Part One
From the deck of the lake house, the water is an undulating shadowy mass at night, slapping rhythmically against the wood piers. I inhale the vapor from my e-cigarette, enjoying the peacefulness of my surroundings, although my fingers are going numb with cold.
The sliding glass door opens and closes, and I know who it is without turning around.
“I think it might rain,” Emile says.
“You think?”
“The air has that fresh, damp smell.”
“Well, we are on a lake.”
I turn to face him. Emile grins, brown eyes turned black in the weak glow emanating from the windows. The light chases the darkness several feet to the railing, where it fades into a hazy murk.
He hands me a shot glass with clear liquid.
“Vodka?”
“Gin.”
We exchange vices, and he takes a drag off the vape. “Mm, peppery.”
“It’s just tobacco.”
Our eyes lock briefly before I raise my glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers to you, Sarah Miller,” he says, releasing the vapor. It clouds his face, and I take a sip from my glass. My eyes drift to the scene inside. Kate leans against the dining room table, head tipped back as she roars with laughter. Toby is telling a joke, no doubt. He’s the funny one in our crew. The others are gathered around, amused smiles wreathing their faces.
“How long are you here for?” Emile asks.
“A week.” I focus back on him, catching the disappointment that flits across his handsome features. There’s no reason to stay longer; get attached again. He has a girlfriend. Camille. I’ve seen the pictures on Instagram. She’s a dark-haired beauty, a fashion influencer. She looks like she can be his sister.
Emile, Camille.
I mouth the names.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Kate says you’re renting your old house for the week.”
“Yeah. Crazy, isn’t it? I found it on Airbnb.”
“What’s that like?”
I shrug. I haven’t had a chance to figure out how I feel, and the subject is too close to another subject I don’t want to discuss. Emile reads me perfectly and lets it drop. “Anyway, we’re glad you could make it out.”
I finish my shot, the liquor warming my throat and chest. “Me too.”
He hands me back my e-cig, and I take one more drag before we head back inside, the cold billowing off our clothes and hair in the toasty warmth of the house. Kate made a fire. It roars and crackles, throwing off enough heat that I remove my sweater and hang it on the coat hook. Underneath, I’m wearing an indigo floral long-sleeved mesh top, the neckline hinting at cleavage but never really getting there. I wore it for Emile. Even though I know nothing will happen between us, I still want him to desire me. His eyes linger on my chest, and then I am suddenly swallowed up in Candace’s embrace, her lips smacking my cheek.
“We’re so glad you’re here, Sarah,” she croons in her subtle British accent that she picked up from her English mother. I return her kiss, basking in the affection of long-time friends I haven’t seen in two years, people I’ve known my whole life. There are seven of us at the get-together who are tight, and a handful of others I don’t know. Emile’s girlfriend, Camille, won’t arrive for another few days. She’s got work deadlines in the city. My eyes scan the crowd as Candace, and I walk arm-in-arm deeper into the living room. Everyone’s in muted colors, beige, grey, and black—quiet luxury––the new fashion trend. The look is maturing, and I realize we’ve morphed into our parents. The thought stings because mine are dead. In another few years, some of us will get married and start our own families. My throat tightens as I think about a future wedding that my parents will not attend and a child who will never meet their grandparents. I will never get to call my mother and ask her advice. My future child or children won’t ever have the chance to hear one of my dad’s long, fantastic stories featuring tales of his sailing days. I’d been close with my parents, never going through the teenage rebellion phase. I didn’t understand why kids got so hateful or wanted to put hundreds of miles between them and their parents. Mine were my best friends. It was ironic they were gone, their lives snuffed out in an instant by a drunk driver, yet my friends, who complained non-stop about their moms and dads, still had parents. Kate voiced my private thoughts just once after having an explosive argument with her mother. Later, she apologized for bringing me and my dead parents into her upset, saying it was inconsiderate.
It was.
After my parent’s death, interactions with friends became stilted. I’d morphed from the friend to envy to the one to pity.
Two years of my absence had returned us to some semblance of who we were together before the tragedy blindsided my life. There were other things to talk about. California, my new job as a junior editor at Toast, a fashion magazine. A lucky break for someone my age. I’m the first in our group to have a grown-up job.
“Alright, who wants to roast a sausage?” Kate calls out, emerging from the kitchen, carrying several varieties of sausages in their packaging. Toby and Victor follow on her heels with paper plates and beer.
