The clock on the wall had a second hand that ticked too loud. James had never noticed it before—thirteen years in this house, probably fifteen thousand hours in this room if you did the math which he was not going to do because that way lay madness, and he'd never once thought about that clock.
Evelyn had bought it at Target. 2019. Right after they repainted the living room "Agreeable Gray" because that was the bestselling interior paint in America and Evelyn had read that in some home magazine and James had said it's gray, Ev, how agreeable can gray be and she'd laughed and bought the clock to match, $14.99 plus tax, and now that clock was the only sound in the house and his wife was out there somewhere and all he could hear was—
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He should do something. Check on the kids. Make coffee. Turn on the TV. Something other than sitting on this couch, phone in hand, staring at the front door like he could will it to open.
He didn't move.
Three minutes. Maybe four. Long enough for the second hand to make a few lazy circles.
James grabbed it so fast he nearly dropped it—but it was just Greg.
Any word?
No.
I can come over. Keep you company.
Stay home. Roads might be bad.
You sure?
Was he sure? He wasn't sure of anything. Hadn't been sure since the phone call, since Jamie— and then nothing.
Yeah.
Send. But Greg lived twenty minutes away, and if things were as bad as Evelyn said—they're biting people, James—then he didn't want his best friend driving through whatever was happening out there.
The phone went dark. The clock kept ticking.
James didn't know how long he sat there. Could have been five minutes. Could have been an hour. Time moved different when you were waiting for someone to either walk through the door or never come home again.
A sound. Outside.
James was on his feet before his brain caught up—legs moving, hand reaching for the bat by the door. Louisville Slugger, 34-inch, the one his dad had given him when he turned sixteen. Every man needs a bat, his dad had said, which even at sixteen James knew was bullshit because his dad had never played baseball in his life, had been the kind of dad who worked sixty hours a week selling insurance and came home smelling like copier toner and microwaved coffee. But he'd bought the bat anyway. Wrapped it in newspaper. Handed it over like it meant something.
James had kept it for twenty-five years.
Never used it once.
He was at the window now, bat raised, scanning the street. Dark houses. Parked cars. The Hendersons' lawn, overgrown because Mike Henderson had been saying he'd mow it next weekend for three weekends straight.
Something moved.
James's grip tightened. There. By the trash cans. A shape, low to the ground, shuffling—
A raccoon.
Fat. Grey. Probably the same one that had been getting into the Nguyens' garbage for months. Mrs. Nguyen had complained about it at the last HOA meeting, the one James had skipped because HOA meetings were where happiness went to die.
The raccoon knocked over a trash can lid. The clatter echoed down the empty street like a gunshot.
James exhaled. Lowered the bat.
His hands were shaking. Finally shaking, like his body had gotten the memo hours late and was now trying to make up for lost time.
He went back to the couch. Sat down.
Picked up the phone.
He called her again. Seventh time. Eighth. He'd lost count.
"Hi, you've reached Evelyn. I can't come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!"
She'd recorded that message three years ago. James remembered because he'd been in the room, making fun of her for doing seventeen takes. You sound like a robot, he'd said. A very professional robot. And she'd thrown a pillow at him and recorded take eighteen and that was the one, that was the voice he was listening to now, cheerful and alive and completely unaware that three years later her husband would be sitting in the dark waiting to find out if she was dead.
The beep came.
"Ev." His voice came out wrong. Cracked.
"I'm here. I'm waiting. Just—come home. Please. I need you to come home."
He hung up.
Stared at the phone.
Called again.
2:14 AM.
He lost count of the voicemails. Five. Ten. Enough that her inbox was probably full by now, enough that if she ever got her phone back she'd have to scroll through a dozen variations of please come home, please be alive, please.
Headlights.
James saw them through the window. Two points of light, turning onto Maple Street, moving slow. Too slow. The way you drove when you were looking for something. Or when you didn't want to attract attention.
The bat was in his hand again. He didn't remember picking it up.
The car was wrong. Silver sedan, not Evelyn's Camry. He didn't recognize it. Didn't recognize the plates. The neighborhood Facebook group had a thread about suspicious vehicles, started by Mrs. Patterson who thought every unfamiliar car was a burglar casing houses, and James had muted that thread months ago but now he wished he'd paid attention, now he wished he knew every car that belonged on this street—
The sedan slowed.
Turned into his driveway.
Okay.
James moved to the door. Stood to the side, out of the window's line of sight. Bat raised.
The headlights died.
The driver's door opened.
A figure stepped out.
James's brain catalogued details in fragments: Scrubs. Blood. Dark hair. The way she moved—stiff, exhausted, like her body had been running on fumes for hours and had finally hit empty.
Evelyn.
The bat hit the floor.
He didn't hear it fall.
James was at the door in seconds.
Deadbolt. Chain. The regular lock that stuck sometimes because he'd been meaning to WD-40 it for six months. His fingers weren't working right. Too much adrenaline. Too much everything.
The door opened.
She was standing on his porch. Blood on her scrubs—someone else's, he hoped, please let it be someone else's. Hair wild. Eyes that had seen something they'd never unsee.
But alive.
