Wake Up and Open Your Eyes E-Book

Clay Chapman

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Seitenzahl: 481

Beschreibung

The Americans meets The Exorcist as a suburban family are radicalised by a demonic force, seeping through social media and twenty-four hour news cycles. Perfect for fans of Delilah S. Dawson, Gretchen Felker-Martin and Jordan Peele. Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the "Great Reckoning" is here, he assumes it's related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help. Then Noah's mother brutally attacks him. But Noah isn't the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah's Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn–-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes? This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Clay McLeod Chapman and available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Phase One: Sleeper Cells

December 18

December 19

December 20

Phase Two: Recruits

November 15

November 22

November 29

December 6

December 13

December 20

Phase Three: Holy War

All Hell Breaks Loose

Housecall

Hit the Road

Hunting Party

Strength in Numbers

Bathroom Break

Baby Ghost

Deprogramming

Home Again, Home Again

Acknowledgments

About the Author

“Clay McLeod Chapman is one of my favorite horror storytellers working today.”

JORDAN PEELE

“The Purge ain’t got nothin’ on this.”

STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES, New York Times bestseller and author of I Was a Teenage Slasher

“A damn roller coaster of a novel, the kind that leaves you shaken and shrieking and smiling. Clay McLeod Chapman has taken all that’s troubling our nation in the current day and, somehow, makes it all more frightening. Rough, ruthless but you can still tell Chapman is having a blast.”

VICTOR LAVALLE, author of Lone Women

“Wake Up and Open Your Eyes doesn’t just hit close to home—it’s a needle sliding under your skin until you bleed, a rabbit hole stocked with terror all the way down.”

CHRISTINA HENRY, author of Alice and The House That Horror Built

“A profoundly terrifying, riveting, intense, nerve-shredding modern horror epic. With brutal insights into very real American vulnerabilities and the dangers that exploit them, this novel is the truth and a warning and essential reading. It’s also wild and scary and everything a great horror novel should be. This is Clay McLeod Chapman at the peak of his craft. Brilliant.”

RACHEL HARRISON, USA Today bestselling author of So Thirsty and Black Sheep

“Brace yourself. This novel is relentless and utterly merciless. Chapman takes unflinching aim at modern American culture and nobody is safe in this brutal, insightful apocalypse!”

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN, New York Times bestselling author of Road of Bones and The House of Last Resort

“This is a bold badass book. Chapman has seemingly grown impatient with the vague stances and topical hints that must naturally be found in some books of an era such as ours: here he lays it out, naked, in full, what he thinks, what he sees, what he knows is happening in the spinning world. This lens is flat-out frightening, not only for its relevance, but for how easily us readers see the same modernity of horrors in our private lives.”

JOSH MALERMAN, New York Times bestselling author of Incidents Around the House

“Chapman isn’t merely checking the pulse of America—he’s tapping the vein. And trust me, there’s blood everywhere. This book throbs with body horror and familial conflict and most notably, the sociopolitical nightmare we find ourselves in.”

CHUCK WENDIG, bestselling author of The Book of Accidents and Black River Orchard

“Disturbing and dangerously prescient, there’s the dark shadow of a world-spanning blight spreading deep inside the mottled heart of Clay McLeod Chapman’s latest novel, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. A searing and deeply unnerving apocalyptic thriller executed with the true nerve of a master storyteller.”

ERIC LaROCCA, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“Gut-wrenching, grief-soaked, the book perfectly embodies the panic of seeing the people you love transform into monsters. An utterly disconcerting mirror held up to the terror of our present.”

CASSANDRA KHAW, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing but Blackened Teeth

“A pedal-to-the-metal, body-horror mash-up of The Purge, Pontypool, and Malcolm Devlin’s And Then I Woke Up. Chapman has an absolute gift for the unforgettably, mind-saturatingly horrific, and I shall be sending him my therapy bill.”

ALLY WILKES, Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of All the White Spaces and Where the Dead Wait

Also by Clay McLeod Chapmanand available from Titan Books

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Wake Up and Open Your EyesPrint edition ISBN: 9781803368283E-book edition ISBN: 9781803368290

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UPwww.titanbooks.com

First edition: January 202510 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Clay McLeod Chapman 2025. All rights reserved.First published by Quirk Books, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Clay McLeod Chapman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Typeset in Bembo & Helvetica Neue LT

For my family

Phase One

SLEEPER CELLS

There can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason.

—FIDES ET RATIO, POPE JOHN PAUL II

December 18

Get your family out of there, Noah. Please. The city isn’t safe anymore. None of them are. If you’d been watching the news, you’d know this by now. Please, honey. Please. For me. For your mother. You need to leave New York before it’s too late, before your family gets hurt . . .

Mom left another message.

Noah didn’t even hear his phone ring this time. Her voicemails are digital mosquitoes buzzing about his ear at all hours of the day—and night—hungry for blood.

This one landed at eleven. Shouldn’t she be in bed by now? Fast asleep?

Paul Tammany must’ve just gotten off the air.

“Everything okay?” Alicia props herself up on one elbow in their bed, sensing tension.

Noah nods, still listening to his mother.

“Is it her?”

“Yeah.” The frequency of Mom’s calls has really ramped up since Thanksgiving. Something’s in the air. Or maybe it’s the fluoride in the water. Or the cell towers, all that 5G microwaving her brain.

I just watched another news story and they said there have been more protests—these riots and I, oh God, Noah, I’m so worried for you . . . So worried about my grandbaby . . .

When Noah was just a boy, growing up in Virginia, his mom would take him to the library. She’d let him check out two books. Any two. His choice. Their deal was simple: One for you and one for me. Mom would read one book to Noah at bedtime while he had to read the other on his own. He’d pick a picture book to tackle—the easy reads, Sendak or Silverstein—while for his mother, he’d tug the doorstoppers off the shelf. The cinder-block books. Tolkien. Dickens. King. He can still remember the sound of her voice, a soft southern lilt gamely taking on the personas of every last character, her words filling his bedroom, his mind, his dreams.

Noah can still hear her voice now.

When I think of you up there in that god-awful city, with all those awful people around, I—I don’t know. I wish you’d come home to us. You can’t be safe up there. Kelsey can’t be safe . . .

He doesn’t recognize her at all.

It’s not Mom. It can’t be.

Technically, yes, that’s her voice. But . . . the words. They don’t sound like her thoughts at all. These are someone else’s words in her mouth. Her mind.

