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The other technicians were in rabbing old-fashioned telephones fro security I yanked Joyce back another step before raising , "Does anybody have any antiparasitics? I ood ones? We need--" I cheated my eyes toward Joyce and asked, "What do you use for tapewor her questions when our father, clearly dazed, was sha out of a horror e to be happening: therefore, it wasn’t happening "Praziquantel," she said "It has soh, like--"

"Is one of the negative side effects death?" I deet soht now"

Joyce took her eyes off our father in order to blink atabout?"

I wasn’t sure whether sleepwalkers were capable of watching for an opening--if they were anything like as confused as Dr Cale had i beyond basic instinct, at least initially--butwhen Joyce presented it to hied forward He was fast I was just a little bit faster I grabbed her shoulders and yanked her hard away froether on empty air with a flat, meaty sound that would haunt my drea else, and fell over, upsetting two trays of instrue in ti me to the floor with her

The sudden flurry of moveing slowly toward htened slowly, raising my hands in front of ood I was expecting that to do I wasn’t thinking particularly clearly by that point

"Dad, you’re sick," I said, enunciating each word as clearly as I could "I need you to fight against whatever it is you want to do right now, and focus on the sound ofwe can do to help you be better, but it won’t work if you don’t focus on the sound of my voice Can you do that for ed I squeaked, stopping in the middle of my sentence, and turned to run He seemed to track by sound anda sound, and she wasn’t going anywhere All I had to do was keep his eyes on me, and trust that so we’d both regret later

Well Maybe I wouldn’t regret it if he killed ret letting ot that far, in the tien deprivation resulted in my second clinical brain death

I ran; my father followed The rest of the technicians had cleared the room, which was convenient, since it , somewhat addled boss into the s into his path as I tried to evade hi his interest I was afraid if anyone else in the roooing for easier prey Prey that wasn’t running like hell, or throwing file boxes at his head

The doors at the back of the room opened andthe Syot sick That seeo It seemed like it had happened yesterday Several of the in order to put up et the pretzel drugs!" I was saying it wrong I kneas But long words were Joyce’s thing, notonce I was frankly impressed I could remember it started with the letter "P"

And thenirip was I scrabbled at his fingers, trying to dislodge theer than I was, he was stronger than I was, and he was going to win this one if I didn’t figure out a way to change the rules

Dad, I’y on planting roan and let go ofs folded up beneathhis crotch and

I scrambled back to et the antiparasitics!"

The other sleepwalkers didn’t seeister pain once they had fully succu their brains My father still responded to extreme pain stimuli like a normal human, and that meant he hadn’t been completely taken over yet There was still a chance that we could treat him There was--

"Oh, my God, reat idea," said Joyce, picking herself up off the floor She dusted off her lab coat with the heels of her hands, scowling at our father like he had just disappointed her in some deep and profound manner "It’s not Halloween, we’re not twelve anys are serious"