The heatwave hit the suburbs of Chicago in mid-July, turning the asphalt streets into shimmering ribbons of gray and making the air thick enough to chew. It was the kind of heat that made tempers short and sleep difficult.
Mark, a thirty-four-year-old graphic designer and recently single father, stood in the doorway of his son’s bedroom, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The air conditioner was humming, but the second floor of the old Victorian house always held onto the heat like a grudge.
“Can I sleep down here tonight?”
Mark looked down. His son, Eli, was eight years old. He was small for his age, with knobby knees and a mess of brown hair that never seemed to lay flat. Eli was already on the floor, smoothing out a thin fleece blanket on the beige carpet.
“Why?” Mark asked, leaning against the doorframe. “Your bed is right there. It’s got the cooling gel pillow I bought you.”
Eli shrugged. He didn’t look up. He was focused on flattening a wrinkle in the blanket with obsessive care. “It’s cooler down here. Heat rises. Mr. Henderson said so in science class.”
Mark chuckled softly. “Mr. Henderson is right, technically. But the AC is cranking, bud. You’ll be fine in bed.”
“No,” Eli said. He sat cross-legged on the blanket. “I like it here.”
Mark hesitated. Since the divorce six months ago, Eli had been… specific. He liked his toast cut into triangles, not rectangles. He lined his toy cars up by color, graduating from lightest to darkest. The therapist said it was a control mechanism—a way to create order in a world that felt chaotic.
“Alright,” Mark sighed, too tired to argue. “One night. Camping out. Just don’t wake up with a crick in your neck.”
He walked over, ruffled Eli’s hair, and kissed the top of his head. Eli didn’t lean into the touch like he used to. He stayed stiff, his muscles tense.
“Night, Dad.”
“Night, bud.”
Mark turned off the overhead light, leaving the room bathed in the soft, eerie blue glow of the nightlight plugged in near the closet. He closed the door until it was just a crack, then went downstairs to finish a beer and stare at the television.
He didn’t know it then, but that was the last time Eli would ask permission.
The next night, the blanket was already on the floor when Mark came up to say goodnight.
This time, a pillow had joined it. Not the fluffy down pillow from his bed, but a flat, firm throw pillow from the reading chair in the corner.
“Again?” Mark asked, frowning.
“It’s still hot,” Eli said.
It wasn’t. A thunderstorm had rolled through that afternoon, breaking the humidity. The house was a comfortable seventy degrees.
“Eli, the floor is hard. You need support for your back. You’re growing.”
“I’m fine,” Eli said. He was lying on his side, his back to the bed, facing the door. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his hands tucked under his chin. He looked like a pill bug curled up for defense.
Mark felt a prickle of annoyance. He wanted things to be normal. He wanted his son to sleep in his expensive bed with the racecar sheets, not on the floor like a neglected dog.
“Okay,” Mark said, trying to keep his voice light. “But tomorrow, we’re back in the bed. Deal?”
Eli didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes.
The third night, Mark walked in to find Eli constructing a perimeter. He had taken his school books and stacked them in a low wall around his sleeping spot on the floor.
“What is this?” Mark asked, gesturing to the barrier.
“Fort,” Eli mumbled.
Mark sat on the edge of the mattress. The bed creaked.
Eli flinched. His eyes snapped open, darting to the bed, then to Mark, then to the door.
“Eli, get in the bed,” Mark said. “Come on. This is silly.”
“No.”
“I’m serious. It’s ridiculous to sleep on the carpet when you have a perfectly good mattress.”
“I can’t,” Eli said. His voice was tight.
“Why can’t you?”
“I just… I can’t.”
Mark stood up, frustration winning out over patience. “Fine. Be stubborn. But if you wake up sore, don’t complain to me.”
He stormed out.
Over the next two weeks, the behavior didn’t stop; it bled into the rest of their lives.
Mark noticed Eli avoiding the couch in the living room. On movie night, usually their Friday tradition with popcorn and a Marvel movie, Eli sat on the hardwood floor. When Mark patted the cushion beside him, Eli shook his head.
“Too soft,” Eli said.
“It’s a couch, Eli. It’s supposed to be soft.”
“I sink in,” Eli muttered. “I don’t like sinking.”
At his grandmother’s house for Sunday dinner, Eli refused to sit in the plush dining chairs. He asked for the folding metal chair from the garage. His grandmother laughed it off as a quirk, but Mark saw the look in Eli’s eyes.
It wasn’t a quirk. It was a calculation.
Eli was constantly testing surfaces. He would press his hand against a chair, push down, and if it gave way too much, he would back away. He wanted resistance. He wanted solid ground.
And at night, the ritual became more precise.
Mark stood in the hallway one Tuesday night, watching through the crack in the door.
Eli wasn’t sleeping yet. He was preparing.
He pushed the blanket flat, smoothing every ripple. He placed the pillow exactly two feet from the doorframe. He took his water bottle and placed it to his left. He took a flashlight and placed it to his right.
