I wasn’t tired.

  And the smart part of me, along with the strong part of me, didn’t like how Mr. Wintergarten was staring.

  “Maybe I’ll take a nap later,” I lied. “I should walk Duffy.”

  I was going to get Duffy’s leash, take him out front, and then run to get a neighbor. I’d keep my shirt up over my mouth so no one caught COVID-19. I was willing to risk it, because I didn’t want to be around Mr. Wintergarten anymore.

  Mr. Wintergarten’s face became stern. “Your mother told me not to let you outside.”

  “But my dog needs to go out. Duffy, gotta go out?”

  Normally when Duffy heard those magic words, he jumped and barked and licked your face until you got the leash.

  But Duffy just laid there, snoring.

  “Did you finish your cookie, Sam?”

  My cookie?

  The answer popped into my head fully-formed, like the solution to a math equation.

  Mr. Wintergarten put something in the cookies. Something that made Harry Junior fall asleep. Mom used to have insomnia and she took sleeping pills, and they would make her sleep so deeply she couldn’t be woken up.

  Mr. Wintergarten gave me a cookie. But I gave it to Duffy. And now my dog was so sleepy, he wouldn’t even get up to go outside.

  So what was I supposed to do?

  Try to run away from Mr. Wintergarten?

  I was fast. But I’d gone jogging with Dad before. He was twice as fast. Longer legs, longer stride.

  Maybe running right now was stupid.

  Maybe there was something smarter to do.

  “I finished it. It was good.” I pretended to yawn.

  “Are you getting tired, Samantha?”

  “A little. Maybe I will take a nap.”

  I went to stand up, intending to go to my room.

  “Why don’t you sleep on the sofa?” Mr. Wintergarten pointed at the spot next to Harry Junior. “I promised your mother I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”

  I nodded, yawning again. Then I stretched back on the couch and did something super-scary.

  I closed my eyes.

  Then I listened to the room.

  Listened to Harry Junior, his breathing slow.

  Listened to Duffy, his breathing slow.

  I matched them, slowing my breathing down—

  —and heard the floor creak.

  Mr. Wintergarten. Coming toward me.

  “Samantha?”

  He was right next to the sofa. I could feel his breath on my face. I could imagine feeling his eyes, burning me like sunbeams in a magnifying glass.

  But I was smart. And I was strong.

  I faked sleep, and didn’t move.

  Even when he pinched my thigh.

  It was a hard pinch. Hard enough to leave a bruise.

  And he kept pinching.

  If I didn’t react somehow, he would know I was pretending to sleep. So I acted like I saw Mom and Dad act, when I got up too early and asked them a question when they were still in bed.

  I shoved Mr. Wintergarten, keeping my eyes closed, and sleepily said, “Ow. Quit it.”

  The pinching stopped.

  But I could still feel him standing there. Staring. His face close to mine.

  And then, finally, eventually, I think he moved away. I couldn’t sense his presence, his body heat. Couldn’t feel his breath on my cheek.

  I stayed completely still, peeking one eye open just a little bit, bracing myself not to flinch if he was standing there.

  He wasn’t. He was walking toward the front door.

  If he left, I was going to run to a neighbor’s house across the street and demand they take me to the police station. First I’d check the door camera on my cell phone to make sure Mr. Wintergarten was gone.

  But I didn’t have a chance to do anything.

  Mr. Wintergarten opened the front door and stepped outside—

  —then reached into the bushes and picked up a shotgun and came back in.

  I came close to freaking out, but it didn’t make sense for him to drug us just so he could shoot us. He must have had some other plan.

  Turned out I was right. Mr. Wintergarten didn’t point the gun at me or Harry Junior.

  Instead he sat in a chair, facing the front door with the gun in his hands.

  Waiting.

  PHIN

  Being chewed on had the same physiological effect as having my adrenal glands milked, and I got a burst of manic energy and punched Rita’s head, again and again, until she finally retreated, scuttling back into the darkness.