"Jamie," she said.
He pulled her in before she finished saying his name. Arms around her, holding on, feeling her shake against him—or maybe he was the one shaking, he couldn't tell anymore and it didn't matter. She was here. She was here.
Coconut shampoo. That stupid expensive stuff from the salon she'd been using for years, the one James always complained cost too much and secretly loved because it meant she was close.
"I'm home," she whispered against his chest.
He couldn't speak. His throat had closed up. All he could do was hold her tighter, face buried in her hair, letting himself fall apart just a little because she was here and she was alive and he hadn't lost her, not tonight, not yet.
"Ev." His voice came out wrecked. "When the call cut off—I thought—"
"I know." Her hand found the back of his neck. Cold fingers. Shaking. "I'm here. I made it."
She winced when his arm pressed against her side.
James pulled back. "You're hurt."
"Barbed wire. Fence." She said the next part fast, like it mattered more than anything: "It's not a bite."
It did matter. That word—bite—meant something different now. Meant everything.
Movement behind Evelyn. James looked up.
Two more figures on the porch. A woman in scrubs—younger than Evelyn, Black, mascara streaked down her face like she'd been crying for hours. And a girl. Hospital gown. Barefoot. Cast on one arm, the white plaster grimy with something James didn't want to identify.
Young. Older than John, but not by much. Eighteen, maybe. The kind of young where you still looked like a kid when you were scared.
"This is Maya," Evelyn said. "And Lisa. They were at the hospital."
A pause.
Then: "They're coming inside."
Not a question.
James stepped back. Opened the door wider. What else was he supposed to do? His wife had just walked out of a nightmare with two strangers and he was going to—what? Ask for references?
"Yeah. Of course. Come in."
Maya moved past him. Her eyes were somewhere else. Thousand-yard stare—James had seen that look in documentaries about soldiers, about survivors of things that shouldn't be survived. She didn't say anything. Just walked to the couch and sat down like her strings had been cut.
Lisa followed. Bare feet silent on the floor. She didn't look at James. Didn't look at anything. Just shuffled inside, good arm clutching her casted one, and curled into the armchair like she was trying to take up as little space as possible.
James closed the door. Locked it. Deadbolt. Chain. Regular. It didn't feel like enough.
"The kids?" Evelyn asked.
"Upstairs. Asleep. I think." He paused.
"They came down earlier. When I—I almost left. To find you. But you said stay, so I—"
"You did the right thing."
"Did I?"
She touched his face. Her hand was cold. Unsteady.
"You did."
2:31 AM
Maya was on the couch. Lisa was in the armchair, knees pulled to her chest, the cast resting awkward across her lap. Neither of them had spoken.
James stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Evelyn move through the cabinets. She'd found the first aid kit. Was cleaning the wound on her side—a long gash, shallow but ugly, crusted with dried blood.
"Let me help."
"I've got it."
"Ev—"
"James." Her eyes met his. "I've been doing this for eleven years. I can clean a wound."
He shut up. Watched her work—antiseptic, gauze, tape. Clinical. Efficient. The hands of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
But her hands were shaking.
Eleven years as an ER nurse. She'd probably cleaned wounds on people who'd been shot, stabbed, hit by cars. This should be nothing. A scratch. A fence. Her hands were still shaking.
"What happened?" he asked. "At the hospital. You said—on the phone—"
"Not now." She finished taping the gauze. Pulled her scrub top back down. "Tomorrow. When I've slept. When I can—" She stopped. Breathed. "Not now."
"Okay."
She looked toward the living room. Maya and Lisa, silent shapes in the dark.
"Lisa's eighteen," Evelyn said quietly. "Exchange student. Indonesian. Her family's on the other side of the planet. She was in the hospital for a broken arm. Wrong place, wrong time."
"And Maya?"
"Nurse. Same floor as me. Seven years." A pause. "She saved my life. Back there. There was a—" Another pause. Longer.
"Tomorrow."
James nodded. Didn't push.
"I'll get blankets," he said. "Pillows."
"Thank you."
He brought them out. Maya took hers without a word, curled up on the couch, and was asleep—or pretending to be—within minutes. Lisa just held the blanket in her lap, staring at the wall. James didn't push. Some people couldn't sleep after things like this. Some people couldn't do anything else.
He started toward the linen closet, then stopped.
"Ev."
She looked at him.
"I love you."
Something cracked in her face. Just for a second. Then she put it back together, piece by piece, the way she'd been doing all night.
"I love you too."
Evelyn didn't go upstairs. Just sat in the kitchen chair, head on her arms, and closed her eyes.
At some point, the dark outside the windows turned grey. Then pale. Then the kind of washed-out morning light that made everything look worse than it had in the dark.
James didn't remember deciding to make breakfast. Didn't remember taking the eggs out of the fridge, or turning on the stove, or any of the steps between I should do something and standing here watching smoke pour from a pan.
The smoke detector went off. Not the gentle chirp of a low battery—James knew that sound, had been ignoring it for three weeks because changing the battery meant getting the ladder from the garage and the ladder was behind the Christmas decorations which were behind the camping gear which was behind Tiffany's old tricycle that they kept saying they'd donate—but the full shriek. The something is actually burning shriek.
