Suddenly there were faces in the windows of the houses and storefronts. We watched, breathless. Various doors banged open all around the square, a haunted-house orchestration, Hosts filling doorways and the mouths of alleys. Way across in the hospital, a woman in an untied gown pried open the ER doors and halted in the threshold, her stance wide, her arms spread to hold the doors at bay. For an instant they all just stood there, watching with their non-eyes.

Then they flashed into motion.

Andre screamed, switching direction once and then again, but the Hosts bounded toward him, cinching the noose. They were female, moving fast enough to burst their muscles. Though there were only seven or eight of them, they shot at him from every direction, streaking across the square. Sam Miller’s grandma leapt over a car, landing on all fours, then rocketing forward.

Patrick tensed, bringing one knee under him like a sprinter at the starting line, but Alex put her hand on his back, firm, and said, “You go down there, you’ll die. We can’t help him right now.”

Cassius whined faintly, and I hushed him.

Andre tugged frantically at a car handle—locked. Hosts closed in. He ran to a pickup slant-parked behind the chunks of broken asphalt and vaulted in. His fist smashed down the lock. His hand darted below the dash, and his shoulder flexed—the keys must’ve been left in the ignition—but nothing happened. Either the Hosts had disabled the truck or when its owner transformed, he’d walked away, leaving the engine running until the gas ran out.

The female Hosts mobbed the pickup. Through a break between them, we caught a glimpse of Andre’s panicked face, his mouth stretched wide in a scream we couldn’t hear.

Sam Miller’s grandma drew back an arm, the flesh sagging beneath the bone, and drove her fist through the window. Hands crowded the jagged orifice as they pulled Andre out. They flung him violently chest-down on the road. A mother who worked as a volunteer at the library tore her blouse right off. Wearing nothing but a long skirt and a black bra, she used her shirt to bind him.

They hoisted him up and ran to the church, his muffled cries growing fainter and fainter. They disappeared inside, leaving the square as peaceful as it had been just a few minutes before.

None of us said anything. There was nothing to say. It was one of the most awful things I’d ever seen.

Our breath misted in the darkness, three puffs in a row.

“Even though the Mappers are scary,” Alex said, “at least you stand a chance if they don’t look up and see you. But the females, all they do is chase. They’re the worst.”

She was right. They were quick and fierce and terrible.