He made it home safely this time and with an unsteady hand, nicked and bruised and calloused with jagged fingernails as yellow as his skin, locked the door behind him. One, two, three, four locks. Without removing his tattered coat (although he didn’t know it, it reeked from constant use as if he were decaying underneath)—there was a time when he needed more outside, there was a time when he needed less, now there was just this—he headed for his kitchen, placing the plastic bag of ingredients on the stained and decrepit and crumb-laden counter.

And then the room began to spin. He closed his eyes, but it was no use; even the blackness he withdrew into spun like a wasteland cyclone. In a mind long devastated, his thoughts tumbled, his memories shuffled and mixed into further irrelevance and fiction, and when he collapsed, his knees pounding the floor hard enough to launch a searing jolt of pain up his thighs and into his back, he slumped forward, gasping for a reprieve as spittle sprinkled the floor.

It was minutes before his vision settled and when he focused, he focused on the ingredients resting on the counter and nothing else.

Finally, he rose, removed his coat and threw it aside, never checking to see where it landed. He licked his lips, not with hunger but with desire and, crouching, opened a cabinet, and then another, and then another, each time peering in, unable to find what he needed—a bowl, just a bowl, he thought, plastic, ceramic, brass, whatever, please, just a bowl, God, please, just let me find a fucking bowl, how could I forget to grab a fucking bowl while I was out there?

He spat on the floor, a sewage-like mixture of bulky mucus and stale saliva streaked with blood, pus and disease conjured from the humid and putrid recesses of his mouth and throat. Smearing it with his shoe, the former beige tone of the tile emerged amongst the layers of crud surrounding it. Not that he noticed, for at that moment he recalled where he had last seen a bowl. His first instinct was to grab his jacket—no, no, no, he thought, I’m not going outside, just across the hall, just across the hall, you stupid fuck.

One, two, three, four locks undone. His head darted out past the door and back in, out and back in. The hall was clear—clear as in no eyes were on him, no living eyes, for the bloated body was still there with a silver rod up its spine, awkwardly posed at the top of the stairs like a fallen scarecrow. Four doors down, he thought, no, five, no, four, five, five, five, it’s five, and you know it, fucking five. Out he ran, again jumping, jumping more garbage and holes, more bodies, more puddles—this time reflecting nothing but a pale and cracked ceiling. Without slowing, he came to the door at full speed, lowering his shoulder and knocking it clear off its hinges, sending him rolling across the floor, jagged glass biting into his arm. Helga, Helga, Helga, he screamed as he ran through the room and into a small kitchen, where, buried beneath the black goop of the sink, its blue rim, a thin lip protruding from the muck as if seeking air, he saw the bowl and reached in, his fingers closing on it while the rest of his body had already turned in preparation for a quick exit. He pulled the bowl free, sending a splash of filth across the floor and wall, and brought it up to his lips and kissed and kissed and kissed, his face smeared with the lingering liquid.

Back down the hall he ran, and back into his home, locking up behind him—one, two, three, four times. A yellowed and broken grin across his face, he set the bowl down on the appropriate counter space and began to dump in his ingredients, never bothering to clean what he had gathered. (Clean? He hardly knew the word.) He ripped bag after bag open—a brown powder here, a grayish powder there, a slow ooze of a yellow paste, a slab of a blackened blob—piling them one on top of the other, and, finally, vehemently mixing them with his fingers. He was breathing heavily now, his protruding ribs pressing tightly against his skin beneath his red, floral-patterned woman’s top; his hands trembled, his teeth clattered, splitting one in half and sending it far down his throat with the faint taste of blood.

Wheezing with glee at the mixture of ingredients, he grabbed the plastic bag and pulled it securely over the bowl. After cleaning his hands with a wipe against the wall, he ecstatically tiptoed to his bed—a creaking mattress complete with attacking springs and wire from a rusted frame—collapsed onto it face down, and drifted toward sleep.

Outside his window there was a glow, neither a celestial body nor artificial light. Lately it had been persistent in its presence, night and day, hovering over the landscape, a banished halo. It used to scare him, this green glow, but now he preferred to ignore it, even as it seeped uninvited through the glass and walls of his home, even as it descended like a fog over every street, the people breathing it in without reservation.

As he twisted in bed, still dressed, holes in his socks, holes in his pants and underwear—the top was clean, the top was perfect—he began to sweat, then, just as quickly, he was ice cold again, an irritating process that would continue throughout the night. Yet, he was optimistic, for the first time in a long time (Time? He hardly knew the word). He wasn’t even sure it was night; it was dark but there was also the glow, sometimes it seemed to be like this far too long for it to be night. He had hope now, it was there in the bowl, there in the ingredients that were suddenly starting to stink. Or was it a sweetness he smelled? But, then again, what is sweet?

The bowl, sitting in stains and darkness, the iridescent glow from the lone window slowly creeping toward it, the plastic bag now loose over the contents, was as still as the cracked television from across the room, as still as the upturned rocking chair, as still as the rat poison under the man’s bed; yet, as the night progressed, the bowl, ever so slightly, kicked; just a slight bump, pushing it a mere centimeter from its original placement. But inside, things were working much quicker.

When he awoke, he immediately went to the kitchen, pulling up a wobbly chair and sitting directly in front of the bowl, his chin resting in his palms, his eyes, bloodshot and wide, focused and unblinking, filled with tears that never fell. Before him, raised above eye level, the bowl sat like an idol, worshipped and paramount to his day. Nothing else mattered, not the gnawing within his stomach, not the tics beneath his skin, not his bladder, only the bowl mattered and the ingredients inside. He didn’t move; he wouldn’t move. He only continued to stare and stare and stare…

It was a large lurch; the bowl shifting a full four inches to the left, and the man jumped back in his seat, squealing with delirious merriment. Kicking the chair aside, he rose, pissing his pants without even realizing it. He began to clap, loud, boisterous applause, accompanied by the staccato stomping of his feet as he rotated in a circle, dust and dirt disturbed and drifting into the air about him, a different kind of mist, something almost magical for him to play in.

