Bird Box

forty-two

…she does.

Malorie sits up in bed and grips her belly before she understands that she has been howling for some time already. The bed is soaking wet.

Two men rush into the room. It is all so dreamy

(Am I really having a baby? A baby? I was pregnant this whole time?)

and so frightening

(Where’s Shannon? Where is Mother?)

that, at first, she does not recognize them as Felix and Jules.

“Holy shit,” Felix says. “Olympia is already up there. Olympia started maybe two hours ago.”

Up where? Malorie thinks. Up where?

The men are careful with her and help her ease to the edge of the bed.

“Are you ready to do this?” Jules asks anxiously.

Malorie just looks at him, her brow furrowed, her face pink and pale at once.

“I was sleeping,” she says. “I was just… up where, Felix?”

“She’s ready,” Jules says, forcing a smile, trying to comfort her. “You look wonderful, Malorie. You look ready.”

She starts to ask, “Up—”

But Felix tells her before she finishes.

“We’re going to do this in the attic. Tom says it’s the safest place in the house. In case something were to happen. But nothing’s going to happen. Olympia’s up there already. She’s been going for two hours. Tom and Cheryl are up there with her. Don’t worry, Malorie. We’ll do everything we can.”

Malorie doesn’t answer. The feeling of something inside her that must get out is the most horrifying and incredible feeling she’s ever known. The men have her, one under each arm, and they walk her out of the room, over the threshold, and down the hall toward the rear of the house. The attic stairs are already pulled down and as they steady her, Malorie sees the blankets covering the window at the end of the hall. She wonders what time of day it is. If it’s the next night. If it’s a week later.

Am I really having my baby? Now?

Felix and Jules help her up the old wooden steps. She can hear Olympia upstairs. And Tom’s gentle voice, saying things like breathe, you’ll be fine, you’re okay.

“Maybe it won’t be so different after all,” she says (the men, thank God, helping her up the creaking steps). “Maybe it won’t be so different from how I hoped it would go.”

There is more room up here than she pictured. A single candle lights the space. Olympia is on a towel on the ground. Cheryl is beside her. Olympia’s knees are lifted and a thin bedsheet covers her from the waist down. Jules helps her onto her own towel facing Olympia. Tom approaches Malorie.

“Oh, Malorie!” Olympia says. She is out of breath and only part of her exclaims while the rest buckles and contorts. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

Malorie, dazed, can’t help but feel like she’s still sleeping when she looks over her covered knees and sees Olympia set up like a reflection.

“How long have you been here, Olympia?”

“I don’t know. Forever, I think!”

Felix is talking quietly to Olympia, asking her what she needs. Then he heads downstairs to get it. Tom reminds Cheryl to keep things clean. They’re going to be okay, he says, as long as they’re clean. They’re using clean sheets and towels. Hand sanitizer from Tom’s house. Two buckets of well water.

Tom appears calm, but Malorie knows he’s not.

“Malorie?” Tom asks.

“Yes?”

“What do you need?”

“How about some water? And some music, too, Tom.”

“Music?”

“Yes. Something sweet and soft, you know, something to maybe”—Something to cover up the sound of my body on the wood floor of an attic—“the flute music. That one tape.”

“Okay,” Tom says. “I’ll get it.”

He does, stepping by her to the stairs that descend directly behind her back. She turns her attention to Olympia. She’s still having trouble shaking the fog of sleep. She sees a small steak knife beside her on a paper towel, less than a foot away. Cheryl just dunked it into the water.

“Jesus!” Olympia suddenly hollers, and Felix kneels and takes her hand.

Malorie watches.

These people, she thinks, the kind of person that would answer an ad like that in the paper. These people are survivors.

She experiences a momentary surge of peace. She knows it won’t last long. The housemates wisp through her mind, their faces, one by one. With each she feels something like love.

My God, she thinks, we’ve been so brave.

“God!” Olympia suddenly screams. Cheryl is quickly beside her.

Once, when Tom was up here looking for tape, Malorie watched from the foot of the ladder stairs. But she’s never been up here herself. Now, breathing heavily, she looks to the curtain covering the lone window and she feels a chill. Even the attic has been protected. A room hardly ever used still needs a blanket. Her eyes travel along the wooden window frame, then along the paneled walls, the pointed ceiling, the boxes of things George left behind. Her eyes continue to a stack of blankets piled high. Another box of plastic parts. Old books. Old clothes.

Someone is standing by the old clothes.

It’s Don.

Malorie feels a contraction.

Tom returns with a glass of water and the little radio they play cassettes on.

“Here, Malorie,” he says. “I found it.”

The sound of crackling violins escapes the small speakers. Malorie thinks it’s perfect.

“Thank you,” she says.

Tom’s face looks very tired. His eyes are only half open and puffy. Like he slept for an hour or less.

Malorie feels a cramping so incredible that at first she thinks it isn’t real. It feels like a bear trap has clamped down on her waist.

Voices come from behind her. Down the attic stairs. It’s Cheryl. Jules. She’s hardly aware of who’s up here and who isn’t.

“Oh God!” Olympia calls out.

