Winter Moon

into super-slow-mo. The sleeping alcove was like the stage of a puppet theater just before the show began, but it wasn't Punch or Judy back there, wasn't Kukla or Ollie, wasn't any of the Muppets, nothing you'd ever find on Sesame Street, and this wasn't going to be a funny program, no laughs in this weird performance.
        He wanted to close his eyes and wish it away. Maybe, if you just didn't believe in it, the thing wouldn't exist.
        It was stirring the drapes again, bulging against them, as if to say, Hello there, little boy. Maybe you had to believe in it just like you had to believe in Tinker Bell to keep her alive. So if you closed your eyes and thought good thoughts about an empty bed, about air that smelled of freshbaked cookies, then the thing wouldn't be there any more, and neither would the stink. It wasn't a perfect plan, maybe it was even a dumb plan, but at least it was something to do. He had to have something to do or he was going to go nuts, yet he couldn't take one more step toward the bed, not even if the retriever hadn't been blocking his way, because he was just too scared. Numb. Dad hadn't.said anything about heroes going numb. Or spitting up. Did heroes ever spit up? Because he felt as if he was going to spew. He couldn't run, either, because he'd have to turn his back to the bed. He wouldn't do that, couldn't do that. Which meant that closing his eyes and wishing the thing away was the plan, the best and only plan-except he was not in a billion years going to close his eyes.
        Falstaff remained between Toby and the alcove but turned to face whatever waited there. Not barking now. Not growling or whimpering.
        Just waiting, teeth bared, shuddering in fear but ready to fight.
        A hand slipped between the drapes, reaching out from the alcove. It was mostly bone in a shredded glove of crinkled leathery skin, spotted with mold. For sure, this couldn't really be alive unless you believed in it, because it was more impossible than Tinker Bell, a hundred million times more impossible. A couple of fingernails were still attached to the decaying hand, but they had turned black, looked like the gleaming shells of fat beetles. If he couldn't close his eyes and wish the thing away, if he couldn't run, he at least had to scream for his mother, humiliating as that would be for a kid who was almost nine.
        But then she had the machine gun, after all, not him.
        A wrist became visible, a forearm with a little more meat on it, the ragged and stained sleeve of a blue blouse or dress.
        "Mom!"
        He shouted the word but heard it only in his head, because no sound would escape his lips.
        A red-speckled black bracelet was around the withered wrist. Shiny.
        New-looking.
        Then it moved and wasn't a bracelet but a greasy worm, no, a tentacle, wrapping the wrist and disappearing along the underside of the rotting arm, beneath the dirty blue sleeve.
        "Mom, help!"
        Master bedroom. No Toby. Under the bed? In the closet, the bathroom?
        No, don't waste time looking. The boy might be hiding but not the dog.
        Must've gone to his own room.
        Back into the hall. Waves of heat. Wildly leaping light and shadows.
        The crackle-sizzle-growl-hiss of fire.
        Other hissing. The Giver looming. Snap-snap-snapsnap, the furious.whipping of fiery tentacles.
        Coughing on the thin but bitter smoke, heading toward the rear of the house, the can swinging in her left hand. Gasoline sloshing. Right hand empty.
        Shouldn't be empty.
        Damn!
        She stopped short of Toby's room, turned to peer back into the fire and smoke.
        She'd forgotten the Uzi on the floor near the head of the steps. The twin magazines were empty, but her zippered ski-suit pockets bulged with spare ammunition. Stupid.
        Not that guns were of much use against the freaking thing. Bullets didn't harm it, only delayed it. But at least the Uzi had been something, a lot more firepower than the.38 at her hip.
        She couldn't go back. Hard to breathe. Getting harder. The fire sucking up all the oxygen. And the burning, lashing apparition already stood between her and the Uzi.
        Crazily, Heather had a mental flash of Alma Bryson loaded down with weaponry: pretty black lady, smart and kind, cop's widow, and one tough damned bitch, capable of handling anything. Gina Tendero, too, with her black