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Mercifully, she is rowing again. But what lurks feels closer now.

“I’m so sorry, ” she says, crying, rowing.

Her legs are soaked with piss, water, blood, and vomit. But her body is rested. Somehow, Malorie thinks, despite the cruel laws of this unforgiving world, she’s been delivered a break.

The feeling of relief lasts the duration of one row. Then Malorie is alert, and scared, all over again.

thirty

C heryl is upset.

Malorie hears her talking to Felix in the room down the hall. The other housemates are downstairs. Gary has taken to sleeping in the dining room, despite the hard wood floors. Since his arrival, two weeks ago, Don has warmed up to him greatly. Malorie doesn’t know how she feels about that. He’s probably with Gary now.

But down the hall, Cheryl whispers hurriedly. She sounds scared. It feels like everybody is. More than usual. The mood in the house, once supported mightily by Tom’s optimism, gets darker every day. Sometimes, Malorie thinks, the mood extends deeper than fear. That’s how Cheryl sounds right now. Malorie considers joining them, perhaps even to comfort Cheryl, but decides against it.

“I do it every day, Felix, because I like to do it. It’s my job. And the few minutes I step outside are precious to me. It reminds me that I once had a real job. One I woke up for. One I took pride in. Feeding the birds is the only thing I have that connects me to the life I used to live. ”

“And it gives you a chance to be outside. ”

“And it gives me a chance to be outside, yes. ”

Cheryl tries to control her voice, then goes on.

She is outside, she tells Felix, ready to feed the birds. She is feeling along the wall for the box. In her right hand are apple slices from a can in the cellar. The front door has closed behind her. Jules waits inside. Blindfolded, Cheryl walks slowly, using the house for balance. The bricks are coarse against her fingertips. Soon they will give way to a portion of wood paneling from which a metal hook protrudes. This is where the birds hang.

They are already cooing. They always do when she gets this close. Cheryl heartily volunteered to feed the birds when discussion of the chore came up. She’s been doing it every day since. In a way, it feels like the birds are her own. She speaks to them, filling them in on trivial events from the house. Their sweet response calms her like music once did. She can gauge how close she is to the box, she tells Felix, by how loudly they sing.

But this time she hears something besides their coos.

At the end of the front walk she hears an “abandoned step. ” It’s the only way she can explain it to Felix. It sounds to her like someone was walking, was planning to walk farther, then suddenly stopped.

Cheryl, always on high alert whenever she feeds the birds, is surprised to realize she is trembling.

She says, “Is anybody there? ”

There is no answer.

She thinks of returning to the front door. She’ll tell the others she’s too freaked out to do this today.

Instead, she waits.

And there is no further sound.

In the box, the birds are active. She calls to them nervously.

“Hey hey, guys. Hey hey. ”

The quiver in her voice scares her. Instinctively, she lowers her head and raises the hand holding the apples to protect her, as though something were about to touch her face. She takes a step. Then another. Finally, she reaches the box. Sometimes, she tells Felix, the walk between the front door and the box is like floating in outer space. Anchorless.

Today she feels impossibly far from land.

“Hey hey, ” she says, opening the box’s lid just enough to be able to drop a few of the apple slices. Normally she hears the pitter-patter of their tiny feet as they rush for the food. Today she does not.

“Eat up, guys. Aren’t you hungry? ”

She opens the lid the tiniest bit again and drops the remaining pieces inside. This, she tells Felix, is always her favorite part. When she closes the lid and presses her ear to the box, listening to their tiny bodies as they eat.

But they do not start eating. Instead, they anxiously coo.

“Hey hey, ” Cheryl says, trying to shake off the tremble in her voice. “Eat up, guys. ”

She takes her ear from the box, thinking her presence today is making them shy. As she does, she shrieks.

Something has touched her shoulder.

Spinning, blind, Cheryl waves her arms wildly. She touches nothing.

She can’t move her legs. She can’t run inside. Something touched her shoulder and she does not know what it was.

The voices of the birds no longer sound sweet. They sound like what Tom wanted them to be.

An alarm.

“Who’s there? ”

She worries someone will answer. She doesn’t want someone to answer.

She decides to yell. One of the housemates can come get her. Pull her back to Earth. But as she takes a step, she hears a leaf crushed beneath her shoe. Frantically, she tries to recall the first time she arrived at the house. She looked at it through the window of her car. Was there a tree? Here by the front walk?

Was there?

Maybe it was only a falling leaf that grazed her.

It would be so easy to find out. If she could just open her eyes for a moment she could see she was alone. She could see it was just a leaf. Nothing more.

But she can’t.

