Hushed whispers and quiet footfalls. But it wasn’t the noise that was alarming so much as the panic running through the room. I opened my eyes, disoriented by the tall ceiling, the bright light streaming through the high windows, the movement all around me. On a slight delay, reality flooded in.

The gym. With the survivors. Uncle Jim and Sue-Anne dead. Kids snatched. Hosts everywhere. Our town overrun.

I sat up and followed the current of hushed anxiety. It had direction to it, pointing at Patrick in the lookout post atop the bleachers. With Alex at his side, he was ducked beneath the windowsill, his eyes wide.

His stare found me among the kids, and he gestured for me to get up there. I didn’t like the expression on his face.

Keeping hunched over, I crept across the floor, then up the bleachers, wincing every time they creaked. At last I reached him. Beside him, Alex was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling as if trying to tamp something down.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

Patrick pointed above his head. As slowly as I could, I raised myself up and peered over the sill.

Mappers lined the front fence. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blank faces peering through the chain-link. Their heads were nodding up and down in unison.

I dropped from sight, putting my back to the wall, and blew out a breath.

“Your mouth’s bleeding,” Patrick said.

I’d bitten down on my lip hard enough to draw blood.

Below, the other kids looked up at us expectantly. Chet Rogers chewed on the collar of his shirt nervously, his breaths starting to get that asthma rasp. Dr. Chatterjee leaned on the dry-erase board, light glinting off his eyeglasses. Ben Braaten cracked the double doors to peer out into the corridor, his shoulders raised. For once, even he looked nervous.

“What are they doing?” Patrick whispered.

I shook my head with bewilderment.

After I’d caught my breath, I inched back up to take another look. They were still there, maybe forty of them, their heads rocking robotically. At once they stopped. They turned and walked in single file down the length of the fence, then turned once more to face the building and started moving their heads again. Their eyeholes scanned the front lawn, scouring the contours of the building. Then I understood.

“They’re mapping the grounds,” I said, addressing the gym in a loud whisper. “Through the fence.”

“Why don’t they just break in?” Chet asked. “They’ve used jackhammers and stuff.”

“Maybe they want to leave as much of the infrastructure standing as possible,” Dr. Chatterjee said.

“For what?” Ben asked.

I thought of that squirming virtual eye rolling into place in Ezekiel’s head. “The question isn’t ‘For what?’” I said. “It’s, ‘For who?’”