Tom is with her. Felix is by Malorie’s side again.

“You’re going to make it,” Malorie calls to Olympia.

As she does, thunder booms outside. Rain falls hard against the roof. Somehow the rain is the exact sound she was looking for. The world outside sounds like how she feels inside. Stormy. Menacing. Foul. The housemates emerge from the shadows, then vanish. Tom looks worried. Olympia is breathing hard, panting. The stairs creak. Someone new is here. It’s Jules, again. Tom is telling him Olympia is farther along than Malorie is. Thunder cracks outside. As lightning strikes, she sees Don in relief, his features sullen, his eyes set deep above dark circles.

There is an unbearable pressing tightness at Malorie’s waist. Her body, it seems, is acting on its own, refuting her mind’s desire for peace. She screams and Cheryl leaves Olympia’s side and comes to her. Malorie didn’t even know Cheryl was still up here.

“This is awful,” Olympia hisses.

Malorie thinks of women sharing cycles, women in tune with one another’s bodies. For all their talk about who would go first, neither she nor Olympia ever even joked that both of them might be in labor at the same time.

Oh, how Malorie longed for a traditional birth!

More thunder.

It is darker up here now. Tom brings a second candle, lights it, and sets it on the floor to Malorie’s left. In the flickering flame she sees Felix and Cheryl but Olympia is difficult to make out. Her torso and face are obscured by flickering shadows.

Someone descends the stairs behind her. Is it Don? She doesn’t want to crane her neck. Tom steps through the candlelight and then out of its range. Then Felix, she thinks, then Cheryl. Silhouettes are moving from her to Olympia like phantoms.

The rain comes down harder against the roof.

There is a loud, abrupt commotion downstairs. Malorie can’t be sure but she thinks someone is yelling. Is her tired mind mistaking sounds? Who’s arguing?

It does sound like an argument below.

She can’t think about this right now. She won’t.

“Malorie?” Malorie screams as Cheryl’s face suddenly appears beside her. “Squeeze my hand. Break it if you need to.”

Malorie wants to say, Get some light in here. Get me a doctor. Deliver this thing for me.

Instead she responds with a grunt.

She is having her baby. There is no longer when.

Will I see things differently now? I’ve seen everything through the prism of this baby. It’s how I saw the house. The housemates. The world. It’s how I saw the news when it first started and how I saw the news when it ended. I’ve been horrified, paranoid, angry, more. When my body returns to the shape it was when I walked the streets freely, will I see things differently again?

What will Tom look like? How will his ideas sound?

“Malorie!” Olympia calls in the darkness. “I don’t think I can do it!”

Cheryl is telling Olympia she can, she’s almost there.

“What’s going on downstairs?” Malorie suddenly asks.

Don is below. She can hear him arguing. Jules, too. Yes, Don and Jules are arguing in the hall beneath the attic. Is Tom with them? Is Felix? No. Felix emerges from the dark and takes her hand.

“Are you okay, Malorie?”

“No,” she says. “What’s going on downstairs?”

He pauses, then says, “I’m not sure. But you have bigger things to worry about than people getting in each other’s faces.”

“Is it Don?” she asks.

“Don’t worry about it, Malorie.”

It rains harder. It’s as if each drop has its own audible weight.

Malorie lifts her head to see Olympia’s eyes in the shadows, staring at her.

Beyond the rain, the arguing, the commotion downstairs, Malorie hears something. Sweeter than violins.

What is it?

“Oh fuck!” Olympia screams. “Make it stop!”

It’s becoming harder for Malorie to breathe. It feels like the baby is cutting off her air supply. Like it’s crawling up her throat instead.

Tom is here. He is at her side.

“I’m sorry, Malorie.”

She turns to him. The face she sees, the look on his face, is something she will remember years after this morning.

“Sorry for what, Tom? Sorry this is how it’s happened?”

Tom’s eyes look sad. He nods yes. They both know he has no reason to apologize but they both know no woman should have to endure her delivery in the stuffy attic of a house she calls home only because she cannot leave.

“You know what I think?” he says softly, reaching down to grab her hand. “I think you’re going to be a wonderful mother. I think you’re going to raise this child so well it won’t matter if the world continues this way or not.”

To Malorie, it feels like a rusty steel clamp is trying to pull the baby from her now. A tow truck chain from the shadows ahead.

“Tom,” she manages to say. “What’s wrong down there?”

“Don’s upset. That’s all.”

She wants to talk more about it. She’s not angry at Don anymore. She’s worried about him. Of all the housemates, he’s stricken worst by the new world. He’s lost in it. There is something emptier than hopelessness in his eyes. Malorie wants to tell Tom that she loves Don, that they all do, that he just needs help. But the pain is absolutely all she can process. And words are momentarily impossible. The argument below now sounds like a joke. Like someone’s kidding her. Like the house is telling her, You see? Have a sense of humor despite the unholy pain going on in my attic.

Malorie has known exhaustion and hunger. Physical pain and severe mental fatigue. But she has never known the state she is in now. She not only has the right to be unbothered by a squabble among housemates, but she also very nearly deserves that they all leave the house entirely and stand out in the yard with their eyes closed for as long as it takes her and Olympia to do what their bodies need to do.