Shaking, she presses her back to the house and slowly slides toward the front door. Her head swivels left, then right, at the slightest sounds. A bird high in the sky. The rustling in a tree across the street. A small gust of warm wind. Sweating, she feels the brick at last and hurriedly makes it to the door.

“Jesus, ” Felix says. “Do you really think it could have been a leaf? ”

She pauses. Malorie leans farther into the hall.

“Yes, ” Cheryl suddenly says. “I do. Playing it back. That’s exactly what it was. ”

Malorie steps back into her bedroom and sits upon the bed.

Felix’s story about the well and what he heard out there. Victor barking at the blanketed windows. Cheryl with the birds.

Is it possible, Malorie wonders, that the world out there and the things they hide from are closing in?

thirty-one

T o Malorie, since the arrival of Gary, the house feels absolutely different, divided. It’s a small change, but under these circumstances, any change is a big one.

And it’s Don who worries her the most.

More often than not, when Tom, Jules, and Felix are talking in the living room, Don is in the dining room with Gary. He’s expressed a heavy interest in the story about the man who took down the drapes and unlocked the doors. While washing clothes in the kitchen sink, halfway through the second-to-last jug of detergent, Malorie listens to two conversations at once. While Tom and Jules are turning long-sleeved shirts into dog leashes, Gary is explaining to Don the way Frank thought. Always the way Frank thought. Never quite what Gary thinks himself.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of one man being better prepared than another, ” Gary is saying. “I think of it more like a 3-D movie. At first, the audience thinks the objects are really coming at them. They hold their hands up for protection. But the intelligent ones, the ones who are very aware, know they were safe all along. ”

Don has come full circle with Gary. Malorie thinks she saw it when it happened.

Hey, I don’t think that theory is any more cracked than ours, Don said to him once.

“It’s hard, ” Don says now, “because we don’t get any new reports. ”

“Exactly. ”

Yes, Don has gone from voting against letting Gary in, to being the one housemate who sits with him and talks. And talks. And talks.

He’s skeptical, Malorie thinks. That’s his nature. And he’s needed someone to talk to. That’s all this means. He’s different than you are. Don’t you understand?

But these thoughts, just as they are, aren’t taking root. No matter how she perceives it, Gary and Don are talking about things like hysteria and the idea that the creatures can’t cause harm to someone who is prepared to see them. Don, she knows, has long espoused a greater fear of man than creatures. Yet, he closes his eyes when the front door opens and closes. He does not look out the window. He has never committed to the idea that the creatures cannot hurt us. Could someone like Gary convince him at last?

She wants to talk to Tom about it. She wants to pull him aside and ask him to make them stop. Or at least go and talk with them. Maybe his words will influence their conversation. Make it sound safer.

Yes, she wants to talk to Tom about Don.

Division.

With trepidation, she crosses the kitchen and looks into the living room. Tom and Felix are reading a map on the floor. They are measuring distances according to the map’s mileage scale. Jules is teaching the dogs commands.

Stop. Start again.

“We have to measure what is an average step for you, ” Felix says.

“What are you guys planning? ” Malorie asks.

Tom turns to her.

“Distance, ” he says. “How many of my steps are in a mile. ”

Felix is using the measuring tape at Tom’s feet.

“If I listen to music as I go, ” Tom says, “I could walk in rhythm with it. That way the steps we measure in here would be close to the ones I take out there. ”

“Like dancing, ” Felix says.

Malorie turns to see Olympia is now at the kitchen sink. She washes utensils. Malorie joins her and continues washing the clothes. After being confined to this house for almost four months, Olympia has lost a little of her shine. Her skin is pale. Her eyes deeper set.

“Are you worried? ” Olympia suddenly asks.

“About what? ”

“About making it. ”

“Making what? ”

“Surviving our deliveries. ”

Malorie wants to tell Olympia that it’s going to be okay but she struggles to locate the words. She is thinking about Don.

“I’ve always wanted a baby, ” Olympia says. “I was so excited when I found out. I felt like my life was complete. You know? ”

This is not how Malorie felt but she says yes, she knows.

“Oh, Malorie, who is going to deliver our babies? ”

Malorie doesn’t know.

“Our housemates, I don’t see—”

“But Tom’s never done it before! ”

“No. But he was a father. ”

Olympia stares at her hands, submerged in the bucket.

“I’ll tell you what, ” Malorie says facetiously, “we’ll deliver each other’s. ”

“Deliver each other’s! ” Olympia says, smiling at last. “Malorie, you’re too much! ”

Gary enters the kitchen. He scoops a glass of water from a bucket on the counter. Then he scoops a second glass. Malorie knows it’s for Don. As he exits, music suddenly comes from the living room. Malorie leans back so she can see in there. Tom holds the small battery-operated radio. It’s one of George’s cassette tapes. Felix, on his hands and knees, measures Tom’s steps as he walks in rhythm to the song.

