Strong hands grabbed Sherman and lifted him up.

They didn’t feel like the hands of the monster.

He let go of the pipe and felt it drop against his legs. He could feel it clatter against the floor.

The hands shook him.

He squinted to see who it was.

The face was blurry but had color and a bit of stubble. A mustache. Glasses. A bow tie. A tux.

The mouth was moving, but Sherman couldn’t hear anything.

“I can’t hear you,” he tried to say. He mouthed the words and felt his throat vibrate.

The man dragged him out of the cell.

His throat muscles started twitching, and spit filled his mouth. The blood splatter on the wall reminded him of the science textbooks showing an electron cloud.

The essence of the monster might be there, but the monster wasn’t. It was on the floor with a big hole blown out the side of its head. Gray stuff spilled out, and blood pooled.

His mouth filled up for a moment, but he caught it and swallowed.

Sherman’s forehead was cold and wet.

The man marched him up the stairs into the dining room, where he saw a woman in a nice evening gown. They had been into the city for some arts event, no doubt. Why else would they dress up and get home late?

The lights weren’t as harsh up here. His ears still rang from the shot.

“There was one of those failures in the basement,” the man said. “And this kid was locked in the cage, scared shitless.”

Sherman could hear. It was faint, but he could understand it.

The woman came over and put her hands on his face.

“Are you okay?”

They seemed nice enough, but he was a stranger in their home.

“I tried to keep it out, but it got in through the window.”

“We’re just glad you’re safe.”

The man pulled a chair away from the table and motioned for Sherman to sit.

Sherman sat down. His pad was on the other side of the table.

“That yours?” the man asked.

Sherman nodded.

“The dog, too?”

Sherman nodded again.

He couldn’t say anything. Didn’t know what he should say. He wished things would slow down a bit and let him think. No. Things weren’t going too fast. He just wasn’t in control.

“And the gear by the door is, too,” the man said. No question. Just a fact.

Now came the questions about why he was there. The house was at the end of an unpaved county road, miles from anyone else. Where had he come from? Why was he out in the middle of nowhere at night? Why was he in the rain?

Sherman didn’t have good answers for any of them. He didn’t know where his family might be. With the dam burst, no telling what things were like back towards town. This couple had come from the other direction and hadn’t seen any of the flooding that had cut his family off along the roads.

“Stand up,” the man said to Sherman.

He turned and motioned to the woman. “Why don’t you check around and see if anything’s been taken while I handle him.”

The man turned back to Sherman and ran his hands over Sherman’s clothes.

“Making sure you don’t have any weapons,” he said.

That was the problem. He didn’t have any unless you considered Smitty a weapon. He had done well against the wild hog, but that was luck. Smitty wouldn’t have stood a chance against that monster lying in the basement.

“Spread your legs.”

And so it went. He lifted up his arms over his head. Turned around.

The man stepped back.

“You’re clean.”

The woman walked back into the room from the hall. “Nothing’s missing, as far as I can tell,” she said.

“You weren’t looking for anything, were you?” the man asked.

Sherman said that he hadn’t been, other than a place to get out of the rain and get a bit of water and food.

“Breaking and entering is serious business. These days, it’s not safe to be going into other peoples’ houses. You never know what you’ll find.”

Sherman had figured that out at the last house he was in with the bumps under the floor.

“You could have gotten yourself killed. You might yet, if you’re not careful.”

Where there other monsters in houses nearby? Did this man know of them? He might, given the papers Sherman had seen earlier. He wondered if they had looked at what was on his pad. He had a passcode, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be bypassed. Almost anything with a password could be hacked.

The man picked up the pad and turned it over in his hands.

“Nice. Get it for your birthday? Or perhaps for Christmas?”

Neither. Gramps had given it to him at Thanksgiving.

“Might as well have something to be thankful for,” he had said.

Sherman thought it odd at the time. There was a lot to be thankful for. He had a family that was a leader in the region, if not the country. His future was comfortable. His parents loved him. The townsfolk hated them, but what of them? They didn’t understand what his family was giving them.

“Just got it,” Sherman said. “It’s been a while.”

“How rude we’ve been,” the woman said. “All this time, we’ve been talking and making a fuss, and we haven’t even introduced ourselves.”

She turned to Sherman and extended her hand. “I’m Renee.”

Sherman took her hand and shook it a bit, not sure what to do. She was standing, and he was sitting—not the best position or timing for a hearty handshake.

The man didn’t look up from the pad.

“I’m Glen.”

Sherman hadn’t heard of them before, but that didn’t surprise him. He didn’t care about local politics much less pay attention to the news.

“I’m sorry for being in your home,” Sherman said.

“I’m sure you are,” Glen said.

“It’s only proper that you be sorry,” Renee said. She looked at Glen. “Should we call the sheriff?”