They reached the first intersection.

So strange. He’d expected the town to be thick with abbies. Wondered if they’d left. Raided town for a night and gone back out into the wild the way they’d come—through Pilcher’s gate. That would simplify things if he could get control of the fence and just shut them back out.

The green Victorian was close now, two houses down.

He picked up the pace and veered toward the front yard.

Suddenly Kate was running beside him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, breathless.

“Faster,” she gasped. “Just run.”

Ethan jumped the curb, sprinted through the grass.

Glanced back—nothing.

They reached the junipers.

Scrambled through the branches.

Ducked down in the shadow between the bushes and the house.

Everybody out of breath.

Ethan said, “Kate, what happened?”

“I saw one.”

“Where?”

“Inside one of the houses on the street.”

“Inside?”

“It was just standing at a window, looking out.”

“You think it saw us?”

“I don’t know.”

Ethan rose up slowly on his knees, peeked through the branches.

“Get down!” Kate whispered.

“I have to check. Which house was it?”

“Brown one with yellow trim. Swing on the front porch. Two gnomes in the yard.”

He saw it.

Saw the screen door swinging closed, heard the distant slap of the wood smacking the frame.

But he didn’t see the abby.

Ethan lowered himself back behind the bushes.

“It’s outside,” he said. “The screen door just closed. I don’t know where it is.”

“It could be coming around the house,” Kate said. “Sneaking up along the side. How smart are these things?”

“Scary.”

“Do you know how they hunt? How finely tuned their senses are?”

“No idea.”

Maggie said, “I hear something.”

Everyone hushed.

It was a clicking, scraping sound.

Ethan straightened just enough to peek through the branches again.

The abby was moving upright on the sidewalk toward the house.

The clicking was its talons on the concrete.

A large bull.

Two hundred fifty pounds at least.

It had fed recently. Ethan could barely see the pulsing of its massive heart through the dried blood and viscera that clung to its chest like a bib.

At the foot of the porch, it stopped.

Turned its head.

Ethan ducked.

Held his finger to his lips and leaned over so he could whisper in Kate’s ear.

“It’s at the porch, twenty feet away. We may have to engage.”

She nodded.

He got onto his knees, raised the shotgun, and poked his head above the juniper.

Did you rack a shell into the tube?

Of course I racked a shell into the tube. I ghost-loaded this gun last night.

The abby was gone, but the smell of it was potent.

Close.

It shot up screaming on the other side of the bush, teeth bared, eyes like wet, black stones.