“I could play Solitaire all day every day,” she said. “I’ve found in my life that sometimes the best company is your own.”

A growl idled again in the monster’s throat.

“You cut that right out!” she yelled. “I will not be spoken to that way in my own home.”

The growl changed into something almost like a purr.

“That’s better,” Belinda said as she dealt a new game. “I apologize for yelling. My temper sometimes gets the best of me.”

ETHAN

ETHAN

The light in the distance was getting closer, but he couldn’t see a thing around him.

Tripping every few steps, he tore up his hands as he grasped for branches in the dark.

Wondering, Could the abbies track us? By scent? Sound? Sight? All of the above?

The torchlights were close.

He could see his group in the illumination.

Ethan came out of the trees at the base of the cliff.

There was already a line of people moving like ants up the rock, the glow of torches high above like a strand of Christmas lights strung across the cliff.

Ethan had climbed this route only once before while infiltrating the Wanderers, Kate and Harold’s secret group.

Steel cables had been bolted into the rock in a series of harrowing switchbacks over man-made footholds and handholds.

A dozen people stood around the base of the cliff, waiting their turn to ascend. He looked for his family, but they weren’t there.

Hecter walked over. “This is a bad idea,” he said. “Putting children on the cables in the dark.”

Ethan thought of Ben, drove his son out of his mind.

“How many are coming?” Hecter asked.

“More than we can handle.”

Down the mountainside, Ethan could hear branches snapping.

He had a pocketful of twelve-gauge shells and he started feeding them into the magazine while he watched the edge of the forest.

With the last shell in the tube, he leveled the shotgun on the woods.

Thinking, Not yet. Just a little bit longer please.

Hecter tapped Ethan’s shoulder, and said, “It’s time.”

They went up the rock face, clutching the freezing cable.

By the time Ethan reached the third switchback, the forest below him was alive with screams and shrieks.

Wails lifting up through the trees.

The nearest torch was twenty feet above, but the stars were numerous and bright enough to light the rock.

Ethan glanced down the cliff as the first abby came out of the trees.

Another appeared.

And another.

Then five more.

Then ten.

Soon there were thirty of them gathered at the base.

He kept climbing, trying to focus on clutching the cables and stepping sure-footedly, but every time he looked down there were more abbies than before.

The rock went vertical.

He wondered how Theresa and Ben had fared.

Were they safe in the Wanderers’ cavern now?

Above him, a scream that plummeted in his direction.

Closer, closer, closer, closercloserclosercloser . . .