You wake up with a start. You must have drifted off. You have no idea what time it is. You turn your head slowly toward the door. You see nothing, not even a light under it. The darkness is complete. And yet you heard something. The wind gusts. The rain pelts down. The window rattles. That’s what you heard. Freed from the buildup of paint, the window is rattling. You’re kind of rattled yourself.

You switch on your flashlight and scan the room nervously. It’s as if you’re in the middle of a horror movie. You switch it off again and listen hard; there’s nothing but the creaking of this big old building under the battering of the wind, the squall of rain. You throw back the sleeping bag and place your bare feet on the cold floor. You stand and make your way by memory to the window, your hand out in front of you, finally coming to rest on the chilly glass. You’ve got your flashlight in the other hand and only now do you switch it on. You dig your knife out of your pocket, open it, and lay it carefully on the windowsill. With the flashlight between your teeth, you lift the window slowly, slowly. You test to see if it will stay up, but it won’t; the painted-over pulleys in the grooves are no longer connected to anything.

How to keep this thing open? Because there’s no way on earth you can undo those fasteners on the shutters and hold this window at the same time. You lower the window. Listen again. That storm is heaven-sent for your benefit, Blink Conboy. If there is a God up there, he’s an angry God, but maybe something else has gotten his attention right now. The house seems almost to rock, like a great boat out on the sea. The trees shake and crack under the weight of the deluge, their branches rustling and clicking against the sides of the lodge.

You check under the mattress to see if there are boards there but, no, just springs. You look at the chest of drawers. The two top drawers are each something less than two feet across, maybe six inches high. You slowly pull out one of the drawers. It’s empty except for a couple of mothballs. You pull it all the way out, ditch the mothballs, and carry the drawer over to the window, where you turn it on its side. You lift the window again with one hand, then carefully place the drawer in the gap, hard against the sash. You lower the window until the bottom rail rests on the upended drawer.

You step away, breathing hard, holding in the desire to say something proud and foolish. To shout “Yes!” to the night. You smile grimly. Keep that “yes” inside you, Blink. Hold on to it tight.

The longest blade of the Swiss Army knife slips through the crack between the shutters and pushes up the lower fastener with only a few minutes of effort. You push tentatively on the shutter, and a thin whoosh of wind and rain comes in on you. Cold as it is, you have never felt anything so refreshing. Next you slip your arm up into the narrow space between the upper window and the shutter. There is not much room to maneuver in, but you wedge your knife into the widened crack right under the upper fastener. It doesn’t give. You press harder. You try to hammer the blade upward, and suddenly the knife springs from your grip and clatters down on the windowsill beside you. You switch off the flashlight.

You freeze. Wait.

Despite the cold, you are sweating like nobody’s business. Slowly, carefully, you find the knife in the dark and lift it, cursing your slippery fingers. After an eternity, you try the fastener again; no hammering this time, just even pressure upward. It budges. Good. You lean your back against the right-hand shutter and press the knife upward. Then suddenly there is a snap and a clatter, and the shutter flies open.

The upper S-shaped clasp has broken off and tumbled down the roof. With your flashlight, you can see it resting in the leaf-clogged gutter three feet below you, down the steep pitch of the roof.

The shutters waver in the air and are about to slam against the gable wall when you reach out and grab them. You are hanging half out the window, your feet no longer on the floor, and the shutters are tugging on you like a kite in a gale.

Was there a kite in your life, Blink? Yes, out on the Beaches with Granda. Him getting it up there and then you holding on, two-fisted to the reel, sure you were going to be lifted clear out across the lake all the way to America on the far shore.

Again you catch your breath, wondering how much breath you have left in you. You need your moccasins. The wind is on your side for the moment, pressing the shutters closed, though any minute it might swing them both open.

Go, quick!

You race to your bed, slip the moccasins on, race back, and in one fluid motion fling open the right-hand shutter and crawl out onto the roof.

You didn’t count on the rain-slick moss.

Your feet no sooner touch down on the steep slope than they fly out from under you, and you are on your backside sliding down, down, and over the lip of the roof into space.

You cry out.

Crash!

You lie in a heap on a grassy hummock. You are winded, but nothing feels broken. Above you, out of sight from where you lie, the shutter to your cell slams shut, then flies open and slams again, sounding the alarm.

Get up, Blink. Go!

And with a new surge of energy, you roll to your feet in the wet grass and take off, only to run right into a thicker darkness — a darkness you bounce back from, recoil from. Then out of that darkness comes a flashlight beam, blinding you.

“You just made my day,” says the Tank-shaped darkness, now revealed as he switches on the row of lights on his ball cap brim. He says it loudly, so as to be heard above the storm, loud so you can hear him good, like a man who’s been feeding money all day into a slot machine and just hit the jackpot.

Before you can find your feet again, Tank grabs you by your shirtfront and lifts you up in one fluid motion so your face is inches from his, and the row of brightness on the underside of his cap blinds your eyes. What you can see of his expression is filled with hate and triumph.

“Nobody’s gonna blame me for this,” he says. He raises his hand, and there’s the rifle he wanted you to see earlier. The black metal catches the glow of his lights. He holds it so you can see it. He’d like to hold it there awhile, shaking it in his massive fist, to give you a good long chance to fully appreciate how terrified you are.

“I’m going to let you go in a minute,” he says, pulling you closer still, so you can smell the wet rankness of him, the stench of his breath. “And you are going to wish you were never born.”

You wish you could tell him that you’ve thought that before, nearly every day of your life after Stepdaddy moved in. But you had left that behind. And as hard as the street was, you knew you were alive every single day, alive and hungry.

“Are you ready to go now?” he says, almost sweetly, like he’s your daddy putting you to bed and about to turn off the lights.

Then all of a sudden, his face contorts with pain, his thick lips grimace, his eyes squint shut. His grip on you loosens enough to pull yourself free and fall backward onto the sandy, wet, leaf-strewn ground, skittering away from him while he howls with pain and rage, the Swiss Army knife protruding almost up to its shaft from his thigh.

You skitter out of his light, try to get up, fall again, and crawl.

Then you hear the click of the rifle.

And the night explodes.