But not because I'd been shot. Mr. Hershel hadn't even fired his gun. This fact dawned on me slowly as I opened my eyes.

What had happened was that Ian had grabbed the gun from my hand, knocking me over in the process, and had shot Mr. Hershel.

A bright red wound had opened up on his shoulder and was now gushing blood.

But as if nothing had happened to him at all, Mr. Hershel lunged at Ian, toppling him over. Now he held Ian down, pinning him on his back. Mr. Hershel raised his gun once more, this time with a new urgency and rage.

He brought the barrel level with Ian's eyes. But at the same instant Ian stabbed his own gun up under Mr. Hershel's chin and fired.

There was an abrupt, compacted explosion. A piece of Mr. Hershel's skull leapt up into the air and landed wetly on Morgan's bed.

Mr. Hershel slumped. Ian pushed the now limp body away, and it fell in a semi-sitting position against the desk.

Ian got on his feet and slid to Morgan's side.

"You're okay," he said. "You're okay. Everything's going to be okay now. Everything's all over."

Morgan stared blankly around the room, never quite meeting Ian's eyes and looking too utterly confused and in too much pain to cry, or even to begin to try to speak.

Ian pulled the comforter from her bed and wrapped it around her bloodied body. One of her eyes was almost swollen shut, and she was starting to shiver. He picked her up and carried her toward my car while I followed close behind.

He turned to me as he eased Morgan out the front door, careful not to let her head bump the doorframe.

"Can you get her some clothes?" he asked me. It was hard to comprehend such a practical request right now. "We'll take her back to the house, but she'll need some clothes."

"Yes," I said. "Yes. I can"

I hurried back through the house and stepped once again into Morgan's room.

Mr. Hershel's body lay partly propped up with its back against the writing desk. I tried not to look at it.

But I couldn't help it. His head was pitched forward over one shoulder, and a trickle of blood was still running from the gaping wound in the top of his head onto the floor. I tried not to look. I didn't think I could handle actually seeing the brain matter.

But it wasn't exactly brain matter that I glimpsed inside his shattered skull. Just when I was about to force myself to look away, I saw . . . movement. There was something happening—some kind of slow churning—inside Mr. Hershel's head.

I took half a step closer.

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