Then, he lay down.
He didn’t toss and turn. He didn’t sprawl out. He lay rigid, his eyes fixed on the gap beneath the door where the hallway light spilled in.
Mark felt a cold knot form in his stomach. That wasn’t how a child slept. That was how a soldier slept in a trench.
The breaking point came on a Thursday.
Mark had had a terrible day at work. A client had rejected a logo design he’d spent weeks on, and the transmission in his car was starting to slip. He came home with a headache that pounded behind his eyes like a second heartbeat.
He walked into Eli’s room to find the boy on the floor again.
“Eli,” Mark said, his voice sharper than he intended. “Get up.”
Eli looked up, startled. “What?”
“Get up. Get in the bed. Now.”
“Dad, I—”
“No,” Mark snapped. “I am tired of this, Eli. I’m tired of stepping over you. I’m tired of you acting like… like you’re afraid of comfort. You have a three-hundred-dollar mattress. You are going to use it.”
Mark walked over and grabbed the blanket off the floor.
Eli scrambled back, pressing himself against the wall. His face went pale. “Don’t.”
“Get in the bed,” Mark commanded, pointing.
“I can’t!” Eli’s voice cracked.
“Why? Give me one good reason other than ‘it’s cooler’ or ‘I don’t like sinking.’ Because those are nonsense.”
Eli was breathing fast, hyperventilating. “Please, Dad. Please don’t make me.”
“I am the parent, and I am telling you to sleep in your bed.” Mark reached out to take Eli’s arm, not to hurt him, just to guide him.
Eli recoiled as if Mark’s hand were made of fire. He scrambled sideways, crab-walking across the carpet to get away from the bed.
“No! No, no, no!”
“Eli, stop it!” Mark yelled.
The room went silent.
Eli was huddled in the corner, shaking. Tears were streaming down his face, but he wasn’t making a sound. He was looking at the bed with a look of pure, unadulterated terror.
Mark’s anger evaporated, replaced instantly by guilt. He realized he wasn’t looking at a stubborn kid. He was looking at a terrified one.
Mark sank to his knees. The floor was hard against his kneecaps.
“Eli,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
Eli didn’t move. He kept his eyes on the bed.
“Talk to me, buddy,” Mark said gently. “You’re not in trouble. I promise. But you have to tell me what’s going on. Why are you so scared of the bed?”
Eli swallowed hard. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“I don’t like being up there,” he whispered.
“Why?”
Eli looked at his father, his eyes wide and glassy. “Because you can’t get out fast.”
Mark frowned. “Get out of what?”
“The dip.”
“The dip?”
“When you lay down,” Eli explained, his voice trembling, “the mattress… it goes down around you. It holds you.”
“That’s just gravity, Eli. It’s comforting. It’s like a hug.”
Eli shook his head violently. “No. It’s not a hug. It’s a mouth.”
Mark froze. “A mouth?”
“Not a real mouth,” Eli corrected quickly, struggling to find the words. “But… if you’re in the soft part… and you need to move… you can’t. You have to push up first. It takes too long.”
“Too long for what?” Mark asked, inching closer.
Eli pulled his knees tighter. “If you move, it’s worse.”
“If you move what is worse?”
“The noise,” Eli whispered.
Mark looked around the silent room. “What noise?”
“The bed makes noise when you move. The springs. The wood.”
“Yeah, beds squeak sometimes.”
“The squeak tells them where you are,” Eli said.
The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
“Tells who where you are?” Mark asked, his voice barely audible.
Eli hesitated. He looked at the door. Then back at Mark.
“I figured it out,” Eli said softly.
“Figured out what?”
“That beds are where you’re trapped.”
Mark waited, his heart hammering against his ribs.
“On the floor,” Eli continued, “I can roll. I can run. The floor doesn’t squeak. The floor is flat. I can get to the door in one second.” He held up one finger. “One second.”
“And on the bed?”
“Three seconds,” Eli said. “I counted. To sit up, swing legs, touch floor. Three seconds.”
“And three seconds is too long?”
Eli nodded solemnly. “Three seconds is enough time for him to grab your ankle.”
Mark felt the blood drain from his face.
“Him?” Mark asked. “Who is ‘he’, Eli?”
Eli bit his lip. He looked like he had said too much. “Nobody. Just… the bad dreams.”
But Mark knew. He looked at his son’s eyes—dilated, scanning, alert. This wasn’t a dream. Kids didn’t calculate escape times for dreams. Kids didn’t maximize friction coefficients for nightmares.
Someone—or something—had taught Eli that three seconds was the difference between safety and danger.
“Eli,” Mark said, keeping his voice steady. “Did someone hurt you? Did someone touch you?”
Eli shook his head immediately. “No. Nobody touched me.”
“Then who grabs your ankle?”
“The Shadow Man,” Eli whispered.
Mark exhaled. A ghost story. A monster. Okay. He could deal with monsters. Monsters were better than real people.