Then came the rustling of plastic. His head snapped back over his shoulder and his eyes fell on the bowl and the movement of the bag concealing it. Something was poking at the top, a small blunt jab from within. Hovering over the bowl, through the bag, he could see a misshapen shadow moving about, the tip of which continued to push against the plastic in an attempt to rip through. The bag peaked and stretched, until finally the object receded and all was still again.

This isn’t right; all wrong, all wrong, the man whispered, clearly in distress. He swiveled back around, his eyes surveying his dilapidated home. Not right at all, he moaned, what the fuck am I going to do, what, what, what? Spotting his coat, he grabbed it, slipped it on, undid his locks—one, two, three, four—peeked out into the hallway, and, seeing all was clear, ran out and down the hall, over the dead body, down the stairs, and outside. Pulling his coat tight, he warily headed deeper into the city.

Each street looked worse than the next, small fires flared along the sidewalks and the sewers overflowed, gurgling green ooze. Ahead was the usual assembly of people within the dying greenery of the square, hunched over on the small plastic white and yellow seats neatly aligned in a circle and quietly chanting and humming, rubbing their naked bodies with the backs of their hands, their fingers bent like claws grasping at air. On this day, in the center of the circle was a battered machine of sorts, a machine distorted well past recognition, its cord being used as a whip against it by rotating members of the group. From the corners of their eyes they watched him hustle by, their bodies jerking in their seats, trembling to abandon their perch and approach him; but none did, none ever did, and he knew that.

Knowing which streets he could cross and which he couldn’t, which were safe and which weren’t, he trekked several blocks south until he was in the area he so desperately sought. Overhead, tied to strips of wire hanging from windows and broken streetlights, off building roofs and from dead trees, were long planks of wood painted black. They swung back and forth, creaking in the stale air, dead space against dead space. In the distance a board flopped through the air, falling from the seventh floor of a building, and hit the ground with a blistering smack, splitting into several pieces, shards and splinters scattering about the concrete, and the echo of it all spreading up and down the street like a mushroom cloud of noise.

There was laughter, a cackle that cracked like the wood, and it came from a red-haired woman dancing along the inside of a chain link fence at the far end of the block. She twirled in a pink bathrobe, her fingers gripping the fence for balance, her pale legs kicking at the air. The man approached quickly, the wood dangling overhead suddenly forgotten, a threat so constant it had to be shoved aside. Repeatedly he kicked the fence, rattling it free of rust, but there was no response from the ragged woman, not even a glance of acknowledgement of the chain song. The woman continued dancing her way to the far end of the fence and, just behind, he followed, his fist slamming into the fence with each step. Finally, he spotted a hole and he reached through, familiarly cutting his wrist in long biting streaks. Arm outstretched, he grabbed her by the robe and pulled. But his hands only held the pink cloth and the woman was left bare, not that she noticed, although he certainly did. Her stomach was riddled with splinter punctures; small, sharp shards protruding from the skin, dried blood caked over every piece.

The ingredients! he screamed, revealing a crumpled piece of paper up against the fence. Are these right, are you even her, are you the one who told me, are there others back there?

The woman cackled again and continued to dance but this time, she danced backward, away from the fence and deeper into the lot, bending over and grabbing something from off the ground. What you created, she yelled as she returned to the fence, what you made doesn’t matter anymore. It’s only before your eyes, isn’t it?

I don’t want to look at it, he said, it’ll kill me, won’t it, it’ll kill me if I look, won’t it?

Then don’t look, she screamed, and her arm shot forward, a sharp object in her hand fast approaching his face, his eye. He swung away just in time and the jagged knife poked through the fence where his left eye would have been. The woman shrieked, the knife conducting its own dance in her hand, and without another glance the man ran back the way he came, his footsteps heavy beneath the hanging black wood.

After he finished locking his door—one, two, three, four times—he rushed to the kitchen and discovered the bowl was now completely across the counter, up against the dead refrigerator. The bag rustled in greeting and, seeing this, he ran to his bedroom, ducked beneath the bed, and grabbed the rat poison with his shaking hand.

When he returned to the bowl, he noticed the small hole in the top of the bag. It broke through, he thought, it’s only a matter of time now, it won’t stop. Peering into the tear, he attempted to make out his creation. Squinting, he hovered closer, but there was only blackness.

Then came the whisper.

He couldn’t make out the words, but there was a quiet squeezing of a voice, a puff of air, an attempt at speech, and this caused him to recoil, dropping the poison to the floor. What is it? he asked in a trembling voice, what are you trying to say, what the fuck do you want from me? He suddenly grabbed the bowl and brought it close to his chest, swaying with it as if holding a child. What is it? he asked again, it doesn’t have to be like this, what is it?

There was another puff of air, this one a bit stronger, and a word formed: out. Is that right? he wondered, is that what I heard? He placed the bowl back down on the counter and sat on his chair, hands beneath his thighs. His feet tapped uncontrollably as the sweat dripped from his shaggy graying hair.

Outside, the glow continued to smother the city. Looking out the window, past the creeping muted light, he saw the still ocean and the far-off landmass. He wanted to get out, desperately, but there were risks, dangers, and there were no guarantees. It could be more of the same, he realized; it could be worse. Maybe. A risk.

He decided to sleep on it—there was always time, always (right?)—knowing how some decisions simplify as the days progress.

