“Oh, don’t worry,” Ben said. “He ain’t going nowhere. You’ll see.” He strode forward, but none of us moved.

We’d seen a lot, but that didn’t mean we were used to it.

Aside from Ben, who led the way with a big-game hunter’s delight. “C’mon, then,” he said. “He’s not gonna get you. Not anymore.”

Patrick broke us out of our statue formation. Alex, Chatterjee, and I followed. I’d had Cassius stay back with JoJo, who’d started crying at the thought of being left without me and Patrick. The big pup had tucked up to her side, and she’d rested her face on his tan fur, her head rising and falling as he breathed. Seventy pounds of Rhodesian ridgeback was a pretty good comfort.

I could have used some comfort myself. Though it was day, the hall was surprisingly dim, and I realized I’d never been inside the school with the lights off. Another first.

As we neared the doorway, Ezekiel drew slowly into view. Arm. Shoulder. Then the head nodded to the side, facing away, those two tunnels bored through the back of the skull, framed by mouse-brown hair.

We confronted the body, that twitching hand.

The palm slid a few inches on the tile, making a squeaking sound, and Chatterjee gave a little yelp. Ezekiel repeated the motion, as if he were trying to paddle.

“So check it out,” Ben said, stepping across the body. He grabbed the legs, rotated Ezekiel around, and pulled him out into the hall like a rolled-up carpet.

Ezekiel’s head knocked the doorjamb, his arms drifting up over his head as if he’d jumped off a cliff. A deep indentation cratered the flesh above his left eyehole where the stun gun had caved in his skull and penetrated his brain. A black slick showed beneath, a smear of infected white matter. One cheek twitched. His Adam’s apple lurched, and clicking sounds emerged, as if something were trying to talk through his voice box but had no idea how to operate it.

I thought about Dr. Chatterjee’s description of the parasite wrapped around the frontal cortex—how it had its figurative hands on the control levers of the human body—and I shuddered. I heard Alex gasp. Chatterjee’s hand was up, covering his mouth. Patrick alone didn’t flinch as he stared down at the thing that used to be Ezekiel.

Ben kept pulling him by the ankles, the body shushing across the tile, the head leaving behind a six-inch swath of blood. Once Ezekiel was well into the hall, Ben dropped his legs with a thump. Then he kicked the limbs wide, posing the guy so it looked like he was doing a jumping jack.