Tom stands up.

“I’ll be right back,” he says. “Do you need some more water?”

Malorie shakes her head no and returns her eyes to the shadows and sheet that is Olympia’s struggle before her.

“We’re doing it!” Olympia says, suddenly, maniacally. “It’s happening!”

So many sounds. The voices below, the voices in the attic (coming from the shadows and coming from faces emerging from those shadows), the ladder stairs, creaking every time a housemate ascends or descends, assessing the situation up here and then the one (she knows there is a problem downstairs, she just can’t care right now) going on a floor below. The rain falls but there is something else. Another sound. An instrument maybe. The highest keys of the dining room’s piano.

Suddenly, strangely, Malorie feels another wave of peace. Despite the thousand blades that pierce her lungs, neck, and chest, she understands that no matter what she does, no matter what happens, the baby is coming out. What does it matter what kind of world she is bringing this baby into now? Olympia is right. It’s happening. The child is coming, the child is almost out. And he has always been a part of the new world.

He knows anxiety, fear, paranoia. He was worried when Tom and Jules went to find dogs. He was painfully relieved when they returned. He was frightened of the change in Don. The change in the house. As it went from a hopeful haven to a bitter, anxious place. His heart was heavy when I read the ad that led me here, just like it was when I read the notebook in the cellar.

At the word “cellar” Malorie actually hears Don’s voice from below.

He’s yelling.

Yet, something beyond his voice worries her more.

“Do you hear that sound, Olympia?”

“What?” Olympia grumbles. It sounds like she has staples in her throat.

“That sound. It sounds like…”

“It’s the rain,” Olympia says.

“No, not that. There’s something else. It sounds like we’ve already had our babies.”

“What?”

To Malorie it does sound like a baby. Something like it, past the housemates at the foot of the ladder stairs. Maybe even on the first floor, the living room, maybe even—

Maybe even outside.

But what does that mean? What is happening? Is someone crying on the front porch?

Impossible. It’s something else.

But it’s alive.

Lightning explodes. The attic is fully visible, nightmarishly, for a flash. The blanket covering the window remains fixed in Malorie’s mind long after the light passes and the thunder rolls. Olympia screams when it happens and Malorie, her eyes closed, sees her friend’s expression of fear frozen in her mind.

But her attention is drawn back to the impossible pressure at her waist. It seems Olympia could be howling for her. Every time Malorie feels the awful knife stabbing in her side, Olympia laments.

Do I howl for her, too?

The cassette tape comes to a stop. Then so does the commotion from below.

Even the rain abates.

The smaller sounds in the attic are more audible now. Malorie listens to herself breathing. The footsteps of the housemates who help them are defined.

Figures emerge. Then vanish.

There’s Tom (she’s sure).

There’s Felix (she thinks).

There’s Jules now at Olympia’s side.

Is the world receding? Or am I sailing farther into this pain?

She hears that noise again. Like an infant on the doorstep. Something young and alive coming from downstairs. Only now it is more pronounced. Only now it doesn’t have to fight through the argument and the music and the rain.

Yes, it is more pronounced now, more defined. As Tom crosses the attic, she can hear the sound between his footsteps. His boot connecting with the wood, then lifting, exposing the youthful notes from below.

Then, very clearly, Malorie recognizes what it is.

It’s the birds. Oh my God. It’s the birds.

The cardboard box beating against the house’s outer wall and the soft sweet cooing of the birds.

“There is something outside the house,” she says.

Quietly at first.

Cheryl is a few feet from her.

“There is something outside the house!” she yells.

Jules looks up from behind Olympia’s shoulder.

There’s a loud crash from below. Felix yells. Jules rushes past Malorie. His boots are loud and quick on the ladder stairs behind her.

Malorie frantically looks around the attic for Tom. He’s not up here. He’s downstairs.

“Olympia,” Malorie says, more to herself. “We’re alone up here!”

Olympia does not respond.

Malorie tries not to listen but she can’t stop herself. It sounds like they’re all in the living room now. The first floor for sure. Everybody is yelling. Did Jules just say “don’t”?

As the commotion builds, so does the pain at Malorie’s waist.

Malorie, her back to the stairs, cranes her neck. She wants to know what is happening. She wants to tell them to stop. There are two pregnant women in the attic who need your help. Please stop.

Delirious, Malorie lets her chin fall to her chest. Her eyes close. She feels like, if she were to lose focus, she could pass out. Or worse.

The rain returns. Malorie opens her eyes. She sees Olympia, her head bent toward the ceiling. The veins in her neck are showing. Slowly, Malorie scans the attic. Beside Olympia are boxes. Then the window. Then more boxes. Old books. The old clothes.

A flash of lightning from outside illuminates the attic space. Malorie closes her eyes. In her darkness, she sees a frozen image of the attic’s walls.

The window. The boxes.

And a man, standing where Don was standing when she came up here.

It’s not possible, she thinks.

But it is.

And, before her eyes are fully open, she understands who is standing there, who is in the attic with her.

