Footsteps on the stairs jerked her awake, keenly alert. Pretending to sleep, she readied the gun. There was one bullet left. She needed to make it count right through the goddamn brain. She mentally berated herself for falling asleep. Someone stays awake at all times. She was the cop. She was the guardian.

The house wasn’t totally dark. The night had passed, and a gray morning spilled through a high window that hadn’t been covered in plywood. Around her, Nash, Foxy, and the sleeping bodies of the children.

The next step on the stairs sent a creak through the house.

I am going to rise, and I am going to slaughter whatever this fucking thing is.

“Spike? Spike?” called a frail voice. Gwen drew the gun and locked it on the woman standing halfway down the stairs. She wore a white nightgown, and her long, black hair looked knotted and snarled in the dim light.

“Mom, go back to bed,” whispered the tall boy, getting up and going to her.

“Where’s Spike?”

Gwen relaxed the grip on her gun and slowly released the air she had been holding in her lungs.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, almost whimpering.

“I’m Nine, Mom. Nine.”

“I need my little Spike.”

Nine and his thick muscles made the woman seem almost like a little girl. He placed one hand on her back and the other on her wrist. “Spike’s not here, Mom. Let’s get you back to bed.”

“Where’s my boy? He always gives me a hug and kiss before he goes out.”

“You were sleeping, Momma.”

“Nine, honey, mommy needs her medicine.”

“Okay, Mom.” The boy helped the woman back up the stairs. “Would you like some water?”

“Yes, thank you, son. Do you think Spike is still in California?”

“Yeah, that’s where he is. He’s in California now with Dad.”

“I should call that man. Tell him to bring my little boy back to me.”

“Okay, we can call him tomorrow.” He guided his frail mother down the hall and through a bedroom door.

----------------------------------------

The large, empty living room was freezing. Gwen sat against the wall, an old jacket from the van across her lap, and watched as they each woke to the morning after. They stayed wrapped in their blankets and barely spoke to each other, but when they did, it was in quiet, almost reverent voices. None of them really seemed to know what to do. Ty got up to use the bathroom, and when he came out, he stood in the middle of the living room like a much younger child lost in a busy shopping mall until Francis called to him and pulled him back down into the blankets.

She heard the start of a motor, so she peeked out the peephole in the front door to a world covered in snow, and snow was still falling from the sky. The neighbor was clearing his driveway with a snowblower, trying to dig out a blue car that was covered up to its window. The houses on the street had electricity again, so she tried the light switch next to the door. Nothing happened.

“They cut off our power,” Nine said. “We didn’t pay the bills.”

“We need heat,” Gwen said.

“And food,” Foxy added, popping her face out from her blanket.

“We’ll freeze to death before we starve.” Gwen went to the fireplace at the front of the living room. It was gas, but nothing happened when she turned the knob. She flicked her lighter; nothing lit.

“Don’t got gas, either,” said Nine.

“Do you have wood to burn? Anything?”

“We burned it all already.”

She investigated the fireplace; it was full of ashes.

“I got an idea,” Nash said. He’d just come from the bathroom, his beard dripping with cold water. “Gwen, Hawk, can I get a hand?”

They followed him into the garage. “I saw these last night. Someone used to have a Caddy, a big one.” He pointed to four steel wheels that were stacked in the corner. He hoisted one up and rolled it toward the door to the living room. “Get the other ones,” he called over his shoulder. “Careful, they’re heavy.”

Gwen looked at Hawk, who shrugged, heaved another one up, and began to roll it⁠—with a lot more effort—after Nash.

As Gwen was wheeling hers, Nash came back for the last one. “Just set them by the fireplace.”

The hippie found a dustpan and started scooping out piles of old ash from the hearth into the same box Gwen had stuffed Foxy’s bloodied jacket.

“The first thing I learned about camping out is y’always wanna keep yer firepit clean.” He winked at Hawk. When he finished, he stacked the wheels in the hearth, dusted off his hands, and turned to the boy. “Okay, do your damnedest,” he said.

“What?” Hawk said, perplexed and glancing at Gwen.

“Well, kid, pretend it’s a damned werewolf.”

The boy’s face lit with understanding, but he hesitated, “I don’t know if I can… but even if I do, the hunters will find us.”