It’s getting worse. She’s getting worse.

“Is it bad?” Alicia’s voice is calm. Fair and balanced. Working as an admin at a nonprofit will do that—her uncanny knack for putting out fires with nothing but the serenity in her tone.

“Pretty bad.”

“How bad?”

They’re talking about a reckoning, son . . .

Noah stares at the ceiling, phone pressed to his ear, his mind’s eye filled with his mother’s distorted visions of a city on fire, of protests right outside their window, complete chaos.

I know you don’t believe me and I know you think I’m overreacting, but I—I just wish you would wake up, honey, before it’s too late. I wish, I wish you would open your eyes.

“Can I hear?” Alicia slides in closer. There’s that curiosity of hers. That mettle. Probably the first thing Noah remembers about meeting Alicia was how she was the one to approach him at that Antibalas show in Williamsburg—what? Thirteen years ago now?—in the back room at Black Betty. She kick-started the conversation, buying the next round. They danced with their drinks held up at their shoulders, those crinkly plastic cups, spilling G&Ts all over themselves. They both carried a hint of juniper all the way back to his apartment, seeped into their skin.

“You don’t want to hear this,” Noah says.

“What’s she saying?”

Somebody ought to do something. Somebody ought to put a stop to these people—

These people.

“Nothing.” Noah deletes the message before he finishes listening to it. What Alicia hasn’t said, but what Noah’s sensed anyhow, is that she’s starting to ebb. Pull away from him. His family. And she’s pulling Kelsey away with her.

When Thanksgiving discourse shifted to immigration, who’s creeping into the country, didn’t his parents notice Kelsey sitting across the table? Who just passed the mashed potatoes? Didn’t they realize their granddaughter is half Haitian?

An invasion, Noah’s mom called it. Why can’t they all just stay in their own country?

What about me? What about Kelsey? Alicia asked Noah’s mother at the table, point-blank, in front of Ash and his whole fam, Christ, everyone, having held her tongue as long as the first serving of turkey. What do you see when you look at her? Your own granddaughter?

Mom said, no, no, she wasn’t talking about her daughter-in-law or granddaughter. She was talking about those other people.

Noah hasn’t picked up a call from her since; just lets Mom go to voicemail now. Lets her ramble on for as long as she wants, filling up his inbox with her endless messages. He traps them. Suffocates them, like bugs in a jar.

But it’s not going away. Mom’s not stopping. This has festered for far too long.

Noah needs to deal with this.

“I’m gonna call,” he says, already dialing. It doesn’t matter how late it is.

No answer.

Strange. Mom always picks up. No matter what she’s in the middle of, she always makes time to talk to her boys. Particularly Noah. Mr. Golden Boy, Asher always jabs. Pampered Prince.

So why isn’t she picking up? Why won’t she answer?

“Maybe she’s asleep?” Alicia suggests.

“Maybe.”

Neither says anything for a breath. Alicia holds on to Noah’s eyes. Really takes him in. “Plenty of people are going through this,” she says, breaking the silence. “I read in The Atlantic—”

Noah drags his pillow over his face and releases a low groan. “Pleeeease. No more articles about deprogramming your parents . . .”

It’s far too late for an intervention. That ship sailed last Thanksgiving. Noah already tried dragging Mom and Dad back from the ideological brink of their batshit conspiracy-laden crack-pottery. Before packing his fam in the car and plowing through traffic to get to Grammy and Grandpa’s house for Turkey Time, Noah Googled “how to deprogram your parents,” like he was cramming for an exam. He clicked a couple links. Printed a few articles. He even highlighted a couple sentences.

Debate won’t help. Arguing only makes matters worse. Your loved ones are lost in a conspiracy theory loophole. They are falling down their own personal rabbit holes. Only patience and understanding will pull them out. Talk to them. See their side. Find common ground.

Did the writers of these listicles even know folks like Noah’s father? He’s the most stubborn son of a bitch Noah’s ever met. He’s lived with his bullheadedness his entire life.

But Mom . . .

Not her.

Mom is still Mom, isn’t she? Somewhere deep down? Trapped in her own body? There has to be a scrap of sanity left, just a glimmer of common sense buried deep beneath the calcifying wave of conspiracy theories shellacking her brain, one queasy meme after another.

“You’re not alone,” Alicia says. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Sure feels like it. This downward spiral may have started years ago, but this last month has been a wildfire of voicemails. Used to be just one a week. Now it’s up to three a day. Noah has felt so isolated from his family—his own mother—ever since she tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Whatever crawled back up isn’t Mom anymore.

December 19

It’s almost time. Time to wake up, son. Open your eyes. The Great Reawakening is nearly here. December 20. It’s going to be a glorious, glorious day and I only hope you are ready . . .

When did she leave this message? Christ, four in the morning? Is his phone even ringing anymore? He left his cell on his nightstand just in case she called again. He must’ve slept right through it. He brings his phone to his ear, takes in a deep breath, bracing himself, aaand . . .

Listens.

Noah picks up the faintest hiss of static, an ambience in the background. Whatever room she was in when she called sounds cramped, confined, like a closet. Was she hiding? A butt dial?

One second of crackling silence, now two . . .

Three . . .

Noah is just about to delete the message, convinced Mom misdialed, when—

There’s her breath. A slow, ragged inhale groans right in the receiver. Her chest sounds wet, phlegmy, as if she’s coming down with the flu.

Is she choking? Asphyxiating? Is it a gas leak? Is she being strangled? What the hell is—

Then she speaks. Right into the receiver. Into Noah’s ear.

Time to wake up, son. Open your eyes.

Noah calls his mom straightaway.

No answer.

So Noah dials Dad. No answer there, either. Dad never picks up, so it’s not such a stunner. What a waste of a data plan. Dad always gripes that cellular phones are nothing but a ball and chain, tethering him to the twenty-first century. He doesn’t need to be reachable all the time, no matter what his sons insist. Leave a message on the answering machine, if it’s so important.

So Noah dials the landline. Mom and Dad aren’t answering that, either.

Now that’s a red flag.

Don’t panic. Not yet.

Noah dials Mom again. It’s eight in the morning. She’s bound to be awake by now.

It doesn’t even ring this time. Straight to voicemail. Noah leaves a message, doing his damnedest to keep his voice even. “Calling you back, Mom . . . Just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

Noah speed-dials Asher. It rings . . . and rings. Does nobody pick up their phone anymore?