“Gary,” Malorie says, a hundred thoughts accosting her. “You’ve been hiding in the cellar.”

She thinks of Victor growling at the cellar door.

She thinks of Don, sleeping down there.

As Malorie looks Gary in the eye, the argument downstairs escalates. Jules is hoarse. Don is livid. It sounds like they are exchanging blows.

Gary emerges from the shadows. He is approaching her.

When we closed our eyes and Tom opened the front door, she thinks, knowing it is true, Don snuck him farther into the house.

“What are you doing here?!” Olympia suddenly yells. Gary does not look at her. He only comes to Malorie.

“Stay away from me!” Malorie screams.

He kneels beside her.

“You,” he says. “So vulnerable in your present state. I’d have thought you would have had more sympathy than to send someone out into a world like this one.”

Lightning flashes again.

“Tom! Jules!”

Her baby is not out yet. But he must be close.

“Don’t yell,” Gary says. “I’m not angry.”

“Please leave me alone. Please leave us.”

Gary laughs.

“You keep saying that! You keep wanting me to leave!”

Thunder rolls outside. The housemates are getting louder.

“You never left,” Malorie says, each word like removing a small rock from her chest.

“That’s right, I never did.”

Tears pool in Malorie’s eyes.

“Don had the heart to lend me a hand, and the foresight to predict I might be voted out.”

Don, she thinks, what have you done?

Gary leans closer.

“Do you mind if I tell you a story while you do this?”

“What?”

“A story. Something to keep your mind off the pain. And let me tell you that you’re doing a wonderful job. Better than my wife did.”

Olympia’s breathing sounds bad, too labored, like she couldn’t possibly survive this.

“One of two things is happening here,” Gary says. “Either—”

“Please,” Malorie cries. “Please leave me alone.”

“Either my philosophies are right, or, and I hate to use this word, or I’m immune.”

It feels like the baby is at the edge of her body. Yet it feels too big to escape. Malorie gasps and closes her eyes. But the pain is everywhere, even in her darkness.

They don’t know he’s up here. Oh my God they don’t know he’s here.

“I’ve watched this street for a long time,” Gary says. “I watched as Tom and Jules stumbled their way around the block. I was mere inches from Tom as he studied the very tent that sheltered me.”

“Stop it. STOP IT!”

But yelling only makes the pain worse. Malorie focuses. She pushes. She breathes. But she can’t help but hear.

“I found it fascinating, the lengths the man would go to, while I watched, unharmed, as the creatures passed daily, nightly, sometimes a dozen at once. It’s the reason I settled on this street, Malorie. You have no idea how busy it can be out there.”

please please please please please please please please PLEASE

From the floor below, she hears Tom’s voice.

“Jules! I need you!”

Then a thundering of footsteps leading back down.

“TOM! HELP US! GARY IS UP HERE! TOM!”

“He’s preoccupied,” Gary says. “There’s a real situation going on down there.”

Gary rises. He steps to the attic door and quietly closes it.

Then he locks it.

“Is that any better?” he asks.

“What have you done?” Malorie hisses.

More shouting from below now. It sounds like everybody is moving at once. For an instant, she believes she has gone mad. No matter how safe she’s been, it feels like there is no hiding from the insanity of the new world.

Someone screams in the hall below the locked attic door. Malorie thinks it’s Felix.

“My wife wasn’t prepared,” Gary says, suddenly beside her. “I watched her as she saw one. I didn’t warn her it was coming. I—”

“Why didn’t you tell us?!” Malorie asks, crying, pushing.

“Because,” Gary says, “just like the others, none of you would have believed me. Except Don.”

“You’re mad.”

Gary laughs, grinning.

“What is happening downstairs?!” Olympia yells. “Malorie! What is happening downstairs?!”

“I don’t know!”

“It’s Don,” Gary says. “He’s trying to convince the others what I’ve taught him.”

“IT’S DON!”

The voice from below is as clear as if it were spoken in the attic.

“DON PULLED THEM DOWN! DON PULLED THE BLANKETS DOWN!”

“They won’t hurt us,” Gary whispers. The whiskers of his moist beard touch Malorie’s ear.

But she is no longer listening to him.

“Malorie?” Olympia whispers.

“DON PULLED THE BLANKETS DOWN AND OPENED THE DOOR! THEY’RE IN THE HOUSE! DID YOU HEAR ME? THEY’RE IN THE HOUSE!”

the baby is coming the baby is coming the baby is coming

“Malorie?”

“Olympia,” she says, defeated, void of hope (is it true? is her own voice saying as much?). “Yes. They’re in the house now.”

The storm outside whips against the walls.

The chaos below sounds impossible.

“They sound like wolves,” Olympia cries. “They sound like wolves!”

Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don Don

tore the blankets down

let them in

someone saw them

let them in

someone went mad who was it?

Don let them in

Don tore down the blankets

Don doesn’t believe they can hurt us

Don thinks it’s only in our mind

Gary knelt by him in the chair in the dining room

Gary spoke to him from behind the tapestry in the cellar

Don pulled the blankets down

Gary told him they were fake, Gary told him they were harmless

may have gone mad who is it who has?