Everyone has crowded around the stone mantle of the fireplace. I pour myself a shot of whiskey before joining my friends by the fire. Victor thrusts a plate with sausage into my hand and runs his fingers over my arm, feeling the fabric of my top. “Love this,” he mouths.
The conversation has shifted to the familiar everyday life of living in Hollow Hills. Everyone is still at home and enrolled at various New York Suni and Cuni Colleges.
Kate’s gaze zeroes in on my glass. “Ooh, whiskey. That’s what I need.”
“Want me to pour you a shot?” I offer.
“No. Here, sit.” Kate pats the sofa next to her, and I do as instructed. She places her head on my shoulder and sighs contentedly. “It’s perfect having you here. It would be more perfect if it weren’t finals.”
“It’s all I could swing, ding-a-ling.” I swat at her fine blond hair and she puffs out her bottom lip, then pops up and waltzes herself to the kitchen.
“Are you sure you need another drink?” Candace calls out, cupping her hands around her mouth like she’s yelling from a great distance. Kate ignores her. It’s Kate’s house. Her parents have gone to Europe. They’ll return a week before Christmas. I’m familiar with every nook and cranny of the place: the L-shaped kitchen and crowded counters with too many baking and cooking appliances, the vanity cabinet painted egg-yolk yellow and filled with glass jars of dried herbs. Woven tapestries featuring medieval knights and princesses hang on the walls in the living room, houseplants live in every corner of every room, and family pictures line the walls along the staircase.
I used to spend regular weekends during the school year at Kate’s, and in the summer, it was not uncommon for my visits to extend into a week or two, one day blending into the next. We would stay up until two in the morning watching movies, looking at Instagram, gossiping, and doing our nails while gorging ourselves on breakfast cereal or endless slices of toast, and then sleep until one in the afternoon. Her dad used to call us vampires and make the sign of the cross while hissing when we crossed his path. Kate would roll her eyes and call him a dweeb. The house has a turret where her family keeps a small library. It’s a cozy nook of a room with a breathtaking view of the lake. It was where we spent the bulk of our time during the winter. In the summer, we swam for hours and rested on the wooden deck chairs, napping and talking to friends on social media. For much of my adolescence, this house was a home away from home.
I stay another hour, begging off that I’m tired and should get going. Everyone groans at my announcement.
“Sarah,” Candace whines. “It’s only…” she picks up her phone, frowning at the screen. “Midnight? How the fuck did that happen?”
I raise an eyebrow. “See, it’s late.”
“You okay to drive home?” Emile asks, worry crinkling his forehead.
“No, she’s not,” Kate answers for me. “Emile, drive her home. You can pick up your car tomorrow,” she says to me.
“And how will I get it?”
“I can bring you back out,” Emile volunteers.
“Duh,” Kate replies and rolls her eyes, then beams me a smile and kisses the air in my direction. “You can have coffee with me in the morning.”
“If she’s awake,” Toby says of Kate, who shoots him a dark look. “In fact, we’re not so sure what happens to Kate when she sleeps,” he continues with a snide grin, “Rousing a coma patient is easier than trying to wake Kate.”
“Har, har,” Kate quips and strings her arm through mine, whispering in my ear, “Enjoy, Emile. I meant his girlfriend. I don’t think their situationship will last long.”
“I’m not quite sure which of us is more wasted,” I reply dryly. She winks and gives me a fierce hug. The others get up to hug me out the door, and soon Emile and I are walking up the path from the Turlingtons’ lakehouse to the driveway and a little further up the road where he’s parked his car.
“Just a quick warning, my car’s kind of a mess,” he says.
“Everyone’s car is a mess,” I say, glancing at him, my stomach twisting with attraction as I take in his Roman nose and square jaw. Dark hair poking out of his knit cap.
It’s an eight-minute drive to my house. Emile parks on the curb, and we sit silently for a minute, staring at the colonial, thinking our thoughts.
“Are you going to go back?” I ask, breaking the quiet.
“Nah. Things are petering out over there anyway.”
I nod, and he places his hand over mine. It feels warm against my frozen fingers, which have yet to thaw in the heated car.
“I’m really happy you came back, Sarah,” he says.
I allow myself to meet his dark gaze, my throat tightening with too many emotions. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He pulls his hand away, and I open the door.
“Thanks for the ride.”