He leaves a message. “Hey, it’s me. Something weird’s going on with Mom. Have you—”

An incoming call cuts him off. Noah glances at the caller ID.

Ash is on the other line. Finally. “What,” he says in a flat monotone when Noah picks up.

“Hello to you, too . . .” His older brother has been royally pissed at him since Thanksgiving.

“I’m busy,” Ash grunted.

And I’m not? “You talk to Mom lately?”

“All the time.”

“. . . And?”

Silence on the other end.

“She’s leaving me these messed-up messages and—I dunno. I’m just worried about her.”

“Worried.”

“Could you just check up on her? See if she and Dad are okay?”

“Why.”

Because you live less than an hour away, asshole. Because you’re her son, too. Because I want to make sure they’re not going full-on Unabomber. Because I’m worried they might be—

Might be—

Might—

“Just go over there, okay? See if they’re all right?”

“Fine.” Ash hangs up. No buh-bye, love you, bro. Not like the two of them have ever been open with their emotions with each other, but Ash has gone full-on Dad with his stoicism. It’s no mystery their father favored Asher growing up. The one time—the only time—Noah bolstered himself, all seventeen years of himself, and confronted his father about why he always took Ash out fishing, took Ash on camping trips, took Ash to baseball games, and not Noah, Dad’s stolid response was, Ash simply has more traditional values than you, son . . .

No arguing with that. Dad always saw himself in Asher. He never saw himself in Noah.

He doesn’t see me at all.

Even Asher’s own friggin’ family mirrors Mom and Dad. Look at them, the Fairchild Four: Ash, his wife, Devon, and their sons, Caleb and Marcus. It’s like Ash modeled his entire household after their parents. A cookie-cutter clan, complete with cookie-cutter values.

So why isn’t Mr. Traditional paying attention? Can’t he see what’s happening?

Noah tries calling Mom again around lunchtime.

Somebody pick up the phone . . .

He leaves another message.

“Hey, Mom . . . It’s me. Noah. Everything okay? Call me.”

Multiple messages.

“Mom? Dad? Anyone there? Pick up if you can hear me.”

Where in the hell are they? Did they go on a trip without telling anyone? Dad despises other countries, and Mom haaaates flying. The two rarely leave their house anymore.

Noah could call their neighbors to check in on them . . . but does he even have their contact info? Calling the police would take this all to an awkward extreme he’d never be forgiven for if it turns out they’re okay. Please let them be okay.

Noah calls Mom at dinner. This time she’ll answer, he thinks. She has to answer.

Pick up pick up pick up . . .

Calls Dad. Just one more time. Then the landline.

Pick up pickuppickup . . .

Calls Asher.

PICK UP PICKUPPICKUPPICKUP!

It’s been a full day of radio silence. Asher not picking up is the last straw. The camel’s back, snapped. Something’s wrong. The anxiety settles into his stomach, takes root.

What if . . . what if they’re . . .

Don’t go there. Don’t—

Go there.

Noah has to go down there, doesn’t he? If Ash isn’t going to help, he has to do it himself. Hop in the car and drive six hours—seven, if there’s traffic on I-95—all the way to his parents’ house in Richmond and make sure Mom and Dad are okay. That they’re still—

Still—

December 20

“Sure you don’t want us to come?” Alicia asks as he packs the Prius bright and early the next morning. The fam sees him off like this is some kind of quest. Save the parents! Vanquish the evil lurking in their hearts!

“Probably best I do this by myself,” Noah says.

Alicia takes Noah into her arms, squeezing. “Call me, okay? Whenever. Don’t hesitate.”

“Will do.”

“Will you be back by Christmas?” Kelsey asks, unable to keep her hips from swiveling. She’s roller-skating even when she’s stock-still, no need to lace up, always gliding down the sidewalk on her way to school, the bodega, her friends’ houses. Such a city mouse, so at home in their multicultural neighborhood, so different from the white suburb Noah grew up in. But even here, Alicia is sometimes mistaken for Kelsey’s Haitian nanny. It’s everywhere, even in their liberal haven. Unavoidable. Inescapable.

Noah feels this pinch in his gut. “I’ll only be gone for a night. Two, tops.”

He’s missing her holiday recital for this. Kelsey’s soloing, selected by her teacher to sing “The Greatest Love of All.” She’s been practicing all week, singing around the house, her voice filling their apartment. The girl’s got pipes.

“Promise?” Kelsey has her mother’s eyes. Plus her composure, thank Christ. What does she possess of him? What does he see of himself in her? His need to please? His corny jokes?

“Promise.” Noah holds up his pinkie. Kelsey brings hers up and the two intertwine.

There it is, his word, his solemn vow, locked in with a pinkie swear.

No take-backs.

* * *

Heart attack, home invasion, gas leak, oh my!

Noah can’t help himself. He imagines every worst-case scenario along the Jersey Turnpike. It’s a song sung to the tune of Dorothy’s panic attack along the Yellow Brick Road—

Heart attack, home invasion, gas leak, oh my!

It’s the radio silence that gnaws at him. As much as Noah hates listening to Mom’s messages, it’s worse when they completely stop. Mom always calls, even if he doesn’t pick up.

Heart attack—

He can picture it: his father keeled over at the breakfast table, Mom wailing away over Dad’s dead body, too distraught to even hear the ringing, ringing, ringing of the phone.

Home invasion—

Is Noah going to find their bodies in the basement? Hands bound behind their backs? Mouths sealed in duct tape?

Gas leak—

Will he step into the house and find their bodies tucked in next to each other, as if they’re just sleeping, waxen skin gone all gray?

Oh my!

Asher is closer. He could’ve spared a couple hours out of his busy friggin’ life as a corporate overlord to check up on their parents, but nope—he couldn’t be bothered.

Noah calls again—on the hour, every hour, closing in on the Mason-Dixon Line.

Mom’s cell, then Dad’s, then their landline.

Then Asher.

Pick up pick up SOMEBODY PICK THE FUCK UP.

Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.

This is all Fax’s fault.

Fax News took Noah’s parents away. You know their stupid slogan: Just the Fax—cheekily misspelled in some outdated Reaganera wisecrack. This right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as a twenty-four-hour news network had been reprogramming his parents for years. Years. And Noah didn’t do a goddamn thing about it. Now they’re . . .

They’re . . .

