SCOTT WATCHED HIS BROTHER come staggering out of one of the stalls, holding a knife in one hand and his throat in the other. He seemed to be wearing a beard of blood, but the wound on his neck wasn’t the most galvanizing thing about his appearance. What struck Scott even more powerfully was the expression in Owen’s eyes, the riveted-together mask of grim determination to accomplish the task that lay before him.

Without once looking up at Scott or Colette, he dove forward and looped the knife at Carver, burying it in the thing’s side and ripping downward. Bodies avalanched where the blade sheared them away, unfolding over the floor—two women in rags, a third on her haunches, clutching a dead infant and hissing like a scalded cat. The uneven, half-carved tower of corpses that remained teetered toward him, reaching, and Owen lashed out again, punching the blade through its face.

Carver tumbled backward and fell. More bodies separated, only to scramble back up into place, while others lay blindly where they’d fallen, glaring from a place Scott couldn’t imagine. Carver’s face was laughing at him. He knew something, some secret knowledge he’d held for the last century and a half, the outcome of the battle already decided.

Still clutching the knife, Owen made a gurgling sound, blood bubbling through his fingers. He dropped the blade and fell to his knees on the floor next to his son, latching on to the boy and hugging him, Henry flinging his arms around his father. Owen picked up the knife again and cut a swath off his shirt, wrapping it around his throat.

Colette said, “Wait …” Extending her arms, she reached for Henry, and Scott saw her face pulsing back and forth between her familiar features and the bleached and twisted hunger of Rosemary Carver. “… my baby—”

Owen opened his mouth and closed it, gestured at Scott. “Run. Get out of here. Run.”

“No.” Scott shook his head. “Not again.”

Colette screamed, lunging for Henry. Scott moved forward and grabbed her arm. Spinning around, Colette bumped into the open trapdoor, and for a second, Scott held her in open space long enough to see her face become familiar again, realization smoothing her features to a gloss of despair.

Then she fell.