“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grandma Rose said. “You don’t even deserve to be . . . well, just never mind.” She put her hands over her grandson’s ears. “Don’t listen to him, Charlie.”

“Believe what you want,” Joe said. He heard a squeak outside the room, coming from the staircase.

“Is that him?” Charlie asked, quivering.

“Shhhhh!” Joe and Grandma Rose said in unison.

“What are we going to do?” Grandma Rose whispered.

“We’re going to hide in the attic,” Joe said. “Right, Charlie?”

Charlie smiled.

Stanley’s wrist pulsated under the makeshift splint he’d jerry-rigged with wooden spoons and duct tape. That unforeseen incident would make his job more difficult now, but maybe more entertaining. He slipped the roll of tape over his good wrist and peered through the lens of his gas mask at the door in front of him. It was covered in hand-drawn pictures of dinosaurs, planets, moons, pirates, spaceships— the typical icons of boyish youth. The only difference was the detail: each picture was fully diagrammed with dozens of arrows, each linked to a paragraph of explanation. For example, four dinosaurs were linked to a sentence explaining they were ornithischians and all shared the same hip bones, namely, the ilium, the ischium, and the pubis. He was tempted to tear the pages off, just to have something interesting to read the next morning with his Jamba Juice.

One kick knocked the door down. The room was empty. Not a surprise. But he knew they were up here somewhere. He’d watched them hike up the stairs, scared as kittens caught on fire.

He swept the room with his gun, looking under the covers, then under the bed. Behind the desk and in the closet. All the usual spaces. Sometimes people were dumb enough to hide there. This group was probably a little smarter. But not much.

The fact that there were three of them worried him very little. Once he shot the big guy, the other two would make easy prey. A kid and a grandma? C’mon. No problem, even with a shattered wrist. Satisfied the room was empty, he slowly pulled up his gas mask, making sure the gas had fully dissipated, then walked out the opposite door into the adjoining playroom.