Noah’s family always had an uncanny knack for repressing their politics. When he was younger, he never knew what his parents’ political affiliation was. Who you voted for is better kept private. It isn’t polite conversation. No ruffling of feathers at the dinner table during the holidays, that’s that. Simply pass the potato rolls and keep your politics to yourself, please . . .

Then something changed.

The channel changed.

It all started with Dad. He was such an easy target once he retired. Put out to pasture, was how he put it. Thirty-five years as a regional sales rep for Chevron doesn’t add up to much beyond a Walmart sheet cake. His days are now spent sprawled out in front of the television for hours on end, only getting up from his cozy recliner during commercial breaks.

Let’s see what’s going on in the world, he’d always say, picking up the remote. Cable news was his default, a steady stream of world events filtered through Fax. Noah wasn’t around to witness his father’s descent into far-right fantasyland in real time. On their rare holiday father-son chat, Dad sounded like he was rehashing poorly written conspiracy theory fan fic.

At first, it was easy to discredit his crackpot talk. The ol’ man’s just getting crankier. Noah and Alicia joked about it, miles away in Brooklyn, opining on the fate of every white man entering his golden years. “That’ll be you one day,” she teased Noah. “Just you wait . . .”

“Shoot me now,” he begged. “If I ever start sounding like that, you have my full permission to put me out of my misery.”

“Be careful. I just might.”

Then Mom started to sound just like Dad.

It started off with small things. Tiny cracks in her civility. Nothing too noticeable. Definitely nothing worth pushing back on. But when they spoke on the phone, Noah began to detect buzzwords. Slogans. Batshit news headlines she must have picked up from Fax.

Mom never had a political bone in her body. A farm girl plucked up from Powhatan and planted in the suburbs, she raised two boys on her own. Their household was her world, and she rarely bothered to venture beyond it. The one exception was her volunteer work at the local library for the last twenty years, reading picture books to toddlers every Saturday.

Up until they replaced me with a transsexual, she told Noah.

Whoa, Mom . . . Noah’s ribs gripped his lungs. He had to take a moment to process the words that had just oozed out from the receiver. You don’t really believe that, do you?

It’s happening everywhere now. There was a gravelly drag to her breath, every word raked over wet rocks. It could’ve been a cold, but this sounded phlegmier. Mom insisted she was fine. Everywhere. Every last library. That’s what they’ve been saying on the news.

You mean Fax? That’s not news, Mom . . .

You don’t understand, son. There was the edge of belittlement in her voice, which frustrated Noah to no end. He was forty-two, married with a daughter of his own, and his mother—some twisted facsimile of her, at least—was treating him like he was still a child.

You just don’t see it yet, she said. But you will. Soon.

Where was this sharpened edge in her voice coming from? Why was Mom so angry? Mom, who raised Noah to be a thinking man, as she always put it. Who cut the crusts off his peanut butter sandwiches. Who teared up during commercials about auto insurance.

That Mom. Noah had no idea who this woman was.

Noah flips to NPR. He needs a distraction. “Reports of protesters convening on—”

Noah turns the dial.

“A riot outside—”

On to the next station.

“Another attack at—”

Noah flips the radio off and drives in silence. Stewing; grip tightening into fists around the wheel. I just want my parents back, he thinks. Back to the way they were before all . . . this.

They were a family once. They still are. Bound by blood, even if not ideology.

Can’t they be a family again?

What if they’re . . .

What, exactly?

If they’re . . .

* * *

Dead.

Noah sits behind the wheel, staring out the windshield at the one-story, brick and vinyl box that is his childhood home. Woodmont is one of those sleepy southern subdivisions where kids ride their bikes in the middle of the street without worry of getting run over. Noah and Ash skinned their knees on this very block plenty of times, years of their blood soaked into asphalt.

“Mommmyyyy . . . Mommmmyyyyyyyy . . .”

Little Noah’s in the street. His Nike is caught in the bike chain, ankle tangled into its links, while his leg folds backward. He’s like a deer snagged in a bear trap, only the snare is his own Schwinn. The pain in his shin radiates through the rest of his body, throbbing up from the shattered bone. All the other kids from the neighborhood have circled around. Most still sit on their bikes, staring down at little Noah. Even Ash is among them, jaw slung open. Gawking.

“MommymommyMOMMYYYYY!”

And just like that, there she is.

Mom answers his call, pushing through the circle of kids and swooping down. She untangles Noah’s broken leg, the linked teeth of the chain basted in blood, and scoops her boy into her arms, abandoning his bike. She’s taking him back inside, to the safety of their home.

“I got you,” Mom whispers in Noah’s ear as she rushes up their lawn. “I got you, I got—”

You.

The memory’s been waiting for him, right there in the middle of the street. Like it happened only yesterday.

Noah’s driven seven straight hours without a single pit stop. His bladder begs for relief, but he can’t bring himself to climb out of the car. Not yet.

The house seems to have shrunk. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. But this is where he grew up. So much of his life was spent under that roof.

Why can’t he just go inside?

Noah takes a deep breath, the air settling in his lungs, then opens the door and slips out.

The lawn is in sore need of mowing. Dad has always been a militant lawn upkeeper. The scraggly patches of grass remind Noah of when he first decided to grow his hair long back in high school. Dad wasn’t all too happy about it. Look who needs a trim.

Dad would never let his lawn grow this long. Not in a million years.

Mom’s flower beds have all shriveled. Scabs of chrysanthemums speckle the soil like a dozen red flags.

What’s on the other side of that door?

What’s waiting for him?

Noah rings the doorbell, which feels so formal. I should just go in, he thinks.

Heart attack . . .

He knocks. No answer. Knocks again, harder this time.

Home invasion . . .

Dad’s car is in the driveway.

Gas leak . . .

No outward signs of a disturbance. No broken windows.

Oh my . . .

The spare key is where it’s always been: under the terra-cotta pot on the front stoop. Whatever plant was in it is completely wilted, a husk of its former glory.

Here we go, Noah thinks as he slides the key in. The lock clicks.

The door won’t budge. Something—

a body oh God it’s a body

—is blocking it from the inside. Noah leans in with his shoulder and pushes, shoving the obstruction back. He pushes until there is enough space to slip his head in.

Not a body.

The console table is overturned. It was pressed up against the door like a barricade. A last stand. His fam’s Alamo. Noah’s throat catches. What— who—were they trying to keep out?