Over the next few days, he pulled the chair beside the bowl and talked to it, waiting for a conversation to form, but all he heard were more wisps of air, more empty attempts at dialogue, and, sometimes, if he listened very carefully, the word ‘out’ reemerged. I know, I know, he said over and over again to the ingredients in the bowl, but it’s not all bad here; I have you and you have me; if you go out there, well, then you might not exist anymore; I can help you, you can help me, we don’t need anything else.

But still he heard that word: out, out, out. And one day, when he awoke, he found the bowl tipped over, empty. His heart churned, his body went cold, his knees buckled. There on the floor, wrapped and lost in the bag, an eye peering out of the lone hole—an eye? is that an eye? —were the ingredients inching its way to the window. Sprinting across the room, he snatched up the bag, and without looking in it, dumped the contents back into the bowl. No! he screamed, no, no, no; I created you, I control you, you’re mine and you can’t leave, I won’t allow it.

There was another puff of air, and this word was clear. Eyes widened, the man, with his own breath, repeated it with a quiver: please. And something, a finger or small hand perhaps, protruded from the hole. You won’t make it, he told it, I promise you, and that will kill us both.

Again, the puff of air. Please.

No! And he scooped up the rat poison from where he left it, and, crying now, poured it into the hole. Day after day, shaking and delirious with sadness, he continued to sit before the bowl, waiting for it to move, waiting for the puff of air, but nothing ever came. He sat all alone, a green glow upon his shoulders, rarely sleeping, hardly eating, safe, but still somehow dead.

It was peaceful outside, the sky ultramarine as the last shafts of orange and purple hues slashed the distant horizon, abandoning the earth to let the strangers in. The sultry autumn air mingled with the scent of baked banana pie, the last trace of normality that soured under the siren.

Sam scratched her nose, went to the window, locked it and pulled the thick curtains—her sunset ritual when the siren screamed. Complete darkness engulfed their house.

Josias grabbed her wrist and led her to the basement.

And finally the siren closed its mouth.

He closed his eyes and opened them again and saw no difference. His world was pitch-black. The only relief in this twelve-hour world was the warm skin over his hand. Samantha leaned her head on his shoulder, slowly caressing his wrist.

His stomach rumbled and she clutched his arm. The things outside didn’t bother about bodily functions unless it was too loud but it still made their hearts skip a beat.

Josias sniffed her hair, then ran his finger along her hand, writing now?

She remained still for a moment before she wrote ok on his elbow.

Every night, to pass the time and wait for sleep, they’d invent a story by writing on each other’s skin using a finger. Tonight they continued from where they had left off last night. He wrote and she ran. Sam grabbed his shoulders and squeezed them, indicating he should turn around. She then wrote on his back to a purple house so far away she could see the frozen mountains. Her knight in shining armor would arrive shortly. She invited her brother to dance in the night and bathe in starlight. Josias smiled in the dark and wrote on her wrist that was cute.

This imaginary world, where people still explored the outside, kept them sane and entertained from the doom that haunted them every night. At first, it had seemed silly but he grew used to it because he was doing it with her.

Samantha took his hand and wrote—

She froze. He held his breath. Something in a distant corner of the pitch-black world outside yapped until the sound transformed into an incessant bark. Someone’s dog alerted the world of its presence.

Josias closed his eyes and opened them again.

The dog barked and barked. Then its bark became a suffocating cough, then short panting, happy and louder than the world itself. And even louder than that, as if somehow the dog stood right there in the room. Then as abruptly as it had arrived, it was gone, the sudden silence making Josias’ ears throb.

Samantha was shaking, her skin cold and sweaty. He searched for her hand, kissed it and nibbled at it until she calmed down and hugged him.

There were no more stories that night, only the silence and their touches. Sleep soon came with dreamlessness.

A faint lullaby of birds chirping dragged him out of the black ocean. Josias rubbed his eyes and got up.

They went upstairs to open the doors and windows to welcome a new day into their home, the sight of a clear sky bringing tears to their eyes.

“God, I’m so jealous of them,” Sam whispered, watching the birds flutter across the roofs, her mouth a grin, her eyes wet and red. For some reason, small animals like birds were never targeted by the-ones-that-come-at-night.

Josias kissed her hair. “When will we get used to this?”

Sam breathed in the chilly autumn morning air. “We’re not meant to. Remember what Pedro—” She bit her lips. “I’m sorry.”

His laugh echoed inside Josias’ mind so loudly, he felt as if his throat were about to burst.

“Will you go to the farm?” He tried to brush Pedro’s voice out of his mind.

Sam glanced down. “Yeah, why not?”

Josias went outside after breakfast, welcoming the blessed kiss of sunlight against his skin. He said good morning to a neighbor placing a boom box beside a lamppost across the street. The sky was open and bright with only a few smudges here and there but down here, gloomy faces trod through a gloomier neighborhood. Most houses were empty, left to rot after they came for the inhabitants. Some left their homes thinking that out there, somewhere, they might find a safe haven but no one ever heard from them again. Others moved into better houses once they saw them empty. Next to the charred ruin of a three-story house that had burned down an eternity ago, a short geezer, who always wore floral dresses, sobbed against a young woman’s arms as a tanned man carried out of her home a lump wrapped in a pink blanket. A brown tail dangled out of one of its ends.

And a few blocks from that house, a couple sat on the sidewalk holding the mangled body of a child, their faces devoid of expression. Josias offered his condolences, as he did every day when someone was found. That was part of his job, anyway.

Alongside a group, his job was to knock on the houses that were still occupied. When nobody answered a locked door, he pried it open with a crowbar.

Today nobody answered the knocks on a derelict house standing alone among two barren trees, so a crowbar it was. As he stepped inside, the stench of rancid meat slapped his face. Within was all dark as thick curtains covered every window; the smell covered every corner. A podgy man called Roberto, who lived next to Josias’, stooped forward and vomited.