(push, Malorie, push, you have a baby, a baby to worry about, close your eyes if you have to but push push)

they’re in the house now

and everyone in it

sounds like wolves.

The birds, Malorie thinks, hysterical, were a good idea, Tom. A great one.

Olympia is frantically asking her questions but Malorie can’t answer. Her mind is full.

“Is it true? Is there really one in the house? That can’t be true. We’d never allow it! Is there really one in the house? Right now?”

Something slams against a wall downstairs. A body maybe. The dogs are barking.

Someone threw a dog against the wall.

“DON TORE THE BLANKETS DOWN!”

Who has their eyes closed down there? Who has the presence of mind? Would Malorie? Would Malorie have been able to close her eyes as her housemates went mad?

Oh my God, Malorie thinks. They’re going to die down there.

The baby is killing her.

Gary is still whispering in her ear.

“What you hear down there, that’s what I mean, Malorie. They think they’re supposed to go mad. But they don’t have to. I spent seasons out there. I watched them for weeks at a time.”

“Impossible,” Malorie says. She doesn’t know if this word is directed at Gary, the noise below, or the pain she believes will never pass.

“The first time I saw one, I thought I’d gone mad.” Gary nervously laughs. “But I didn’t. And when I slowly realized I was still of sound mind, I began to understand what was happening. To my friends. My family. To everybody.”

“I don’t want to hear any more!” Malorie screams. She feels like she may split down the center. There has been a mistake, she thinks. The baby that tries to escape her is too big and it will split her.

It’s a boy, she believes.

“You know what?”

“Stop!”

“You know what?”

“No! No! No!”

Olympia howls, the sky howls, the dogs howl downstairs. Malorie believes she hears Jules specifically. She hears him racing a floor below. She hears him trying to tear something apart in the bathroom down there.

“Maybe I am immune, Malorie. Or maybe I’m simply aware.”

She wants to say, Do you know how much you could have done for us? Do you understand how much safer you could have made us?

But Gary is mad.

And he probably always has been.

Don pulled the blankets down.

Gary knelt by him in the dining room.

Gary spoke to him from behind a tapestry in the cellar.

Gary the demon on Don’s soft shoulder.

There is a thunderous knocking at the attic’s floor door.

“LET ME IN!” someone screams.

It’s Felix, Malorie thinks. Or Don.

“JESUS CHRIST LET ME IN!”

But it’s neither.

It’s Tom.

“Open the door for him!” Malorie screams at Gary.

“Are you sure you want me to do that? It doesn’t sound to me like a safe idea.”

“Please please please! Let him in!”

It’s Tom, oh my God, it’s Tom, it’s Tom, oh my God, it’s Tom.

She pushes hard. Oh God she pushes hard.

“Breathe,” Gary tells her. “Breathe. You’re almost there now.”

“Please,” Malorie cries. “Please!”

“LET ME IN! LET ME UP THERE!”

Olympia is screaming now, too.

“Open the door for him! It’s Tom!”

The insanity from below is knocking on the door.

Tom.

Tom is insane. Tom saw one of the creatures.

Tom is insane.

Did you hear him? Did you hear his voice? That was the sound he makes. That was how he sounds without his mind, without his beautiful mind.

Gary rises and crosses the attic. The rain pounds on the roof.

The knocking on the attic floor door stops.

Malorie looks across the attic to Olympia.

Olympia’s black hair mingles with the shadows. Her eyes blaze from within.

“We’re… almost… there,” she says.

Olympia’s child is coming out. In the candlelight, Malorie can see it is halfway there.

Instinctively, she reaches for it, though it is an attic floor away.

“Olympia! Don’t forget to cover your child’s eyes. Don’t forget to—”

The attic floor’s door crashes open hard. The lock has been broken.

Malorie screams but all she hears is her own heartbeat, louder than all of the new world.

Then she is silent.

Gary rises and steps back toward the window.

There are heavy footsteps behind her.

Malorie’s baby is emerging.

The stairs groan.

“Who is it?” she screams. “Who is it? Is everyone okay? Is it Tom? Who is it?”

Someone she cannot see has climbed the stairs and is in the attic with them.

Malorie, her back to the stairs, watches as Olympia’s expression changes from pain to awe.

Olympia, she thinks. Don’t look. We’ve been so good. So brave. Don’t look. Reach for your child instead. Hide its eyes when it comes out completely. Hide its eyes. And hide your own. Don’t look. Olympia. Don’t look.

But she understands it’s too late for her friend.

Olympia leans forward. Her eyes grow huge, her mouth opens. Her face becomes three perfect circles. For a moment Malorie sees her features contort, then shine instead.

“You’re beautiful,” Olympia says, smiling. It’s a broken, twitching smile. “You’re not bad at all. You wanna see my baby? Do you wanna see my baby?”

The child the child, Malorie thinks, the child is in her and she has gone mad. Oh my God, Olympia has gone mad, oh my God, the thing is behind me and the thing is behind my child.

Malorie closes her eyes.

