If it had been the middle of the day, or even on the verge of day, there would have been some amount of light filtering through the blinds of the window in the kitchen. But the late hour meant that with the interior lights shut off, there was simply no visibility to be had.

The sharp scuffling sounds of movement in the sitting room disappeared, allowing Noah to hear the frightened sobs of Cassandra.

If I can get over to her, nobody will know if I take a few bites, he was unable to stop himself from thinking. He shook his head, struggling to shut out the useless thought. It would be impossible for him to cross the handful of feet into the other room, even with the woman’s cries to guide him. Already he felt himself sinking into the familiar numbness of the void, his limbs disappearing from his awareness until all he was aware of was his own thoughts. He tried to stretch his hand out in front of him, but it was as if his brain had forgotten that he had an arm to begin with. The best he could do was hope he would still be upright in the chair when he regained his senses. The lack of any immediate noises of impact gave him hope this would be the case.

He eventually picked up the sound of Travis climbing the stairs. The man must have been unfairly exploiting his ability to feel to allow him to sense his way up.

Then the door opened, revealing that he actually was using the dim light of his phone to see.

In a moment of spectacular self-discipline, Noah refrained from immediately demonstrating why it had been a moronic decision to turn on a flashlight after going through the effort of shutting off the house’s electricity. Instead he calmly said, “You should turn that off.”

Travis shone the light at him uncomprehendingly, so Noah leapt up towards him, pulling a crazy expression.

He didn’t really intend to do more than scare him into better caution, but Travis reacted with a scream loud enough to probably wake his neighbors and his arms spasmed in surprise, sending his phone flying.

It bounced off the corner of the table and fell to the floor, skittering and spinning before coming to rest with the light shining upwards.

Noah stopped in front of Travis anticlimactically and watched him shrink against the wall across from him, arms raised against the attack he was certain was imminent.

“Well, go on,” Noah said. “Take your light and get out of here. If you’re quick I might not even try to eat you at all.”

The man slowly straightened, fright and uncertainty clear on his face. “I thought you were-” he began.

“Hurry up!” Noah snapped, ducking down to grab the light and holding it out to him. “I’m not sure why I’m even bothering to help you, so get out of here before I change my mind!”

Noah was beginning to doubt the man’s intelligence by the time he finally took the phone back. He snatched it quickly like a small starving animal might take food from a person.

“If you don’t turn it off, Sophie will fight you,” Noah warned. “You can judge for yourself if that’s worth your ability to see. Just know that she’ll be worse off than you in the dark.”

“Thanks,” Travis muttered. He covered the light with his hand, judging how dark the room became, and seemed unhappy with the total lack of visibility.

“I’ll turn it off if things get out of hand,” he decided, and he grabbed the knife off the table before stepping quickly into the sitting room.

Noah moved a little to get a good view of the proceedings, but didn’t dare get any closer. As nervous as he was about how Travis would use that knife, he knew he would only make things worse by getting involved. All it took was one momentary lapse of control and his friends would be dealing with him and Sophie simultaneously.

Noah was hopeful that the situation would resolve peacefully now that Travis had control over the light in the room. It was essentially an off-switch for everyone except him and his wife; as long as he played his cards well, he could hypothetically escape without any further bloodshed.

The weak beam of light swinging into the room acted as a clapboard for action to resume. In the brief respite afforded to her by the dark, Cassandra had managed to drag herself away from the others, but she was bleeding so heavily from her wounds that she had barely managed to clear the room before collapsing from weakness.

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Noah’s friends had ended up haphazardly scattered across the floor. They stirred as light fell into the room, struggling to regain their senses.

Through sheer random luck, Sophie happened to be the closest to Cassandra, and she immediately honed in on the fallen woman. She dashed across the room, reveling in the lack of pesky restraining friends, and dove upon her mother.

“No!” Travis yelled, darting after her. He pushed past the three students, bracing the knife towards Sophie’s back as he moved.