“Okay,” Mark said. “The Shadow Man. Does he live in the closet?”
“No,” Eli said. “He lives in the hallway.”
Mark looked at the open door. The hallway was empty.
“He walks back and forth,” Eli said. “I hear him. Every night. Step. Step. Step.”
“That’s just the house settling, Eli. Or maybe me walking to the bathroom.”
“No,” Eli said firmly. “You walk heavy. Thump, thump. He walks light. Click, click. Like he has claws on his toes.”
Mark rubbed his face. “Okay. And why does the bed matter?”
“Because he listens,” Eli said. “He listens for the squeak. If the bed squeaks, he knows you’re awake. If he knows you’re awake… he comes in.”
Eli leaned forward, his whisper turning into a hiss.
“But if I’m on the floor… I don’t make a sound. I can see his feet under the door. But he thinks the room is empty.”
Mark stared at his son. The logic was terrifyingly sound.
“I tried to tell you,” Eli said, tears welling up again. “I tried to sleep in the bed. But I heard him stop. I heard him stop right outside the door because I rolled over and the springs went creak. I had to hold my breath for a million years until he walked away.”
Mark reached out and pulled Eli into a hug. This time, Eli didn’t pull away. He collapsed against his father’s chest, sobbing quietly.
“I believe you,” Mark lied. He didn’t believe in Shadow Men with clicking toes. But he believed Eli was terrified. “I believe you’re scared. And you can sleep on the floor tonight. Okay? You can sleep on the floor as long as you need to.”
“Thank you,” Eli sobbed.
Mark stayed on the floor with him until Eli fell asleep. He watched the rise and fall of his son’s chest. He watched the way Eli’s hand gripped the edge of the blanket, knuckles white.
Eventually, Mark stood up. His knees cracked.
He looked at the empty bed. It looked inviting. Soft.
He walked to the door and looked into the hallway.
It was empty. Just the beige carpet and the family photos on the wall.
Click.
Mark froze.
The sound came from the other end of the hall, near the stairs.
It was faint. Like a dog’s nail tapping on hardwood. But they didn’t have a dog.
Mark held his breath.
Click. Click.
He leaned out, peering into the gloom.
Nothing.
Just the house settling, he told himself. Just the wood cooling down after the hot day.
He went to his own room, shut the door, and locked it. He felt foolish doing it, but he did it anyway.
He lay down in his own bed.
His mattress was soft. Memory foam. He sank into it. It molded around his hips, his shoulders.
You can’t get out fast.
The thought popped into his head unbidden.
He tried to shift position. The sheets rustled loud in the silence. The bedframe groaned slightly.
The squeak tells them where you are.
Mark lay perfectly still. He stared at the ceiling fan.
He told himself he was a grown man. He told himself Eli was watching too many YouTube videos.
But then he heard it.
Outside his bedroom door.
Not the heavy thump, thump of a person.
But a light, deliberate sound.
Click.
Pause.
Click.
It stopped right in front of his door.
Mark’s heart hammered against his ribs. He felt the mattress hugging him, holding him down. He tried to sit up, but the memory foam was slow to react. It felt like quicksand.
The doorknob to his bedroom slowly, agonizingly, began to turn.
PART 2: THE EXPERIMENT
The knob turned to the right. It hit the lock mechanism with a dull clunk.
Mark stopped breathing. He stared at the brass knob, gleaming in the moonlight filtering through the window.
It jiggled. Once. Twice.
Then, silence.
Mark waited. He waited for a voice. Maybe Eli had woken up and was sleepwalking? Maybe he was trying to come in?
“Eli?” Mark called out. His voice sounded strangled.
No answer.
Just the silence of the house.
Then, the sound of footsteps retreating.
Click. Click. Click.
Fading down the hall toward Eli’s room.
Mark scrambled out of bed. He ignored the “trap” of the mattress and threw himself toward the door. He unlocked it and threw it open.
“Hey!” he yelled, stepping into the hallway.
Empty.
The hallway was completely empty.
The door to Eli’s room was still cracked open, exactly as he had left it.
Mark ran to Eli’s room and pushed the door open.
Eli was sound asleep on the floor, curled in his defensive ball.
Mark checked the closet. Empty. Under the bed. Empty.
He checked the windows. Locked.
He ran downstairs, turning on every light as he went. He checked the front door. Locked and bolted. The back door. Locked. The garage. Secure.
There was no one in the house.
Mark stood in the kitchen, gripping a steak knife he had pulled from the block, his chest heaving. He felt insane. He was a graphic designer, for God’s sake. He worried about fonts and color palettes, not intruders who clicked.
Maybe it was a mouse, he thought. A really big rat?
But rats didn’t turn doorknobs.
Mark didn’t sleep that night. He sat in the hallway chair, the knife on his lap, watching Eli’s door and his own.