He gives me a salute and grins but doesn’t turn over the engine. He won’t leave until he knows I’m safely inside. It’s like it always was between us, except not.
Inside, a sense of familiarity envelops me as I walk to the kitchen for a drink of water. I turn on the light in the living room and am startled for a moment to see the low sectional navy green sofa, coffee table with ports for plugging in devices, and the Kleins’ pictures hanging on the walls of my childhood home. A clutch of sadness mists my vision as I continue to the kitchen and grab a glass from the cabinet where we used to keep the breakfast cereal and canned food. I drink without pausing for breath and refill my glass, then go upstairs to my bedroom, which now belongs to a child who likes pink and Barbies and writes crookedly on scented stationary paper at a pink desk. I am not sleeping in this room. The bed is too small for me. I’ve taken the parents’ bedroom, my parents’ room. There are four bedrooms. One is locked, where I presume the family’s valuables are kept. It’s an odd setup for an Airbnb. Trusting. It’s like they’re still figuring out how to host.
In the girl’s room, my old room. There’s a loose floorboard in the closet where I stashed a shallow cardboard box filled with sentimental things before I left two years ago. It was as if I were claiming the house and knew I’d be back. I wonder if the box is still there. The closet has a faint scent of nutmeg and bubble gum; the clothes hung neatly, summer wear folded and stacked on a high shelf my father built. I push the clothes aside and step into the narrow space, eyeing the dresser placed against the back of the wall in the corner over the area I mean to search. I grab the lip of the top, pulling. It barely moves. I strain to slide it another inch toward me.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath, righting myself and suddenly too tired to wrestle with a heavy piece of furniture. I close the closet, sit on the pink polyester quilt covering the twin bed, and gaze around the room, eyes growing heavy. Plumping the pillow, I lie back, burying my head in the downy softness, the alcohol, and the late hour catching up with me. An old-fashioned digital clock on the nightstand reads twelve forty. I turn off the lamp and stare into the darkness. A faint light from the neighbor’s porch filters through the partially opened blinds, turning the furniture into shadowy shapes. The stillness feels like it’s stalking me, and a vague sense of unease creeps under my skin as overwhelming fatigue competes with the fear that I’m clearly manufacturing in my intoxicated brain.
As a child, I was obsessively afraid of ghosts and went to my parents’ bedroom at night, slipping into their bed as unobtrusively as possible. I think of the bed in that room now. Empty. It’s a different bed, of course, but my parents’ essence somehow lingers in the room, in this house, which gives me a sense of dread I try to mentally fight off. The idea of my dead parents as mildly malevolent spirits is unbearable. Throwing the polyester pink Barbie quilt over my head, I squeeze my eyes shut, the stillness pressing down on me. It’s too hot, but I don’t move, forcing myself to think of the benign, last week’s work meeting about upcoming spring apparel. Through my eyelids and from under the blanket, I sense a brightening, a light growing more assertive. I breathe deeply through my nose and out my mouth. I do it again, ignoring the numbness that spreads over my body, fear leaking from my pores…
The ringing vibration from the back pocket of my jeans wakes me—Emile’s name scrolls across my phone screen.
“Hello,” I rasp.
“Did I wake you?”
“Sort of.”
A slight pause. Dull grey light streams through the blinds.
“It’s ten, but if you want to sleep more, I can come by in a few hours.”
“No.” I sit up, rubbing at my face. “No. Give me half an hour.”
“You sure? It’s no rush.”
“Yep.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
I get up and straighten out the rumpled blanket, the faint sounds of sirens in the distance. My head feels thick, and my thoughts slow as I stumble to the ensuite bathroom in the bedroom I should have slept in. There are faint shadows under my eyes and a long imprint of a pillow seam running down the left side of my face. I straightened my hair with a flatiron yesterday, and although rumpled, it still hangs manageably to my shoulders. Tying it up, I quickly brush my teeth with the strange charcoal toothpaste the owners have left in the cabinet because I forgot to pack my own. I then shower, finishing with a blast of cold water. It does the trick of clearing through the fog in my brain.
Rummaging in my suitcase, I retrieve the form-fitting creamy off-white cashmere sweater that a man I slept with from Tinder said hugged my curves in all the right places. I still want to impress Emile. I want to leave him with mental images of my attractiveness when I fly back home. I apply makeup lightly to my brown skin, which still glows from the bike ride between Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach under the California sun only two days ago.
