She was in the house for almost two hours, and when she finally left she used the front door. The other children were waiting on the porch, brooding and hungry. Andrea calmed them with a smile and let a few of them lick her fingertips and chin. Then she took the rolled-up elementary-school yearbook from her jacket pocket and used a Magic Marker to cross out another face in it, this one pudgy and wearing thick glasses. There were more faces to go. Three whole pages of them.

The others nodded and licked their lips anxiously.

A few streets over, on Ritter, Frank Sipes was just getting home. He was on foot, which was not so unusual. He often left his car at the tavern. He sauntered up the steps, surprisingly staggerless, and rang the doorbell.

A pinched face peered through the glass, then the door opened a crack, the farthest the chain would allow. “Decided to come home early for a change,” Irene Sipes observed, hiding her surprise at his appearance. She was a frail but threatening woman on first glance, with a wide forehead and eyebrows that grew together in the middle. Frank’s drinking became surprisingly understandable in her presence.

“In the mood for pitching a little woo?” Frank asked slyly and held out a handful of flowers he’d picked.

Irene yawned. “Whose trash did you get those out of?”

“What a darling sense of humor,” he chuckled, pushing at the door. The chain popped and hung loose. The door swung open. But Frank stayed outside. “May I come in?”

She looked from the busted lock to Frank and back again. “Have you been drinking?”

“Nope,” he said, holding out a hand. It did not tremble. “See? Not a drop.” He held out the flowers again. “For you, my love.”

Irene looked into the deep redness of the roses and then into her husband’s eyes and in the latter she thought she saw the spark that inebriation had extinguished long ago. The hunger. She blushed. “Come on then,” she said, taking the flowers in her arms and pushing at her hair as if it could be kneaded into a more becoming style. She loosened the belt on her flannel robe as she mounted the stairs. “Give me a minute to freshen up, then . . .” She giggled and rushed up the steps. At the top she called back, “Frankie, are you sure you haven’t been drinking?”

“Not yet,” he grinned, starting up the stairs after her.

There were several cars parked at the Tunnel, despite the chill in the air. A new kind of game was being played. Every few minutes or so the passenger doors would swing open in unison and teenage boys and girls, giggling mischievously, would run past each other and switch cars. The doors would slam and there would be quiet for a while, then the change would take place again.