When the sun came up, washing the hallway in safe, banal daylight, Mark felt ridiculous. The fear of the night always looked stupid in the morning.
He put the knife away. He made coffee. He made pancakes.
When Eli came downstairs, he looked rested.
“Did you sleep okay?” Mark asked, pouring syrup.
“Yeah,” Eli said. “The floor is good.”
“Eli,” Mark said, sitting down opposite him. “Did you… try to come into my room last night?”
Eli stopped chewing. He looked up, syrup on his chin. “No.”
“Are you sure? You didn’t wake up and need water?”
“I stayed on the floor,” Eli said. “I didn’t move.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Why? Did you hear him?”
Mark hesitated. He could lie. He should lie. That’s what parents did. They told their kids the monsters weren’t real.
But the doorknob had turned.
“I heard… something,” Mark admitted.
Eli nodded slowly. He didn’t look vindicated. He looked resigned. “He checked your door. He always checks the doors.”
“Eli, who is he? Does he look like anyone?”
“I never look,” Eli said, stabbing a piece of pancake. “Looking is against the rules.”
“Rules?”
“If you look, he sees your eyes. If he sees your eyes, he knows you’re awake. If he knows you’re awake, he opens the door.”
Mark felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. “And if the door is locked?”
“Locks don’t matter,” Eli said simply. “He only uses the knob to be polite. To see if you’ll let him in. If you don’t… and he knows you’re awake… he comes under.”
“Under the door?”
“Like smoke,” Eli said. “Or like oil.”
Mark spent the rest of the day in a fog. He called a locksmith and had deadbolts installed on the bedroom doors. He checked the attic. He checked the crawlspace.
He found nothing. No droppings. No signs of forced entry.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling of the mattress holding him down. The realization that Eli was right: It takes three seconds to get out of bed.
That night, Mark made a decision.
“I’m sleeping in your room tonight,” Mark announced.
Eli looked up from his Lego set. “On the floor?”
“No,” Mark said. “In the bed.”
Eli’s eyes went wide. “Dad, no. It’s a trap.”
“I need to prove to you that it’s safe, Eli. I’m going to sleep in your bed. You sleep on the floor. If anything happens, I’m right there.”
“He’ll hear the squeak,” Eli warned.
“I won’t move.”
“Everybody moves.”
“I won’t.”
At 10:00 PM, the lights went out.
Mark lay in his son’s twin bed. It was too small for him; his feet hung off the end. The racecar sheets felt cool.
Eli was on the floor, three feet away.
“Dad?” Eli whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t breathe too loud.”
“Go to sleep, Eli.”
Mark lay there, staring at the ceiling. He was determined to stay awake. He held his phone on his chest, recording audio.
One hour passed. Two.
Mark’s eyelids grew heavy. The house was silent.
Maybe it was just stress. The divorce. The new house. His own anxiety manifesting as auditory hallucinations.
He started to drift off. His body relaxed. His leg twitched—a hypnic jerk.
SQUEAK.
The bedsprings groaned loudly in the silence.
Mark’s eyes snapped open. He held his breath.
From the hallway:
Click.
It was immediate. It was responsive.
Mark’s heart slammed against his ribs. It wasn’t random. The sound had attracted it.
Click. Click. Click.
Fast. Much faster than the night before.
The footsteps stopped right outside Eli’s door.
Mark looked down at the floor. Eli was frozen. He wasn’t breathing. He was blending into the carpet.
The door was cracked open an inch.
Through the crack, Mark saw a shadow.
It wasn’t a shadow cast by the nightlight. It was a physical thing. Standing there.
Mark slowly reached for his phone. He gripped it tight.
The door creaked.
A finger—long, gray, and jointed in too many places—curled around the edge of the door.
It pushed.
The door swung open another inch.
Mark wanted to scream, to jump up and roar at the intruder. But his body betrayed him. The mattress felt like it had turned to quicksand. His muscles were paralyzed by a primal, reptilian fear. Don’t move. If you don’t move, it can’t see you.
The door opened wide enough for a head to peek in.
It was a face, but it was wrong. It looked like a drawing of a face that had been erased and redrawn too many times. The eyes were too far apart. The mouth was a vertical slit.
It scanned the room.
It looked at the floor. It swept right over Eli. Eli was so still, so flat, that he looked like a pile of laundry.
Then, the thing looked at the bed.
It saw Mark.
It didn’t smile. It just tilted its head.
The bedframe gave a tiny shudder under Mark’s trembling weight.
Creak.
The thing’s eyes widened. It stepped into the room.
It was tall. Impossibly tall. Its limbs were thin, like burnt matchsticks.
It moved toward the bed.
Mark tried to sit up.
“NO!” Eli screamed.
Eli sprang up from the floor. He didn’t run away. He ran at the thing.
He threw his pillow. It hit the creature in the knees.
The creature hissed—a sound like steam escaping a pipe. It looked down at the small boy.
“Run, Dad!” Eli yelled. “Get off the trap!”