Yesterday, they had knocked here, and Mr. Casagrande had answered.

“Someone’s been dead a lot longer than a night.” Roberto spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

They searched around the first floor until one of them found a locked door almost hidden under the upstairs staircase. The stench, sweet and pungent, grew heavier as they approached it. They covered their faces with respirators but the smell seeped in nonetheless. Another one vomited and Josias soon joined her.

The stench of death was never easy to get used to.

After they broke the door handle, putrid hot air hugged them. Swollen and gray and swarming with house flies, three bodies huddled together. Their bloated limbs coiled and wound around each other in a disgusting mockery of a family embrace. One was a woman, another a man, and one, thinner and shorter than the other two, a teenager. Mr. Casagrande had said some time ago that his family had gone somewhere south to find shelter.

They did find shelter right here but the things had still managed to find them.

Half an hour later, the group took the bodies to bury them with the many others, the burring of the wheels of the gurneys the only dirge for the dead.

Whenever they could spare some hours in the afternoon, Josias and Samantha enjoyed sunbathing in a lawn chair in their front yard. Black thunderheads gathered in the distance, cloaking the neighborhood in cold shadows when the clouds swept past the sun. His thoughts were blacker than the clouds. Six bodies only today, with Mr. Casagrande missing. Thousands of years ago, he could hear the noise of hammer against nail, men shouting orders, music playing, dogs barking and even children playing.

The only music now was the whistle of the wind.

“Tell me what’s on your mind.” He took Sam’s hand and kissed the knuckles.

She squinted at a lowering pall looming over white clouds, her eyes as silent as her face. “Pedro was right, you know. We were never meant to get used to this.”

That was a cloud blacker than all of them.

He was only a few months older than Samantha and yet much wiser. When their father died, the world was still alive; people could still go out at night and make noise. Both became each other’s anchors as their mother deteriorated inside and out. Or, as Pedro used to say, she “rotted from the inside out.”

Don’t make any noise and stay in the dark. Her brother’s words murmured inside his brain, poking out of a tight corner to haunt him again. Josias had never heard a sound like that, the mad crackle and wheeze bobbing out of Pedro’s throat when the things had come to twist his limbs.

“But we must.” Josias took a sip of cold coffee, watching some people passing by, faces carved by fear and loss—a sight he’d grown used to by now.

“There’s no salvation, no way for this to stop.”

His heart tightened. They could be each other’s salvation, each other’s reason to live. They made it after all; against impossible odds, they managed to keep on living. They even had electricity again.

But for what?

They couldn’t have a family. It wouldn’t make sense. Some still followed the instinct to reproduce and most paid the price. An eternity ago, a couple who once lived next door had decided to have a baby, their way of bringing hope and normalcy; they’d even named the poor baby Hope. She’d slept through the first few nights thanks to the sleeping pills, but one night her wailing had cut the silence. First, it had been a soft crying that had turned into sobbing. Then it had stopped for a second before returning louder, until sobbing became laughter. The baby had laughed and laughed until her voice had broken and after one last sharp shrill, silence had come.

He wrote on her wrist: the knight had a golden sword and he swore to protect her against the nocturnal creatures.

Samantha shook her head and giggled. “I love you.”

They kissed as the wind whistled.

Swollen black clouds soon covered the world. The drizzle gave way to a raging storm and the people gathered inside their homes.

A few minutes later, the blaring of the siren cut through the deafening storm, imposing and sharp. Josias locked the windows upstairs while Sam took care of the living room. Then, the siren shut its mouth to announce their coming.

From where he stood to the basement was an entire universe of distance. Anything could happen along the way.

And so Josias inched forward, one step at a time. A cold finger ran down his body as he exited the bedroom, still alive. He continued on downstairs, each movement a potential death sentence. Midway, he stopped and waited.

Still alive.

He went on, one step after the other, then another. With the stair behind him, he turned and saw the living room window uncovered, Sam staring right through it. A scream stuck in his throat, a lump of agony ready to call forth the strangers into his home.

But nothing happened. Samantha stood there, watching the storm, half her body hidden in the dark and the other tinged by the yellow glare of the lamppost. Josias approached her. She read his face and lightning flashed, bathing everything in pale white for a split second. The roar of the thunder came soon after.

She turned her head and he followed her gaze.

The night was never truly empty. Silhouettes, their shapes outlined by the raindrops, ambled through the streets, front yards, even the roofs. They trod around as if floating or traversing an invisible road only they could see. Some were as tall as the lampposts, others no taller than a child, capered around a shape that seemed to hold an umbrella, danced between two giants and jumped from roof to roof. One of them peeked at their window, dancing and teetering as if mocking them. Two shapes held hands on top of a lamppost and in their front yard, others gestured as if having a lively conversation.

These were the ones that had ruined everything, the ones that had brought the entire world to heel. Josias had heard friends and neighbors talking about seeing them in the rain and yet he’d never dared to look, could not look. Now actually seeing them in front of him, around him, it was almost peaceful, that relief that comes after going through a long-awaited event. Even the tall ones didn’t seem as monstrous as he’d imagined, perhaps because he couldn’t see them, only their outlines.

No, no, those shapes had nothing peaceful about them. They mocked the living because they knew nothing could be done against them.

Once a man called Virgilio had attempted to hose them off but the water had simply streamed out. He had called out for his wife before he began to chortle.

Josias took Sam’s hand and inched backward. She stood still. He wanted to scream at her, lock her in the room until dawn. But he couldn’t move quickly or speak, so he clutched her hand harder. She still didn’t move.

A vibrant blue light blinked across the street. Then a raucous noise of plates breaking boomed across the world, louder than thunder, louder than the rain.