By the time I’m done with the bathroom routine, Emile has arrived. I find a text from him that he’s waiting in his car, and my heart leaps with anticipation that I immediately tamp down, slightly irritated with my infatuation.
Be right out
I text back and then step into the yard to have a vape and savor a sense of false control. The sky is a soupy gray, and a biting wind stings my cheeks as I blow white clouds into the air and take in the wet ground and damp leaves, foretelling the rain Emile spoke of last night. There are more sirens, this time a block away.
“Hey,” someone calls from over the fence line, a middle-aged man with scruffy balding hair in a t-shirt that says Biergarten and shorts that show off surprisingly muscular legs. It’s too cold for shorts and T-shirts, but some people in upstate New York like to show off their toughness. Cold? What cold? I don’t recognize him. He didn’t live next door when this was my house. And now I wonder what became of the Johnsons.
“You see that red light last night?” The man asks, his bushy brows screwed up.
I frown and shake my head no.
“It was bizarre. Lit up the whole sky, and then we had that storm.”
I shrug. “I slept through it.”
He studies me for a moment. “You a friend of the Kleins?”
“No. An Airbnb guest.”
“Oh.” He gives a little nod as if recalling something. “They said they were talking of doing that.” His eyes do that quick flick of interest I get from men, a scan that starts from my face down and back up again. “I’m Barry,” he adds. “We just moved here last year from Syracuse. Where are you visiting from?”
“California,” I reply with a tight smile just as the blare of an emergency vehicle cuts through my words. We both look in the direction of the street.
“Must be a bad accident,” Barry mutters. “Seems there’s been sirens all morning.”
I nod.“Sorry, I’ve got to go. Someone’s waiting for me out front.”
“Have a good one,” he says and bends to fumble with something in the nearby bushes as I turn away.
Emile beams me a smile when I open the car door. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey, yourself,” I reply, trying to play it cool as I slip into the seat and fasten the seatbelt.
“What did you think of that storm last night?” He asks, making a U-turn.
“I was out cold.”
Emile’s eyes slide in my direction. “I forgot how deeply you sleep. Kate’s not the only champion sleeper.” His words hang there, insinuating other things.
“The neighbor brought up the storm, too. He said the sky lit up red?” I say, skirting his comment about my deep sleeping. It’s too close to the subject of our past relationship, a time when the world made sense. Every day, I struggle to squeeze meaning out of the gaping loss that is life without my parents.
“It started out orange like a sunrise without the sun. The color expanded across the sky into a light saffron hue, and then it grew darker until everything was bathed in this deep orange-red like a cheap stripper club.”
“What do you know of stripper clubs?”
Emile flashes me a smile, “Plenty. I’ve got my fireman suit hanging in the closet.” His smile twitches, and I laugh.
“So, how long did the red light last?”
“I don’t know. It was eerie because right before, there was this heavy stillness.”
“It usually gets still before a storm.”
Emile doesn’t affirm or negate what I say; he falls quiet, and I focus on the scenery out the window, the long stretches of fields with frost-covered grass that shimmers under the gray sky. A murder of crows swoops through the sky, their behavior erratic, the beat of their wings clumsy, as if they’re all hopelessly drunk.
“Look at those birds. Is that normal?” I glance at Emile.
He frowns, squinting. “Not really. No.”
A fire truck barrels toward us at full speed, the siren screeching out its warning. Emile pulls to the side and waits for it to go by.
“That’s the fifth firetruck I’ve seen since I came out to get you,” he says.
I pull out my phone and Google Hollow Hills. There are some videos of the sky last night. It’s blood red, everything bathed in the thick, viscous color.
“It’s so creepy,” one young woman comments in one of the videos, the effect on her skin giving it an odd filmy quality.
“Oh my god, come inside,” her friend says off-camera. “This is freaking me out.”
“What the hell,” I mutter. “That’s so bizarre. Is this what you saw?”
“Yeah,” Emile says softly. “It was like, this heaviness. I never went outside but could feel it seeping into the house.”
My throat constricts as a vague memory of the same sensation I experienced last night comes to mind.
I can’t find anything else about Hollow Hills that explains all the fire trucks rushing toward downtown. I click my phone off and resume staring out the window.
“What are your plans for the day?” Emile asks.