The spell broke. Mark rolled. He threw himself off the mattress, hitting the floor hard.
The moment his weight left the bed, the creature shrieked. It lunged—not at Mark, but at the bed.
It drove its long, clawed hands into the mattress, tearing through the sheets, ripping the foam apart. It attacked the empty space where Mark had been seconds ago.
Feathers and foam flew into the air.
Mark grabbed Eli. He didn’t think. He didn’t look back.
He scrambled on his hands and knees out of the room, dragging his son.
They hit the hallway.
“Downstairs!” Mark yelled.
They sprinted. Mark could hear the thing trashing the room behind them. The sound of wood splintering. The sound of the metal bedframe being twisted like a paperclip.
They reached the front door. Mark fumbled with the deadbolt. His hands were shaking so bad he dropped the keys.
“Dad, hurry!”
Mark heard the click, click, click coming from the top of the stairs.
He found the key. He jammed it in. He turned it.
They burst out into the cool night air.
Mark didn’t stop at the car. He ran to the neighbor’s house—Mr. Miller, a retired marine. He pounded on the door until the lights came on.
They sat in Mr. Miller’s kitchen, drinking hot cocoa. The police had come. They had searched the house.
They found nothing.
Well, almost nothing.
The officer came out looking pale.
“Mr. Daniels,” the officer said to Mark. “There’s no intruder. But… your son’s room.”
“What about it?”
“The bed. It’s… destroyed.”
“I told you,” Mark said. “It attacked the bed.”
“It looks like it was put through a woodchipper, sir. And…” The officer hesitated. “We found something inside the mattress.”
Mark’s blood ran cold. “Inside?”
“Deep inside the foam. It looks like… well, it looks like a nest.”
“A nest?”
“Made of… hair. And teeth.”
Mark looked at Eli. Eli was sitting at the table, wrapped in a blanket, his feet firmly planted on the hard linoleum floor.
“I told you,” Eli whispered, sipping his cocoa. “Beds are traps.”
Mark never bought another bed.
They moved to an apartment in the city. A place with concrete floors and steel beams.
They sleep on Japanese futons now—thin mats that roll out directly on the floor.
Sometimes, Mark wakes up in the middle of the night. He listens.
He doesn’t hear the click, click, click anymore.
But sometimes, when he visits friends, or stays in a hotel… he looks at the high, soft beds with their plush duvets and thick mattresses.
And he feels a wave of nausea.
He sees them for what they are.
Pedestals. Offering plates.
Soft, comfortable traps designed to hold you still while something hungry comes to check if you’re ripe.
Mark sleeps on the floor now, too.
And he never, ever moves.
PART 3: THE MIMIC
The living room, once a fortress of artificial daylight, was now a sinking ship.
The first LED lantern had died. The second one, perched on the mantle, was flickering—a strobe light of desperation pulsing against the encroaching gloom.
“Noah, move. Now.”
Sarah didn’t wait for him to argue. She scooped him up, blanket and all, ignoring the protest of her muscles. He was heavy for an eight-year-old, or maybe fear just made everything feel heavier.
She held the flashlight in her mouth, the beam shaking violently as she scanned the room. The darkness in the kitchen wasn’t staying in the kitchen. It was spilling over the island counter like dry ice fog, heavy and low, creeping across the hardwood floor toward the living room rug.
And it was making noise.
It sounded like wet leather sliding against glass. Squeak. Slide. Squeak.
“Upstairs,” Noah whispered into her ear. “The bathroom has no windows.”
“We’re going to the car,” Sarah mumbled around the flashlight. “We’re leaving.”
“No!” Noah gripped her shirt. “The garage is dark! The opener won’t work without power!”
He was right. The garage door was heavy steel; without electricity, she’d have to pull the emergency release cord in the pitch black.
“Upstairs,” she agreed.
She bolted for the stairs.
As her foot hit the first step, the basement door—the one Noah had pointed to earlier, the one she swore was locked—slammed open against the wall.
BANG.
Sarah screamed, stumbling, nearly dropping Noah. She spun around, aiming the shaking beam of light at the basement doorway.
Standing there was a man.
He was wearing a faded Ohio State Buckeyes hoodie and jeans. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a slight slouch.
Sarah’s heart stopped.
“Mike?” she choked out.
The figure stepped out of the basement shadows. The flashlight beam hit his face.
It was Mike. Her husband. Noah’s father.
He looked exactly as he had the day he left three years ago. Same stubble. Same tired eyes. He was even holding the car keys he had taken with him.
“Sarah,” Mike said. His voice was warm, familiar. “Honey, what’s with all the lights? You’re scaring Noah.”
Sarah lowered the flashlight, tears instantly springing to her eyes. “Mike? Oh my god. You… you came back?”
“I never left,” Mike said, taking a step toward the stairs. “I’ve been down there fixin’ the fuse box. Power’s out, remember?”