  My head ached from blunt force trauma, the pain diffuse and unfocused and heavy, causing dizziness and nausea and a full-body ache. In contrast, my chewed arm felt like it had been stuck in a meat grinder, each bite mark an intense spike of agony, made worse by the fact that I couldn’t see the damage, only feel the multiple flaps and divots, hot and slick with blood and saliva.

  I crawled until I reached a wall, then followed it back the way I came, past the hall of photographs, a specific destination in mind, refusing to give up, refusing to black out, sniffing my way to Rita’s toilet, and next to the toilet…

  The trunk. I opened it, felt around for the candles, and lit two, melting the bottom of one and sticking it on the toilet seat, waving the other around like a talisman, trying to spot Rita in the shadows.

  I didn’t see her.

  Then I checked out my arm.

  Bad. Real bad. Like I’d had a close encounter with a boat propeller. I dumped bottled water on the wound, not bothering to hide my grunt because Rita knew where I was. Then I slathered on some antibiotic ointment, and slapped gauze pads over the whole ugly wound, trying to shift my bits of flesh back into the holes they’d been pulled from. Holding the base of the tape with my teeth, I bandaged my arm, tight as I could.

  Giggling. Coming from the deep recesses of the dark.

  And I was scared.

  Maybe, in a boxing ring, if I were at full health, and the ref didn’t allow cheating or illegal blows or biting, I could have beaten Rita. She was taller, with broad shoulders and a thick trunk, strong enough to give me trouble. But I was heavier, half her age, with real-life fighting experience.

  This wasn’t a fair fight in a boxing ring.

  I was injured, trapped in her dark world, and she seemed impervious to pain. Plus Rita had the psychological advantage, because on my list of fears, being eaten alive was in the Top 3.

  I lifted the wooden trunk, trying to judge its use as a weapon, finding the material old and flimsy. But next to it—

  Fighting my revulsion, I picked up the candle and tore off the heavy, plastic toilet seat from the aluminum base. Shaped like a C, it could be used as a club, or as a shield.

  Holding one of the candles, I began to follow the wall again. Rita had gotten out of this old mine and brought me here. There had to be an exit.

  I just needed to stay alive long enough to find it.

  I made my way back to the hall of pictures. By candlelight they appeared medieval. Almost unreal. Like I was a knight exploring a dragon’s cave, surrounded by the memories of the souls that the creature had devoured.

  Had Rita killed and eaten all of these people?

  I caught a quick glimpse of something familiar, and I stopped, giving a photo a more intense inspection.

  My breath caught in my throat like a fish hook.

  A photo of us. Sam and Jack and me, bringing in boxes from the moving truck.

  I widened my search area and found other pictures. Sam, playing with Duffy on the front lawn. Jack and I in the backyard, smiling. Jack in a bathrobe, a shot obviously taken from outside, through a window.

  And one picture I knew well. The picture of our family that we kept on the refrigerator.

  My heart became a cold, heavy stone.

  This was no longer a fight for survival.

  This was no longer a search for the exit so I could escape.

  This was now Papa Bear, protecting his own.

  I wasn’t going to run.

  I was going to fight.

  I crouched down, sitting on my haunches, my back against the pictures of Jack and Sam.

  Then I blew out both candles.

  The dark surrounded me, blanketed me. Like a shroud.

  My arm throbbed, competing with the pounding in my skull. The smoke from the candle faded, and the smell of an animal den returned, rot and waste.

  I listened.

  I controlled my breathing, keeping quiet, slowing my pulse.

  Exhaustion gnawed at me. My body wanted to rest. To heal.

  But I kept alert. Focused on the space, the environment. Separating the ambient background noise from the sound of movement.

  When I heard the giggling again, it was to my right. Perhaps twenty feet away.

  Rita could move quietly. Almost silently.

  Her maniacal laughter was the only thing that betrayed her location.

