The generator kept humming.
Justin focused on the sound because he needed something steady to latch onto. It was a low, mechanical thrum that vibrated through the floorboards of the kitchen, a persistent reminder that they were still drawing power while the rest of the neighborhood was sinking into a silent, pre-noon darkness. The sound had become a kind of metronome—proof that time was still moving forward, that the house hadn't slipped into whatever pocket dimension of chaos waited outside.
As long as it ran, the lights stayed on. As long as the lights stayed on, he could keep everyone anchored to normal. He could pretend the kitchen was just a kitchen, and not the hull of a ship sinking in a very shallow, very suburban sea.
No one looked at the front door.
They didn't have to. The memory of the scream from three houses down was enough to keep their eyes fixed on anything else—the wood grain of the table, the flickering light of the refrigerator, the dust motes dancing in the artificial glow.
Tally leaned back in her chair at the kitchen table, her arms crossed tight over her chest. She had finally stopped pacing, but the energy was still there, coiled in her shoulders. Her chin was lifted, that familiar mask of defiance firmly in place, as if her sharp eyeliner and perfectly styled hair could act as a barrier against the collapse of civilization. Justin loved her for that stubbornness, but he hated it, too. Tally was mean when she was scared. She always had been. When they were kids and she'd get lost in a department store, she wouldn't cry; she'd yell at the first employee who found her for not being in the right place.
Mari sat opposite her, much quieter. Her hands were wrapped around a ceramic mug that had long since gone cold. She hadn't taken a sip in twenty minutes. Her eyes kept drifting—not to the door, but to Justin. She was checking him, reading his vitals through the tension in his jaw, gauging whether the person she had followed seven hundred miles across a dying country was finally about to snap.
He wasn't. He couldn't.
"So," Tally said, her voice cutting through the generator's hum like a blade. She couldn't stand the quiet; silence was a space where she had to think, and Tally was currently doing everything in her power to avoid thinking. "How exactly did you two meet? Because I'm pretty sure the last time we talked, you were dating that girl with the excessive nose rings and the obsession with sourdough."
Justin felt the question before it landed. It was a tactical strike. This wasn't genuine curiosity; this was Tally trying to regain control by poking at something familiar, something she could judge or categorize. If she could make Mari "the new girl," she could fit her into a box.
He adjusted his grip on his glass of water, forcing his shoulders to drop an inch. "Orientation week," he said, keeping his voice level. "Mari was a TA. I was... inquisitive."
"First few days," Mari added, her voice small but steady. She offered a faint, tired smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Tally tilted her head, her gaze sweeping over Mari's salt-stained coat and the way she held herself. "That's vague. Even for you, Justin. You usually give me a full PowerPoint on why your new friends are 'intellectually stimulating.'"
"Same seminar," Mari said, stepping in to bridge the gap. "Public policy and tech ethics."
"Which is just a fancy way of saying we sat in a room and argued about who gets to hold the kill switch for the internet," Justin said, trying for a smirk. "You'd hate it. It involves a lot of reading and very few aesthetic photos."
Tally made a face, one that was 90% performance and 10% genuine distaste. "That sounds exhausting. And ironic, considering the internet is currently a brick."
"One about systems," Mari added, her voice taking on a slightly more professional edge, a remnant of her life before the I-95 turned into a graveyard. "How they work. What happens when they don't. We spent three weeks talking about the fragility of the American power grid."
Justin cleared his throat, sensing the conversation drifting too close to the reality they were currently hiding from. "And how people react when they lose structure. The psychological shift from citizen to... well, to survivor."
"Which is always badly," Tally said, her voice losing some of its edge. She looked at the kitchen window, where the heavy velvet curtains blocked out the noon sun. "People are gross. They freak out over a sale on Stanley cups. I can't imagine them being dignified about a blackout."
"Usually," Mari agreed softly.
Outside, a siren wailed.
It started low and distant, but within seconds, it was close enough that Justin could feel the sound vibrate through the window glass and into his teeth. It was the high-low yelp of a Savannah police cruiser, but it wasn't moving. It didn't fade away toward the hospital or the highway. It just stayed, a long, constant scream of electronics that eventually faltered, sputtered, and died into a sickeningly abrupt silence.