Noah held his breath. The man hadn’t hesitated to stab him earlier, but he had been cornered and caught by surprise. Looking back on it, Noah had more stabbed himself onto the blade than been truly attacked by Travis. It was an entirely different thing to run after someone and stab them from behind, let alone if that person was one’s own daughter.

Travis must have truly believed that he had no other option, because he didn’t flinch away. He drove the weapon down into the back of Sophie’s neck, pulled it out, and punctured the same spot over and over in brutal repetition.

Noah’s stomach twisted, but Sophie didn’t even react. She was too engrossed with her meal to notice anything was amiss. Her flesh was healing at impossible speeds, nearly closing up completely between each plunge of the knife.

Everyone else froze, watching the violence play out between the family. Nobody knew who they should be trying to save anymore. They had been protecting Cassandra, and now Travis had taken over that job, although his method was considerably more violent. So much for no bloodshed.

Travis was not deterred by the slow progress. He whittled steadily away, a terrible grimace fixed on his face.

Is he actually going to be able to kill her? Noah wondered nervously.

Sophie finally looked back, becoming aware of the warmth in her neck, and tried to bite Travis’ arm. Unlike Cassandra, however, who was unconscious, Travis fought back. He grabbed Sophie’s head and slammed her skull to the ground beside Cassandra, receiving a terrible bite to his wrist in the process. Gritting his teeth at the pain, he planted a knee on her back and twisted her head to the side to regain access to the same spot on her neck, getting right back to his grisly work.

He’s starting to make progress, Noah realized. Without a steady intake of food and energy, Sophie’s healing became a lot less effective. Her limbs quickly hollowed into sickly skeletal things even as the wound in her neck deepened.

She’s lost, Noah thought suddenly.

Travis had the same thought. He raised the knife for one last blow and brought the blade clear through Sophie’s neck.

Her head came clean off and dropped to the floor. The expression left on her face was inhuman, completely twisted by hunger. Some blood dripped from each side of the decapitation wound, though not nearly as much as there would normally have been.

She was fully and completely dead.

Travis heaved deep breaths, just looking down at what he had done. The knife dropped from his hand alongside tears from his bloodshot eyes.

“Cassy,” he said, leaning down to his wife. “Cassy, I did it.”

There was so much blood around her that Noah was certain the woman had already died, but to his immense surprise her eyes cracked slowly open.

“What did you do?” she asked softly.

Travis looked at the beheaded body of his daughter. “I saved you from a monster,” he whispered.

Cassandra turned her head weakly to gaze into Sophie’s lifeless eyes. “That’s my daughter,” she breathed. She didn’t breathe back in.

“No!” Travis growled. “I killed the zombie! You’re safe!”

There was no response. He was kneeling beside two corpses.

For a very long moment, nobody moved. Travis slowly drooped to the floor as though he had no energy left to remain upright.

Then, in one sudden movement, he grabbed the knife off the floor and turned to the four remaining students.

“Why did you come here?” he demanded hoarsely. “What made you think you should come anywhere near my family?”

Noah was suddenly struck by the recognition that this tragedy was entirely their fault, starting from when they had first agreed to sit beside Sophie at the picnic table. If they had stayed inside, Sophie would never have gotten their sickness. She would have passed away in her little housing unit without anyone being the wiser, and her parents would’ve been informed the next day.

“This was a horrible mistake,” Noah said. “All of this.”

Travis’ hollow eyes bored into him. “Damn right, it was. You’ve killed my family. I don’t even know your name, and you’ve destroyed my life.”

Noah didn’t know what to say. He had to look away.

Travis waved the knife, forcing his attention back to him. “I hope you never forgive yourself for what you’ve done tonight. It better haunt you to the day your miserable life finally ends.”

“I’m truly sorry,” Noah mumbled.

Travis stared at him for a long moment. “This is your fault, too,” he said, and turned the blade of the knife to face his own chest. Before anyone could do anything, he pushed it into his heart.