  I waited for the attack to come.

  Without sight, time became distorted. I tried to judge the minutes by counting heartbeats.

  Every five hundred beats, my legs became stiff, and I needed to stand and stretch before hunkering down again.

  I waited.

  Silence.

  Terrible silence.

  My entire world, my whole existence, was reduced to my sense of hearing, my spatial awareness.

  Keeping alert as fatigue tried to seduce me into sleep.

  Staying limber as my various pains grew worse rather than better.

  Waiting in the web for the spider to come and bite me.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  It took at least ten minutes before Rita giggled again.

  She hadn’t moved at all.

  Or maybe she had, and my mind was playing tricks.

  How many times had Rita done this before? Brought people to her cave?

  Was this some sort of sport for her? Like a lioness, stalking a gazelle?

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  How could she have killed so many people? If she’d brought them here, why hadn’t someone, over the decades, fought back? Gotten the upper hand?

  She must have encountered strong people before. Large men. Athletes. Veterans with combat experience. Mothers fighting like hell to protect their kids.

  How could Rita always come out on top?

  Unless…

  Maybe Rita didn’t kill them all.

  “Rita… is Larry your brother?”

  No answer.

  “Is he Larold Goodall? Are you Rita Goodall?”

  Silence.

  And then—

  “Yesssssssss.”

  “Does Larold feed you?”

  A pause.

  “Yessssssss.”

  “He gives you photographs?”

  “Yessss.”

  “Did he give you all of these photographs?”

  No answer.

  “Rita, did Larold give you all of these pictures?”

  “Noooooo.”

  “You got them yourself.” I pieced it together. “You really can get out of here. Does Larold know you can get out?”

  Silence.

  “Do you want me to tell your brother that you know a way out? If I tell him, he’ll be angry. He’ll make sure you can’t go out anymore.”

  “NO!”

  The voice came from directly in front of me, right in my face, and I swung the toilet seat hard, missing, and then Rita was suddenly at my side, pushing me over. I wound up on my back, trying to wedge her off me, using the toilet seat, and she grabbed it and pushed, ridiculously strong, and then she was hitting me in the face with the seat, again and again, and my head banged against the ground and reality and consciousness began to drain away.

  When fear startled me awake, Rita was still on top of me, and I had something squishy in my mouth and her bony hands were pressed against my lips and jaw.

  I arched my back, tried to squirm, but she stayed on me like a bronco buster.

  From far away, I heard hysterical screaming.

  It sounded like Jack.

  But it couldn’t be Jack. Nothing could make my wife scream that way.

  I gagged, tried to cough, had no choice but to swallow.

  Cookies. She had force-fed me chocolate chip cookies.

  All I could think of was Hansel and Gretel, the witch fattening up the children so they would be plump enough to eat, and that freaked me out so much that I had a sudden burst of strength, shoving Rita off of me, spitting out bits of cookie as I clawed at the dirt searching for the dropped toilet seat. When I couldn’t find it I just got up and ran, blind and wild, hands stretched out in front of me so I didn’t slam into anything.

  I made it eleven steps, then jammed my left arm—the chewed up one—into a wall.

  I grunted, the instant agony making me see stars, and then tapped the wall and followed it, moving at a quick shuffle, and banging into something waist-height. I ran my hands over it. Solid, cool, flat and rectangular. I found a lid, and opened it up.

  A chest freezer.

  The female screaming above me continued, and it couldn’t have been Jack, it for sure wasn’t Jack, please oh god oh please don’t let that be Jack.

  I felt around inside the appliance, seeking a weapon, maybe an icepick or a heavy can of frozen orange juice, and my fingers locked on something the size of a softball, which I lifted until I recognized the irregular shape. Sort of like a gourd, but with some bumps near the top. The bumps weren’t a stem. More like big noodles.

  Arteries.

  A heart. I was holding a frozen human heart.

