We listened to his shoes moving on the other side of the Dumpster. The scuffing sound came again as he pivoted to head back behind us.

Patrick gestured us forward, Alex right on his heels, me bringing up the rear behind the kids. We eased through the thin corridor between metal bins. Just past the trash area rose the chain-link that let onto our high school’s baseball field. At the bottom of the fence, the Braaten boys had cut a slit for sneaking through to play hooky during fishing season. Patrick pried up the flap of chain-link, ducked under, and held it for us.

We tiptoed forward.

Behind us we heard that scuffing noise once again as Eddie reached the lane between the Dumpsters. I turned and looked over my shoulder. Less than ten feet away, his dark silhouette faced up the corridor in which we were neatly lined. He started after us.

The eyeholes and vacant expression were made more awful by Eddie’s casual cap, the familiar ankh tattoo on his inner wrist, his yin-yang necklace. We’d seen a lot of Hosts, but none even close to our age. He was one of us.

I’d just tensed to sprint when I realized that Eddie hadn’t noticed us. His head was still oriented toward the ground. With a series of furious hand gestures, I conveyed as much to Alex, and she nodded and crept forward as silently as possible.

We kept on that way, a train of bodies filtering through the space between Dumpsters, Eddie bringing up the rear on a slight delay. Without slowing, Alex dropped to her hands and knees and slithered through the gap in the fence. Rocky crawled through next. I could feel Eddie gaining on me from behind. I didn’t know how much longer I had before my heel would catch his field of vision and he’d spring onto my back, taking me down. I didn’t dare turn around. I just moved toward that slit in the fence, trying not to let my shoulders scrape the metal sides of the Dumpsters.

I ushered JoJo before me, struggling somehow to rush her and not rush her at the same time. She barely had to crouch to get through the fence, Bunny dragging in the dirt. Cassius followed her, and then it was just me with Eddie in the tight corridor.

I could hear his shallow breaths, practically feel them against my back. My hands cramped around the handles of the baling hooks. I forced myself to release them, letting them dangle from my wrists by their loops. Fighting down my panic, I bent over, stretched my arms into the gap, and slid through. Patrick caught my hands as I knew he would and whisked me through the gap. Alex lowered the chain-link section as gently as she could, closing it like a curtain. It made the faintest click.