“They got scouts!” Annie hissed. “See them crossing the street? They’ll be checking the sheriff’s to see how many are in there! Will you get your goddam guns now, or do I have to go get em myself?”

Drummer turned, and for the first time in twenty years, maybe even thirty, broke into a full-out run. He mounted the steps to the apartment over his barber shop and stopped on the landing long enough to tear in three or four huge breaths. Also long enough to wonder if his heart would be able to stand the strain or if it would simply explode.

His .30–06, which he planned to shoot himself with one of these fine South Carolina nights (might have done it already, if not for an occasional interesting conversation with the town’s new night knocker) was in the closet, and it was loaded. So were the .45 automatic pistol and .38 revolver on the high shelf.

He took all three weapons and ran back down the stairs, panting and sweating and probably stinking like a hog in a steambath, but feeling fully alive for the first time in years. He listened for the sound of shooting, but so far there was nothing.

Maybe they’re cops, he thought, but that seemed unlikely. Cops would have walked right in, showed their IDs, and announced their business. Also, they would have come in black SUVs, Suburbans or Escalades.

At least that was the way they did it on TV.

30

Nick Wilholm led the ragtag troop of lost boys and girls back down the slightly slanted tunnel to the locked door on the Front Half side. Some of the Ward A inmates followed; some just milled around. Pete Littlejohn began to hit the top of his head again, yelling, “Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya.” There was an echo in the tunnel that made his rhythmic chant not just annoying but maddening.

“Join hands,” Nicky said. “All of us.” He lifted his chin to indicate the milling gorks, and added, I think it will bring them.

Like bugs to a bug light, Kalisha thought. It wasn’t very nice, but the truth so seldom was.

They came. As each one joined the circle, the hum became louder. The sides of the tunnel forced their circle into more of a capsule shape, but that was okay. The power was here.

Kalisha understood what Nicky was thinking, not just because she was picking it up but because it was the only play they had left.

Stronger together, she thought, and then, out loud to Avery: “Bust that lock, Avester.”

The hum rose to that feedback scream, and if any one of them had still had a headache, it would have fled in terror. Once again Kalisha had that sense of sublime power. It came on sparkler nights, but then it was dirty. This was clean, because it was them. The Ward A children were silent, but smiling. They felt it, too. And liked it. Kalisha supposed it was the closest to thinking they might ever get.

There was a faint creaking noise from the door, and they could see it settle back in its frame, but that was all. Avery had been standing on his tiptoes, his small face clenched in concentration. Now he slumped and let out his breath.

George: No?

Avery: No. If it was just locked, I think we could, but it’s like the lock isn’t even there.

“Dead,” Iris said. “Dead, dead, can’t be fed, that’s what I said, the lock is dead.”

“Froze them somehow,” Nicky said. And we can’t bust through, can we?

Avery: No, solid steel.

“Where’s Superman when you need him?” George said. He scrubbed his hands up his cheeks, producing a humorless smile.

Helen sat down, put her hands to her face, and began to cry. “What good are we?” She said it again, this time as a mental echo: What good are we?

Nicky turned to Kalisha. Any ideas?

No.

He turned to Avery. What about you?

Avery shook his head.

31

“What do you mean, not quite?” Stackhouse asked.

Instead of answering, Donkey Kong hurried across the room to Stackhouse’s intercom. The top of the casing was thick with dust. Stackhouse had never used it a single time—it wasn’t as if he had to announce upcoming dances or trivia nights. Dr. Hendricks bent to inspect the rudimentary controls and flicked a switch, lighting a green go-lamp.

“What do you mean—”

It was Hendricks’s turn to say shut up, and instead of being angry, Stackhouse felt a certain admiration. Whatever the good doctor was up to, he thought it was important.

Hendricks took the microphone, then paused. “Is there a way to make sure those escaped children don’t hear what I’m going to say? No sense giving them ideas.”