  I dropped it instantly, considered backing away, but I still needed something to defend myself, so I went searching again, wincing as I handled objects straight out of a nightmare.

  A gym shoe, the severed foot still inside.

  A hand, three of the fingers gnawed down to bone.

  A human head, small, with long hair.

  Jesus, there’s a bow in the hair.

  Feeling a scream welling up to match the screams I heard from above, I pushed aside a rib cage with the flesh still attached, and brushed something artificial and sharp.

  A saw blade.

  Feeling around its length, I figured out it was a pruning saw, one with a deep serrated blade and a wooden handle.

  I brought it up, wielding the tool like a sword.

  It was sharp enough to cut deep.

  Which, I realized, is what Rita had been using it for. Slicing her food into bite-sized chunks.

  Above me, the screaming mercifully stopped, and I tried to convince myself it wasn’t Jack, and that whoever was screaming stopped because they had gotten away.

  Giggling.

  Maybe five meters away.

  I swung the saw, slashing the air, and got off balance, falling to my knee.

  My vertigo had worsened. More than just dizziness. Things felt… off.

  My various pains didn’t hurt as much.

  Giggles. Three meters away.

  I knew I should have been more frightened, but I wasn’t.

  I was actually pretty good.

  Which made no sense, except…

  The cookies. The cookies were laced with something.

  An opioid? Some other narcotic?

  Someone pulled the saw out of my hand, and I didn’t mind.

  “Hungry.”

  “Don’t,” I said, trying to push away the darkness.

  But you can’t push away darkness.

  Darkness always wins.

  JACK

  I refused to let the darkness win.

  For a long moment, something in me snapped, and I lost my mind.

  I screamed my throat dry.

  Then the IV was pulled out, and I clawed my way back to regaining control. It was a mental game, like I was clinging to the side of a mountain as an avalanche came down, trying to hold on, trying to get through it, trying to retain my grip.

  And slowly, ever so slowly, the rocks stopped slamming into me, and the sky cleared, and I knew I had a chance of surviving.

  The fear remained. The pain remained.

  The situation, if anything, had gotten worse.

  But I hadn’t broken. I’d just taken a brief emotional break.

  Where there’s breath, there’s hope. And I could still breathe.

  I cleared my throat. “So… how did I taste?”

  No response. I wondered if Blood had left.

  “No one has ever asked you that before?”

  “Bitter,” Blood whispered. “Typical type A.”

  “You can tell I’m type A by taste?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Should I take a supplement? Maybe I’ll taste better.”

  “Grinding Jesus on a skateboard! Who just stabbed me with a goddamn drinking straw?!?”

  Harry McGlade had awoken.

  “That’s Blood,” I said. “He sucks.”

  “No shit. Let me out of this bag, Blood, I’ll give you something to suck.”

  There was a slurping sound. “Type O.”

  “Really? I use spellcheck. That should get rid of the typos. Heh heh.”

  Blood smacked their lips. “And a lot of THC.”

  “This is why Larry drugged us? So we can be human juice boxes?”

  “You are food. For Rita.”

  “What are you? The royal food taster? Making sure we’re not poisonous?”

  “Larry and Blood are friends.” Slurp slurp. “We help each other. Rita eats flesh. She doesn’t like the blood. Blood likes blood.”

  “Where’d you freakos find each other? I bet it was on goddamn craigslist. Was it craigslist?”

  Blood didn’t answer. The smacking sounds were making me sick.

  Vomiting upside down in a bag would be worse than bad. It could kill me.

  I kept my nausea in check.

  “You know, it’s been a long day.” Harry chuckled. “I really feel drained.”

  “You’re making jokes.”

  “You sure I’m a type O? More like B positive. Heh heh.”

  Ugh. As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, McGlade had to start with the puns.

  “Aren’t you going to beg for your life?” Blood asked. “Most people beg.”

  “The only thing I beg for is sex. You want to have sex? Pretty please?”