“What are they doing? ” Olympia asks.

“I think they have somewhere specific in mind to go, ” Malorie says. “They’re trying to come up with a better way of traveling outside. ”

Malorie quietly steps to the dining room’s entrance. Peering in, she sees Don and Gary, their backs to her, sitting in dining room chairs. They are speaking quietly.

Again she crosses the kitchen. As she enters the living room, Tom is smiling. He has a leash in each hand. The huskies are playing with them, wagging their tails.

The discrepancy between the bright, progressive actions of those in the living room and the hushed conspiratorial tones of those in the dining room is all Malorie can think about.

She steps to the sink again and begins washing. Olympia is talking but Malorie is thinking of something else. She leans forward and is able to see Gary’s shoulder. Beyond him, propped against the wall, is the only item he brought in with him from the outside world.

His briefcase.

He showed them the contents when he entered the house. Don asked him to. But did she get a good look at them? Did any of the housemates?

“And stop! ” Tom says. Malorie turns to see the dogs and he are in the entranceway to the kitchen. The huskies both sit. Tom rewards them with raw meat.

Malorie keeps washing. She is thinking of the briefcase.

thirty-two

S he has known this was coming. How could she not? All the signs have been there since they returned with the dogs. Tom and Jules have been training them ten, twelve hours a day. Using the house, then the yard. Seeing Eye dogs. The box of birds hanging outside works like an alarm. Just like Tom said it would. The birds cooed when Gary arrived. They sing when Cheryl feeds them. So, it was only a matter of time before Tom declared he was going to use the Seeing Eye dogs to enter the new world once again.

But this time it’s worse. Because this time he’s going farther.

They were gone two days for one block. When will we see them again if they go three miles?

Three miles. That’s how far it is to Tom’s house. That’s where he wants to go.

“It’s the only place I can be a hundred percent sure of, ” he said. “I’ve got supplies there. We need them. Band-Aids. Neosporin. Aspirin. Bandages. ”

Malorie’s spirit rose with the mention of medicine. But Tom outside, and for that long, is too much for her to support.

“Don’t worry, ” Felix said that same night. “We’ve mapped it out to a T. Tom and Jules are going to walk to the rhythm of a song. A single song. It’s called ‘Halfway to Paradise’ by a guy named Tony Light. They’ll bring the radio and play it over and over as they follow the directions we’ve figured out. We know how many steps it will take for each direction, for every portion of the trip. ”

“So you’re planning on dancing there? ” Gary said. “How nice. ”

“Not dancing, ” Tom said aggressively. “Walking to get help. ”

“Tom, ” Cheryl said, “you can practice this all you want, but if your steps are a half an inch longer out there, you’re going to be off. You’ll get lost. And how the fuck are you going to get back then? You won’t. ”

“We will, ” Tom said.

“And it’s not like we’re helpless if we get lost, ” Jules added. “We need the supplies. You know this better than most, Cheryl. You took stock last. ”

Yes, this day has been coming. But Malorie doesn’t like it at all.

“Tom, ” she said, pulling him aside, just before he and Jules left this morning. “I don’t think the house could stand it if you didn’t come back. ”

“We’re going to come back. ”

“I understand that you think you will, ” Malorie said, “but I don’t think you realize how much the house needs you. ”

“Malorie, ” he said, as Jules called that he was ready to go, “the house needs all of us. ”

“Tom. ”

“Don’t let the nerves get to you like they did last time. Instead, lean on the fact that we came back last time. We’ll do it again. And this time, Malorie, act as a leader. Help them when they get scared. ”

“Tom. ”

“You need the medicine, Malorie. Sterilization. You’re close. ”

It was clear that Tom was on a path of his own, prepared to repeatedly risk his life in the name of advancing life in the house.

Last time they came back with children’s shoes, she reminded herself.

And she reminds herself again of this, now. Now that Tom and Jules are gone, embarking on a three-mile walk into the most dangerous landscape the world has known.

They left this morning. Felix went over the map with them once more. Gary encouraged them. Olympia gave them a Petoskey stone she said had always been good luck for her. But Malorie did not say a word. As the front door closed for the second time on Tom, Malorie did not call to him. She did not hug him. She did not say good-bye.

It pains her now, only hours after their exit.

Yet, the few words Tom spoke to her before leaving are working. Without him here, the house needs a guiding force. A person who can remain calm among so much anxiety, so much justifiable fear.