Sarah took a step down. Relief washed over her, hot and dizzying. It was Mike. He was here. He could fix this. He wasn’t in Arizona. Noah was just confused.
“Dad?” Noah asked. His voice wasn’t relieved. It was flat. Cold.
“Hey, buddy,” Mike smiled. “Come here. Let Dad hold you.”
Sarah took another step down. “Mike, there’s something in the kitchen. I saw a hand—”
“Mom, stop!” Noah screamed.
He slapped the flashlight in Sarah’s hand, jerking the beam upward. The light flashed across “Mike’s” face again.
And for a split second, Sarah saw it.
When the light hit his eyes, they didn’t reflect.
Human eyes reflect light. Pupils contract.
Mike’s eyes were matte black holes. They absorbed the beam completely. And his shadow…
The flashlight cast a shadow on the wall behind him.
Mike was standing still. But his shadow was writhing. It had six arms, flailing wildly against the drywall.
“That’s not Dad!” Noah yelled.
“Mike” stopped smiling.
His jaw unhinged. It didn’t just open; it dropped down to his chest, stretching the skin until it became translucent.
” COME HERE ,” the thing said. The voice wasn’t Mike’s anymore. It was the sound of crushing gravel.
Sarah didn’t think. She turned and scrambled up the stairs on all fours, dragging Noah with her.
Behind them, the thing let out a roar that shook the pictures off the walls.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
It was coming up the stairs.
Sarah reached the landing. She sprinted into the master bedroom, threw Noah onto the bed, and slammed the door. She engaged the deadbolt. Then she shoved the heavy oak dresser in front of the door.
“The window!” Noah yelled. “Check the window!”
Sarah ran to the window. Outside, the storm was raging, but something was wrong.
The streetlights were out. All of them.
But it wasn’t just a blackout.
Down the street, the neighbor’s house—the Millers’—was dark. But Sarah could see movement.
Black shapes were swarming over the Millers’ roof. They looked like oil spills moving against gravity, pouring down the chimney, seeping into the attic vents.
From inside the Millers’ house, she heard a muffled scream, then a silence that was somehow louder than the thunder.
“They’re everywhere,” Sarah whispered.
BAM.
The bedroom door shook violently. The dresser inched forward across the carpet.
“Sarah,” the Mike-thing called from the hallway. Its voice was back to being sweet, pleading. “Sarah, open up. I hurt my hand. I need a Band-Aid.”
“Go away!” Sarah screamed.
“I just want to tuck Noah in,” the voice crooned. “I promise I’ll turn the lights off. We can all sleep in the dark. It’s so peaceful.”
Noah was scrambling around the room. He grabbed the lamp on the nightstand. “Mom, plug this into the battery pack! Hurry!”
Sarah fumbled with the portable power bank she had brought up earlier. She plugged in the lamp.
Light flooded the room.
The pounding on the door stopped instantly.
“They can’t come in if it’s bright,” Noah said, his chest heaving. “The light burns their skin. That’s why they want us to turn it off.”
Sarah sank to the floor, her back against the bedframe. She looked at her son. He was terrified, shaking like a leaf, but his eyes were sharp. He was in survival mode.
“Noah,” she said, her voice trembling. “You were right. About Dad. About everything.”
Noah nodded. He didn’t say ‘I told you so.’ He just checked the perimeter of the light, making sure the closet door was shut tight.
“What do we do?” Sarah asked. She felt helpless. She was the adult, but in this world—this dark world—Noah was the expert.
“We can’t stay here,” Noah said. “The battery will run out. And when it does…” He looked at the door. “He’ll come in.”
“We can’t leave. The car is in the garage. The garage is dark.”
Noah bit his lip. “Do we have a bigger light? Like… a spotlight?”
“No. Just the flashlights and the lamps.”
Sarah looked around the room, desperate. Her eyes landed on the closet.
“Wait,” she said. “The emergency flares.”
“Flares?”
“Dad… Mike… he kept a roadside emergency kit in the top of the closet. He never took it.”
Sarah ran to the closet. She threw open the door—Noah shrieked, aiming his flashlight into the dark space—but it was empty. Just clothes.
She stood on a chair and rummaged through the top shelf.
There. A red plastic box.
She pulled it down and popped the latch.
Inside were three road flares. The kind that burn red and hot for twenty minutes.
“Fire,” Noah whispered. “Fire is light. Real light.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, formulating a plan. “Here’s what we do. We light a flare. We run to the garage. The flare will keep them back. We manually open the garage door. We get in the car and we drive until we find the sun.”
“Where is the sun?” Noah asked.
“Somewhere,” Sarah said. “It has to be somewhere.”
She handed one flare to Noah. “Do not light this unless I tell you. I’ll carry the burning one. You hold the spare.”
“What about the third one?”
“That’s for the car.”
Sarah took a deep breath. She grabbed the heavy flashlight in her left hand and the flare in her right. She looked at the door.
“Ready?”
