“We all watched the news constantly, hoping for another clue, a piece of information that we’d be able to use to find a way for people to protect themselves. But the reports just started to repeat themselves. And George got impatient. The more he talked about testing his ‘altered vision’ theory, the more he wanted to try it. I was scared, Malorie. But George was like the captain of a sinking ship, and he wasn’t afraid to die. And if it worked? Well, that would mean he’d helped cure the planet of its most terrifying epidemic.”

As Tom speaks, the lamplight dances in his blue eyes.

“What did he use?” Malorie asks.

“A video camera,” Tom says. “He had one upstairs. One of those old VHS cameras. He did it without telling us. One night he set it up behind one of the blankets hanging in the dining room. I woke first that morning and found him asleep on the floor in there. When he heard me, he got up and hurried to the camera. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘I did it. I recorded five hours of footage. It’s right here, here, inside this camera. I could be holding the cure to this thing. Indirect vision. Film. We have to watch this.’

“I told him I thought it was a bad idea. I also thought it wasn’t likely he’d captured anything in just a five-hour span. But he had a plan that he presented to all of us. He said he needed one of us to tie him to a chair in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He’d watch the footage in there. The way he saw it, tied to the chair, he shouldn’t be able to hurt himself if things went badly. Don got really angry. He told George he was a threat to us all. He rightfully said that we had no idea what we were dealing with, and that if something were to happen to George, then something might happen to us all. But Felix and I weren’t opposed. We voted. Don was the only one who didn’t want him to do it. He talked about leaving. We talked him out of it. And finally, George told us that he didn’t need permission in his own house to do what he wanted to do. So, I told him I’d tie him to the chair.”

“And you did?”

“I did.”

Tom’s eyes travel to the carpet.

“It started with George gasping. Like he had something lodged in his throat. He’d been up there two hours and hadn’t made a sound. Then he starting calling to us. ‘Tom! You piece of shit. Get up here. Get up here.’ He would giggle, then scream, then howl. He sounded like a dog. We heard the chair bang hard against the floor. He was screaming profanities. Jules rose to go help him and I grabbed his arm to stop him. There was nothing we could do except listen. And we heard the entire thing. All the way until the crashing of the chair and the screaming stopped. Then we waited. We waited for a long time. Eventually, we went upstairs together. Blindfolded, we turned the VCR off, then opened our eyes. We saw what George had done to himself. He’d pressed so hard against the ropes that they had gone through his muscles all the way to the bone. His entire body looked like cake frosting, blood and skin folded over the ropes in his chest, his belly, his neck, his wrists, his legs. Felix threw up. Don and I knelt beside George and began cleaning. When we were finished, Don insisted we burn the tape. So we did. And while it was burning I couldn’t stop thinking that with it went our first real theory. It seems that no matter what prism you view them through, they’ll hurt you.”

Malorie is silent.

“You know what, though? He was right. In a way. He hypothesized it was creatures long before the news said as much. He was obviously onto something. Maybe if he had gone about it in a different way, George could have been the kind of guy to change the world.”

There are tears in Tom’s eyes.

“You know what worries me most about that story, Malorie?”

“What?”

“The camera was only running for five hours and it caught something. How many of them are out there?”

Malorie looks to the blankets covering the windows. Then she looks back to Tom. He’s adjusting the windshield protector he’s building. The music comes quietly from the dining room.

“Well,” Tom says, lifting the thing in his hands, “hopefully something like this helps. You know, we can’t stop trying just because George died. Sometimes I think it scarred Don. It did something to him for sure.”

Tom rises and holds the big piece before him. Malorie hears something snap, and the thing Tom is building falls to pieces at his feet.

He turns to Malorie.

“We can’t stop trying.”

thirteen

Felix is taking the path toward the well. One of the housemates’ six buckets hangs from his right hand. It’s the wood one. The black iron handle makes it look old. It’s heavier than the others, but Felix doesn’t mind. Rather, he likes it. It keeps him grounded, he says.

The rope is tied around his waist. The other end of it is tied to a steel stake in the dirt, just outside the home’s back door. There is a lot of slack. Some of it rubs against his pant leg and his shoes. He worries about tripping over it, so, with his left hand, he lifts it and holds it away from his body. He is blindfolded. The pieces of old picture frames that outline the path let him know if he’s walking too far to one side or another.

“It’s like Operation!” he calls to Jules, who waits, blindfolded, by the stake. “Do you remember that game? Every time my toe touches the wood I hear a buzzer going off.”

Jules has been talking since Felix started walking toward the well. It’s the way the housemates do it. One fetches the water, the other lets him know how far he is from the house through his voice. Jules hasn’t been saying anything in particular. Reciting grades he got in college. Listing off his first three jobs after he graduated. Felix can hear some words but not others. It doesn’t matter. As long as Jules is talking, Felix feels a little less like he’s out to sea.

But not much less.

He bumps into the well when he reaches it. The cobblestone lip scratches his thigh. It amazes Felix to think how much it hurts, walking this slow, and how much it could hurt if he was running.

“I’m at the well, Jules! Securing the bucket now.”

Jules isn’t the only one waiting for Felix. Cheryl is behind the closed back door of the house. She is standing in the kitchen, listening through the door. The housemate who waits inside the kitchen is only there in case something goes wrong outside. She is hoping her role as a “safety net” won’t mean anything today.

Above the well’s open mouth is a wooden crossbar. At each end is an iron hook. This is why Felix likes bringing the wooden bucket when he goes. It’s the only one that fits perfectly on the hooks. He ties the well rope to the bucket. Once it’s secure, he rotates the crank, making the rope as taut as it can go. His hands free, he wipes them on his jeans.

Then he hears something move out here.

Turning his head quickly, Felix raises his hands in front of his face. But nothing happens. Nothing comes at him. He can hear Jules talking by the back door. Something about a job as a mechanic. Fixing things.

Felix listens.

Breathing hard, he gives the crank one turn in the opposite direction, his ear toward the rest of the yard. The rope is just slack enough now for him to remove the bucket from the hooks and let it hang, suspended, above the stone mouth of the well. He waits another minute. Jules calls to him.

“Everything okay, Felix?”

Felix listens a little longer before responding. As he answers, he feels as if his voice suddenly betrays his exact location.

“Yes. I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

“I thought I heard something! I’m getting the water now.”

Turning the crank, Felix lowers the bucket. He hears it strike the stone sides within. They are followed by hollow echoes. Felix knows that it takes about twenty revolutions of the crank for the bucket to reach the water. He is counting them now.