A bell above the swinging glass door clanged our arrival. Flying in, I was immediately attacked from all sides, hands flying in my face, tangling in my hair.

I’d dived right into a nest of Hosts.

I swung the baling hooks wildly. It took a few moments for me to realize that no one was fighting back.

I’d stumbled into the Christmas-ornament display, rows of them hanging from the drop ceiling tiles. As I calmed and lowered my hooks, the ornaments tinkled against one another, throwing off glints of light.

Aluminum Santas and tin reindeer and trees made of pine cones.

Relics from another life.

I thought about all the trees that wouldn’t be trimmed ever again. Our birthdays had been turned into something awful, but I hadn’t considered that the other holidays were all gone as well, vanished into the sinkhole of this new reality.

I could hear footsteps on the sidewalk, drawn by my loud and graceless entrance. I ran through the aisles toward the side door, skimming through with Cassius just as I heard the front-door bell clang again.

We scrambled up the slope alongside the general store and onto the roof where Patrick, Alex, and I had stood the first time we’d gazed across the town square and found it overrun.

I could see several Hosts there now, moving about. A herd of them still clustered around the back of the hardware store, lit by the orange glow of the forge like shamans performing some ancient rite.

I raced up the slope into the woods, running through twigs and bushes, banging off tree trunks. Finally I stopped in a clearing, panting. Even Cassius was breathing hard.

I reached over and stroked his head. “You and me, boy,” I said, his tail wagging at the sound of my voice. “We—”

A whoosh of air came at me from behind. Something hard cracked me across my shoulder blades, and then suddenly the world flew upside down.

Somehow I was flat on my back. Groaning, I tilted my head in the matted pine needles to catch an inverted view of chubby Chet Rogers walking toward me, his big cheeks flushed as always, holes bored straight through his head.

Gripping a jagged branch like a club, he closed in.

Entry 31

ENTRY 31

I rolled to the side an instant before the jagged end of the branch slammed down inches from my head. Chet wore a coil of calf rope looped over his shoulder.

I drew the revolver and aimed at his face, the barrel wavering back and forth.

Chet’s face. Chet, who used to sneak me free soda when he worked at the diner. Chet, who’d driven me to school that week Patrick had the flu. Chet wasn’t a grown-up. He was a high-school student like Patrick. Like Alex. Like me.

A bunch of images came at me.

Chet sitting on the bleachers, his face sunk into his hands as he wept.