I slam the crowbar into the man’s shoulder. It doesn’t stop him. The man grips Harrison’s shoulders, pulls him down, and bites into the first piece of flesh his mouth can find—Harrison’s cheek. I could fool myself into thinking it’s a kiss, but then the skin separates from Harrison’s face and it’s just red, a river of red dragging down his face, hanging flesh, and the dead man pulls at it with his teeth, annoyed it’s still attached to the person it belongs to.

Harrison screams and I’m terrible because the first thing I think is he’s going to draw attention, not that he’s doomed, that he’s going to die one way or the other. Rhys raises his bat. Blood spatters, brains everywhere. Like that, it’s over. I look behind us. Nothing else has come.

Yet.

Rhys kicks the dead man off Harrison and Harrison lays on the ground making fish-out-of-water noises, twitching, shocked. We surround him. His mouth moves, open, closed, open, aggravating his wound, making the bleeding worse. He’s trying to say something but nothing is coming out. Cary bows his head as close as he can get it to Harrison’s mouth. Harrison’s eyes go wild and then he finally finds his voice.

“There,” he says.

Cary looks up at us. His face is wet. I don’t know if it’s just the rain.

“Get in the house,” he tells us.

“But—”

“Get in the house!”

We crawl in through the broken window, leaving Harrison and Cary outside. I fall onto a cold kitchen floor and crawl across it, past an island, before getting to my feet. The house has an open layout, a kitchen that bleeds into a living room that opens down a hall. Stairs. I don’t see any dead but I see bloodstains everywhere. The TV screen-down on the floor. An overturned table with missing legs. Ripped couch.

I clutch the crowbar and step forward cautiously as Rhys and Trace fall in behind me. Rhys runs to the front door to make sure it’s locked. Trace makes his way upstairs. I make my way to the other side of the house, into what looks like an office. Empty. The windows are all shuttered. I meet Rhys in the hall. Trace pads halfway down the stairs.

“Is it clear?” Rhys asks him.

Trace nods and goes back upstairs and I realize he hasn’t said a word since we left. I move to follow him—I don’t know why—but Rhys grabs my arm and holds me back.

A clattering noise sounds from the kitchen. We go to it and find Cary on the floor, on his hands and knees. The baseball bat rolls in front of him. He has two book bags.

No Harrison.

“Don’t say anything,” he says.