The oily smell finds him first. A rotten-apple tang hangs in the air, fecund enough to coat the back of his throat. Something organic has turned. Something that could’ve been living at one point but definitely isn’t anymore. Whether it’s food or family, Noah doesn’t have a clue.

“Mom?”

There’s no light. Nothing is turned on. The shades are pulled.

“Dad?” It’s still a question. A plea. Please somebody answer just answer me please—

Nobody answers.

But someone is talking. Loud and clear. Defiant in his declarations, talking with a bald bravado that sounds familiar. It certainly isn’t a member of the Fairchild family.

“You guys here? Helloooo?”

Noah hasn’t set a foot farther in. He stands in the doorway, the sun still warming the back of his neck. Nothing but darkness waits ahead. Turn back, he thinks. Just go. Leave. Now.

“It’s . . . me. Noah.”

As he ventures down the hallway, step by step, he feels like he’s entering a cave, spelunking deep into the earth. Even the air feels different inside, as if it hasn’t moved in a month, maybe since Thanksgiving, humid and viscous. The dark is so all-encompassing, the world at his back may as well not exist. Sunlight can’t reach this deep.

Everything is an inch off from where he remembers. It’s as if Noah tried explaining to a drunk architect what his childhood home looked like, and then they attempted to sketch the house based on his hazy recollections. The broad strokes are all there, but the details are off.

The deeper he goes, the louder it gets.

The voices. Not just one—legion.

Their words winnow through the miasma of the house, louder now, practically shouting in synchronicity with one another. A harmonized screed. Definitely not his parents.

Chanting. That’s what it sounds like. An incantation of some kind. These voices are repeating themselves, saying the exact same thing. Just how many of them are there, exactly?

Is this some kind of ritual? Noah’s mind immediately leaps to a devil-worshipping cult crashing at his parents’ pad. Charlie Manson sacrificing Mom and Dad on the living room couch.

Wait, Noah realizes. Those aren’t different people . . .

It’s the same voice, merely reverberating from different corners of the house. The television is still on. Not just one TV, but . . . all of them? Each and every set in the house is turned to the exact same channel, blasting its broadcast. How many sets do his parents have? When he was growing up, there was just the one in the living room. Now it sounds like dozens of them.

The volume is cranked up, flooding the halls with the baritone echo of—

Just the—

—Fax. Of course.

“Mom?” Noah calls out, louder now, competing with the anchor, Paul Tammany, that perpetually pissed-off pissant with a brick chin. “Dad? Anybody home? Can you answer me?”

The only reply he receives comes from the television. The news is too loud, eclipsing Noah’s voice. The dim glow cast off the living room TV faintly illuminates the hall. Noah can hear another television blaring farther off, in the kitchen. The same voice swarms out from each TV, bouncing off the walls like conservative claptrap echolocation. All the Paul Tammanys talk over one another. Listening to this shit gives Noah a headache. He can’t think straight.

Just the way Fax likes it.

Crrnch. There’s a crumbling sensation under Noah’s heel. He looks down. A light seasoning of frosted white glass is scattered across the floor. Shards of a lightbulb.

Crrnch. The brittle crackle of broken glass thickens under his feet. It’s not lightbulbs anymore. He’s stepping on a shattered picture frame. Photographs of himself as a child, along with the rest of the fam, no longer hang on the walls, all of them now flung across the floor.

What the hell happened here? A break-in? Were they robbed?

Noah bends down to pick up a picture.

It’s a black-and-white snapshot of Mom as a dimple-cheeked corn husk of a girl. There she is—Little Miss Spat, 1968—looking just like Shirley Temple, curtsying for the camera. That satin sash is still hanging around here, somewhere, its purple hue fading into a dull lavender.

There’s a photo of Noah and Asher in the backyard. Both wear cowboy outfits. Ash has a cap gun, his arm roped around Noah. He can still feel the noogie he got right after Mom snapped the picture, as if the sensation of Ash’s knuckles is ingrained into the picture itself.

Noah leans over and picks up a picture of Kelsey. Four years old. She’s smiling for the camera. Beaming. He chokes up. He can’t help himself. He wasn’t expecting to see her. He misses her so much. Wants to be with her, back in Brooklyn. Not here. Anywhere but here.

Noah hangs what remains of the frame back on the wall. He doesn’t want the picture of Kelsey left on the floor where someone can step on it.

“Mom? It’s me . . . Noah.” Why is he even talking anymore? “Dad? Where are you two?”

He can’t even hear himself over the booming voice of Paul Tammany. He needs to turn off the television sets. All of them. Then he can find his parents.

Whatever’s left of them.

The living room is empty. This close to the television, the volume is painful, making Noah’s ears ring. Oily colors are cast across the upturned furniture. The couch is flipped over, its cushions tossed to the floor. The lamp is knocked on its side.

Dad’s hallowed La-Z-Boy is pulled back into its reclining position. Its leather upholstery has been ripped open, cotton tufts plucked and flung to the floor. His empty throne. Gutted.

When they were kids, that cracked recliner was always off-limits. Asher and Noah knew never to sit in it, even when Dad wasn’t around. Asher would hop in whenever they were alone, assuming the reclining position. This is the life, he’d sigh, pretending to watch TV. Noah never sat in that chair. Not once. The consequences of getting caught were too great. Even the name unnerved him—La-Z-Boy—as if the leather was the tanned hide of some good-for-nothing child, skinned for his indolence, now dressing for his father’s furniture.

A break-in. Noah is certain of it now. Someone broke into the house and murdered his parents. In Cold Suburban Blood. He just needs to find where they are, bound and gagged and—

“We’re only a couple hours away from the Great Reawakening, folks . . . Can you feel it?”

That goddamn Paul Tammany simply won’t shut up.

Where’s the remote? Noah glances around the floor but can’t find it. Not in this mess. He’ll just have to switch the TV off manually. He walks over, grabs the cord, and gives a single, sturdy tug. The screen collapses into blackness, taking Tammany and his voice into the void.

Thank God, Noah thinks, now I can finally hear my—

“I was watching that.”

Noah shouts. He spins around and finds his father standing behind him, teetering on his feet amid the overturned furniture. Had he been hiding behind the couch this whole time? Squatting?

“Jesus, Dad . . . I’ve been calling for, like, the last five minutes.”