Noah nodded. He looked small, holding a flare that was almost as big as his arm. “Ready.”
Sarah pulled the dresser away. She unlocked the deadbolt.
She struck the flare cap.
HISS.
A brilliant, blinding crimson light erupted from the stick, accompanied by a plume of acrid white smoke. The room turned the color of blood.
Sarah kicked the door open.
The hallway was filled with them.
It wasn’t just “Mike.” There were three of them now. Shadowy, humanoid shapes standing by the stairs. They had no features, just smooth, slate-gray heads that twitched when the door opened.
When the red light hit them, they screeched.
It was a digital, glitchy sound, like a corrupted audio file. They threw their hands up, shielding their faces, and scrambled backward, phasing into the walls like ink soaking into paper.
“Move!” Sarah yelled.
She swung the flare like a sword. “Get back! Get back!”
They ran for the stairs.
The shadows lunged from the banister, trying to grab their ankles, but the heat of the flare kept them at bay. Sarah felt a cold wind brush her cheek—a claw missing by inches.
They hit the living room.
The Mike-thing was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
His face was melted now. The light from the flare was making his skin bubble.
“SARAH,” he gurgled. “YOU’RE MAKING IT HOT.“
“Get out of my way!” Sarah screamed. She thrust the burning flare right into his face.
The Mike-thing howled. His head caught fire—not normal fire, but a weird, silent disintegration. He dissolved into a pile of black sludge on the carpet.
Sarah jumped over the sludge, dragging Noah.
“Kitchen! Garage door!”
They sprinted through the kitchen. The pantry door was still open, and the darkness inside pulsed, but they didn’t stop.
Sarah slammed into the door leading to the garage. She yanked it open.
Pitch black.
The garage was a cavern. The air smelled of gasoline and old dust.
“Light the flare!” Sarah yelled to Noah. “Mine is dying!”
Her flare was sputtering, sparks flying.
Noah fumbled with the cap. “I can’t get it!”
“Hit it! Hit it on the ground!”
Noah struck the flare against the concrete step.
HISS.
The second red sun ignited just as Sarah’s went out.
The red glow illuminated the garage.
The car—a silver Honda Odyssey—was ten feet away.
But standing between them and the car was the lawnmower.
Except it wasn’t a lawnmower anymore.
The shadows had wrapped around the machine. Metal and darkness fused together. The lawnmower blades were spinning slowly, though the engine was off. The handle had bent and twisted into the shape of a spine.
It lurched toward them, metal grinding on concrete.
“Get in the car!” Sarah yelled. She pushed Noah toward the passenger side.
She didn’t have a weapon. She threw the dead flare at the lawnmower-thing. It bounced off harmlessly.
The machine lunged.
Sarah dodged, but the handle clipped her hip, sending a jolt of freezing pain down her leg. She fell hard onto the concrete.
“Mom!” Noah screamed. He was standing by the car door, waving his flare.
“Get in!” Sarah yelled. “Lock the doors!”
She scrambled up, limping. The machine turned, its blades whirring faster now, powered by some unholy energy.
Sarah dove for the driver’s side door. She ripped it open and threw herself inside.
She slammed the door shut just as the machine slammed into the side of the car.
CRUNCH.
The metal dented inward.
“Lock it! Lock it!” Sarah mashed the lock button.
Click-click.
Safe. For a second.
“Key! Where’s the key?” Noah yelled.
Sarah patted her pocket. Empty.
Her heart stopped.
“No. No, no, no.”
She looked at the ignition. Empty.
She looked at the dashboard.
The keys were in the house. on the hook by the fridge.
She had forgotten them in the panic.
Outside, the garage was filling up. More shadows were seeping under the garage door. They surrounded the car. They began to rock it.
Thump. Thump. Rock.
Faces pressed against the windows. Featureless, gray faces.
“We’re trapped,” Noah whispered. He held his flare up. It was burning down. “Mom, the light is running out.”
Sarah looked at the ignition again. She looked at the steering column.
“Think, Sarah, think,” she muttered.
She looked at the glove box.
“Noah, give me the flare.”
“What?”
“Give it to me!”
She grabbed the burning flare. She looked at the plastic casing of the steering column.
“Dad taught me this,” she whispered. “Before he became… that.”
She jammed the burning end of the flare into the plastic beneath the steering wheel. The plastic melted instantly. She ripped the cover off, burning her fingers, but she didn’t feel it.
wires. Red. Black. Yellow.
“How do you hotwire a minivan?” she sobbed hysterically.
“Red and yellow!” Noah shouted. “I saw it in a movie! Twist red and yellow!”
Sarah didn’t question him. She grabbed the red wire and the yellow wire. She stripped the casing with her teeth, tasting copper and fear.
She twisted them together.
The dashboard lights flickered on. The radio static hissed.
“Yes!” Sarah cried.
“Now touch them to the black one!” Noah coached.
