Horror and disbelief and incomprehensible agony all compressed into a single outburst that seemed to go on and on and on.

This was the sound of someone being killed.

Had they gone ahead with Kate and Harold’s execution anyway?

The screaming stopped like a spigot had been turned off.

Jennifer looked down.

She was on her feet, standing on the cold hardwood floor.

She went to the window, raised it several inches higher.

Cold flooded in.

Someone shouted inside a house nearby.

A door slammed.

Somebody sprinted through the alley.

Another scream echoed through the valley, but this one was different. It was the same sound that monster had made inside the sheriff’s Bronco.

A god-awful, inhuman shriek.

Other screams answered as a strong, pungent smell—like rotten musk—pushed into the bedroom, riding on the breeze.

A low, throaty growl started down in her garden.

Jennifer closed her window and threw the lock.

She stumbled back, and as she sat down on the mattress, something came through the living-room window downstairs.

Jennifer jerked her head toward the door.

The candle flame on the dresser winked out.

She let out a gasp.

The room was pitch black, her hand invisible in front of her face.

She jumped to her feet and staggered toward the bedroom door, banged her knee on a hope chest at the foot of the bed, but managed to stay on her feet.

She reached the door.

Heard the steps creaking as something came up the staircase.

Jennifer eased the door shut and felt around for the lock.

It clicked into the housing.

Whatever had broken into her house was now out in the hallway, the floorboards groaning under its weight.

More noise downstairs.

Clicks and screeches filling the house.

She got down on her hands and knees and crawled across the floor as the footsteps outside her door drew closer. Flattening herself, she squeezed under the bed, her heart pounding against the dusty hardwood floor.

She could hear more of them climbing the stairs.

The door to her bedroom exploded off the hinges.

The footsteps of whatever entered her bedroom made a clicking sound on the hardwood. Like claws.

Or talons.

She smelled it, stronger than ever, a potpourri of dead things—rot and blood and an otherworldly stench beyond her understanding.

She didn’t make a sound.

By the side of the bed, the floorboards cracked, as if with the weight of something kneeling down.

She held her breath.

Something hard and smooth grazed her arm.

She screamed and pulled back.

Her shoulder suddenly felt cold.

She put her hand to it.

It came away wet. She’d been cut by something.

Whispered, “Please God . . .”

There were others in the room now.

Oh, Teddy. She just wanted to see his face. One last time. If this was really the end.

The bed lifted, one of the legs scraping across her side as it crashed into the wall.