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He falls. He doesn’t trip or stumble. Nothing grabs him. His feet just leave the ground, like Ravi when the bartender threw him out the window.

Caleb’s feet fly from under him, and he skids along the ground and then the thing leaps onto his back and he hears a voice, the one voice he wants to hear.

“Caleb!” Noemi screams, and then the world explodes into absolute, unimaginable horror and agony.

TWENTY-EIGHTELLIE

When Henry realizes Caleb has left, Noemi following, he lets out a curse and races after them, and I want to scream No, don’t go out that door, please don’t. I run right behind him, and those words are on my lips, but as I fly out the door, I know they’re a lie.

I am not running to stop Henry.

I want to stop him. I don’t want him going out. I don’t want him putting himself in danger. But stopping him is an excuse, one that lets me run out to find Caleb when I know—I know—it’s the worst thing I can do.

It’s reckless. It’s irrational. These are strangers. If they go outside, that’s on them.

But I will never be that person. Any more than Henry is.

We catch up just as Noemi rounds the corner, and she shrieks, “Caleb!”

I catch one glimpse of him on the ground, the other man in a heap behind him. Then the forest explodes in shadows, dark shapes hurtling out like tongues of black flame, licking and then flying free of their tethers and engulfing Caleb and the other man.

Noemi screams the most horrible scream, and she’s running for Caleb, but Henry is already to her, yanking her back as she fights him. I stop short and stare at …

Stare at what? What am I seeing?

Black shadows, writhing, blood spurting, the flash of teeth, more blood, screams, horrible screams, and all I can think is that I can’t see what has ahold of Caleb and the other man.

Something has them, and I only see twisting black and fangs and then the slash of talons ripping down on the flesh of a bare leg—

Caleb’s leg.

Again, I don’t think. I won’t think. I dive for that leg, my fingers wrapping around it and slipping, the calf slick with blood.

Caleb’s body jerks and convulses, lost in that churning mass of black. I hold tighter as my feet scramble for purchase, but the leg starts to withdraw, pulled into the maelstrom.

I need to let go.

I cannot let go.

I’m scrabbling and heaving and then hands wrap around my hips and pull hard, and there’s a wet, sickening pop, and I have this horrible image of flying backward holding nothing but a leg. Instead, Caleb’s body flies free.

A shriek from the shadows. A muzzle appears, and I see black fur and a long snout. And the teeth—the teeth are everywhere. They point out from the muzzle and into the mouth, so long the snout can’t close, and the creature makes a sound, and it’s that wet, slick gurgling and a pop. Then another snout appears, short and misshapen, with tusks covered in blood.

The shadows rise up to swallow the beast, and then they are rolling back to the forest, an ink-black wave. A hand rises from that wave, a human forearm ripped bare to the bone. Then the hand sinks back into the black wave and the shadows become one with the forest, and it is gone, taking the other man with it.

“Caleb,” Noemi whispers, and it comes again as a shriek. “Caleb!”

I’m still holding his leg. Henry has my hips, and I’m bent over, Caleb’s leg still clutched in my hands. He’s lying on his side, and I see him, and my first thought is:

I should have let go.

Oh God, I should have let go.

Henry drops me and falls beside Caleb. He tears off his own shirt and wraps it around Caleb’s upper arm, cinching it as tight as he can. The rest of the arm is gone, ripped off, the flesh shredded, like that leg in the car.

Henry is trying to cut off the blood flow from the missing arm, and it’s like slapping a bandage on a man who has been pulled from a meat grinder.

Caleb’s chest is shredded. There’s no other word for it. His shirt is in ribbons, and so is his flesh, and I can’t tell one from the other. His face is a mask of blood, and bone shows through his cheek. Claw marks rake down his throat and remaining arm, the sleeve gone.