Look at him. He’s lost weight. A lot of weight. His button-down Hawaiian shirt sags over his shoulders, two sizes too big for his scrawny frame now. Noah knows that shirt. One of his father’s favorites. It’s all stained. It looks like there are extra islands rising up just next to Oahu.

When was the last time Dad slept? Shaved? Bathed? He’s so . . . ripe.

Something like a smile spreads across his father’s lips, but there’s no mirth in it. He looks like a grinning fish. “You made it, son. Just in time.”

“Time for . . . what?”

“It’s . . .” Now he’s the confused one. “It’s the twentieth.”

“What about it?” The date holds no value to Noah. Did he forget somebody’s birthday?

“You mean . . .” Dad sounds genuinely hurt. “You’re not here for . . . for . . .” He lapses deeper into himself, lost in his thoughts.

“Want to tell me where Mom is?”

No answer. Just a blank stare at the empty screen. Dad wobbles on his feet, ready to fall. His eyes. Noah’s never seen such uncertainty in his father’s eyes before. He doesn’t even know where he is anymore, displaced in his own living room. A lost little boy. What is this?

“Here. Let me help you.” Noah guides Dad back to his eviscerated throne. The dry leather crackles under his meager weight. He’s diminished. He was such a giant before.

Look at him now. So small. Frail.

“Dad? Dad.”

Dad’s eyes are still fixed on the television, even though it’s unplugged. What’s he looking at? Noah can’t help but glance at their distorted reflections in the screen’s obsidian surface. He doesn’t give it much thought—refuses to, forcing the notion far, far away—but he swears he sees something move behind his father’s reflection, shifting across the empty screen.

“You thirsty, Dad? Can I get you some water? Some ice?”

His father barely shakes his head, eyes watering, forever focused on the blank screen.

“Dad . . . Where’s Mom?”

He still won’t answer.

“Stay here, ’kay? I’ll be right back.” If his father hears him, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

Noah abandons his dad. He has to find his mother all on his own. He picks up his pace, motivated now, and heads toward his parents’ bedroom.

“Mom? Mom . . . are you here?”

Noah passes through the kitchen. The fridge has been left open, its shelves pecked clean. Flies scatter with every footstep. Cooking was always Mom’s currency. She showed her love through her meals. You wanted to break Mom’s heart? Tell her you weren’t hungry.

Noah lost ten pounds his first year at college. He had the reverse Freshman Fifteen, whittling his weight down to a svelte, sensitive intellectual physique, finally able to fit into his skinny stovepipe jeans once he was five hundred miles away from Mom’s kitchen.

The glow of yet another television screen casts its dim pallor over discarded food containers and rotten vegetables. It’s a tiny TV, portable, the type you can heft in one hand.

Noah turns it off—and yet the news anchor’s voice keeps on going, echoing from yet another room deeper in the bowels of their house. Still spouting out the Fax.

“It’s December twentieth, folks!” Tammany announces. “The day we’ve all been waiting for . . .”

Crash! There’s the sound of something sturdy falling to the floor farther down the hall.

From his parents’ bedroom.

“Mom?”

No time to second-guess himself. Noah races for their room.

“Mom!”

She’s standing in front of the television, stock-still, inches from the screen. She’s in a nightgown, some formless floral print muumuu thing. A truly chaste affair, the hem at her ankles, long sleeves. Her Little Miss Spat sash is draped over one shoulder. It’s too small for her now, practically noosing her neck. The gold-embossed date—1968—captures the glow from the TV.

Noah takes a quick whiff and recoils. There is a smell coming off her: Dried sweat. Urine. When’s the last time she bathed herself? Those aren’t all yellow daisies. Christ, they’re stains.

“Mom?”

She sways ever-so-faintly on her feet, threatening to collapse at any moment.

“Jesus, Mom—”

Her eyes never break from the screen, never leave Paul Tammany, anchored to the anchor, even as Noah takes her by the arms and gently but firmly guides her toward the bed.

“Are you okay? Mom? Mom!”

Her lips are moving. Silently mouthing something Noah simply can’t hear.

“What happened?”

What is she saying? Her lips won’t stop moving, mincing invisible words.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

Then it hits Noah: She’s repeating everything Paul Tammany says.

“Are—are you all right?”

Nothing Noah says registers. Mom’s eyes remain locked on the television, lips moving faster now, breathlessly keeping up with the broadcast.

So Noah turns it off. Just a flip of the switch and—

Mom blinks.

“Noah?” She smiles. Her eyes are brimming with tears. “Oh, hon, you made it.”

Noah’s stunned. Absolutely gobsmacked. He was not expecting . . . this. She seems genuinely happy to see him. Dizzy with giddiness. “Mom, what the hell hap—”

Mom’s arms lift and embrace her boy. She squeezes, tighter than he expects—still got some strength to her. She nuzzles her face in the nape of his neck. “You made it, you made it . . .”

“Mom—”

“You came back to me . . .” Her breath spreads all hot down his neck. “You came back.”

“Are you okay? Are you—”

“I knew you’d come. Now we can all be together when the—”

“Mom. Stop. Please.”

“—when the Great—”

“Mom.”

She hesitates. Stares. A look of distrust rises up in her eyes. She senses something’s not quite right. A fresh conspiracy brewing right under her own roof. “Where’s . . . Where’s Kelsey?”

“At home.” Noah feels like he needs to add, “In Brooklyn. With Alicia.”

“You didn’t bring her?” She doesn’t try to hide her disappointment. The heartbreak.

“No.” Hell no. Fuck no.

“Oh,” Mom says. She turns away from him.

Back to the screen.

Noah can see the desperation in her face, an addict’s itch. She wants to turn it back on.

“Mom. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Your father and I are waking up, hon.” She wipes her cheek, scraping away a tear. “We’re opening our eyes.”

* * *

“It’s a nightmare,” Noah whispers in the front yard. He doesn’t need to keep his voice down outside, but still, there’s some part of him that feels compelled to speak in hushed tones.

He needed to get out of the house, to escape the suffocating space his parents have been marinating in since . . . Thanksgiving? How’s that even possible? That was only weeks ago.

“What happened?” Alicia asks.

“I don’t know.” He glances back at the house. “The place is just . . . a mess. It’s like a bomb went off. They haven’t cleaned or . . . or . . .”

“Is your mother okay?”

“It’s like she has dementia or . . . or carbon monoxide poisoning. Both of them.”

“Can you call someone?”

“Who?”

“What about the police?”

“Mom says she doesn’t want anyone in the house.”