I glance at him. He looks like he’s focusing hard on the road, and it makes me smile inside because I know the question is his way of saying he wants to spend time with me without quite coming out and saying it.
“No plans.”
“Gonna hang at Kate’s?”
“Yeah. Maybe go out for breakfast. My stomach’s eating itself. I haven’t even had coffee.”
“I told you to take your time.”
“I know.”
We grin at each other, falling back into the ease of who we are together.
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you run into Noah Centineo out there in LA?”
Emile is teasing me. Noah Centineo was my teen celeb crush.
“I saw him at Trader Joe’s in Brentwood. He was totally checking me out.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. After I left the store, he stalked me to my car and asked me out.”
Emile tears his eyes away from the road to stare at me, then throws his head back and laughs when he catches my smirk. “You got me.”
“I know. So easy. Like taking candy from a baby.”
Kate doesn’t come to the door when we knock, but Candace does, sleepy-eyed and wearing a flannel pajama top and joggers. “Hey,” she says, giving us a tired smile and stepping aside to let us in.
“I take it Kate’s still asleep,” Emile says.
Candace rolls her eyes and pads barefoot over the blond wood floor to the living room, curling up with a fuzzy beige throw blanket on an oversized plush floral-print chair. “We didn’t actually get to bed until like two. After you left, things got nuts.”
My ears perk up as Emile and I make ourselves comfortable on the sofa.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The question is, what didn’t happen? First, you know that woman who lives next door, Lydie?”
Emile and I both nod our heads. Lydie is a champion complainer, the bane of the Turlingtons’ existence. She’s made a lot of demands and unreasonable requests over the years.
Candace rolls her eyes again. “She bloody called the police on us, like literally two minutes after you left. Complained we were making too much noise when we went out to the deck to drink coffee and talk. Stupid old cunt,” Candace mutters. “The police ended up looking at all our IDs and giving us fucking breathalizers. We were ticketed for underage drinking, and Kate’s parents are going to get a citation for “allowing it,” Candace makes air quotes “in their home even though they’re away in Europe, Kate tried to explain. One of the cops had all the charm of a brick. He told her they’d have to take it up in court. Pathetic. I mean, twenty-year-olds in a private residence. Come on!”
I thought about everyone who had been at the party last night. All of our friends, except Toby, would have received a ticket. Toby’s birthday was in August. The rest of us would be turning twenty-one within a matter of months.
“That’s fucked,” Emile says.
“Right?” Candace shakes her head. “I’m going to brush my teeth and then put on a pot of coffee.”
“I can do it,” I volunteer,” my stomach grumbling.
“Brilliant. Be back in three winks,” Candace says breezily. She starts to walk away and pauses. “Oh, and then there was that weird thing that happened with the sky and the storm,” she waits for us to agree.
“I slept through it.”
“You slept through that thing?” She asks, eyes widening in a way that reminds me of years ago when we weren’t friends and Candace used to bully me. “I know you sleep deeply, but fuck me, the heavens literally opened up. The rain poured out of the sky in biblical proportions. Luckily, it only lasted for ten minutes. An hour of that kind of rain would have brought the lake straight into the house.”
My gaze drifts toward the double glass doors and the wooden deck outfitted with potted plants and cozy outdoor furniture. It rests over Walker’s Lake, the water silvery and smooth under a gray winter sky. The lake appears placid and calm at the moment, giving off a peaceful aura of tranquility.
I get started on the coffee, Emile shadowing the entrance between the kitchen and living room. I pretend I don’t notice him studying me as I feel the canister with water.
“I like your hair like that,” he says.
“Better than my curls?” I pour coffee grounds into the cob and lower the lid, turning to face him.
“You know I like both,” he says softly, flirtatiously.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear for something to do.
“So, I wonder what Kate has to eat around here,” Emile says, breaking the spell. He opens the fridge and pulls out a plastic package of something, flashing me a grin. It’s cinnamon rolls. My stomach gurgles again, with the percolator going into action as it bubbles and hisses.
“Perfect.” I take the package from his hand. “I’ll put some of these on a plate and pop them in the microwave. They’ll be divine.”
Above us are the sounds of Candace moving around upstairs. We hear her knock on Kate’s door and muffled talking.
Emile’s phone pings, and he reads the message as I pull the cinnamon rolls off their cardboard backing and pile them onto a plate. I place the rolls in the microwave, and Emile sits at the table, tapping back a reply to whoever he’s talking to. He runs a hand through his hair and glances up, a look of bafflement in his dark eyes.
