"What is --"

"It's me," he said. "It grew out of a piece of me. My thumb. After Davey bit it off."

"Jesus," she said.

The Allen was quaking now, and Alan cooed to it.

"It's hurt," Mimi said.

"A long time ago," Andreas said.

"No, now. It's bleeding."

She was right. A small bead of blood had formed beneath it. He extended his hand farther. Its bandy scurry was pathetic.

Holding his breath, Alan lifted the Allen gently, cradling it in his palms. It squirmed and thrashed weakly. "Shh," he said again. His hands were instantly made slippery and sticky with its blood. "Shh." Something sharp p.r.i.c.ked at his hand.

Now that he had it up close, he could see where the blood was coming from: A broken-off sewing needle, shoved rudely through its distended abdomen.

"Cover up," Bradley said, "I'm coming up." They heard his lopsided tread on the steps.

Mimi pulled the blanket up around her chin. "Okay," she said.

Bert opened the door quickly. He wore nothing but the oversized jeans that Alan had given him, his scrawny chest and mutilated feet bare.

"It's going to die," Brad said, hunkering down beside the bed. "Davey pinned it and then sent Link over with it. It can't last through the night."

Adam felt like he was choking. "We can help it," he said. "It can heal. It healed before."

"It won't this time. See how much pain it's in? It's out of its mind."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"We need to put it out of its misery," Brad said. "It's the right thing."

In his hands, the thing squirmed and made a small, hurt sound. "Shhh,"

Alan said. The sound it made was like sobbing, but small, so small. And weak.

Mimi said, "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Yeah," Brian said. "Yeah, I can see that."

She lifted herself out of bed, unmindful of her nudity, and pushed her way past him to the door, to the bathroom.

"Stop being such a baby," she told Trey as he clutched at his foot. "It's almost stopped bleeding already."

He looked up at her with murder in his eyes. "Shall I take another one?" she said. He looked away.

"If I get word that you've come within a mile of my brother, I will come back and take your eyes. The toe and the finger joint were just a down payment on that."

He made a sullen sound, so she took his vain and girlish blond hair in her fist and tugged his head back and kissed his throat with the knife.

"Nod if you understand. Slowly."

"The knife is under Mimi's pillow."

"I can't do it," Alan said.

"I know," Brian said. "I will."

And he did. Took the knife. Took the Allen. It cried. Mimi threw up in another room, the sound more felt than heard. The toilet flushed and Brian's hands were sure and swift, but not sure enough. The Allen made a sound like a dog whistle. Bruce's hand moved again, and then it was over. He dug a sock out of the hamper and rolled up the Allen's remains in it. "I'll bury it," he said. "In the back."

Numbly, Alan stood and began dressing. "No," he said. "I will."

Mimi joined them, wrapped in a blanket. Alan dug and Brent held the sock and Mimi watched solemnly.

A trapezoid of light knifed across the back garden. They looked up and saw Krishna staring down at them from a third-floor window. He was smiling very slightly. A moment later, Link appeared in the window, reeling like he was drunk, giggling.

They all looked at one another for a frozen moment, then Alan turned back to his shoveling. He dug down three feet, and Brent laid the little Allen down in the earth gently as putting it to bed, and Alan filled the hole back up. Mimi looked back up at the window, eyes locked on Krishna's.

"I'm going inside," Adam announced. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah," Mimi said, but she didn't. She stayed out there for ten minutes, then twenty, and when Alan looked out his window at her, he saw she was still staring up at Krishna, mesmerized.

He loudly opened his window and leaned out. Mimi's eyes flicked to him, and then she slowly made her way back into the house.

She took his pants and his shoes and left him in the park, crying and drunk. All things considered, it had gone well. When Trey told her that he had no idea where her brother was, she believed him. It was okay, she'd find her brother. He had lots of friends.

Alan thought that that was the end of the story, maybe. Short and sweet. A kind of lady or the tiger thing. Let the reader's imagination do the rest.

There on the screen, it seemed awfully thin. Here in the house he'd built for it, it seemed awfully unimportant. Such a big and elaborate envelope for such a small thing. He saved the file and went back up to bed. Mimi was asleep, which was good, because he didn't think he'd be able to fall asleep with her twice that night.

He curled up on his side of the bed and closed his eyes and tried to forget the sound the Allen had made.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Not a thing," she said. Her brother's phone-call hadn't been unexpected.

"You're f.u.c.king insane."

"Maybe," she said.

"What do you *want from me*?"

"I want you to behave yourself."