One of those . . . things had been sitting on the other side of the furnace all the time, feeding contentedly only a few feet away. It was a large woman he had seen many times behind the cash register at the IGA, with her thick glasses and her hair in an ever-present bun. She still wore her smock and her “My Name Is Evie” badge, though both were speckled with red. Her mouth was wet and gleaming; Del knew it was not lipstick. She was sitting cross-legged and there was the limp form of a man draped across her lap but she was no longer looking at him. She was looking at Del.

Oh, God.

He turned on his heels and looked straight into Evie’s face and into those empty, rimless eyes, magnified three times by the thickness of her glasses. His muscles began to quiver and his bladder control slipped and a warmth spread through the crotch of his pants. He started to mumble and in the process bared his plastic teeth. Evie’s brow furrowed and she flashed her own fangs as she pulled her victim tight against her ample bosom. “Get your own,” she snapped. Then she turned away from him and went back to the man across her lap, tilting his face aside so she could go at his neck once again.

Del was numb. It worked, he thought. I can’t believe it worked, she really . . .

He caught himself. Shivered. Stepped closer so that he could look into the slack face of her unfortunate prey. In this dim light the features had looked familiar. The shape of the face. The red hair.

No, please . . .

His jaw began to quiver. The fake teeth fell to the floor. He had to jam a sleeve into his mouth to keep from screaming. It was Bart.

He felt the sting of tears again, rolling through the grease on his cheeks. They were tears of hate this time, of anger. It was the only way the shock could be assimilated, the only way it wouldn’t make him faint or turn to a blubbering, helpless child. It triggered something in him, deep down, that transcended his own sense of self-preservation, stoked a rage that made him forget everything else, that made him search the floor for a stake, a pipe, anything he could use to shatter Evie’s skull and beat to a pulp whatever foul tissue still pulsed beneath. All he could find within reach was the folding knife in his pocket, but that was okay. He’d just use it to stab at her throat and chop at it and saw through it until her head came off in his hands. He stepped toward her with his face twisted and his knife bared and he reached out for that bound-up bun because pulling that would bare the bitch’s throat and he’d aim for between the second and third chin . . .

Bart looked up at him.