But it’s hard. The housemates are not in the mood for optimism.

Cheryl points out that the chances of encountering a creature are obviously much greater on a three-mile walk than they are over a two-block circle. She reminds those still in the house that nobody knows how animals are affected. What will happen to Tom and Jules if the huskies see something this time? Will they be eaten? Or worse?

Cheryl isn’t the only one espousing dark possibilities.

Don is suggesting an alternate group prepare themselves to leave in the event Tom and Jules do not return. We need more food, he says. Whether they make it back or not.

Olympia says she has a headache. She says it means a big storm is coming. And a storm has to alter Felix’s measurements when Tom and Jules are forced to find cover.

Cheryl agrees.

Don is heading into the cellar to take his “own look” at the stock, to find out exactly what they need and where to go to get it.

Olympia is talking about lightning and being out in the open.

Cheryl is debating with Felix about the map. She’s saying maps don’t mean anything anymore.

Don is talking about sleeping arrangements.

Olympia is describing a tornado from her youth.

Cheryl and Felix are getting heated.

Olympia sounds a little hysterical.

Don is getting mad.

Malorie, sick of the growing panic, speaks up at last.

“Everybody, ” she says, “we have things we could be doing. Right here in this house. We need to prepare dinner. The shit bucket hasn’t been brought out all day. The cellar could be arranged better than it is. Felix, you and I could check the yard for tools, something we might have missed. Something we could use. Cheryl, you’ve got to feed the birds. Gary, Don, why not make phone calls. Call every combination of numbers. Who knows who you might reach. Olympia, it’d be really helpful if you washed the bedding. We did it a week ago, but with as little as we wash ourselves in this place, it’s the little things, like cleaner sheets, that make it bearable. ”

The housemates look at Malorie like she’s a stranger. For a moment, she feels embarrassed for asserting herself. But then, it works.

Gary quietly walks to the telephone. Cheryl goes to the cellar door.

You’re close, Tom said to her before he left.

She thinks of this, as the housemates busy themselves with their chores, as Malorie and Felix go to get their blindfolds, she thinks of the things Tom and Jules might return with. Is there anything they could bring, anything, that would lead to a better life for her baby?

Picking up a blindfold, Malorie hopes.

thirty-three

T he river is going to split into four channels, the man told her. The one you want is the second one from the right. So you can’t hug the right bank and expect to make it. It’s tricky. And you’re going to have to open your eyes.

Malorie is rowing.

And this is how you’ll know when that time comes, the man told her. You’ll hear a recording. A voice. We can’t sit by the river all day. It’s just too dangerous. Instead, we’ve got a speaker there. The recording will be playing on a loop. You’ll hear it. It’s loud. Clear. And when you do, that’s when you’ll have to open your eyes.

The pain in her shoulder comes in waves. The children, hearing her groans, offer help.

In her first year alone with the children, Tom’s voice came to her all the time. So many of his ideas were only spoken, never achieved. Malorie, with nothing but time on her hands, tried out many of them.

We ought to mic the yard, he once said.

Tom’s idea of updating the alarm system from birds to amplifiers. Malorie, alone with two newborns, wanted those microphones.

But how? How would she get her hands on microphones, amplifiers, and cords?

We can drive somewhere, Tom once said.

That’s madness, Don answered.

No, it’s not. Drive slow. The streets are empty. What’s the worst that can happen?

Malorie, rowing, remembers a definitive moment at the bathroom mirror. She’d seen other faces in the glass. Olympia. Tom. Shannon. All of them were pleading, telling her to leave the house, to do something more for the further safety of these kids. She was going to have to take a risk on her own. Tom and Jules weren’t here to do it for her.

Tom’s voice back then. Always Tom’s voice. In her head. In the room. In the mirror.

Make a bumper around Cheryl’s Wagoneer. Paint the windows black. Don’t worry about what you run into. Just go. Drive five, six miles an hour. You have babies in the house now, Malorie. You have to know if something is out there. If something is near. The microphones will let you know that.

Leaving the bathroom, she went to the kitchen. There she studied the map Felix, Jules, and Tom once used to plan a route to Tom’s house on foot. Their notes were still on it. Felix’s calculations. Using the scale, she made her own.

She wanted Tom’s advanced alarm system. She needed it. Yet, despite her newfound determination, she still didn’t know where to go.

Late one evening, while the babies slept, she sat at the kitchen table and tried to remember her very first drive to the house. It had been less than a year ago. Back then, her mind was on the address from the ad. But what did she pass along the way?

She tried to remember.

A Laundromat.

That’s good. What else?