“Ash?”

“He’s still not picking up . . .” Noah glances over his shoulder again, scanning the surrounding houses. The trees bristle behind him, reminding him how big this world truly is, how insignificant he is, how alone. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Can you call social services?”

“They don’t want to leave.”

“That’s not their choice anymore. You might have to make that decision for them.”

“Okay. I—I’ll call.” Noah feels his throat tightening.

“It’s okay,” Alicia says. “You’re going to be okay. You’ve got this, you can do this.”

He feels like a helpless little boy. He wasn’t prepared to have to take care of his parents—not yet. Mom isn’t even sixty-five. “I—Jesus, I need to clean up this fucking mess.”

“Do you need help? Do you want me to come—”

Yes. Yes, come right now. Drop everything and save me from this nightmare. Please—

“No. No, I got it.”

“You sure?” She’d have to bring Kelsey. She can’t see her grandparents like this.

Please oh please help me help me—

“Yeah, no, I got it.”

“You don’t have to go through this alone.”

“I’m probably gonna have to stay longer.”

How long had he thought this would all take? A night? A couple days, at most?

“I’ll be back before Christmas,” he hears himself promise. Five days from now. “Maybe I can surprise Kelsey. Climb down the chimney or something. Ho-ho-ho.”

“Take all the time you need,” Alicia said. “I’ve got Kelsey. Don’t worry about us.”

“How was the recital?”

“Good. Great. She promised she’ll sing for you when you come home.”

“I miss you guys.” Need you, is what Noah really wants to say. He doesn’t want to be alone with this. With them. “Is Kelsey there?”

“Yeah. Wanna talk to her?”

“Could I?”

Alicia switches to FaceTime, then hands the phone to their daughter.

“Hey, sprout.” Noah’s voice lifts an octave, suddenly sunshine. “How’s your day?”

“Fiiine,” she says with an exasperated sigh. “I got another Band-Aid.”

Kelsey is obsessed with Band-Aids. It doesn’t matter what the injury is, she’ll demand a bandage for just about any boo-boo. It’s necessitated a new family rule: No blood, no Band-Aid.

“Was there blood?” Noah asks.

“Yeah . . .”

“For real? What happened?”

“I got hit at school.”

“What? Who hit you? Another student? What’s his name?”

“It’s a her.”

A girl?

“Rachel McAuley told me it was time to wake up and then she pushed me into a desk.”

The fuck? “Did a teacher see it happen?”

“Rachel said I should open my eyes.”

“Kelsey. Did you tell an adult?”

“No . . .”

“You need to tell the teacher what happened next time . . . Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You can’t let people push you around. Don’t let”—the little motherfucker—“them bully you or anyone else. That’s no good, okay? Can you put your mom back on for me, please?”

Kelsey hands the phone back to Alicia.

“Did you know about this?”

“I didn’t want to add to your stress.”

“Who was the girl—”

“Noah? You’re breaking up.” Her voice fragments, splintering into digital bits.

“Can you hear me?”

“Noah? Noah, I can’t—”

“Can you hear me now?”

“You’re break—”

She’s gone. Alicia’s gone. Noah stares at his phone. He dials her again, only this time he’s greeted by some other woman: All circuits are busy right now. Please try again.

He tries Alicia again.

All circuits are busy right now. Please try—

Tries again.

All circuits—

Noah hangs up. Turns back to the house. The nightmare of it all, nesting inside.

* * *

The televisions are turned on again.

Not just one. All of them, from the sound of it, switched to Fax, the volume cranked to the hilt, spewing the news throughout the house and filling every last room with its vitriol.

“What the fuuuck . . .” Noah rubs his hands over his face, moaning into his fingers. He’s only been gone for a few minutes. Five minutes, at most.

Did his parents race from room to room and flip on every last TV while he was outside?

Dad’s in the La-Z-Boy where Noah left him, eyes glued to the screen.

“We’re only a little over an hour away, folks,” Tammany says. “Can you feel it? Time to WAKE UP. OPEN OUR EYES. The masses are all gathering to make sure our voices are heard.”

What the fuck is this dimpled chin in a suit talking about? Some kind of pilgrimage or protest? Christ. Were all the wackos coordinating their own little Million Man March?

Save the date! His parents got an invitation, apparently, RSVPing with their own sanity.

December 20.

Of all the days to pay a visit. Just my fucking luck. He’d laugh with half the country if his own mom and dad weren’t drinking the goddamn ultraconservative Kool-Aid.

He tries Ash again. Not that he expects his big brother to pick up. He’s just stalling.

At least it’s ringing.

Noah leaves yet another message. “Hey. Asshole. Where the hell are you? I’m at Mom and Dad’s and . . . Christ. Did you know about this? Any of this? Why didn’t you tell me? Get your dick over here and help me deal with this shit because I . . . I can’t do this all by myself, okay?”

He tries Alicia, but she doesn’t pick up.

No more stalling.

He decides to handle Mom first. Dad can wait. He walks down the hall and hesitates outside their bedroom door, listening in. All he can hear is the Fax, Paul Tammany’s oozing voice seething through: “We’re counting down until THE WAKE-UP CALL . . .”

Christ, you’d think the ball was about to drop in Times Square.

More like a bomb.

Deep breath, Noah thinks. He sharply inhales through his nose, feeling the pressure mounting behind his eyeballs, then steps into his parents’ bedroom. “Okay, Mom, I think we—”

Mom’s naked.

The only piece of clothing on her body is the Little Miss Spat sash, barely covering her shoulder. She’s inches from the screen, flesh bathed in blue and pink hues, a swirl of colors cast off from Fax News, their pastel palette soaking her pendulous breasts, her swollen stomach.

There’s a moment, a mental hiccup when Noah can’t help but think of the Christian Children’s Fund commercials he’d seen on TV as a kid. Sally Struthers would make her tearful plea: for only seventy cents a day, the price of a cup of coffee, families just like Noah’s could sponsor a child in need from some far-off corner of the world. Noah actually asked Dad once if they could support a child in Africa. He huffed, then told him to go outside and play with Asher.

The images of these children with their distended bellies come crashing back. For just seventy cents a day, the price of a cup of coffee, you can sponsor a brainwashed mom . . .

“Jesus.” Noah races for the TV first, switching it off. “Mom, what’re you—”

“NO!” The outright spite—the rage—that takes over his mother’s face is startling. She pushes him away. The sudden outburst sends Noah stumbling back onto the bed.

