly. “Felix and Sheena, get it? They were chopping down my door when Dik distracted them.” Michaela grabbed Kevina’s shoulder, pinched. “You get a chance, Kevina, you shoot them. You with me? Your son will kill you. He won’t think twice.”

Kevina clamped her eyes shut, images of Felix flashing behind her lids. The feel of his fetal kicks and shifting in her womb, that miracle as she’d first placed him to her breast to suckle and all that followed. His life out of hers. All the clever antics of his childhood. That wide-eyed boy on his first boat ride out to set the buoy.

Where had it all gone wrong?

“I said: Do. You. Understand?” Michaela roared in her face.

“I . . . Yes.” Kevina swallowed hard, nerved herself. “He’s not my boy anymore.”

Michaela nodded. “It’s not even a he, Kev. It’s a thing. Alien. And it’s using your boy’s corpse as a home.”

“Couldn’t have said it better,” Vik agreed. She hadn’t let her gaze shift from the stairs. “We can’t stay here. What do you have in mind?”

Michaela rubbed her face, smearing the faint streaks of tears on her brown cheeks. “Maybe we can seal the second level? Block the door? Keep them restricted to first level?”

“If they’re not already on second level,” Vik reminded. “Why didn’t we seal the door when we left?”

“Because we were fucking flying out of here, remember? Didn’t matter back then.” Michaela gestured. “Kev, you first. Be ready to shoot.”