“There are no speakers in the access tunnel,” Stackhouse said, hoping he was correct about that. “As for Back Half, I believe they have their own separate intercom system. What are you up to?”

Hendricks looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Just because their bodies are locked up, that doesn’t mean their minds are.”

Oh shit, Stackhouse thought. I forgot what they’re here for.

“Now how does this . . . never mind, I see.” Hendricks depressed the button on the side of the mic, cleared his throat, and began to speak. “Attention, please. All staff, attention. This is Dr. Hendricks.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair, making what had been crazy to begin with crazier still. “Children have escaped from Back Half, but there is no cause for alarm. I repeat, no cause for alarm. They are penned up in the access tunnel between Front Half and Back Half. They may attempt to influence you, however, the way they . . .” He paused, licking his lips. “The way they influence certain people when they do their jobs. They may attempt to make you harm yourselves. Or . . . well . . . to turn you against one another.”

Oh, Jesus, Stackhouse thought, there’s a cheerful idea.

“Listen carefully,” Hendricks said. “They are only able to succeed in such mental infiltration if the targets are unsuspecting. If you feel something . . . if you sense thoughts that are not your own . . . remain calm and resist them. Expel them. You will be able to do this quite easily. It may help to speak aloud. To say I am not listening to you.”

He started to put the mic down, but Stackhouse took it. “This is Stackhouse. Front Half personnel, all children must go back to their rooms immediately. If any resist, zap them.”

He flicked off the intercom and turned to Hendricks. “Maybe the little fucks in the tunnel won’t think of it. They’re only children, after all.”

“Oh, they’ll think of it,” Hendricks said. “After all, they’ve had practice.”

32

Tim overtook Luke as the boy opened the door to the holding area. “Stay here, Luke. Wendy, you’re with me.”

“You don’t really think—”

“I don’t know what I think. Don’t draw your gun, but make sure the strap is off.”

As Tim and Wendy hurried up the short aisle between the four empty cells, they heard a man’s voice. He sounded pleasant enough. Good humored, even. “My wife and I were told there are some interesting old buildings in Beaufort, and we thought we’d take a shortcut, but our GPS kinda screwed the pooch.”

“I made him stop to ask for directions,” the woman said, and as Tim entered the office, he saw her looking up at her husband—if that was what the blond man really was—with amused exasperation. “He didn’t want to. Men always think they know where they’re going, don’t they?”

“I tell you what, we’re a little busy just now,” Sheriff John said, “and I don’t have time—”

“It’s her!” Luke shouted from behind Tim and Wendy, making them both jump. The other officers looked around. Luke shoved past Wendy hard enough to make her stagger against the wall. “She’s the one who sprayed me in the face and knocked me out! You bitch, you killed my parents!”

He tried to run at her. Tim caught him by the neck of his shirt and yanked him back. The blond man and the flower-dress woman looked surprised and puzzled. Completely normal, in other words. Except Tim thought he’d seen another expression on the woman’s face, just for an instant: a look of narrow recognition.

“I think there’s some kind of mistake,” she was saying. She tried on a bewildered smile. “Who is this boy? Is he crazy?”

Although he was only the town night knocker and would be for the next five months, Tim reverted to cop mode without thinking, as he had on the night those kids had stuck up the Zoney’s and shot Absimil Dobira. “I’d like to see your IDs, folks.”

“Really, there’s no need of that, is there?” the woman said. “I don’t know who that boy thinks we are, but we’re lost, and when I was a little girl, my mom used to tell me that if you get lost, ask a policeman.”

Sheriff John stood up. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, that may be true, and if it is, you won’t mind showing us your drivers’ licenses, will you?”

“Not at all,” the man said. “Just let me get my wallet.” The woman was already reaching into her purse, looking exasperated.

“Look out!” Luke shouted. “They have guns!”

Tag Faraday and George Burkett looked astounded, Frank Potter and Bill Wicklow perplexed.