Tim was never given a chance to attack Horne. Armed soldiers—adults, this time—escorted him from the helicopter and into a cavernous hangar where he was allowed to sit down in a chair before they handcuffed him again. Bright klieg lights shone down across the empty, oil-stained floor, lighting up the only other furniture in the room, a table on which sat a television and a DVD player. Tim figured he knew what was showing.

Horne left him there, still under guard. A while later someone else came in. It was Buzzard, wearing his fishing hat and his vest. The reporter looked glum but as he came up to the chair he held out his hand. Tim refused to shake it.

“Listen, kid, I know you’re about as mad as ten badgers in a burlap sack, and I don’t blame you. It ain’t me you should be pissed with, though.”

“No?” Tim asked.

The reporter scratched his head under the ridiculous hat. “No. Maybe I didn’t do you any favors, but there’s bigger things at stake here. When I helped you before I didn’t know what Horne had planned. I thought he was gonna leave us all in Camp Romeo to rot. But it ain’t like that. He’s gonna take us all home. He couldn’t do that until you were in custody, though.”

Tim looked at his shoes, which were still splattered with black drool and brain matter. “You gave him my telephone number.”

“Yeah,” Buzzard admitted. “I told him about your friend Sandi, right? Just like you asked. Then he wanted to know how I knew about her. What the hell was I supposed to say? Magical fairies told me? I said I’d been in contact with you. He wanted your number and he was willing to make my life very uncomfortable until I gave it to him. Look on the bright side—Sandi gets to live because of it.”

“Did you know he could track me through my cell phone? I guess you must have known.”

“He didn’t lie to me.” Buzzard came around the side of the chair and leaned against the table. “Maybe he doesn’t tell the whole truth some times, but he’s never lied to me. I heard what he did with the fake kid, and that sucks, I agree.”

“I suppose he didn’t lie to me, either. He never said he actually had Jake. I just wanted that to be true so badly I saw what I wanted to see.”

Buzzard fiddled with the remote control for the DVD player. “You don’t want to see this, you know. It’s just going to hurt.”

“I know.”

“But you’re going to watch anyway. Cause you have to, don’t you? You have to know what’s on this disc.”

Tim nodded. He could barely manage to summon up any anger—mostly he felt tired. He turned the chair around to face the television and nodded for Buzzard to do his worst.

The footage on the screen was cleaner than what Tim had already seen. The definition was so high that he could make out the license plate of Karen’s car, and even the warning sticker on the side of her hammer. He watched her swinging wildly, watched Nero come at her without even flinching. He could see the emptiness in Nero’s eyes this time, which bothered him. He didn’t bother exploring why.

Nero bit Karen, tearing at her flesh. She went down in a bloody heap and the crystal clear footage let him see every drop of her life as it hit the street. It didn’t hurt to watch that as much as he’d expected. It was almost nice getting to see her again, if only through the remove of the television screen. He kept looking at the car, though, rather than at her. Even in the better resolution Jake was no more than a shadow in the back seat. Tim kept hoping that the shadow would give away some detail that would prove it wasn’t Jake at all—that it was in fact just a suitcase Karen had loaded in the back, or maybe somebody else’s son.

That hope was shattered when the camera veered away from Karen’s death and focused on the shadow. This was new—Tim hadn’t seen this part. The camera zoomed in a fraction and Tim saw Jake’s arms waving, saw his screaming, crying face.

That was when it really started to hurt.

Nero started lurching toward the car, Karen forgotten at his feet. His face was smeared with her blood and one of his eyes was squinted closed. He grabbed at the car with unfeeling hands, shook it as if he could rattle hard enough to make Jake come rolling out. When that didn’t work he moved down the side of the vehicle, slapping at its sides, smearing it with blood and black drool.

“This is the part that was too rough for tv,” Buzzard explained. Tim shushed him. There was no sound to go with the video but he didn’t want any distractions. This might be the last he ever saw of his son and he steeled himself to take in every last detail, every scrap of information. He needed to know, regardless of whether or not the knowledge would benefit him in any way.

The footage rolled on with an inexorability that sickened Tim. There was no flicker to the image, no ghosting of interlaced scan fields. The digital video was clearer and steadier than any film stock. It was like watching something through a window.

Jake went crazy in the back, rocking back and forth, his mouth wide, his eyes streaming. He was stuck in his car seat, belted in so tightly he couldn’t get loose. The car seat was designed so that its occupant couldn’t release the straps. That had seemed like an important safety feature when they bought it. Jake had always loved that seat because it had a pattern of airplanes and parachutists. He’d always loved planes.

Nero took another step. Tim could see it in his face as the drooler tried to work out how to get inside the car. He reached—lunged—and then Jake managed to reach over, to struggle just enough free of his straps to grasp the door handle and slam it shut, sealing himself inside the car.

Nero bashed at the windows a few times with his bare hands. He stared in through the glass as Jake flinched away, his tiny hands over his eyes. Then Nero just turned and walked away, presumably to look for some easier prey.

The screen cut to black, then, without even a credits sequence to soften the blow. Tim wanted more—he needed to know what happened next. There was nothing more to be seen.