His wallet was in his back pocket. I didn’t want to look through it because I didn’t want to know his name, or see a photo of his family, or learn his address, but I took his cash. I put the money and keys in my pocket, and my stomach cramped with hunger as I thought of the warm blood in him.

I opened the huge metal door that they’d called the meat locker, releasing a blast of frigid air. Ford and Cricket’s pale, bluish bodies were lying on gurneys, hooked up to medical equipment and IVs. A striped cat was on a much smaller gurney, also attached to equipment and twitching a leg, but otherwise still.

The Professor was going to try to bring them back.

I left the chill room and closed the door. Now I noticed a set of double doors on the far wall. There was a simple steel push button to open them. This room was designed to prevent people from getting in easily, not from leaving.

I pushed the button and the doors slid open to reveal a dark parking garage. Beyond a row of black vans, I saw the entrance to the garage with a metal gate that was open wide enough for me to get through.

Don’t panic, I thought.

I dragged Average Joe’s body into the garage and rolled the lifeless bulk under a van. As I ran to the open gate, I saw a car with “Prophetsor” on the license plate, but if I took the car, I might attract notice.

I peered around the wall of the garage. A chain-link fence topped with viciously barbed concertina wire surrounded the lot. Cameras were mounted on posts by the gate. Beyond was a street.

When the cameras were turned away, I ran out of the garage to a pocket of dark shadow by the fence.

As I was searching for the best place to climb, and hoping that an electric jolt wouldn’t knock me out, a black van turned into the drive.

I stayed hidden as the gates slid open automatically. And as the van drove in, I slipped out, and then I was out on the street, moving swiftly from one shadow to another.

When I reached the end of the block, I broke into a run, racing past desolate lots and abandoned warehouses, having no idea where I was. Speed was more important than care, and I felt broken glass on the asphalt slice my bare soles.

Average Joe’s keys jangled in my pocket, and I paused to hide them in a sewer pipe beside the road.

I reached a two-lane street and followed it for several minutes. Then the briny, seaweed scent of the bay came on the wind. Another half mile led me to a narrow bridge marked with a small black-and-white sign.