Certain.
“Okay?” Fiona added.
Lily’s chin dipped in a rapid nod, her throat working hard to swallow. “Okay.”
The siren outside wailed louder, or maybe the silence between its pulses just thinned into something suffocating. Through the boards nailed over the living room windows, I caught fragments of sound between the alarm’s screams. Groaning. Low and guttural. Noise drew them—mindless.
That’s the point. That’s the whole point. Let them come to the sound.
Boots on the main stairs now.
Fast.
Each impact reverberated through the old house, shaking dust loose from the ceiling.
Five steps.
The fourth one creaked.
The third.
I stood at the front door, fingers hovering over the last lock. My hand wouldn’t move. I’d turned this same lock ten thousand times: coming home from work, from the grocery store, from picking Lily up at school.
“Wait,” Fiona whispered behind me.
We froze.
All three of us. Statues in the dim hallway, totes clutched to our chests, the frying pans stuffed awkwardly into the tops of our bags. The siren screamed outside. The groaning swelled. Finnflew down the stairs, body angled low. I pulled the door open quickly as he moved out onto the stoop.
And then he stopped.
Turned.
Looked at me.
One second. Maybe two. His eyes held mine with an intensity that said everything his mouth wouldn’t. Not in front of the girls. Not right now.
I’ll come back.
I didn’t say anything. I just held his gaze until he looked away.
He nodded once. Then he was gone.
I pressed both hands flat against the front door and stood there, forehead nearly touching the wood, breathing in shallow hitches I couldn’t seem to deepen.
He’s out there.
Alone.
Surrounded.
The siren screamed on.
Through the boarded windows, I could hear them—the shuffling, the groaning, the constant grotesque sounds of bodies that didn’t work right anymore trying to move toward noise.
One of them scraped along the exterior wall.
I heard it clearly. Not searching. Not intentional. Just the incidental contact of a body shambling past, shoulder grinding against the house as it followed the siren’s call.
