The blood trail continued forward, nearly impossible to make out in the darkness. Patrick’s eyes traced the direction it went, his head slowly tilting up. I looked where he was looking. A stream of particles flowed above us, luminous in the moonlight, like the trail of a magic carpet.

We traced the stream across the starry sky to its source.

The top of the water tower.

*   *   *

The giant tower rose like a spider on stilts. We stood at the base of the metal ladder leading up and up. I realized that my knee was jittering and told it to stop. The stream of particles looked to be growing thinner, a fire burning itself out.

“What do you think it is?” Rocky asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe your dad went up there, started a fire or something?”

“Please help him,” JoJo said. “Please bring him home.”

Patrick set his hands on a rung, the shotgun making a clang against the side rail.

“Shouldn’t I come up and get your back?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

I turned to the kids. “Stay here—right here. If you see anything or anyone, give a shout.”

Rocky nodded and drew his little sister in protectively.

Patrick was already twenty or so rungs above me, his progress punctuated by the steady knock of the shotgun against metal. I started up after him.

I will confess: I don’t love heights. This water tower was 150 feet high, which wasn’t so bad, except for the fact that the ladder rose in the space between the legs of the tower, unattached to anything else. It felt like scaling a magical beanstalk, the earth falling away, my fists and toes finding holds in thin air.

Patrick finally reached the tank itself, and he climbed the metal rungs welded to the side. I followed him, focusing on each handhold, not daring to look anywhere else.

I heard a final clank of the shotgun as Patrick got to the top, and then there was silence.

“Patrick?” I called up, panic finding its way into my voice. “Everything okay?”

His voice floated down from the darkness. “No,” he said.

I quickened my pace to the top and crawled onto the flat roof of the tank, still not risking a look up from my feet until I was a few paces off the edge. My legs felt wobbly, though whether that was from the altitude or the sight before me, I didn’t know.

There on his back lay what was left of Hank McCafferty.

His torso and stomach were gone. In their place was a crater. He’d been hollowed out, the cage of his ribs thrusting up in the eroded space. Deep in the gleaming cavern, I could make out the line of his spinal cord. That strange pollen streamed forth from the hole, his remains turning to particles and paying out like a ribbon riding the wind.