Chapter 1 - The Shadows in the Backyard and the Sound of the Lock
The summer evening air felt entirely too thick, pressing down on the damp mulch where Tyler, Noah, and I crouched. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, each thud loud enough to echo in my own ears. Through the tangled, scratchy leaves of the backyard hydrangeas, the kitchen window cast a pale, buttery square of light onto the patio. Inside, the three dinner plates sat untouched, the meatloaf slowly glazing over under the warm overhead light, a quiet monument to a normal evening that had just been violently shattered.
A metallic click cut through the cicadas' hum.
It was the unmistakable sound of brass turning inside a brass strike plate.
Mark, my brother-in-law, the man who had hugged his son and thanked me for babysitting five days ago, had just unlocked my back door using the emergency key I had given my sister Emily months ago.
Tyler’s small fingers dug into my arm so hard his nails bit into my skin, but I couldn't flinch. I kept my breathing shallow, my eyes locked on the doorway. Noah was shaking so violently his shoulder rhythmically bumped against mine, his face pressed against my side, eyes squeezed shut as if darkness could make him invisible.
The door swung open with a soft, familiar squeak.
“Sarah?” Mark’s voice called out into the empty kitchen. It didn't sound frantic or panicked. It sounded chillingly casual, carrying the smooth, practiced tone of a man dropping by for a cup of sugar. “Tyler? Noah? You guys around?”
No answer came from the empty rooms.
On the patio just outside the screen door, I heard the heavy thud of his shoes hitting the concrete. He was inside.
My thumb hovered over the screen of my phone, which was clutched tightly in my right hand. The emergency services button stared back at me in the dim light of the screen saver. Should I call 911 right now? I asked myself. But dialing would make a sound, or worse, if his phone was somehow synced or if he heard my ringtone echoing in the hallway, our hiding spot would be instantly compromised.
Mark walked heavily through the kitchen, his footsteps creaking on the hardwood floor near the pantry. He opened the refrigerator door—I heard the familiar hum of the interior light kicking on, followed by the rattle of condiment bottles.
“Smart,” Mark muttered to himself, his voice drifting out through the open back door. “Left the milk out. Must have gone out the front.”
He thought we had fled through the front entrance. That gave us a tiny, terrifying window of opportunity.
Next to me, Noah turned his head slightly, his lips trembling against my sleeve. He didn't speak out loud, but I saw the shape of his words forming in the dim light: The garage.
Our detached two-car garage sat at the far end of the backyard, half-hidden behind a dense row of tall arborvitae trees and old gardening equipment. The side door of the garage had a heavy padlock that I always kept locked, but the old wooden window on the back wall was usually unlatched, just big enough for a child—or a desperate adult—to slide through.
If Mark searched the front of the house and then circled back out, he would eventually check the yard, the patio furniture, and the perimeter. We couldn't stay crouched in the hydrangeas forever.
I looked down at Tyler, whose wide, terrified eyes reflected the pale glow of the kitchen light. I pressed a finger to my lips, signaling absolute silence, and pointed toward the dark shadow of the garage.
Tyler nodded once, his lower lip clamped between his teeth.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, I lifted my knees out of the mulch. Every twig beneath my sneakers felt like stepping on broken glass. I kept one hand firmly on Noah’s back, guiding him forward, inch by inch, keeping the dense canopy of the bushes between us and the kitchen door.
Inside the house, a chair scraped loudly against the floorboards. Mark was moving toward the living room.
Now.
I lunged forward in a low crouch, pulling both boys with me across the open patch of grass toward the safety of the arborvitae trees. Our sneakers kicked up damp blades of grass, the sound muffled by the cicadas. We scrambled around the corner of the garage, out of direct line of sight from the house.
The side door was locked tight, exactly as I had left it.
“Up,” I whispered, lifting Tyler toward the waist-high wooden window.
Tyler scrambled up with surprising agility, his sneakers finding purchase on an old plastic storage bin I had left leaning against the wall. He squeezed his upper body through the narrow window frame, wriggled past the dusty spiderwebs, and dropped softly onto the concrete floor inside.
“Noah, go,” I urged, turning to my nephew.
Noah climbed up without a sound, his small frame slipping through the opening like a cat.
I turned back to check the house.
Through the trees, I saw Mark step out onto the back patio. He wasn't holding groceries. He wasn't holding a gift. In his right hand, catching the amber light of the security lamp above the garage, was a heavy, dull-gray utility hammer he must have pulled from my own kitchen junk drawer.
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My blood ran instantly cold. He hadn't come to visit. He had come to hunt.
I hoisted myself up, squeezed through the narrow window just as a heavy thud echoed from the yard, and dropped silently into the dark, oil-scented interior of the garage, pulling the wooden window shut behind us just in time.