“You gotta do it, or we’re going to be sitting around all day with blue lips. And don’t worry about them fuckin dogs. You, young man, are encrypted.”

“I’m what?”

“Why did you go to the concert last night?”

“My uncle, he said… I mean, he wrote about the Maji, that his music will set you free.”

Nash said, “I can’t even begin to understand how it works, but what it does is it hides you. It’s like camouflage. You can do your magic, set your enchantments, and the hunters can’t zero in on you with whatever radar they got goin for them.”

“You can pull from the Veil,” said Francis. He was sitting up from his bed with a sheet wrapped around his shoulders.

“Really?”

Francis nodded serenely.

“Hell yes, really, now give it a try before my nuts drop off.” Nash quipped. Someone giggled. It was Ty, cozied next to Francis, in a safe world of blankets and pillows.

Thank God for that, Gwen thought. Nash grinned and winked.

“Okay… I guess, I’ll try,” the boy said, but his voice was skeptical. He knelt and placed his hands on the steel rims. Nothing happened. He looked back at Nash.

“Concentrate,” Nash said.

Hawk squeezed his eyes shut tight. For long minutes, they waited, but nothing happened. “I can’t do it,” he said.

“You can do it,” Nash encouraged. “Think. Last night, how did you?”

“I don’t know. I was scared, angry. I was… I was…” The tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Christ,” muttered Nine. He went to the window, peering through an eyehole gouged in the wood.

Francis and Ty were watching Hawk intently.

“Find that emotion, find that place where you were last night,” said Nash.

Hawk set his hands on the wheels again, clenched his jaw, and closed his eyes.

She felt more than saw a wave ripple over her, and she thought she smelled something hot. Beneath his hands on the shiny steel, she saw a dull, red glow that slowly spread, and from the glow, she felt a soft, clean warmth.

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“Hawk!” shouted Ty, pointing his little finger.

Hawk looked down at his arm and jerked his hands away from the metal. The sleeve of his hoodie was smoking. He pulled off the garment and beat it against the wall.

“Oops,” he said.

He knelt before the fire as if he were going to be knighted, his fingers lightly touching the metal. Gradually, the red heat spread until all four rims were glowing. Hawk removed his hands, rubbed them together, then touched again. The rims got even brighter. Sweat broke across his brow, then his neck. This was what the Hunters wanted to kill or control. Now the rims were getting hotter, a bright orange pink that screamed danger, and she thought she could hear a tinkling in the air, like the shattering of little crystals.

“Alright,” Nash said, “take it easy, Hawk. I think that’s enough.” But the boy did not pull off, so intent was he on conquering his task. “Hawk!” Nash said. He put a gentle hand on his back. “Ow, damn, yer hot!” He flapped his hand up and down.

“Sorry, don’t touch me, I’m—” He slumped to the floor.

“Careful now,” said the hippie. “Yer okay, right?”

“Yeah. Just gotta… focus.” Hawk reached up, and Nash helped him to his feet. “They really got hot, huh?”

“Sure did, hotter than a two-peckered owl! You got it, mate, but now you gotta figure out how to control it. Don’t burn the house down.”

The boy’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath—his eyes had a glaze to them, like he was in another world.

“I… I did it,” he stammered.

“Yes, you did,” Nash said. “That feels good. That’s a good heat. I’ve never felt anything like it.” The old hippie held his hands up to the furnace of wheel rims and rubbed them together. “You’d be a great asset to have on a camping trip.”

She watched sadness overcome the boy’s face. He shrugged and turned away.

It was hot enough that Gwen needed to step back away from the fireplace. Soon, everyone else was shucking off their coats.

She saw the movement too late out of the corner of her eye. Nine stormed over from the window where he had been standing, grabbed Hawk, and shoved him against the wall.

“Why didn’t you do that to save my brother?” He drew back his arm and slammed his fist into the boy’s stomach with a soft oof of lost air.

Hawk let out a choke and fell to the floor, where he dry heaved and vomited what could have only been hot chocolate. He curled into the fetal position and covered his head with his arms.

It was all he could do, as Gwen understood now that Nine had a strength bordering on the miraculous. She would never want to be on the other side of his terrible anger.

