“This is what’s happening next. You’re going to leave here with me. You don’t have a choice about that. But if you fight me — if you struggle, or make a sound, or bring anyone else over here — I promise I will leave bodies all over this place.”

He stops, swallows, seems to choke something back, then looks at her again.

“I will make a point of hurting your father. I will do such awful things to him. You can’t even imagine. I will absolutely ruin that clean, white shirt. And you will still have to come with me. The only difference will be that he’ll be dead, and it will be your fault.”

He looks at her, and closes his mouth with another wet smack.

Grace understands, suddenly, why he sounds like he’s choking. His mouth is filled with saliva, and he has to swallow it all. He’s literally drooling at the thought of hurting her father and all these people.

She knows, without a doubt, that he is not lying.

He sees the truth settle on her and smiles.

“But if you come with me, quietly, right now, I promise I won’t touch another person here. I won’t hurt any of these other kids, or the employees, or your dad and his girlfriend. I swear. That’s what you can choose. You can choose how many other people die here today.”

He takes a deep breath, and offers her his hand.

Grace only hesitates a little before she takes it.

He stands and opens the door, pulling her along with him. There is no alarm. No one notices them leave.

In the sudden brightness of the parking lot, the man hesitates. Grace sees another man standing by a white van with the words HOGAN CATERING on the side. He is smaller, thinner, neater. He has dark hair and a handsome face. He wears a T-shirt and jeans. She wants to say something, but she still believes her father’s life is in her hands.

And it turns out he’s not on her side anyway.

“I came to bring you back,” he says.

The other man holds Grace’s hand even more tightly. “I don’t need any help.”

The new guy makes a face. “Yeah, well, as it turns out, nobody wants to wait for you to drive your serial killer van all the way back across the country. We don’t have that kind of time. So I’m here,” he says. But he opens the door of the van anyway.

Grace thinks that something is wrong with her eyes. It doesn’t open into the metal interior of a van. It opens into a warm, summer day someplace else. She can see a green pasture, and a blue sky with white clouds. It looks strangely familiar to her.

“Let’s go,” the new guy says, and points at the impossible doorway.