"They've been busy today," Tally said lightly. It was a terrifyingly casual observation, the kind of thing you'd say about traffic on a Friday afternoon. She was leaning into the denial so hard it was almost impressive.
Justin didn't answer. He couldn't tell her that the siren didn't stop because the emergency was over. It stopped because whatever was driving that car had stopped being a driver.
Mari shifted in her chair, pulling her oversized wool sweater tighter even though the house was comfortably warm. "Is it always like this? In the South? When the power goes out, is it... this quiet?"
"No," Justin said, his voice a low rasp. "Not like this. Usually, there's music. People sitting on their porches with beer. It's a party. It's a 'hurricane day.' This is..."
"Way to reassure us, J-man," Tally shot him a look, her eyes darting toward the knife she'd dropped on the island earlier.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Tally. You're too smart for that," he said. It was a peace offering.
A dull boom rolled through the distance. It wasn't the sharp crack of a gunshot or the crunch of a car wreck. It was heavy, a subterranean vibration that made the water in Justin's glass ripple.
Tally flinched, her shoulders hunching toward her ears. "Okay, that one sucked. What was that? A gas leak?"
"Transformer," Justin said automatically. It was the lie he'd told himself a dozen times on the drive down. Every time he saw a flash on the horizon, he'd whispered transformer until the word lost all meaning.
Tally latched onto it like a lifeline. "Right. Obviously. The grid is blowing. That's why the power is wonky. It's probably some cascade failure." She nodded to herself, her logic reassembling. "As long as the lights stay on, we're fine. We have the generator. We're the only ones on the block with the lights on. We're the safest people in Savannah."
Mari nodded, but she didn't look at Tally. Her eyes didn't leave Justin's face. She knew. She had seen the Walmart in Florence. She knew that lights didn't make you safe; they made you a beacon.
Justin stood up, his joints popping from hours of being coiled tight. He moved to the living room window, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He reached for the heavy curtain, hesitating for a second before lifting the edge just a fraction of an inch. He avoided looking down at the porch. He didn't want to see the smear of red on the door handle. He didn't want to see the empty car in the cul-de-sac.
He looked up.
"What do you see?" Tally asked from the kitchen. Her voice was smaller now, the bravado slipping.
"Smoke," he said. "Far off. Past the treeline."
"Downtown?"
"Probably. Maybe the docks."
He watched the smoke. It wasn't the white, wispy smoke of a chimney. It was thick, oily, and black, billowing up into the clear blue December sky. It looked like a bruise on the horizon.
Tally accepted it. Not because she believed the "transformer" story anymore, but because she needed the world to stay small. If the trouble was "downtown," it wasn't in their kitchen. If it was "at the docks," it wasn't on their porch.
"Let's turn the TV on," Tally said suddenly. She stood up, her chair screeching against the tile. "If we're stuck in here like we're under house arrest, I want to know why. I want to see the news. I want to see a guy in a suit telling me they're working on the lines."
Justin hesitated. The last thing he wanted was for Tally to see the unfiltered reality of what was happening. He'd seen a glimpse of a TV in a gas station in Virginia—it had been a nightmare of blurred motion and screaming. But he also knew that if he refused, Tally would spiral. She needed a screen. She was a child of the 2020s; if it wasn't on a screen, it wasn't real.
"Yeah," Justin said, dropping the curtain. "Yeah, okay. Let's see what they're saying."
They moved into the living room. The generator's hum followed them, a low-frequency anxiety. Justin grabbed the remote with hands that stayed steady through muscle memory alone. He hit the power button.
The 65-inch OLED screen flickered to life. It felt blindingly bright in the darkened room. For a moment, there was only static—a grey, hissing snow that made Tally groan.
"See? The cable is out. This is literally the Middle Ages."
Then, the snow cleared. The signal was weak, ghosting at the edges, but a picture formed. It was a local news affiliate. The "Breaking News" banner was a jagged, static-filled red.
The anchor appeared. She wasn't the polished, smiling woman Tally usually saw in the mornings. Her hair was disheveled, her makeup was smeared under her eyes, and she wasn't looking at the camera. She was looking at someone off-screen, her lips moving in a silent, frantic conversation.