“Hello, morning, afternoon, evening! This is your one and only Miss Flower Sunshine!” The childish voice shook the walls and the ground. This time Sam was the one who clutched his hand. The front door of the house across from theirs flung open with a loud crack, and a woman burst out of the darkness on an electric bike and drove off.

Some people never, ever learn.

The woman, whose name was Carolina or Catarina, her wet black hair flailing behind her, managed to drive a good ten feet before the bike slid from under her, and she stood hovering in the air. The bike skidded off and hit a tree. The man, whose name Josias didn’t remember, drove a bit farther away. The dwarfish form that stared at Josias and Sam swirled around and jumped and jumped. Two other dwarfs leaped over the boom box and grabbed the man’s legs and he slid away from the bike and slammed onto the ground. His bike jerked and swerved and fell and lay rumbling.

“Mommy, will you help me bake chocolate cake?” The child’s voice joined the man’s shrieking.

Then the giant form holding an umbrella also turned and hugged the man as if comforting a sad child. And the man laughed louder than the storm, louder than Miss Flower Sunshine. His piercing guffaw faltered and became a mad howl as the enormous wet outline twisted his arms, snapping each bone as calmly as a man snapping twigs. And still, a broad smile never left the man’s face.

“But don’t eat too much sugar!”

Another giant shape held the woman as she hollered and howled like a mad woman. A middle-sized silhouette approached her and twisted her neck as if turning a screw. When her head completely faced backward, the body slumped down, shuddering.

This time Sam stepped back and took Josias with her. Thunder raged, Miss Flower Sunshine sang about the pleasures of chocolate cakes and the wet shapes outside sauntered away from the mangled bodies to resume their lively nothingness.

The creatures were too many, strong and hungry. I’ll defend you! The knight in shining armor brandished his sword toward the night and he slashed and slashed as the bodies fell.

He dragged himself out of the cushion in the basement and out of the house, ignoring his rumbling stomach. He left Sam still snoring and went to check out the results of last night’s slaughter.

The streets glistened wet and blotches of clouds still lingered in the sky. By midmorning, the bodies had already lost color, the astringent scent of death beginning to ooze from them. Josias and a couple of other workers covered the bodies in a tarp and dragged them to be buried in the cemetery half a mile east of the neighborhood.

Before noon, they would find five more bodies, including a cat, two men, a teenager, and the geezer who had lost her dog—her pale gray body adorned in a pretty pink floral dress.

“Don’t you wanna go? Mr. Oliveira will cook some burgers.”

Sam didn’t leave bed all morning, which was odd, and refused to go to Mr. Oliveira’s, which was even odder since she loved burgers more than humanly possible.

“Go, please go and have fun. We both know you need it.” She rolled to her side and propped herself up on an elbow.

“We both need it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’ll go. And I’ll be really pissed if you don’t bring me some burgers.”

He shook his head and grasped his crotch. The silly gesture was worth it just so he could see her laugh.

Once in a while, the neighborhood would organize a small get-together to forget, for just a moment, the ones that come at night. They could gossip, share trivial things about life and their jobs (at least those whose jobs didn’t involve retrieving dead bodies from their homes,) anything that could distract them for a bit.

If only for a moment, they allowed themselves to forget about last night and many nights before and the nights to come. All his life brought him to this simple medium-rare burger dripping with onion and green sauce. Nattering with those who still remained and enjoying the afternoon sun was that glimpse, that spark that told him: life could still keep on going, despite everything.

But the siren opened its metal mouth to blare its usual message: night is coming and they are too.

Conversations snuffed out. Smiles withered. Plates and cups fell, spreading half-eaten burgers on the ground and orange and lemon juice plashing down. Neighbors and friends ran without uttering a word as the siren screamed.

His house was visible from two blocks away, the windows still uncovered. Then he ran as fast as his legs could take him.

And stopped.

Complete silence engulfed the world and he heard only his panting and his heartbeat throbbing in his ears. The sky was a deep shade of dark blue. Stars already blinked and stippled the quiet firmament, watching him.

Do it now.

He bolted to the house closest to him, praying it was open. For once, his prayers were answered, so he slammed the door shut behind him.

In this dark world smelling of dust and spoiled food, he breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth as slowly as possible, gagging through the effluvia. A smooth wave of relief washed over him when he felt his body still intact.

He had been here last week to retrieve the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Souza, an elderly couple. They were found mangled together on the living room sofa as blow flies swarmed about them. The smell still lingered.

He could go, bolt out of the house and reach his. A single block wasn’t that far. He could still reach—

No.

Silence meant the door was open and they had come in.

It wasn’t raining today, so there was no way to see them. But he had to reach her, embrace her, hold her all night long until the morning sun came to appease them. Would she do something crazy and come looking for him? No, no. She was smart, smarter than him. She should know he was safe.

Josias sneaked on toward the end of the hallway. The yellow light of the lamppost illuminated part of the L-shaped staircase and a corner of the empty living room. Ahead was a small kitchen reeking of burnt olive oil. The food had been thrown in the garbage; the furniture—except the couch—was distributed among the neighborhood, so the kitchen was also empty.

He sat on the floor, his back against the wall.

Waiting, waiting…

No matter how hidden you are, how deep underground, or how many walls between you and the outside world, those outside reached anywhere. A lifetime ago, a friend of a friend of theirs had turned his basement into a bunker by covering every corner, from floor to ceiling, with soundproof panels. He had thought that maybe this could help. It had taken two men to pry open the door. Josias had never forgotten his face contorted in agony, facing up like a faithful pleading for divine help.

When they had cleaned the room, it had looked too neat to abandon, so he had moved in with Sam. He didn’t know who first had the idea to sleep in the basement every night. However, it became their ritual; perhaps by doing so, it offered a sense of security, albeit false.