The eggs.
James was in front of the stove, watching smoke pour from the pan. The eggs had passed through every stage of destruction. Golden, then brown, then black, then something that wasn't food anymore. He'd watched it happen. Seen the edges curl. Smelled the burning.
Hadn't moved.
His brain was somewhere else. Still at the window at 2 AM, watching headlights turn onto his street. Still holding Evelyn in the doorway, coconut shampoo and blood. Still on the phone hearing her say Jamie and then nothing.
From upstairs: "MOM! JOHN WON'T GIVE BACK MY—"
"I DIDN'T TAKE ANYTHING!"
"YOU DID, IT WAS ON MY—"
"THAT'S NOT EVEN YOURS, THAT'S—"
The voices blurred into static. James stared at the smoke. The detector kept screaming.
This was his life now. Burning eggs and screaming children and the world ending outside and all he could do was stand here and watch breakfast turn to charcoal because his brain had checked out sometime around 2 AM and hadn't come back yet.
"James!"
Evelyn. Behind him. She reached past him, turned off the stove, grabbed the pan and threw it in the sink. Water hissed. Steam joined the smoke.
"I'm—" James blinked. "I was making breakfast."
"I noticed."
She grabbed a dish towel, climbed on a chair, fanned the detector until it stopped screaming. The silence that followed felt like a held breath.
"You didn't sleep," she said. Not a question.
"Neither did you."
"I slept. Two hours." She climbed down, turned to face him. "You've been standing here since five."
Had he? He didn't remember. The last few hours were a blur—checking locks, checking windows, checking his phone, checking locks again. At some point he'd decided to make breakfast. At some point the eggs had started burning. The middle part was gone.
"Dad?"
John. In the doorway. Still in yesterday's clothes—he'd never changed. Behind him, Tiffany in her pajamas, elephant trailing.
"What's burning?"
"Breakfast," James said. "I made a mistake."
John's eyes moved past him. To the living room. Where Maya was sitting up on the couch, awakened by the alarm. Where Lisa was still curled in the armchair, cast across her lap, staring at nothing.
"Who are they?"
"Friends of your mom's," James said. "From the hospital."
"Why are they here?"
Their eyes met.
"We'll explain later," Evelyn said. "Right now—cereal. Everyone's having cereal."
She moved past James. Bowls. Cheerios. Milk. The motions automatic, mechanical—the same way James had moved last night, making coffee, checking locks, doing the small tasks because the big ones were too heavy to lift.
Tiffany accepted her bowl and wandered toward the TV. John stayed in the doorway, eyes moving between his parents, between the strangers in the living room.
"Is this about the videos?" he asked quietly.
"The ones from St. Mary's?"
Evelyn's hands stopped moving. Just for a second.
"Later," she said. "We'll talk later."
He was in his kitchen, surrounded by smoke and strangers and his family, and realized that "later" was going to come whether he was ready or not.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, a siren started. Then another. Then a third. Later was coming whether he was ready or not.
John held her gaze for a long moment. Then he took his cereal and went upstairs. His door closed. Video game sounds started through the ceiling.
Then—banging.
Loud. Frantic. Fists on wood.
James froze. Evelyn froze. Maya sat up on the couch.
Not their door. Across the street.
James moved to the window.
A man was at the Nguyens' front door. Pounding with both fists, hard enough that James could hear it through the glass. Screaming something—words, maybe, or just noise. His shirt was torn down the front. Dark stains on his arms, his chest, smeared across his face.
The Nguyens' door stayed closed.
The man kept pounding.
"Please—" James could hear it now, muffled but clear. "Please, let me in, I'm not—I'm not one of them, please—"
The curtains didn't move. The door didn't open.
The pounding slowed. Stopped.
The man stood there. Shoulders heaving. Head down.
Then he turned around.
Looked directly at James's house.
James stepped back from the window. Instinct. The man couldn't have seen him—too far, wrong angle, glare on the glass—but it felt like he had. It felt like those eyes had found him through thirty yards of empty street.
The man started walking.
Not running. Just walking. One foot in front of the other. Heading straight for James's front door.
"James." Evelyn's voice. Tight. "James, who is that?"
"I don't know."
Halfway across the street now. Middle-aged. Balding. Forgettable face. Except for the blood. You didn't forget the blood.
"Is he infected?" Maya. At the window now too.
"I don't know."
The man reached their lawn. Still walking.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
The bat was by the door—James hadn't put it back, he didn't remember doing it, but there it was. James grabbed it.
Ten.
The man stopped.
Standing on their front walk. Close enough to see his chest heaving, his hands hanging at his sides, the whites of his eyes. They stared at each other through the window.
The man's mouth opened.
"Please."
One word. Barely a whisper.
"Please."
Then he collapsed.
Face-first onto the concrete. Didn't catch himself. Just dropped.
He didn't get up.
James didn't move. Just stood there, bat in hand, staring at the body on his front walk.
"Is he dead?" Small voice. "Daddy, is that man dead?"
James didn't answer.
He didn't know.