"…widespread disturbances," the anchor finally said, her voice cracking. She looked back at the lens, and the terror in her eyes was so raw that Tally actually took a half-step back. "Residents in the Savannah metro area and surrounding counties are urged—urged—to remain indoors. Secure all entries. Do not, under any circumstances, approach individuals who appear disoriented or... or violent."
Tally scoffed, but it was a weak sound. "That's vague. 'Violent individuals.' You mean protesters? Is it a riot?"
The footage cut away from the studio. It was a cell phone feed, shaky and vertical. Justin recognized the street immediately—it was Broughton Street, the heart of the shopping district. Only, the shops weren't open. The windows of the high-end boutiques were shattered.
Cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, doors swung wide. A thick, low-hanging smoke drifted between the buildings like a ground fog. People were running—not together, but in chaotic, zig-zagging directions that didn't make sense.
Someone fell in the middle of the street.
The person running behind them didn't stop to help. They didn't even jump over them. They just... kept going.
Mari inhaled sharply, her hand tightening around her cold mug so hard the ceramic groaned.
The feed glitched, the digital artifacts tearing the image into blocks of purple and green.
"Violent incidents have been reported at Memorial Health and St. Joseph's," the anchor's voice returned, now over a map of the city that was covered in blinking red icons. "Emergency services are currently overwhelmed. We are receiving reports of... of unprovoked physical assaults."
The screen went black for three seconds.
"That's fake," Tally said immediately. Her voice was a whisper. "It's a hack. Like that War of the Worlds thing. Some TikTok prank."
Justin shook his head. "It's live, Tally."
The broadcast returned, but the studio was gone. It was a field reporter now, standing on what looked like the overpass of I-16. Behind him, the traffic was backed up for miles, a river of red taillights that wasn't moving.
"—attacking without provocation—" the reporter shouted. He was looking over his shoulder, his eyes wide. The camera tilted, showing a group of figures moving up the embankment. They weren't running. They were shambling, their movements heavy and stiff, like they were fighting against their own muscles.
Something slammed into the reporter from off-screen. A blur of grey and red.
He didn't have time to scream. The camera hit the ground, the lens cracking. For five agonizing seconds, the world saw only a close-up of the asphalt and a pair of legs being dragged backward.
Then, the feed cut to a blue screen.
The generator hummed.
"No," Tally said, her voice shaking. "No, no, no. That's not real. That's a movie. That's a promotion for a show."
Justin stepped in front of her, physically blocking the black screen. "Don't watch anymore, Tally. Just look at me."
Another siren screamed outside. It was closer this time. Much closer. It sounded like it was at the end of their driveway.
Tally's voice wavered, the mask finally cracking. "Justin… what is happening? Why aren't Mom and Dad home? If this is real, why aren't they here?"
Justin didn't answer right away. He was listening—to the generator, to the distant thuds, to the way Mari's breathing had gone shallow and ragged. He was thinking about the "line" he'd crossed in North Carolina. He was thinking about the guy on the highway divider.
The TV flickered again, a bright, solid red filling the room.
A white banner scrolled across the bottom in a relentless loop.
EMERGENCY ALERT: CIVIL UNREST. SHELTER IN PLACE. AVOID ALL CONTACT. DO NOT OPEN DOORS TO STRANGERS.
Tally stared at the words, her eyes tracking them back and forth. "Avoid contact with who? Who are they talking about?"
Justin reached out and turned the TV off. The sudden quiet was worse than the screaming on the news. It left a vacuum that the house seemed to fill with its own groans and creaks.
"We stay inside," Justin said, his voice taking on the hard, flat tone of their father. "Doors locked. Windows covered. We don't look out, and we don't let anyone in. No exceptions."
"You don't get to just decide that!" Tally snapped, her fear turning back into anger. It was her only defense. "This is my house too! We should be going to the base. If Dad is there, we should be going to him!"
"We can't," Justin said calmly. "The roads are a parking lot, Tally. Did you see the news? If we get stuck in the car, we're sitting ducks."
"Sitting ducks for what?"