“Nine!” shouted Rhonda, “Stop! It’s not his fault.”

“Rhonda, baby.” Nine looked down at his hands like they were serpents. “Shit,” he slapped his own face so hard the sound made her jump. “Fuck—fuck it all!”

At that moment, the screaming started. It came from upstairs and down the hall, from the second-floor bedroom.

“Fuck!” Nine cursed and bounded up the stairs, his long legs carrying him faster than Gwen had ever seen anyone move. She followed as quickly as she could, her gun in hand. When she entered the room, she stopped in her tracks.

She had seen the woman who had woken her earlier, but she had not seen clearly. Now she understood the empty living room, why there was no electricity, why Nine had said that his parents wouldn’t mind if a group of complete strangers used their house as a hideout.

The walls of the room, from floor to ceiling, were covered in mad writing, numbers, and hideous drawings. In some places, dark splotches obscured what was on the walls. As a police officer, Gwen knew that rusty color. The woman had tried to use blood to erase or hide parts of what she had made. She had seen this to a less horrific degree before, but she understood immediately.

The woman writhed on the floor, naked, screaming, and wailing like a tormented animal. She arched her back and opened her legs. Her fingernails clawed at her sides, leaving large gashes in her flesh.

Nine sat next to her with his hand on her shoulders. “It’s okay, Mom,” he kept saying. “I’ll get your medicine for you. I’ll get it. Don’t worry.”

“The light is blinding my eyes!” she screamed. Her hair fell away from her face, revealing wild, unfocused eyes with dilated pupils.

“I’ll close the curtains.” He stood and noisily jerked the curtain across the plywood-shuttered window. “There, is that better?”

His mother placed her fingers across her eyes and murmured, “Maybe better.”

She was blind, one of the sun gazers.

Nine fell to the floor and took the frail woman into his arms. She arched against him, grabbed his hand, and put it on her breast. The boy did not resist. “Sir, I need some medicine. I’m so sick. I can make you feel good, for the medicine. Sir?”

“Mom.”

She opened her legs and rubbed her crotch. She smelled. She needed a bath. “You want to fuck me?”

The boy held her still. “Mom, it’s me, Nine.”

“Nine, my son?” she gripped his legs, the denim impervious to her fingernails.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I’m spinning so fast. It’s gonna throw me. I’m sorry I ever did that drug. You tell Spike I’m sorry I did that drug.”

“Yes, Momma. I got you, Momma. I won’t let you go.”

She started crying, and from her tears, a song.

“Where oh where has my little Spike gone?

Where, oh, where could he be?

To find out if his love was true,

I went sailing out to sea…”

When her voice faded, Nine began to sing, deep and sad.

“And if our love was meant to be,

Spike would come swimming out for me.”

Nine finished the song, and the woman smiled. “Where’s my Spike?”

The boy rocked her, “He’s out, Momma. Took his skateboard.” Nine bit his hand so that he did not break. “And… and after that, he’s gonna play basketball with his friends in the park.”

“He’s such an active boy. Gets that from you and your daddy’s side. I hope it’s not too cold.”

“Nah,” said Nine, “it ain’t. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, and it’s warm. I gave him some money for lunch and lemonade. And then he’s gonna get his dreads dyed by Rhonda.”

“That Rhonda, she’s a lovely girl. What color is he doing them?”

Nine opened his mouth to speak. It was tears or words, and the tears won out. He looked up at Gwen like a helpless child.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure he’ll be beautiful.”

“Yes, he will, Momma. Beautiful and strong, forever.” He cried, streaks glittering down his cheeks. He kissed the woman’s pale brow, like porcelain, so frail. With great care, he lifted her and placed her on the filthy bed, taking a sheet to cover her nakedness.

“Nine,” the woman mumbled, “Wake me up when Spike gets home.”

Nine looked at Gwen. “Please go out,” he said.

“How far along is she?” Gwen asked, her voice as soft and kind as she could make it. Nine rubbed his eyes.“L3. She’s been there for two years now.”

“Okay, I’ll be downstairs. Nine, I’m here if you need me.” She backed out of the room and quietly closed the door.