“Mom!”

She turns the TV back on. Click. The screen bathes her body in its blue glow once more, the discordant tone of Paul Tammany’s voice filling the room. She sighs, relaxed again. Lulled.

Then she begins to masturbate.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Noah can only stare, aghast at the sight of his mother as she runs a hand over her stomach, and then—down—as if to rub the oily glow of the television screen into her skin.

Soaking up the news.

“Mom?”

His naked mother. Touching herself in front of the television. It’s like she’s . . . like she’s . . .

“MOM.”

To the news. To the anchorman. Fondling her left breast with her right hand as she moans over Paul Tammany’s vitriolic words. Mom’s eyes roll up into her sockets, hips shimmying side to side in a serpentine swivel as her other hand slides farther in—

“STOP IT.”

Noah grabs her muumuu from the floor. He drapes it over his mother’s shoulders. He pulls her back, away from the television, dragging her to the bed and forcing her to sit. She’s stubbornly transfixed by the screen, mouth open as she continues to touch herself. Rub herself.

“Mom, please. Please, just . . . just stop it. Stop.”

But she won’t. She won’t stop. She keeps rubbing her fingers over her raw skin, winnowing across the distended flesh, the wrinkles, the coiling hairs—

“Goddammit.”

Noah bolts out of the bedroom. He leaves her there, barely covered. He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to force the image out of his mind. Her pale skin and its myriad of wrinkles sear their way into his brain. All those purple veins glowing in the pastel hues of the news.

Bathing in it. Basking. Soaking it all up.

* * *

What the fuck what the fuck what the ffffuuuuuuuuuck is happening to his parents?

It’s like some hostile hijacking of their personalities. Jesus, their humanity. Invasion of the Parent Snatchers. They are GOP pod people now. This is eons beyond just some silly ideological divide between generations. This isn’t about some goddamn election, who’s voting for who. It has everything to do with the news. Who exactly his parents are getting their fax—sorry, facts—from. Their channel of choice has changed them from the inside out.

He barely recognizes his own mom and dad anymore.

What they are becoming.

Okay. So. Quick assessment: What the fuck is going on? His parents are incapable of taking care of themselves now, clearly, racist masturbating vegetables glued to the boob tube.

Okay. So . . . What do we do now?

Can he take them somewhere? Pack them up in the car and go to a hotel or—or—

Scratch that. His folks aren’t going anywhere. Not in their condition.

Okay. So. Noah’s stuck. What next? What now?

Clean house. Purge this place.

Or burn it the fuck down.

The temptation to call a housecleaning service—or a hazmat team—is so strong. He’d happily pay out of his own pocket for somebody, anybody, to go scorched earth on their home. But none of his calls are going through.

First step: fresh air.

Noah opens as many windows as he can to flush out all the foul smells. This place is in sore need of circulation. Or an exorcism. Can he call a priest? Spritz a bit of holy water around?

He peels back the living room curtains.

Let there be light . . .

Illuminating the mess only spotlights how much there actually is. When Noah and Ash were kids, Mom would always fuss over the smallest spills, swooping in with a damp dishrag the second one of them dropped his juice box. He remembers Mom vacuuming every night after dinner. She’d tease him by chasing after him with the hose, the nozzle sucking at his bum, thwwwwump!, the hem of his shirt slurped up by the vacuum’s high-powered suction.

Got you now! she’d shout over the high-pitched hum of the vacuum’s engine.

Food scabs the living room floor. Fluids of some kind have crusted into the carpeting. Practically every lightbulb has been shattered in its socket. Books no longer rest on the shelves. All of his father’s Tom Clancy novels are ripped and fanning across the floor. Clothes are strewn about. Soiled, from the smell of it.

How in the hell did this happen? How could Asher have let this happen? Wasn’t he checking up on Mom and Dad, stopping by every now and then, just to make sure they’re okay?

How could he not have known what was going on?

Noah finds some black industrial garbage bags under the bathroom sink. He brings a broom into the living room and starts sweeping, herding the detritus into a heap in the center of the room. He has to work around his father, whose focus remains on the screen.

“Excuse me,” Noah says, maneuvering around him. “Pardon me. Coming through . . .”

Dad’s attention doesn’t waver. It’s like cleaning up in a department store after it’s closed, navigating around all the mannequins.

Noah manually turns off the television as he passes by.

“Whoopsie,” he says. “Guess that’s it for screen time.”

A barrage of sound startles him.

Noah halts. The goddamn television is on again. Somebody turned it back on.

Somebody.

Dad hasn’t gotten up from his La-Z-Boy. There’s no way he stood without Noah noticing. Even with his back turned, he would’ve heard something. Sensed it.

Dad’s screwing with him. He must have the remote.

But Noah can’t shake the feeling someone’s watching him. There are eyes on his back, leering as he sweeps. It’s just the TV, but still, it creeps the ever-living fuck out of him.

Noah turns to take in the screen. To—what, exactly? Confront the anchorman?

Paul Tammany is looking directly at Noah.

For a second, just the quickest blip, it seems to Noah as if he’s hesitated. Paul pauses in his reporting, mouth open, that cocksure grin, and stares back at him.

Then he’s launching into the next news story. Or what’s passing as news. “Folks are gearing up for the WAKE-UP CALL. Can you feel it in the air? We’re less than an hour away—”

If Dad wants to watch the news, fine, let him watch his fucking news. Noah doesn’t care.

Time to tackle the kitchen.

Ants scavenge the scraps. Maggots swim through the organic stew puddling along the linoleum, their bodies a faint baby blue thanks to the glow from the tiny television screen.

Noah turns it off without paying the news anchor much mind, ready to—

The kitchen TV flips itself back on.

Noah’s getting pretty pissed at this game his parents are playing. Every time he turns his back—surprise—the televisions turn themselves on again. He doesn’t want to play along, doesn’t want to dignify their weird behavior, so he tunes it all out. Acts like it’s not happening.

Noah spots a sponge and decides to scrub the countertop. That feels like a good place to start, right? Got to begin somewhere. He plucks up the sponge and gently sweeps it over the—

What the hell is that?

On the wall, Noah notices these pearlescent trails weaving over the tile. Are those . . . snail trails? Thin veins of mother-of-pearl branch out in every direction, shimmering in the dim glow. Where did they come from? Seems like the trails all stem out from behind the television.