As she does, the image of Gary remains, still standing at the edge of the candlelight’s reach. But he does not look as confident as he professed that he should. He looks like a scared child.

“Olympia,” Malorie says. “You’ve got to cover the baby’s eyes. You’ve got to reach down. For your baby.”

Malorie can’t see her friend’s expression. But her voice reveals the change within her.

“What? You’re going to tell me how to raise my child? What kind of a bitch are you? What kind of a—”

Olympia’s words morph into a guttural growl.

Insanity fuss.

Gary’s diseased, dangerous words.

Olympia is baying.

Malorie’s baby is crowning. She pushes.

With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Malorie inches forward on the towel. She wants Olympia’s child. She will protect it.

Then, amid all this pain and madness, Malorie hears Olympia’s baby’s very first cry.

Close its eyes.

Then at last Malorie’s child comes through and her hand is there to cup its eyes. Its head is so soft and she believes she’s gotten to him in time.

“Come here,” she says, bringing the baby to her chest. “Come here and close your eyes.”

Gary laughs anxiously from across the room.

“Incredible,” he says.

Malorie feels for the steak knife. She finds it and cuts her own cord. Then she cuts two strips from the bloody towel beneath her. She feels his sex and knows it’s a boy and has no one to tell this to. No sister. No mother. No father. No nurse. No Tom. She holds him tight to her chest.

Slowly, she ties a piece of the towel around his eyes.

How important is it that he sees his mother’s face when he enters the world?

She hears the creature shift behind her.

“Baby,” Olympia says, but her voice is cracked. She sounds like she’s using the voice of an older woman. “My baby,” she crows.

Malorie slides forward. The muscles in her body resist. She reaches for Olympia’s child.

“Here,” she says blindly. “Here, Olympia. Let me have it. Let me see it.”

Olympia grunts.

“Why should I let you? What do you want my child for? Are you mad?”

“No. I just want to see it.”

Malorie’s eyes are still closed. The attic is quiet. The rain lands softly on the roof. Malorie slides forward, still on the blood beneath her body.

“Can I? Can I just see her? It is a girl, right? Weren’t you right about that?”

Malorie hears something so astonishing that she is halted midway across the floor.

Olympia is gnawing at something. She knows it’s the child’s cord.

Her stomach turns. She keeps her eyes closed tight. She’s going to throw up.

“Can I see her?” Malorie manages to ask.

“Here. Here!” Olympia says. “Look at her. Look at her!”

At last, Malorie’s hands are on Olympia’s baby. It’s a girl.

Olympia stands up. It sounds like she steps in a rain puddle. It’s blood, Malorie knows. Afterbirth, sweat, and blood.

“Thank you,” Malorie whispers. “Thank you, Olympia.”

This action, this handing off of her child, will always shine to Malorie. The moment Olympia did right by her child despite having lost her mind.

Malorie ties the second piece of towel around the baby’s eyes.

Olympia shuffles toward the draped window. To where Gary stands.

The thing waits behind Malorie and is still.

Malorie grips both babies, shielding their eyes even more with her bloody, wet fingers. Both babies cry.

And suddenly Olympia is struggling with something, sliding something.

Like she’s climbing now.

“Olympia?”

It sounds like Olympia is setting something up.

“Olympia? What are you doing, Olympia? Gary, stop her. Please, Gary.”

Her words are useless. Gary is the maddest of all.

“I’m going outside, sir,” Olympia says to Gary, who must be near. “I’ve been inside a long time.”

“Olympia, stop.”

“I’m going to step OUTSIDE,” she says, her voice at once like a child and a centenarian on her deathbed.

“Olympia!”

It’s too late. Malorie hears the glass of the attic window shatter. Something bangs against the house.

Silence. From downstairs. From the attic. Then Gary speaks.

“She hangs! She hangs by her cord!”

Don’t. Please, God, don’t let this man describe it to me.

“She hangs by her cord! The most incredible thing I’ve ever seen! She hangs by her cord!”

There is laughter, joy in his voice.

The thing moves behind her. Malorie is at the epicenter of all this madness. Old madness. The kind people used to get from war, divorce, poverty, and things like knowing that your friend is—

“Hanging by her cord! By her cord!”

“Shut up!” Malorie screams blindly. “Shut up!”

But her words are choked, as she feels the thing behind her is leaning in. A part of it (its face?) moves near her lips.

Malorie only breathes. She does not move. The attic is silent.

She can feel the warmth, the heat, of the thing beside her.

Shannon, she thinks, look at the clouds. They look like us. You and I.

She tightens her grip over the babies’ eyes.

She hears the thing behind her retract. It sounds as if it’s moving away from her. Farther.

It pauses. Stops.

When she hears the wooden stairs creaking, and when she’s sure it is the sound of someone descending, she releases a sob deeper than any she’s ever known.

The steps grow quiet. Quieter. Then, they are gone.

“It’s left us,” she tells the babies.

Now she hears Gary move.

“Don’t come near us!” she screams with her eyes closed. “Don’t you touch us!”

He doesn’t touch her. He passes by, and the stairs creak again.

He’s gone downstairs. He’s going to see who made it. Who didn’t.

