The dormer is empty. The figure that watched from across the street is gone — out the window and into the neighborhood before anyone could stop it. What it left behind is worse than its presence. Two maps, drawn by hand with the patience of someone who had all the time they needed. The cul-de-sac. The store. Positions marked before the shooting started. The ambush wasn't a coincidence and the evidence doesn't allow for any other reading. Mark folds the maps into his jacket and says nothing out loud that everyone in the room isn't already thinking.

Then the second wave comes.

The Smith family spends the daylight hours turning a suburban house into a position — sheeted windows, blocked doors, extension cords knotted into a drop route and anchored to the bed frame, fields of fire established in rooms that used to hold birthday parties an ...