Sam…

Perhaps if he moved slowly, he could reach her safe and sound. They would survive another night and another.

Instead, Josias remained sitting, stretching his legs and back when they got too sore. Her soft voice danced in his mind, her calling out to him. It wouldn’t hurt to try. He had survived until now; why wouldn’t he survive another night?

Instead, he lay down on the cold, hard floor and closed his eyes to embrace the gloom that was already there. He’d survive again. Nothing had changed. He was in another person’s house, that’s all.

Now go to sleep, soon it will be over.

When he opened his eyes, only the pitch-black welcomed him. Utter silence. Josias raised his hand and didn’t see it. He had drifted off but not enough to go through the night. His back was sore and the back of his head ached. Hunger and thirst commingled with the pain in his crotch and stomach. He begged for a waste bucket and a cup of water; he begged for a sleeping pill. He begged for Sam.

Thinking of her relieved the pain for only a moment.

Was she crying right now? Or had she gone outside to look for him? He’d have heard, yes. He’d have heard her scream and laugh. He’d have felt it.

He rose, biting through the pain, and went to the kitchen door and saw the still black of the night, smudged by the yellow tinge of the lamplight. He knelt and put his member out as close to the wall as possible so as to not make a sound, then relieved himself. He could almost smile if he weren’t here alone. With his mind clear, he tried to think of a way out.

No idea came.

It was impossible to reach his house without stepping outside. The things were blind when people moved quietly indoors in the dark—as long as there were no doors or windows open—but sharp-eyed when they moved even a fraction of an inch outdoors after the blare of the siren until sunrise. No, just forget about it.

Go back to sleep.

Josias breathed in the stench of burned olive oil and lay down again, this time on the other side of the kitchen. It didn’t matter if his whole body was sore in the morning as long as it was intact.

The night stretched out for eternity, a minute longer than a decade.

Sam, Sam.

When would the night end?

The darkness did dwindle, bringing in a dim pale light.

A motor bellowed out and smashed the silence like a hammer. Josias jumped, only to groan and bite his tongue when a sharp blade sliced along his neck and down the back. He rolled to his side and stood there.

Josias eventually rose and pissed on the floor right there and then again.

He shouldered the door open and ran as fast as he could, ignoring the pain. His house wasn’t locked, so he went straight to the living room.

Her body was already cold and not yet stiff. She sat on the couch facing the window with her arms sprawled out. Dry blood drenched her left wrist, seeping to the floor and blooming like a dark-red flower. Her face, almost serene, was kissed by the faint morning sunlight, so relaxed. Josias whispered her name and shook her shoulder. Perhaps she was still asleep.

Of course not.

He sat on the floor and rested his pained head against her leg. Next to her foot, he found a piece of paper adorned with her neat handwriting.

She invited her brother to dance in the night and bathe in starlight. Her knight in shining armor kissed her brow and put his hand on top of hers. We will be together forever, she said.

Josias laughed as loud as his throat allowed as warm tears blinded him. It was a lovely morning out there, full of birds singing and gloomy faces. He kept on laughing because tonight, her knight in shining armor would see her again.

I was waiting in line somewhere and scrolling when I saw that she was tagged in a post by Mr. Walker, my high school principal. The post said that it was with great sadness that Mr. Walker had to announce that Ms. Brown had been found dead, stab wounds covering various parts of her body. I remember being sad but also a little confused about why Mr. Walker was the one posting it. It didn’t seem like they had been all that close when I was in high school though I supposed that I didn’t know a whole lot about their lives that way or the other. I didn’t like Mr. Walker all that much, so I didn’t reply or react.

Imagine my surprise when, later that day, Ms. Brown posted an inspirational quote. At first, I assumed that someone close to her had taken over the account and had wanted to cheer up people who were hearing about her brutal death. But then people responded to her, and she responded back to them, and the replies sounded like Ms. Brown. I looked up Mr. Walker’s profile because I was going to tell him that I didn’t think his joke was funny at all. When I looked him up, not only did I no longer see the post about Ms. Brown, but I also found an announcement that Mr. Walker had died nearly a year ago, and that this was now a legacy account. There was something about celebrating his life rather than dwelling on the circumstances of his death, but nothing all that concrete. I looked at the profile pic, and it looked a little off. I couldn’t exactly explain how, but his face seemed unreal. I decided that I must have just not remembered how Mr. Walker looked and went back to scrolling.

I thought for sure that I’d gone crazy, wondering why I thought that I’d seen that post in the first place. I thought about sending Ms. Brown a message; not telling her about the post, but just seeing how she was. I decided that it would be weird, so I just let it go. Fast forward a few more days, and I start seeing posts from people I went to high school with, talking about how awful it was that Ms. Brown had been murdered. When I looked at the news from my hometown, I found that she’d been killed exactly how Mr. Walker’s account had described. I thought about reaching out to the police, but what could I say? I didn’t take a screenshot of the post or anything (I didn’t think that I’d had to), and I felt like if I did come forward, the police would likely start looking at me.

I donated a little money to her memorial fund, and I tried to mostly forget about it though I did check the news for updates. Police had no real leads; there was no physical evidence. They didn’t even have a murder weapon, and nobody had been seen coming into or leaving her place. There was a lot of rumor and speculation (I come from a small town, and a murder like that is very big news), but nobody could come up with anything concrete.

A few months later, I saw a second post from Mr. Walker. This time it was a decent (but not star) football player. He hadn’t lived in our hometown for over a decade from what I could tell. This time, Mr. Walker’s profile claimed that the kid had died in a car accident. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t send him a message saying “a Facebook ghost is going to kill you,” but I didn’t want to just let it hang, either.

