He steps up and places his tail through the air in the vicinity of where we got zapped.

>>It’s an electric fence. Looks like it blocks access from the backs of the houses into the trees.

I wonder if it’s meant to keep people like us out or to keep the inhabitants in?

“So this means…”

>>We can’t sneak around the back.

“You mean we have to walk through the town?”

>>Looks like it.

“Yo!”

The voice makes us both jump out of our skin, and even Jinx springs up on all fours, his hackles raised. We spin around, and to our relief, it’s Kai.

I drop my hands down to my knees, trying to return my breathing to normal.

“Oh, good, it’s you,” says Tobias.

“I see you two have discovered the electric fence too. Stupid thing nearly shocked me to death. Three times.”

>>He had to be shocked three times before he realized it was a fence?

“He’s not the brightest…”

“Hey!” says Kai, but he gives me a big grin. I’m glad he’s here. And I’m glad Oka is here too.

“So, we’re going to have to go through the center of the village,” says Tobias.

Kai and I nod.

“If there’s any sort of alarm system then it would have been triggered by now. But to be on the safe side, let’s assume that we’re going to get caught at any moment. Therefore, the plan still needs to be to find Monica as quickly as possible.”

We scamper toward the first house, Jinx leading from the front so he can guide us around the electric fence. Once there, we hide in the shadows of the roof overhang, our backs to the clapboard wall. It’s eerily quiet. There are cottages on either side of the road, porches with swings facing each other. “Oh no,” I whisper to Tobias and Kai, even though there doesn’t seem to be anyone around here except for us. “There are shops here. Look at that. That one is a convenience store.”

The sign above the store reads POPPA JOE’S, like we’ve walked onto the set of some old-timey movie.

“Come on,” says Tobias, swallowing hard. “This place is giving me the creeps.” We move from the shelter of one porch to the next, checking for movement, but there’s no sign of life from any of the houses and streets—no twitch of the curtains or light bulbs turning on.

Kai is bolder. He peers in the window of the cottages. “Looks to me like no one is home.”

“What if it’s just guards waiting for us in the house at the end? What if Monica’s not there? What if we’re too late and they’ve moved her already?” I ask, not really speaking to anyone in particular—just voicing all the fears running through my mind.