She heaves, aches from exhaustion. From blood loss. Her body tells her to sleep, sleep. They are alone in the attic, Malorie and the babies. She begins to lie back. She needs to. Instead, she waits. She listens. She rests.

How much time is passing? How long have I held these babies?

But a new sound fractures her reprieve. It’s coming from downstairs. It’s a noise that was made often in the old world.

Olympia hangs (so he said so he said) from the attic window.

Her body thumps against the house in the wind.

And now something rings from below.

It’s the telephone. The telephone is ringing.

Malorie is almost mesmerized by the sound. How long has it been since she’s heard something like it?

Someone is calling them.

Someone is calling back.

Malorie turns herself, sliding in the afterbirth. She places the girl in her lap, then gently covers her with her shirt. Using her empty hand, she feels for the head of the ladder stairs. They are steep. They are old. No woman who just gave birth should have to negotiate them at all.

But the phone is ringing. Someone is calling back. And Malorie is going to answer it.

Riiiiiiiiiiing

Despite their towel blindfolds, she tells the babies to keep their eyes closed.

This command will be the most common thing she says to them over the next four years. And nothing will stop her from saying it, whether or not they’re too young to understand her.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiing

She slides her ass to the edge of the floor and swings her legs over to rest her feet on the first step. Her body screams at her to stop.

But she continues down.

Down the stairs now. She cradles the boy in her right arm, her palm wrapped around his face. The girl is up inside her shirt. Malorie’s eyes are closed and the world is black and she needs sleep so bad she might as well fall from the stairs and into it. Only she walks, she steps, and she uses the phone as her guide.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

Her feet touch the light blue carpeting of the second floor’s white hall. Eyes closed, she does not see these colors, just like she does not see Jules lying facedown along the right wall, five bloody streaks trailing from the height of her head to where his hand lies pressed against the floor.

At the top of the stairs, she pauses. She breathes deep. She believes she can do it. Then she continues.

She passes Cheryl but does not know it. Not yet. Cheryl’s head faces the first floor, her feet the second. Her body is horribly, unnaturally contorted.

Without knowing it, Malorie steps inches from her.

She almost touches Felix at the foot of the stairs. But she doesn’t. Later, she will gasp when she feels the holes in his face.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

She has no idea she passes one of the huskies. It is slumped against the wall; the wall is stained dark purple.

She wants to say, Is anyone still here? She wants to scream it. But the phone rings and she does not believe it will stop until she answers it.

She follows the sound, leaning against the wall.

Rain and wind come in through broken windows.

I must answer the phone.

If her eyes were to open, she would not be able to process the amount of blood marking the house.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

She will see all of that later. But right now the phone is so loud, so close.

Malorie turns, puts her back against the wall, then slides, excruciatingly, to the carpet. The phone is on the small end table. Her body aches and burns, every part of it. Placing the boy beside the girl in her lap, she reaches out with her hand and fumbles for the phone that has been ringing without rest.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

It’s a man. His voice sounds so calm. So horribly out of place.

“Who is this?” Malorie asks.

She can hardly understand that she is using a telephone.

“My name is Rick. We got your message a few days ago. I guess you could say we’ve been busy. What’s your name?”

“Who is this?”

“Again, my name is Rick. A man named Tom left a message with us.”

“Tom.”

“Yes. He does live there, right?”

“My name is Malorie.”

“Are you okay, Malorie? You sound broken up.”

Malorie breathes deep. She doesn’t think she will ever be okay again.

“Yes,” she answers. “I’m okay.”

“We haven’t got much time right now. Are you interested in getting out from where you are? Somewhere safer? I’m assuming the answer is yes.”

“Yes,” Malorie says.

“Here’s what you do then. Write this down if you can. Do you have a pen?”

Malorie says yes and reaches for the pen kept by Tom’s phone book.

The babies cry.

“It sounds like you have a baby with you?”

“I do.”

“I imagine that’s your reason for wanting to find a better place. Here’s the information, Malorie. Take the river.”

“What?”

“Take the river. Do you know where it is?”

“Y-yes. I do know where it is. It’s right behind the house. Eighty yards from the well, I’m told.”

“Good. Take the river. It’s about as dangerous a thing as you can do, but I imagine if you and Tom have made it this long, you can do it. I found you guys on the map and it looks like you’ll have to travel at least twenty miles. Now, the river is going to split—”

“It’s going to what?”

“I’m sorry. I’m probably moving too fast. But where I’m directing you is a better place.”

“How is that?”

“Well, we don’t have windows for one. We have running water. And we grow our own food. It’s as self-contained as you can find nowadays. There are plenty of bedrooms. Nice ones. Most of us think we’ve got it better now than we did before.”

“How many of you are there?”

“One hundred and eight.”

The number could be any for Malorie. Or it could be infinity.

“But let me tell you how to get here first. It would be a tragedy if the phone line went out before you knew where to go.”

“All right.”

“The river is going to split into four channels. 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 slowly shakes her head. No.

Rick continues.