----------------------------------------

Gwen cursed the scourge that was the Escape drug pandemic. How many lives had been lost, homes and families destroyed because of that irresistible, life-altering narcotic? She had stopped keeping track at some point. This house, she realized, would have been beautiful at the peak of its care. A large open design with a high arch over the kitchen and a chandelier hanging in the living room. The rims in the fireplace had been from a luxury line of Cadillac SUVs.

On the refrigerator in the kitchen was a scrambled magnet puzzle of a photograph. She moved the pieces, finding their interlocking edges and pushing them together. Starting with the background: a mountain. She recognized from up in Glacier National Park. And then a tent and a family sitting around a fire. A woman, she was White with beautiful black hair. A man, he was Black, handsome and strong, pouring coffee and smiling at the camera. She moved another piece from the corner of the freezer and put it into its place. A boy about twelve, skin like his father, dark and wet from swimming. It was the kind of family America needed: young, diverse, upwardly mobile. One last missing piece, she could only see the torso of the other figure, a younger boy, also shirtless and wet, holding a stick with skewered marshmallows over the campfire. She searched for the piece that would complete the family, but it was lost. Quickly, she messed up the puzzle again and turned away.

In this part of Billings, with this kind of house, Escape had stolen everything. That’s how Escape worked. It discriminated based on your economic status. That was why so many poor and middle-class kids could spin out down at L1, maybe L2, for years while they slowly lost their minds, while the rich made it further, the richer further still, and so on up to the most powerful, the titans of industry, the movers of governments, at Level 21.

One does not simply stop Escape. Stopping is not an option—she went into the bathroom off the kitchen. It was larger than her bedroom back home in her modest house on Highland Avenue. Light came through a hole in the plywood over the window. She doused her face in the cold, numbing water.

The liquidity goes first—cash, bank accounts, then credit cards, followed by stocks and bonds. After that, they probably sold the car, and when the money for that was gone, they probably sold the furniture, computers, and jewelry—the television was the last to go. When there was nothing more to sell… things got dark. She didn’t know where their father was. Maybe he couldn’t deal with it anymore and got out, joined the droves of jobless, homeless men drifting across the country, or maybe he was an addict, too. Maybe he’d fallen into one of the so-called zombie pits, where the spinners go to shout at the sun and stars, and live out their hallucinations. Or maybe he was dead. She could only imagine the hell Nine and his little brother had endured.

Hawk came stomping into the house from the garage, carrying a large plastic grocery bag. Nash had given him some money with instructions to bring back coffee and something to eat. The smell of coffee and hot food filled the room, and everyone gathered around.

“Breakfast burritos,” he said. “I bought them all. And OJ, and coffee, Mr. Nash.” The kids fell on the food ravenously. For a while at least, the tragedies of the past hours were kept at bay in favor of eggs, sausage, and beans inside a fried tortilla.

“Authentic,” said Nash. He licked his thumb and dipped his burrito into a portion cup of salsa.

Eventually, Nine came down and joined his friends. He did not speak much, but he smiled from time to time. Ty was also quiet, but he ate. Gwen, Nash, and Foxy sat in a little circle in the warmth of the still-glowing steel.

“Gwen,” said Foxy, “I have something that I think might make sense.” She retrieved a business card from the pocket of her white snow pants. “The man who fixed Francis’s guitar gave this to me. It was blank. I thought he was crazy.”

Gwen took the card. It was composed of exceptionally fine, gold script. She read aloud, “To whom it may concern: If you are with the talent, it is imperative that he makes all listed engagements. These events are cumulative and cannot be rescheduled. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Cordially, White Owl Productions.”

On the other side of the business card was an itinerary.

Las Vegas — Dec. 24, Miss Kitty’s

Phoenix — Metro Mart

The Reunion — TBD

New York City — March 15

“That man in the motel,” said Foxy, “like Mickey said, he brought this snow, and fixed the guitar. I think this is legit.”

“December 24, Christmas Eve,” said Nash.

“Fuck this,” said Gwen, “I’m tired of people dying. I don’t remember signing up with White Owl Productions.”

“It’s a thread,” said Foxy. “It’s how the enchantment works.” Foxy looked into her eyes, and they shared a moment of understanding. There was no going back to normal.