Outside, the glass of the driver’s side window began to crack. A spiderweb fracture spread from the center where a fist was pounding.
Sarah touched the twisted wires to the black wire.
VROOM.
The engine roared to life. The headlights flashed on—bright, glorious high beams.
The shadows in front of the car screamed and evaporated in the twin cones of light.
Sarah shifted into reverse.
“Hold on!”
She slammed on the gas.
The car shot backward. It smashed through the closed garage door.
CRASH.
Wood and aluminum exploded outward. The car flew out of the garage and landed on the driveway with a bone-jarring thud.
Sarah slammed the gearshift into drive. She didn’t look back at the house. She didn’t look at the hole in the garage where the darkness was pouring out like smoke from a factory stack.
She floored it.
The minivan squealed onto the street.
“We made it!” Noah cried. “We’re out!”
Sarah gripped the wheel, her knuckles white. “We’re not safe yet.”
She looked down the street.
It was an apocalypse.
Every house was dark. But the darkness wasn’t empty.
In the beams of her headlights, she saw them.
People. Neighbors.
Mrs. Higgins was walking her dog. But Mrs. Higgins was floating a foot off the ground, and her dog was a skeleton wreathed in black smoke.
A group of teenagers were standing in a circle under a dead streetlight. When the car headlights hit them, they turned. Their mouths were sewn shut.
“Don’t look,” Sarah commanded. “Noah, put your head down. Do not look out the window.”
“Where are we going?” Noah asked, his voice muffled by his knees.
“The highway,” Sarah said. “If we drive south, maybe we can outrun the storm.”
She turned onto Main Street.
The traffic lights were out. Cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, doors open.
Sarah weaved through the wreckage.
Then, she saw it.
Blue lights.
A police cruiser was parked in the middle of the intersection ahead. The light bar was spinning—red and blue, red and blue.
“Police!” Sarah gasped. “Oh, thank God.”
She slowed down. “Maybe they have a convoy. Maybe they’re helping people.”
“Mom, don’t stop,” Noah said, popping his head up. “The lights… they look wrong.”
“It’s the police, Noah.”
Sarah pulled the car up next to the cruiser. She rolled down her window just a crack.
“Officer!” she yelled. “Officer, help us! We need—”
The police car’s window rolled down slowly.
The driver turned to look at her.
It was Officer Miller. The friendly cop who patrolled the school zones.
But his uniform was… wrong. It melted into the seat. His badge was a dull, black piece of slate.
And his face.
He didn’t have a face.
Where his features should have been, there was just a smooth, pale surface of flesh. No eyes. No nose. No mouth.
But Sarah heard a voice in her head. A radio static voice.
LICENSE AND REGISTRATION, PLEASE.
Sarah screamed.
The faceless officer reached out. His arm stretched. It elongated like taffy, crossing the distance between the cars.
A gray, rubbery hand slapped against Sarah’s window.
THE LIGHT IS A VIOLATION, the voice buzzed in her skull. TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.
Sarah slammed on the gas.
The hand gripped the window frame. The arm stretched thinner and thinner as the minivan sped away, until—SNAP—it broke off.
The gray hand was still clinging to the window, fingers twitching.
“Get it off! Get it off!” Sarah shrieked, swerving the car.
“I got it!” Noah unbuckled. He grabbed the emergency ice scraper from the floorboard.
He rolled the window down an inch—the wind howling into the cabin—and jabbed at the fingers.
“Let go!” Noah yelled.
He smashed the scraper against the gray knuckles.
The fingers spasmed and fell away, tumbling onto the asphalt behind them.
Sarah rolled the window up and locked it. She was hyperventilating.
“They’re taking over everything,” she sobbed. “The police. The neighbors. Everything.”
“Not everything,” Noah said. He was staring out the windshield, pointing north.
“What?”
“Look.”
Sarah looked.
miles away, on the horizon, there was a beam of light.
It wasn’t the sun. It was a single, piercing vertical beam of blue-white light shooting straight up into the clouds. It looked like a spotlight from a movie premiere, but thicker. Stronger.
“What is that?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know,” Noah said. “But the shadows… look.”
Sarah looked at the roadside. The dark shapes in the trees were recoiling from the direction of the light. They were leaning away from it, like trees bending in a strong wind.
“They’re scared of it,” Noah whispered.
Sarah gripped the wheel. Her fear was hardening into something cold and sharp.
“Then that’s where we’re going,” she said.
She spun the wheel, turning the minivan toward the mysterious beam.
“Noah,” she said. “Check the glove box again. See if there are any more flares.”
Noah checked. “No flares. But Mom…”
“What?”
He pulled out a small, silver object.
“I found Dad’s lighter.”
Sarah looked at the tiny flame symbol on the Zippo.
“Good,” she said, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “Keep it close. If the car dies… we burn everything.”
The minivan sped into the darkness, a tiny comet of steel and halogen, racing toward the only thing left in the world that dared to shine.
TO BE CONTINUED…
