Shotgun in hand, Patrick stepped through the screen door onto the porch and scanned the darkness. The night wind gusted in our faces. JoJo sniffed the bitter air and wrinkled her nose.

“But he was hurt,” Rocky said. “What if he needs our help now? Your place is the opposite way. Can we help him first?”

JoJo started crying. “I want my dad,” she said again.

I looked at Patrick, and he nodded. “Okay. We’ll do a quick loop to look for him in case he’s in trouble, then head home and call the sheriff.”

I set JoJo down, careful not to snag her sweater on the baling hooks. “Keep behind us,” I said.

We headed off the porch and forged ahead into the crops. We came to that cleared field and noticed the little piles where the stalks had once been, the crumbled remains like ash.

I remembered the news frenzy following Asteroid 9918 Darwinia’s disintegration. All the statistics and gossip about what had landed where.

At the sight, Patrick made a noise deep in his throat, and then we continued on. Sweet corn rose on either side of us, the husks scraping our sleeves. On alert, we rasped through the darkness toward the Franklins’ land, Patrick and I keeping the lead.

“What was that in the silo?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” Patrick said. “But it wasn’t Mrs. McCafferty. Not anymore.”

“We killed her.”

“No,” he said. “You saw her. She was already dead.”

“Then what was she? And don’t say the Z-word.”

“I have no idea,” Patrick said. “It’s like she was sick with some crazy disease. Rabies or whatever.”

“Rabies doesn’t put tunnels through your head.”

“A new strain, then,” Patrick said. “Or some other killer virus.”

“But what disease does that?” I said. “It’s like something had … I don’t know, taken her over.”

Just saying it out loud made the back of my neck prickle. Our boots crunched the hard earth.

Patrick cleared his throat. “She was more like a … a … what’s the name for it? In biology? The opposite of a parasite?”

“A host,” I said.

We let the word hang there. Behind us we could hear JoJo sniffling and Rocky murmuring, “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

We reached the edge of the field, breaking through the stalks onto open ground.

“What was she trying to do?” I whispered. “The … host? Ripping out her hair, pinning you down, tying your wrists? Was she gonna eat you?”

“No,” Patrick said. “She was trying to take me captive.”

“For what?”

Instead of answering, Patrick halted abruptly. Touched his hand to the earth. When he lifted it to the moonlight, his fingertips were smudged with something dark.

Blood.

The kids emerged from the corn, nearly stumbling into us from behind. Patrick stood quickly and lowered his hand so they wouldn’t see his stained fingertips.

“What?” Rocky said.

“Just catching my breath,” Patrick said.