I sent the kid (though he was an adult like me by now) a quick message: “Don’t know why, but you popped into my head the other day. How are things with you?” I looked at his profile pic. His eyes were wrong. I’m not sure what the opposite of sparkling is, but that’s what his eyes were doing. They were like two black holes that you couldn’t quite focus on but that you could feel the light getting sucked into.

The kid didn’t answer my message. I didn’t really blame him; it must have seemed weird that he was getting a message from some random dude from high school. Or maybe he never even checked his messages. I knew people who went months without checking their messages. Either way, it wasn’t long before I saw that he had crashed into a tree. Officials suspected drunk driving. That was possible, but it was too big of a coincidence for me. I had no clue why a Facebook ghost would want to fuck with me. I’d never been on Mr. Walker’s radar as far as I could tell. I checked his profile again. This time, his picture was a cluster of houseflies that looked vaguely like a face. I closed my browser and rubbed my eyes. It had to be a hallucination.

That night, I went into a couple of Facebook groups from my hometown, seeing if there was any chatter that suggested anyone else was seeing this. There was some weird shit, for sure (an argument about whether this one bar had been on Elm Street or Pine Street), but nothing that made me think that anyone else saw Mr. Walker’s ghost posts. Though maybe, like me, they didn’t want to put themselves out there. I didn’t want to spend too much time searching, either, in case someone eventually came looking through my history.

Four more months went by, and I started to feel like maybe things were okay. But then Ms. Brown tagged Mr. Walker in a post that said that this old hall monitor, Mr. Edwards, had died in a hunting accident. This time I took a screenshot. I tried looking up Mr. Edwards, too, seeing if I could try to give him some kind of hint or suggestion. But I found that this time, it wasn’t a warning, the death had already happened. Police treated it as an accident like with the football player, but that couldn’t be true.

I logged out of Facebook and stayed off for weeks. Every now and then, I looked at the screenshot, wondering if I should delete it or who I could possibly reach out to. I decided to look into Mr. Walker. Maybe there was something in his death that would tell me what to expect. What I found at first was that he had died alone in his apartment of natural causes. I thought about how to find out what the actual story was, but again, it was hard to reach out to anyone without leaving tracks. Would I call a coroner or something?

Instead, I called my parents, mainly just to hear their voices. My dad answered the phone, and we talked a little bit about fishing and the Packers’ chances for the coming season. It was only a few minutes before he handed me off to my mom. She talked a bit more about the town. After a few more minutes, she said, “You sound sad.”

“Homesick, maybe,” I said.

“You’re always welcome to come back, Honey.”

I’m not sure why that caught me off guard, but it did. Maybe part of my brain had figured out that I wanted to see my hometown again, see if I could get a feel for the ghost, and that part of my brain told my conscious mind to call my parents. And so I decided to head home. I was in the airport, waiting for my plane (delayed half an hour), when temptation got the better of me and I went back on Facebook. The very first post was from Mr. Walker with a bunch of replies. The strange thing was that it didn’t seem to talk about a death. Mr. Walker’s post was “The kids may go on their way, but they never stop being a Wildcat.” The replies varied from “so true” to “go wildcats!” to “we’re with you Mr. W!”. And they were from tons of profiles, many of them were people I’d never heard of. Some of their pictures were yellowed, with old-timey clothes. One was nothing but maggots, moving. Another was a pile of rotting meat. I logged out again.

The whole plane ride home, I expected to die. A plane crash, a hijacking, anything would have made total sense to me. But I made it to Chicago, through O’Hare, and to my hometown without dying. My parents were both there, waiting for me. We hugged, I took a leak at the airport, and we drove home. Mom had made a roast which was delicious. As we ate, I asked, “Has anything weird been going on in town?”

My mom frowned. “Weird how?”

“I don’t know, like, weird chatter around town. Like about Ms. Brown, for instance.”

My mom looked down, and my dad looked up. Eventually, he said, “They keep saying they can’t say anything. At first, we thought that it was because they were closing in on someone and didn’t want to tip their hand, but, by now, we figure that they just really don’t know anything.”

I shook my head. “That’s awful.”

“It is awful,” my mom said. She went on a short monologue about everything Ms. Brown did for the community. I knew a lot of it, but there were a few new pieces of information. I didn’t know that she’d volunteered at the animal shelter after she had retired. Ms. Brown had never posted about it. I nodded and ate. I wondered if someone’s death was being posted to Facebook as I ate.

After dinner, I helped with dishes, thanked my parents for everything, and headed to bed. Before I went to sleep, I did log on. Instead of a specific death announcement, there was an image of several dead bodies, totally unrecognizable. One was a pile of dismembered limbs. Another was a badly charred person. Another was a body whose head was beneath the wheel of a car. Each one had gotten a heart reaction from Mr. Walker and comments from other people. I shivered, closed my browser and turned off my phone. I stared at the ceiling for a while before I was able to drift off to sleep. When I did fall, I had dreams that I couldn’t remember but that I knew were awful. When I woke up, I went downstairs, rubbing my eyes.

My mom and dad were talking quietly. When they noticed me, my mom came to me and hugged me. She was crying. My dad told me that an apartment building in town had caught fire. Dozens of people had burned alive. I hugged her back.

We had a quick breakfast and then picked up some supplies to drop off with the few survivors. When we got home, my mom took a nap, and my dad and I went for a walk. He asked me, “Why did you ask about weird stuff? About whether weird things were going on or not?”

I thought about it for a second. “There’s been some weird stuff on social media. It’s kind of hard to explain because it’s not threats that I can report or anything, but I don’t know. It just makes me wonder if there’s some common root to all the awful stuff that’s been happening.”

“But you don’t know anything.”

I sighed. “Dad, the longer I live, the more I know that I don’t know a single thing.”

