A short while later, he was asleep. Eph looked at his gnarled fingers twisting the hem of the bedsheet on his chest. The old man’s dreams were feverish.

“Dad!”

Eph went out to the main room. Zack was sitting in the computer chair, and Eph gripped the boy from behind, wrapped him up in another hug, kissing the top of his head, breathing in the scent of his hair. “I love you, Z,” he whispered.

“Love you too, Dad,” Zack said back, and Eph ruffled his hair and let him go.

“Where are we with this?”

“Almost all set.” The boy returned to the computer. “I had to create a dummy e-mail address. You pick a password.”

Zack was helping Eph upload the video of Ansel Barbour in the dog shed—which Eph had not yet shown Zack—onto as many file-sharing and broadcast video web sites as possible. Eph wanted true vampire footage out there on the Internet for the world to see. It was the only way he could think of to reach people and make them comprehend. He wasn’t worried about fostering chaos and panic: the riots continued, confined to poorer neighborhoods, though their spread was just a matter of time. The alternative of continued coordinated silence in the face of an extinction event was too absurd to consider.

This plague would be fought at a grassroots level now—or not at all.

Zack said, “Now I select the file, like this, and move it up as an attachment…”

Fet’s voice came from the kitchen, where he was watching television, eating deli chicken salad out of a half-pound plastic tub. “Look at this.”

Eph turned. Helicopter footage showed a row of flaming buildings now, and thick black smoke filling the air over Manhattan.

“It’s getting bad,” he said.

As Eph watched, he noticed all of Zack’s school papers on the refrigerator door lift and flutter. A napkin wafted across the counter, drifting to the floor, at Fet’s feet.

Eph turned to Zack, who had stopped typing. “What was that breeze?”

Zack said, “Back slider must be open.”

Eph looked around for Nora. Then the toilet flushed, and she stepped out of the hall bathroom. “What’s up?” she said, finding everyone staring at her.

Eph turned toward the other end of the house, looking at the corner that led around to the sliding glass door and the backyard.

A person turned the corner. Stopping there, her arms hanging limply at her sides.

Eph stared, paralyzed.

Kelly.

“Mom!”

Zack started toward her, and Eph reached out and grabbed him. His grip must have hurt Zack, because the boy pulled away in surprise, looking back at him.

Nora rushed over and wrapped Zack up from behind.

Kelly was just standing there. Looking at them. No expression, no blinking. She looked shell-shocked, as though deafened by some recent explosion.

Eph knew immediately. The pain in his heart was physical.

Kelly Goodweather was turned. A dead thing returned to its home.