“What?”
“It’s Camille.”
My stomach sinks at the sound of her name.
“She wanted to know if I was alright. She says Hollow Hills has been put on emergency lockdown, and the governor has called out the National Guard.”
“What?” I repeat.
At that moment, our phones go off, the shrill emergency alarm seemingly bouncing off the walls.
This is an Emergency Alert From The Hollow Hills Sheriff’s Department. LOCKDOWN in effect. Please remain indoors immediately. Secure all doors and windows. Avoid public spaces. Await further instructions. Follow local news and official channels for updates. Stay safe and stay informed.
The announcement scrolls across the screen for thirty seconds, and then our phones go quiet.
Candace comes back downstairs, brow furrowed. “What the hell was that?”
“Our phones. Hollow Hills is under lockdown. We’re supposed to lock all doors and secure windows.”
“What’s the emergency?”
“I don’t know.”
Worry flits across her face. She looks over her shoulder at the sliding glass doors leading out to the deck before crossing the room to lock them.
“Is Kate coming down?” I ask.
“She said she was getting up,” Candace says.
“I’m up,” Kate’s voice precedes her.
I check the rolls. They’re piping hot and gooey, but some of my appetite has dissipated.
“Christ, you look like shit,” Candace says. I turn around and almost drop the plate. Kate’s eyes are bloodshot, the skin along the lower rims swollen as if a grain of puffed rice had been inserted into each lid. Her face is pale, but her cheeks are blotchy with color.
She flips Candace off and continues down the stairs. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Do you think you’re having an allergic reaction to something?” I ask.
“Probably. I feel like roadkill right now. I think I might go to one of those little emergency clinics.” Kate’s voice isn’t her own; it’s husky and gravelly sounding.
“You might have to hold out on that,” Emile says, grimacing to look at her. “The county just sent an emergency warning not to go outside.”
Kate’s brows jump. “Why? What’s happened?”
“I don’t know.”
A sharp silence of unease falls between us, and Candace pulls out her phone just as Emile makes a call on his.
“Hey, Dad,” Emile says. “I got a text from Camille that the National Guard was dispatched to Hollow Hills?… Uh-huh.”
Candace looks up from her phone, and we focus on his conversation. Emile’s eyes flick in Kate’s direction. “Possibly,” he says, lips thinning, brows squeezed together so tight the skin between them puckers into a hard ridge. He walks toward the glass doors and reaches for the handle, then, realizing he shouldn’t go out, walks to a corner of the room, lowering his voice to a mutter, and I can’t tell what he’s saying anymore.
Something loud slams against the window behind me, and I jump, as do Candace and Kate.
“What the hell was that?” I ask.
“A bird,” Candace says and walks over to peer out. “Hey, isn’t that Lydie from next door?”
I follow Candace’s gaze to the yard next door, only separated by an embankment covered with brambles and overgrown grass. An old woman is stumbling about in her nightgown.
“What’s she doing?” I ask. The crows Emile and I saw earlier come to mind.
Kate comes to look, too. “I’ll go see if she needs help. Lydie’s a pain, but she is old and doesn’t have anyone.”
“I’ll go with you,” I volunteer, following on my friend’s heels as she heads for the front door.
“Don’t go out!” Emile shouts.
The desperation in his voice freezes us in our tracks. Kate turns around, her left eye weepy.
“Kate, you’ve got to quarantine yourself from the rest of us.”
“What? Why?”
“Yeah, why?” Candace echoes, clutching her phone tight in her hand.
“Something is going around making people sick, and it causes them to get violent.”
Kate rubs at her eye, smearing the moisture. A long, slick strand of mucus stretches from her eye to her fingers when she pulls her hand away. She frowns at this and says, “I think I should see a doctor.”
“We need to stay inside,” Emile reiterates.
“What about Lydie?”
We all peer out the window, watching the older woman and her strange behavior.
“I don’t know,” Emile mutters.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Kate snaps. “Lydie’s a pain, but we can’t leave her wandering about in a demented state. Look at her, she’s confused.”
“I’ll help her,” Emile consoles, taking Kate’s arm and leading her back to the stairs, but she snatches her arm out of his grip.