"For whatever did that to the reporter," Mari said softly.
Tally looked at her, then back at Justin. She scoffed, a wet, jagged sound, and dropped into an armchair, pulling her knees up to her chest. "You're both being dramatic. It's a riot. It'll be over by tonight. The Guard will come in, tear gas everyone, and we'll be back at school on Thursday."
But her hands were shaking. She tucked them under her armpits to hide it, but Justin saw.
He watched her, feeling the familiar, heavy pull of protectiveness settle into his chest. His sister could be awful. She could be sharp, entitled, and cruel when she felt cornered. She was a product of a world that told her she was the center of the universe.
But she was his.
"I've got you," he said quietly, stepping closer to the chair.
She didn't look at him, but she didn't argue either. She just stared at the blank TV screen, her reflection a pale ghost in the glass.
Outside, something moved.
It wasn't a car. It was the sound of something dragging—a heavy, rhythmic scuffing on the asphalt of the cul-de-sac. It was too far away to see clearly through the gaps in the curtains, but close enough to feel in the soles of their feet.
Inside, the generator hummed.
The lights stayed on.
And Justin knew he would keep lying if he had to. He'd lie about the blood on the door handle. He'd lie about why he'd really chosen to drive to Savannah instead of staying in the fortified dorms at Penn State. He'd lie about the fact that he'd seen a military convoy heading north while he was heading south.
Not yet. He wouldn't tell her the truth yet.
Not while the fear was still this raw.
Not while the lights still worked.
"Justin," Mari whispered from the kitchen.
He turned. She was standing by the sink, pointing at the small window above the faucet—the only one they hadn't covered yet.
"What?"
"The neighbor," Mari said, her voice trembling. "Mr. Henderson. He's... he's standing in his front yard."
Justin moved to the kitchen, Tally trailing behind him like a shadow. They crowded around the sink, looking out at the house across the street.
Mr. Henderson was seventy. He was a retired accountant who spent every Tuesday morning meticulously edging his driveway. He was there now, standing in the center of his perfectly manicured lawn.
He wasn't moving. He was just standing, his arms hanging limp at his sides, his head tilted back so far it looked like his neck was broken. He was staring straight up at the midday sun, his mouth open in a silent O.
"Is he... having a stroke?" Tally whispered, her face pressed against the glass. "Justin, we have to help him."
"Wait," Justin said, grabbing her arm.
Mr. Henderson shifted. It wasn't a normal movement. It was a violent, full-body shudder that started at his feet and traveled up his spine. He snapped his head down, looking directly at their house.
Even from across the street, Justin could see it. Mr. Henderson's eyes weren't white anymore. They were a dark, bruised purple, the capillaries having burst until the iris was gone. And he wasn't looking at the house. He was looking at the light.
The generator-powered light in the kitchen.
"Get down," Justin hissed, shoving Tally and Mari toward the floor.
"What? Why?" Tally gasped.
"He saw us," Justin said, his heart hammering against his teeth.
"He's just an old man!"
"Tally," Justin said, his voice shaking for the first time. "He's not an old man anymore. Look at his hands."
Tally stole one more glance over the windowsill. Mr. Henderson was moving now. He was walking toward their house, his gait heavy and uneven. And his hands—the hands that used to prune roses—were stained dark, dripping something thick and black onto his pristine white polo shirt.
He wasn't walking like a man. He was walking like a hunter who had finally found a scent.
The generator hummed.
The lights stayed on.
But for the first time, the light felt like a trap.
"Turn it off," Mari whispered. "Justin, turn the lights off."
Justin reached for the switch, but his hand froze. If he turned the lights off, they would be in total darkness. They would be alone in the black with whatever Mr. Henderson had become.
The first thud hit the side of the house.
Not the door. The wall. Like something had simply walked into the brick and didn't know how to stop.
"Justin," Tally sobbed, clutching his hoodie.
"Quiet," he whispered.
They sat on the kitchen floor, huddled together in the artificial glow, as the thuds became more frequent. The thing outside was circling the house, dragging its hands along the siding, looking for the source of the hum.
The world was ending at 11:52 AM on a Tuesday.
And the lights were still on.