“And this is how you’ll know when that time comes,” the man tells her. “You’ll hear a recording. A voice. We can’t sit by the river all day every day. It’s just too dangerous. Instead, we’ve got a speaker down there. It’s motion activated. We have a very clear understanding of the woods and water beyond our facility because of devices like it. Once the speaker is activated, the recording plays for thirty minutes, on a loop. You’ll hear it. The same forty-second sound bite repeated. It’s loud. Clear. And when you do, that’s when you’ll have to open your eyes.”

“Thank you, Rick. But I just can’t do that.”

Her voice is listless. Destroyed.

“I understand it’s terrifying. Of course it is. But that’s the catch, I suppose. There’s no other way.”

Malorie thinks of hanging up. But Rick continues.

“We’ve got so many good things happening here. We make progress every day. Of course, we’re nowhere near where we’d like to be. But we’re trying.”

Malorie starts to cry. The words, what this man is telling her—is it hope he gives her? Or is it some deeper variation of the incredible hopelessness she already feels?

“If I do what you’re telling me to do,” Malorie says, “how will I find you from there?”

“From the split?”

“Yes.”

“We have an alarm system. It’s the same technology used for triggering the recording you’ll hear. Once you take the correct channel, you’ll go another hundred yards. Then you’ll trigger our notification alarm. A fence will be lowered. You’ll be stuck. And we’ll come looking for what got stuck in our fence.”

Malorie shivers.

“Oh yeah?” she asks.

“Yes. You sound skeptical.”

Visions of the old world rush through her mind, but with each memory comes a leash, a chain, and an instinctive feeling that tells her this man and this place might be good, might be bad, might be better than where she is now, might be worse, but she will never be free again.

“How many of you are there?” Rick asks.

Malorie listens to the silence of the house. The windows are broken. The door is probably open. She must stand up. Close the door. Cover the windows. But it all feels like it’s happening to someone else.

“Three,” she says, lifeless. “If the number changes—”

“Don’t worry about it, Malorie. Any number you come with is fine. We have space enough for a few hundred and we’re working on more. Just come as soon as you can.”

“Rick, can you come help me now?”

She hears Rick take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, Malorie. It’s too much of a risk. I’m needed here. I realize that sounds selfish. But I’m afraid you’ll have to get to us.”

Malorie nods silently. Amid the gore, the loss, the pain, she respects that this man must stay safe.

Only I can’t open my eyes right now and I have two newborns in my lap who have yet to see the world and the room smells of piss, blood, and death. Air comes in fast from outside. It’s cold and I know that means the window is broken or the front door is open. So dangerously open. So, all this sounds good, Rick, it truly does, but I’m not sure how I’m going to get to the bathroom yet let alone onto a river for forty miles or whatever it was you said.

“Malorie, I’ll check in on you. I’ll call again. Or do you think you’ll be coming right away?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know when I’ll be able to come.”

“Okay.”

“But thank you.”

It feels like the most sincere thank-you Malorie has ever spoken in her life.

“I’ll call you in a week, Malorie.”

“Okay.”

“Malorie?”

“Yes?”

“If I don’t call, it could mean the lines have finally died on our end. Or it could mean the lines at your place are out, too. Just trust me when I tell you we will be here. You come anytime. We will be here.”

“Okay,” Malorie says.

Rick gives her his phone number. Malorie, using the pen, blindly scribbles the numbers on a page in the open phone book.

“Good-bye, Malorie.”

“Good-bye.”

Just a simple, everyday talk on the phone.

Malorie hangs up. Then she hangs her head and cries. The babies shift in her lap. She cries for another twenty minutes, unbroken, until she screams when she hears something scratching at the cellar door. It is Victor. He is barking to be let out. Somehow, he was blessedly locked in the cellar. Maybe Jules, knowing what was coming, did it.

After rehanging the blankets and closing the doors, she will use a broomstick to search every inch of the home for creatures. It will be six hours before she feels safe enough to open her eyes, at which point she will see what went on in the house while she was delivering her baby.

But before then, with her eyes closed tightly, Malorie will stand up and step back through the living room until she reaches the top of the cellar stairs.

And there she will step by Tom’s body.

She will not know it is him, believing it to be a bag of sugar that her foot nudges, as she kneels before the bucket of well water and begins the laborious job of cleaning the children and herself.

She will speak with Rick a number of times in the coming months. But soon the lines reaching the house will die.

It will take her six months to wash the house of the bodies and blood. She will find Don on the kitchen floor, reaching for the cellar. As if he raced there, mad, to ask Gary for his mind back. She will check for Gary. Everywhere. But she will never find a sign of him. She will always be aware of him. The possibility of him. Out there. In the world.

Most of the housemates will be buried in a semicircle around the well out back. She will forever feel the uneven lumps, the graves she dug and filled while blindfolded, whenever she gets water for herself or the children.

Tom will be buried closest to the house. The patch of grass to which she takes the children, blindfolded, as a means of getting them fresh air. A place where, she hopes, their spirits run freest.

It will be four years before she answers yes to whether or not she is coming soon to the place Rick described on the phone.

But now she just washes. Now she just cleans the babies. And the babies cry.