“I can walk myself.” She wipes at her eye again, making the mucus worse, and her mouth turns down, chin trembling. “I’ll call the doctor. Maybe they can do telehealth.”
I want to put my arms around her and comfort her. Emile seems to read my mind and shakes his head no as Kate continues to the stairs. He dashes to the laundry room, grabs a bucket, and jogs after her. The fact that he’s rushing makes me nervous.
Candace begins to tap quickly at her phone, and I move closer to her as she pulls up the first headline. Rabies. She scrolls past the beginning of the article and opens a video of a man running from a raccoon and another of a squirrel attacking a toddler in its stroller, the mother screaming and fighting with the animal. There’s yet another video of a man slamming his fist into the window of a car as it peels away. His arm becomes trapped, the vehicle dragging him for several yards before he falls away, apparently dead. Miraculously, after several seconds, he pulls himself up from the pavement to a standing position, half his face scraped away.
“Shit,” Candace hisses. “We should warn that old bat to get back into her house before she gets hurt.” Candace opens the window. “Lydie!” She yells. Lydie doesn’t seem to hear her. She’s walking in circles. “Lydie!” Candace yells again. Lydie finally turns toward us, and the blood drains from my head. Her face is bloated and red, eyes oozy, spittal foaming at the corners of her mouth. When she notices us, she begins to charge in our direction, nightgown fluttering around spindly white legs that move alarmingly fast. Candace closes the window, a wheeze of breath whistling out her nostrils. Closer, still, Lydie’s mouth chomps open and closed, the foam dripping down her chin.
“Get down,” Candace hisses, ducking out of sight and pulling me with her. We wait for the sound of Lydie Benson throwing herself against the window, possibly breaking the glass and getting inside. My eyes rake the kitchen for weapons. There’s plenty: cast iron pans and a bloc of sharp knives. I brace myself, waiting to spring into action. Instead, the sound of a dog growling deep in its throat lifts the hair on my arms. The growl gives way to a snarl followed by blood-curdling screams. Trembling, Candace calls 911, but all we get is a steady beeping sound. She ends the call. “What the hell is that?”
“A busy signal.”
“Busy signal,” she mutters and tries again—the same thing.
Emile races down the stairs, followed by Kate. They take in the two of us crouched on the floor, and then their eyes shift to the window, and Kate’s hand flies to her mouth, where it hovers as the sounds of something eating something else continue unabated. “Oh my god,” she gasps. “Oh my god. It’s killing her! The dog is killing her!” The sound of a death rattle punctuates Kate’s words, and she gags into her hand.
Emile, his face white, steps in front of her to block her view. “Don’t look out there.”
“We tried to call 911. But we couldn’t get through,” Candace says in a hushed voice.
Kate slowly pulls her hand away from her mouth. A thick snail slime of blood oozes out one of her nostrils.
“You’re bleeding,” Emile whispers.
Kate touches the blood and examines her smeared fingers, a look of horror and intense fear flattening out her features. Rising to a standing position, I locate the paper towels while avoiding looking out the window, trying to ignore the gruesome sounds that continue. Tearing off several sheets from a roll on the holster, I hand them to Kate, who presses the bundle of paper against her nose while tipping her head back. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” she says weakly.
“We’re going to locate a doctor and have them take a look at you,” Emile says in a new, authoritative voice tinged with compassion. “But, Kate, this is for yours and our good. I need you to stay in your room.”
She nods, choking back a cry.
“I put the bucket next to your bed in case you get sick,” Emile continues. “I can bring up some water, too, or coffee.”
“That dog,” Kate says hollowly.
Emile tugs at her arm, leading her away for the second time. “Can you bring up some water and coffee?” He asks, the question directed at both Candace and me.
The gray overcast has dissipated, and sunlight spears the kitchen, cleaving Kate’s body in natural and artificial light. The sun highlights the brittleness of her hair and the sudden sparseness. I can see straight to her scalp. Candace rises unsteadily to her feet.
“I’ll bring up some liquids,” she says in a subdued tone.
My phone rings, and several text messages shoot through at once. It’s my aunt, Debbie, calling, a text from my Uncle, Mike, asking if I’m okay, a text from Fiona at work that reads,
Holy Fuck, Sarah. Please tell me you’re okay.
Another text from the people who bought my house asks the same thing.
I answer the phone. “Hello?”
“Oh, Sarah, thank god. I’m worried sick. How are you? What’s going on out there?”
