Tiptoeing carefully, lightly, quietly, he stepped into the Big Room.

“Billy.”

The voice was closer this time. Extremely close. Billy looked up.

The mailman stared down at him through the open trapdoor, grinning. There was corruption in that smile, a twisted cruelty in the hard blue eyes.

“Want to have a good time?” the mailman asked.

Billy backed into the HQ. He glanced down at the stack of Playboys as he retreated, but they were not Playboys. They were Playgirls.

“Billy,” the mailman said again.

Panicked now, he began kicking at the back wall of the HQ, trying to knock off one of the boards so he could crawl through and out. He kicked with all of his might, putting the strength of desperation behind each kick, but they had built The Fort well—too well—and the boards would not budge.

He heard the mailman drop through the trapdoor to the floor of the Big Room behind him.

“I brought you a present, Billy,” the mailman said.

“Help!” Billy screamed at the top of his lungs. He kicked furiously at the wall. “Mom! Dad!”

“Want to have a good time?” the mailman asked.

Billy turned around and saw over his shoulder the mailman smiling, holding forth his present.

When Billy was not home when they came back from the store and had still not returned an hour later, Tritia began to panic. She had Doug call Mike at the police station, who promised to comb the town, starting with the post office, and she began calling all of Billy’s friends. She dialed the Chapmans’ number and Lane answered the phone.

“Hello,” Tritia said. “This is Mrs. Albin. Is Billy there?”

“No.” Lane’s voice sounded at once cold and suggestive, not unlike that of the mailman, and the fear grew within her.

“Have you seen him at all today?”

“No.” Lane paused. “But I’ve seen you.”

There was a click as the connection was broken.

Tritia hung up the phone. What the hell did that mean? She didn’t know, and she didn’t think she wanted to know. She started to dial the twins, when she heard Doug come in through the back door.

“He’s not under the house or by the clothesline,” he said. He was trying to keep the worry out of his voice, but he was not having much luck. “His bike’s still here. I’m going to start looking in the back, around the green belt.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll keep calling.”

Doug walked out the front door.

God, she prayed silently, let him be all right.

Doug walked across the length of their property, venturing into the green belts on both sides, searching under every bush, looking up in every tree, calling his son’s name. “Billy! Billy!”

Lizards scuttled out of his way, frightened by the noise. Quail flew frantically up from their herbaceous hideaways.

“Billy!”