By the light of the moon

that she was the
ass-kicking Southwest Amazon whom she claimed to be when she
appeared before an audience.
    Returning to the kitchen, she discovered much to her dismay that
in a crunch, image and reality were not, in her case, the same
thing. As she searched quickly for a weapon, drawer to drawer,
cupboard to cupboard, the bones in her legs jellified, while her
heart hardened into a sledge that hammered against her ribs.
    By any standard of law or combat, a butcher knife qualified as a
weapon. But the nearly arthritic stiffness with which her right
hand closed on the handle convinced her that she'd never be
comfortable wielding it on anything more responsive than a chuck
roast.
    Besides, to use a knife, you had to get in close to your enemy.
Assuming that she might have to thump Kenny enough to stop him, if
not actually waste him, Jilly preferred to thump him from as great
a distance as possible, preferably with a high-powered rifle from a
neighboring rooftop.
    The pantry was just a pantry, not also an armory. The heaviest
weaponry on its shelves were cans of cling peaches in heavy
syrup.
    Then Jilly noticed that Marj apparently had been plagued by an
ant problem, and with a flash of inspiration, she said, 'Ah.'
    * * *
    Neither the baseball bat nor his righteous anger made Dylan
sufficiently brave or sufficiently foolish to crash into a dark
room in search of a dope-crazed, hormone-crazed, just-plain-crazed
teenager with more types of edge weapons than Death himself could
name. After easing the door open – and feeling the tingle of
psychic spoor – he waited in the hallway, his back to the
wall, listening.
    He heard enough nothing to suggest that he might be adrift in
the vacuum of deep space, and as he began to wonder if he had gone
deaf, he decided that Kenny must be no less patient than he was
full-on psychotic.
    Although Dylan wanted to do this about as much as he wanted to
wrestle a crocodile, he edged into the open doorway, reached around
the casing into the room, and felt the wall for the light switch.
He assumed that Kenny stood poised to respond to such a maneuver,
and his expectations of having his hand pinned to the wall with a
knife were so high that he was not far short of astonished when he
still had all his fingers after flipping the switch.
    Grandma's room didn't have a ceiling fixture, but one of two
night-stand lamps came on: a ginger jar painted with tulips,
crowned by a pleated yellow shade in the shape of a coolie hat.
Soft light and soft shadows shared the space.
    Two other doors served the room. Both were closed. One most
likely led to a closet. A bathroom might lie behind the other.
    The drapes at the three windows were neither long enough nor
full enough to conceal anyone.
    A freestanding, full-length, oval-shaped mirror occupied one
corner. No one lurked behind it, but Dylan's reflection occupied
its face, looking less frightened than he felt, bigger than he
thought of himself.
    The queen-size bed was positioned so that Kenny might be hiding
on the far side, lying on the floor, but no other furniture offered
concealment.
    Of more immediate concern was the figure on the bed. A thin
chenille spread, a blanket, and a top sheet were tossed in
disarray, but someone appeared to be lying under them, concealed
head to foot.
    As in countless prison-escape movies, this might actually have
been pillows arranged to mimic the human form, except that the
bedclothes trembled slightly.
    By opening the door and switching on the light, Dylan already
had announced his presence. Cautiously approaching the bed, he
said, 'Kenny?'
    Under the tumbled bedding, the ill-defined figure stopped
shaking. For a moment it froze and lay as still as any cadaver
beneath a morgue sheet.
    Dylan gripped the baseball bat with both hands, ready to swing
for the fences. 'Kenny?'
    The hidden form began to twitch, as though with uncontainable
excitement, with nervous energy.
    The door that might lead to a closet: still closed. The door
that might lead to a bathroom: still closed.
    Dylan glanced over his shoulder, toward the hall door.
    Nothing.
    He grappled for the name that the shackled boy mentioned, the
name of the threatened girl from down the street, and then he had
it: 'Becky?'
    The mysterious figure twitched, twitched, so alive beneath the covers, but it did not reply.
    Although he dared not club what he could not see, Dylan was
loath to put his hand to the bedclothes to toss them aside, for the
same reason that he would