“I…I don’t know,” I gasp. “Something awful has just happened.”
“What? What happened?”
For a moment, I can’t speak, the horror of Lydie Benson’s death swelling my throat. My words are a garbled sob. “Kate’s neighbor. A dog…I think it killed her.”
“You’re at Kate’s right now?”
Did she not just hear what I told her about the dog?
“Sarah, did you go out last night when the sky turned red?”
Her question takes a moment to register. “No. I slept through the whole thing. My friends were talking about it this morning––”
“Good! That’s good. Thank god you slept through it. Are you following the news?”
“There was an article about rabies. An emergency alert was sent out to stay inside.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Kate, Emile, and Candace, but Kate’s sick.”
There is a sharp intake of breath. “Sick, how?”
“She looks like she’s suffering an allergic reaction to something. Her face is all blotchy, and her eyes are red and kind of swollen and runny. A minute ago, she had a nosebleed.”
My aunt starts to speak, but several helicopters fly overhead. They are so low that the whir of their blades drown out her voice.
“What?” I yell.
“You need to get out of that house! Do not take Kate with you.”
“But, she’s sick and frightened. We can’t just bail and leave her here alone.”
“Sarah, listen to me. You, Candace, and Emile must leave that house and get somewhere safe.”
“What about Kate? What’s wrong with her?”
“Honey, this is hard to hear, but you can’t help Kate. You need to get away from her and fast.”
The cry that erupts from my throat is more like a seal bark. Kate is my dearest friend. I can feel Candace’s stare boring through me, but I can’t bear to meet her gaze.
“Sarah!” Aunt Debbie speaks sharply. “You and your friends don’t have a lot of time. Grab whatever you can use as a weapon and sprint to the car. Do not linger outside.”
“Um–”
“Sarah. Do it now.”
“Okay,” I say, just to get off the phone and allow myself to digest her words.
Candace is back on her phone, mouth turned down hard. “Fuck,” she says after some long seconds. “Bloody, fucking fuck.” She glances up at me, eyes glimmering with tears. “I told her not to go out there. I could feel there was something evil in the air.”
“What was it? What did you read?”
Emile returns before Candace can answer, talking as he grabs knives out of the butcher block. “I told Kate we were leaving and that she should stay in her room and keep trying the doctor, that I would check in with her once we get to your house.”
“Why Sarah’s place? Shouldn’t we go to your house?” Candace asks. Her parents are in Bathe at a silent meditation retreat.
Emile looks tortured. “My dad says not to come home. Mom’s sick, and he’s beginning not to feel well.”
“Oh,” Candace says softly, and I reach out to lay a hand on his arm.
“My mom went out on the balcony off their room. She wanted to get pictures. While she was outside, she left the door open, and my dad was exposed.”
He clasps his hand over mine, squeezing my fingers a little too hard, and gives me one of the knives. Another text arrives on my phone, it’s from Kate.
There’s a baseball bat in my dad’s trophy case in his office. You should take that.
I relay the message, and Emile leaves to retrieve the bat.
“I think we should go to my house,” Candace says. “There’s plenty of food there, and I have the place to myself.”
“That makes sense,” I reply numbly.
Three minutes later, we are ready to leave the house.
“Wait a moment,” Candace says. “We should take the car that has the most gas.”
“I have a three-quarter tank of gas,” I say.
“Okay, we’ll take your car,” Emile says. “I think I’m a little under half a tank.”
Nervous energy crackles off each of us as we assess each other.
In the last several minutes, we have all learned why we can’t get through to 911, and we’ve been warned to stay inside. The town has turned rabid since I pulled up to Kate’s forty minutes ago. The birds, squirrels, dogs, cats, and humans are infected with poisonous particles that rained down on Hollow Hills last night after the sky was bathed in the peculiar red glow.
At the door, Emile places his hand on the knob. “You two ready?”
We nod.
“You have your keys in your hand?” He asks me.
I hold them up, the house key clinking against the car key.
“Once we get halfway up the path, unlock the door.”
“I will.”
Emile has the baseball bat and one of the knives shoved in his back pocket; the other pocket bulges with his phone. Candace and I both grip our knives.
Emile swings the door open…
Dear Reader, you may access the rest of Rabid by subscribing to my newsletter and enjoying all of my short stories and novels, or you may buy the story from my website, cawittman.com. Happy reading,
Celena