Storefronts were empty. It looked like a ghost town and you were worried the people who placed the ad might no longer be there. You thought they’d either gone mad or packed up the car and driven far away.

Yes, all right. What else?

A bakery.

Good. What else?

What else?

Yes.

A bar.

Good. What did the marquee boast?

I don’t know. That’s a ridiculous question!

You don’t remember the sadness you felt at the name of. . . the name of. . .

Of what?

The name of the band?

The band?

You read the name of a band slated to perform on a date already two weeks past. What was it?

I’ll never remember the name of the band.

Right, but the feeling?

I don’t remember.

Yes, you do. The feeling.

I was sad. I was scared.

What’d they do there?

What?

At the bar. What’d they do there?

I don’t know. They drank. They ate.

Yes. What else?

They danced?

They danced.

Yes.

And?

And what?

How did they dance?

I don’t know.

What did they dance to?

They danced to music. They danced to the band.

Malorie brought a hand to her forehead and smiled.

Right. They danced to the band.

And the band needed microphones. The band needed amplifiers.

Tom’s ideas lingered in the house like ghosts.

Just like we did it, Tom might say. Just like the time Jules and I took a walk around the block. You weren’t able to partake in a lot of those activities, Malorie, but you can now. Jules and I rounded up dogs and later used them to walk to my house. Think about that, Malorie. It all kind of happened in a row, each step allowed the next step to happen. All because we weren’t stagnant. We took risks. Now you’ve got to do the same. Paint the windshield black.

Don had laughed when Tom suggested driving blind.

But it’s exactly what she did.

Victor, he would help her. Jules once refused to let him be used like that. But Malorie had two newborns in a room down the hall. The rules were different now. Her body still ached from the delivery. The muscles in her back were always tight. If she moved too quickly, it felt like her groin might snap. She got exhausted easily. She never had the rest a new mother deserves.

Victor, she thought then, he will protect you.

She painted the windshield black with the paint from the cellar. She taped socks and sweaters to the inside of the glass. Using wood glue found in the garage, and duct tape from the cellar, she fastened blankets and mattresses to the bumpers. All this in the street. All this blindfolded. All this while enduring the pain of being a new mother, punished, it seemed, with every movement of her body.

She would have to leave them. She would go on her own.

She would drive a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction from which she arrived. She’d turn left and go four miles. Then a right, and another two and a half. She’d have to search for the bar from there. She’d bring food for Victor. He would guide her back to the car, back to the food, when she needed him to.

Five or six miles an hour sounded reasonable. Safe enough.

But the first time she tried it, she discovered just how hard it would be.

Despite the precautions, driving without seeing was horrifying. The Wagoneer bounced violently as she ran things over she’d never be able to identify. Twenty times she struck the curb. Twice she hit poles. Once, a parked car. It was pure, horrible suspense. With every click of the odometer, she expected a collision, an injury. Tragedy. By the time she returned home, her nerves were shattered. She was empty-handed and unconvinced she had the mettle to try it again.

But she did.

She found the Laundromat on the seventh try. And because she remembered it from her first drive to the house, it gave her the courage to try again. Blindfolded and scared, she entered a boot store, a coffee shop, an ice-cream parlor, and a theater. She’d heard her shoes echoing off the marble floor of an office lobby. She’d knocked a shelf of greeting cards to the floor. Still, she failed to find the bar. Then, on the ninth afternoon, Malorie entered an unlocked wooden door and immediately knew she had arrived.

The smell of sour fruit, stale smoke, and beer was as welcome as any she’d ever known. Kneeling, she hugged Victor around the neck.

“We found it, ” she said.

Her body was sore. Her mind ached. Her tongue was dry. She imagined her belly as a deflated, dead balloon.

But she was here.

She searched a long time for the wood of the bar. Banging into chairs, she knocked her elbow hard on a post. She tripped once, but a table saved her from falling to the floor. She spent a long time trying to understand equipment with her fingers. Was this the kitchen? Was this used to mix drinks? Victor tugged at her, playfully, and she turned, banging her stomach against something hard. It was the bar. Tying Victor’s leash to what she believed was a steel stool, Malorie stepped behind the bar and felt for the bottles. Every movement was a reminder of how recently she’d given birth. One by one she brought the bottles to her nose. Whiskey. Something peach. Something lemon. Vodka. Gin. And, finally, rum. Just like the housemates once tried to enjoy the night Olympia arrived.

It felt good in her hands. Like she’d waited a thousand years to hold it.

She carried it with her around the length of the bar. Finding the stool, she sat down, brought the bottle to her mouth, and drank.

The alcohol spread through her. And for a moment, it lessened the pain.

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