When Wil and Matsuda returned to the basement, they found the Gutierrez family standing in one corner while Qadira occupied another. Wil got the impression that Qadira was just being polite, rather than excluded from the family gathering. She sat on a paint bucket and flipped through a magazine and only glanced up for a moment when Wil and Matsuda crept down the stairs.

“You boys were up there a while,” Qadira said. “Got some kinda winter/summer romance going on?”

“Autopsy,” Matsuda said and Qadira raised her eyebrows.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Autopsy,” Matsuda repeated then turned away and tapped Rosa on the shoulder.

“What’s up?” she asked as she turned to look at them.

“I’m assuming Raul didn’t come back yet?” Wil asked.

“No, not yet,” Rosa sighed and bit her lip.

“We won’t be staying much longer,” Matsuda said. “But before we go, we’d like to borrow some pencils and paper, if your family has them.”

“Yeah, no problem. Why?” Rosa asked. Matsuda explained what they had found upstairs and Wil’s aptitude for art. Rosa nodded. “Not a bad idea. I think we got some old notebooks and stuff somewhere down here. I’ll get them and then…”

“And then we’re going to head out once I sketch that thing,” Wil said.

“You’re set on heading out of the city in a car, yes?” Matsuda asked.

“Seems like the best way,” Rosa replied. “What with so many of us, and my parents and Hector being old or a bit on the out-of-shape side.”

“Hey!” Hector said.

“You’re fat, bro,” Rosa said and smirked at him.

“That’s Mama’s fault,” he said and she slapped his arm.

“Do you have bikes? Just two will do,” Matsuda said.

“Bikes? As in bicycles?” Wil asked.

“You wanna ride bikes into the city?” Rosa asked. Qadira snorted and laughed behind them as she flipped through her magazine.

“I suspect the roads will only get more crowded the closer we get to downtown. A car would be next to useless. And even if there was room, we’d wind up going slow anyway due to the weather and the scattered debris. And a car makes noise, and I’m relatively certain thats one way those things track us. Bikes are faster than going on foot, they’re practically silent, and we can pick them up easily enough,” Matsuda said. “If we survive, we can find a car on our way out of the city for going longer distances, but for now, bikes would be best.”

“Yeah but if one of those black-eyed things sees you…” Rosa said.

“They can already catch up to cars,” Matsuda said. Wil didn’t say anything, but O’Donnell had been speared while inside a car. The old man was mostly right: for the short distance they were going, being silent and mobile was the best choice.

“Anything we do is gonna be dangerous,” Wil said. “This is probably a suicide mission anyway, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our best to stay under the radar.”

“Well, I still say it’s nuts, but whatever. There should be a few bikes in the garage but…” Rosa trailed off.

“Mm. The rock,” Matsuda replied. “You can show me where they are, at least. If it’s too close to the rock, I look elsewhere. If not, then problem solved.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“All right, just gimme a sec,” Rosa said. She rummaged through a couple boxes nearby and took out a worn notebook and some pencils. “These do?”

“Yeah,” Wil said as he accepted them. “I’ll need about twenty minutes.”

“I’ll see to the bikes and supplies while you do that,” Matsuda said, then left with Rosa for the garage while Wil went back upstairs to the bathroom and the thing in the sink.

A bathroom wasn’t the best place for sketching: there was no wide, flat surface for Wil to set the notebook on, and no space to sit down aside from the toilet. He had to make due by standing over the sink, notebook over his left forearm, while he sketched the thing in the sink.

He recognized the texture of its black skin as similar to what had come out of the buck’s skull. It had a leathery appearance to it, and a sheen like thick mucus or snot across its surface that was starting to turn opaque as it dried in the open air. The bathroom still stank worse than a legion of outhouses in high-summer, but it wasn’t as bad as before.

Wil had taken enough art classes where the professor had only given them a scant few seconds to look at something, then draw it from memory. He had grown accustomed to hurried sketches over the years, both from college and his job. Granted, at his job he’d had the benefit of a computer and advanced illustration software, but this was still oddly comforting, in its familiarity.

He was just back at his old, mind-numbing nine-to-five, and any minute, Ralph would poke into his cubicle, reveal the latest sweaty psychologically illuminating pattern beneath his arms, and ask him something random.

When the bathroom door opened and somebody did poke their head in, Wil almost screamed. He did fumble with the pencil and notebook, nearly pitching both into the sink with the dead black brain-sucker within, but caught them before they fell.

“Jesus!” Wil said and stared at Qadira as she entered.

“What the hell is that?” she said and her dark eyes went wide as she stared into the sink. “Is that what’s inside people?”

“Don’t…you can’t just barge in on people in the bathroom!” Wil hissed, realizing how absurd it sounded as soon as he’d said it.

“Please. The last thing anybody would be doing up here is using the busted toilet. We’ve all been making do with a bucket we chuck out the back door,” Qadira said. “Never thought I’d actually be risking my life to take a piss. So you’re drawing that thing, huh?”

“Yes,” Wil said. “And yes, it’s what takes people over. At least some of the black-eyed ones.”

“Besides the giant roach-thing I haven’t seen anything besides the people with black eyes. There’s more?”

“Oh yeah,” Wil said and explained about the variations of the black-eyed things, the green-eyed things, and the distortions.

“It’s like hell on earth,” Qadira said as she stared at the thing in the sink. “You almost done?”

“I was,” Wil said, leaving off the bit he wanted to add about being interrupted.

“You really set on going into the city?” Qadira asked.

“Yes. It’s where——”

“Your girlfriend. I got it,” she said, then sighed.

“Why?”

“Because the family downstairs are digging their heels in, say they aren’t gonna leave until that Raul guy comes back. But he was only gonna go a few blocks, poke around, then come back.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And he’s probably dead,” Qadira said. Wil frowned but didn’t say anything, Instead he returned his focus to the thing in the sink and resumed sketching. “He probably got eaten or turned into one of these things or sucks up into a distortion like that bear you described.”

“Maybe,” Wil said.

“So maybe waiting around here is a bad idea. Maybe my luck is gonna run out while I’m squatting in a basement with only a single wooden door and some painted-over windows between me and the freakshow stalking the streets.”

“What’s your point?”

“Look, I think going into the city is dumb as hell, but if all you’re gonna do is poke your head over the bridge and then get outta here, it’s better than staying put waiting for a dead man.”

“You made it sound like going into the city was a death sentence,” Wil said.

“Yeah well, so is staying here. If I’m gonna die, I’d rather die on the move,” Qadira replied.

“You just want to tag along with a couple of strangers you hardly know?”

“Well my other options are sit here with my thumb up my ass or try going it alone. So, yeah. Strangers it is. For now. Plus that old man really seems like he knows his shit.”

“Can’t argue there,” Wil said. “As long as you don’t try and get in my way or get us killed, I don’t care.”

“So magnanimous,” Qadira said and fluttered her eyelashes at Wil, who scoffed and continued drawing. Qadira watched him in silence for a few minutes until there was a gentle tapping at the door and Matsuda poked his head in.

“Almost done,” Wil said.

“Good. I found us two bikes,” Matsuda said, then glanced at Qadira. “Though there are six total.”

“Some good news, finally,” Wil said.

“Mm. There’s something else too: that rock that fell into the garage, you should come see it.”

“Isn’t it incredibly dangerous?” Wil asked. Matsuda shook his head.

“No, not anymore. I’ll show you,” he said, and with that cryptic message, crept downstairs.