My dad patted me on the shoulder, then he side-hugged me. When we got back to our house, I asked to lay down for a little while. I went back on Facebook and scrolled for a little bit. It took me a while, but eventually, I saw that my whole family was doomed. There was a series of posts celebrating my parents and me. There wasn’t a specific announcement about how we’d die, but I couldn’t see us not dying after the kind words.

I got up and went down to the kitchen. My dad was watching sports clips on the iPad. I wanted to tell him that he should do something great with the last moments of his life. But he was happy watching sports, and I couldn’t explain to him that he should be a saint before he was murdered in some untold way. “Dad,” I said.

“Yeah,” he looked at me.

“I love you and Mom.”

He smiled but kind of shook his head. “We love you too. Always.” I looked at him, and, over his shoulder, I saw out the window. There was something tall and moving. Its skin was an amalgam of scales, worm skin, exposed flesh and exoskeleton. Every place I looked, it was something terrible but different. I tried to smile for my dad, then I turned away.

I headed to the living room. My mom was reading. She looked up and smiled at me. It was a simple gesture, but I really did appreciate the sign of connection. I went to her and hugged her. I held her for a long time. When I let her go, I was ready for the end. I knew that it would happen, and I was actually at peace with it.

There was some scratching from outside. “Do you hear that?” my mom asked.

“Hear what?” I asked, hoping to stave off the horror as much as I could until all that was left of us was pictures of corpses and the intangible comments of people we hadn’t actually seen in forever.

I know someone who’s bought an actual axe and a lightsaber
just in case the virus mutates to T-form and we wake up to zombie neighbours.
We already know the only way to handle a zombie, don’t we?
Off with the head!

Conjurors? Premonitors? Seers? Or cautionaries?
Travellers.
I wonder which time dimension these storytellers came from.

As a child, I believed walls to be cross-dimensional gateways.
I was scared of putting my feet on the floor, ‘cause my brother always told me,
Hands from under the bed will grab little Anna’s legs.
Driven wild by imagination, even Dante’s banished souls reached out to pull me into the hellhole through the pages.
I noticed that hell too resides in the underworld dimension.
This constant thinking is my problem.

There’s an atmospheric change.
It’s got to be this global warming everyone talks about,
’cause all that I see appears to be in darker shades.
Flawless. Like vogue air-brushing.
Everything smells musty too like there’s a mold infestation,
but really there isn’t any. Really, I’ve looked.
It’s cold mostly so I never forget to put my cerulean sweater on.

These walls have looked no different since my 13th birthday but they feel much taller.
Barricading or thwarting, I can’t decide.
It’s mostly a low-frequency rumble here: a bit too quiet at times.
Better than the beeping ambulances last year I suppose.

Where are my parents?
All I can recall is watching my brother move out a while ago, without saying goodbye.
He stopped acknowledging my presence since that day.

But it’s the new faces in this house that bother me.
They arrive in batches as if this were a Bed n’ Breakfast
but leave soon after I nudge them to stop sleeping in my bed.

Yesterday that boy in basketball shorts turned as pale as his t-shirt when I showed him the used butter knife he had left on the breakfast slab the previous night.
Just plain old lack of chivalry.

I am not a whiner to not share my space or time with anyone,
but I don’t like spectators while I’m naked.
Why do they barge in unannounced while I’m in the middle of my four-time daily bathing routine to get this festering black muck off my body?
An allergy. That’s my diagnosis,
‘cause I can only get a doctor sprinting out of the door every time I talk about it.

But I think it’s my strength that seems to be deteriorating each day.
I can’t eat anything ‘cause I’m not hungry at all.
Come to think of it, it’s actually my memory that seems to have faded since the day my parents left to see the doctor after they caught the flu.

Aunt April called that day and told me that Nonna couldn’t make it through the flu.
I wonder why she would lie to me blatantly, ‘cause Nonna is the only one who visits me every now and then, although she’s too old you know.
Can’t see anything, doesn’t say anything.

My brother too left coughing blood that day.
Said he’d be back after consulting the doctor.

He did tell me not to look under the bed and I remember trying my best not to
and I don’t really remember why,
but I think I did.

Tipping at satellites,
he speaks confused Spanish
at station bars orbiting Alpha Centauri.
His noble android Sancho Panza
spits binary code at the rockets
he still calls burros.

Armed with old star charts,
Don Quixote insists on venturing past the ecliptic.
Above, he says, are stars beyond our grasp
and rewards better than Castilian gold.
There, he aims his ship towards Dulcinea,
beautifully gleaming in the heavens.

He charts his course fifty lightyears wide,
spurred on by a voracious appetite of dehydrated
hams and bartered Manchego cheese.
Dulcinea twinkles at the Quixote’s rusted spacesuit    
before he’s thrown off the galactic arm,
surviving in a travelogue picked up near Barnard’s Star.

What Makes a (Post) Human

How much can you remove
and still be human?

Surgeons can transplant and excise
organs and tissue, for our own benefit,
reanimating what once belonged to another.

Yet, they speak only of anthropos and bios,
not of zoe, the structure of all life.

Their handiwork cannot sew the lattices
of fractals spiralling from spider webs,
tenuously built in rooftop cornices,
dripping with globular dew upon each new day.

A soul never thought much
of the detritus within which it lives,
constantly shedding skin,
an itch of sentience crawling within hinged joints.

Trillions of microorganisms march to beating hearts,
sustaining that which knows not of their existence.

Zoe melds organic and inorganic,
a rhapsody of all each planet can stir up
from the primordial ether of life.

Europa’s oceans swell in possibility,
sentient spacecrafts buzz around asteroid hives,
and mammals hibernate as is their wont.

Beauty is enmeshed in our culpability;
over eager surgeons prune and terraform,
rending ballads of biodiversity and yet we call ourselves (post) human.