The mayor's office had once been the pride of Willow Creek: oak-panelled walls, brass nameplate, a framed photo of O'Malley shaking hands with the governor. Now the photo lay face-down in a puddle of something dark that had seeped through the ceiling. The brass plate was dented where someone had tried to pry it off for scrap. Only the smell remained unchanged—old paper, older coffee, and the faint sweetness of pipe tobacco O'Malley had quit ten years ago but could still taste in nightmares.
He stood at the tall window, coat unbuttoned, tie long gone. The glass was cracked in a spiderweb that caught the moonlight and threw it back in silver shards. Outside, the town he had sworn to protect looked like Pompeii after the ash settled—except the ash here moved when you weren't looking.
Behind him, Good waited in the doorway, silent as snowfall. He had not sat down once in three days. Sitting felt like surrender.
O'Malley spoke without turning. "I keep replaying the council vote. October 17th. They brought charts. Power-point slides with smiling children and promises of jobs. 'Minimal environmental impact,' they said. I raised my hand. One hand. That's all it took." His voice cracked like thin ice. "One goddamn hand and I sold every soul in this valley."
Good's reply was soft, almost kind. "You didn't sell them. You just opened the door. They walked through on their own feet."
"That supposed to make me feel better?"
"No. It's supposed to make you understand the math. One door, a thousand monsters. Blame doesn't divide evenly."
O'Malley finally faced him. The mayor's eyes were bloodshot, the whites yellowed by exhaustion and guilt. "My wife left me the morning the sky went black. Took the dog, left a note: You chose the town over us, now live with it. She was right. I chose. And now the town is dying in pieces and I can't even find her body to say sorry."
Good looked at the floor. There was a dark handprint on the rug—small, a child's. Neither man mentioned it.
O'Malley's voice dropped to a whisper. "What does a man owe the dark when the dark has already taken everything?"
Good considered this the way another man might weigh gold. "Nothing," he said at last. "But the living still owe each other tomorrow."
O'Malley laughed, a sound like tearing paper. "Tomorrow. Christ. There might not be a sunrise ever again."
"There will be," Good said. Not hope—certainty, cold and edged. "Sun's still up there. It's just… embarrassed to show its face right now."
A longer silence. Outside, something screamed far away—human or not, impossible to tell anymore.
O'Malley rubbed his temples. "I was supposed to read Green Eggs and Ham at the library last Saturday. They had a little cardboard boat for me to sit in. Twenty kids in paper hats." His shoulders shook once, a single dry sob he refused to let out fully. "I was late because I stopped for coffee. By the time I got there the library was… the roof was gone. Just gone."
Good closed his eyes for the first time in days. When he opened them again they were the same flat gray. "I watched my sister turn inside out on live television," he said, so quietly O'Malley almost missed it. "News chopper feed. She was running across the football field with her little boy in her arms. Something caught her ankle. Looked like shadow with hooks. She looked straight into the camera right before…" He stopped. Swallowed. "I still hear the sound the microphone made when it hit the ground."
O'Malley stared at him, seeing the man for the first time. Not the drifter, not the quiet stranger who never flinched—someone carrying the same weight, just better at balancing it.
"I'm sorry," O'Malley said. The words felt too small.
"Don't be. Just means we're even on ghosts." Good pushed off the doorframe. "You stay here. Keep the radio warm. Someone might still answer."
O'Malley's hand shot out, catching Good's sleeve. "I'm counting on you," he said, voice breaking wide open. "Not for me. God knows I don't deserve it. For whatever's left. For the kids hiding in basements who still believe adults can fix things."
Good looked down at the hand trembling on his arm, then back up. Something almost like warmth flickered across his face and died just as fast. "I'll do what I can. That's always been the deal."
He slipped free and walked out. O'Malley didn't watch him go. He turned back to the window, pressed his forehead to the cold glass, and let the tears come without sound.
––––––––
Maple Street, 4:17 a.m.
The safe-house smelled of damp plaster and instant coffee boiled too many times. Kayden's childhood home had become a bunker: windows boarded with shelves and dressers, doors reinforced with two-by-fours his dad had kept in the garage for a treehouse they never built.
The alarm wail outside was down to a croak now, battery dying the way everything else was dying.
Kayden came downstairs in sock-feet, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands. His mom was already up, sitting at the kitchen table with a candle stub between her palms like she could warm the wax into hope.
Maya and Emily were curled on the couch under the same blanket they'd shared since high school sleepovers. Jake paced, boots thudding soft on the rug.
"Three days," Maya said again, as if repeating it might make time rewind. "No engines. No planes. No birds. It's like the world hit delete."
Jake kicked the leg of the coffee table. "We're not soldiers. We're not preppers. We're just… kids with a can opener and half a plan."
Sasha stood. She moved like someone carrying invisible water—slow, careful not to spill. She poured the last of the coffee into five mismatched mugs. Her hands shook only a little.
"Drink," she ordered. "It's terrible, but it's hot."
Kayden took his mug with both hands. The warmth felt like a lie, but he drank anyway.
Emily's voice was small. "What if the sheriff's dead?"
"Then someone else has to be alive out there," Jake said. "Because hiding isn't living. It's just dying slower."
Silence fell, heavier than the dark outside.
Sasha set her mug down untouched. "I used to think the worst thing that could happen was your father's heart attack. I sat in that hospital parking lot and bargained with God—take my years, give them to him. I thought that was the bottom." She laughed, soft and broken. "Turns out the bottom has a basement."
Kayden moved to her side, wrapped his arms around her from behind like he had when he was little and thunderstorms scared him. She leaned back into him, just enough to feel he was still real.
"I'm scared too," he whispered into her hair. "But staying here is scarier."
She turned in his arms. Up close he could see new silver threads at her temples that hadn't been there a week ago.
"You look so much like him right now," she said. "Same stubborn mouth. Same eyes that think they can fix the world if they just try hard enough." A tear slipped free. "He died trying to fix a machine that was already broken. Don't you do the same."
"I won't," Kayden promised, and they both knew promises were paper in a fire.
Jake cleared his throat. "We go light. Flashlights, knives, the crowbar from the garage. Sheriff's station first—maybe the emergency radio still works. If not, the water tower. Climb high, get a signal out."
Emily hugged her knees tighter. "Take me with you."
"No," Sasha and Jake said at the same time.
Emily's chin lifted. "I'm not useless."
"None of us think you are," Maya said gently. "But three is quieter than four. And someone has to stay with Mom."
Sasha kissed each of the girls on the forehead, then turned to her son. She straightened his collar the way she had on his first day of kindergarten, fingers lingering.
"Bring my heart back in one piece," she said.
Kayden nodded, throat too full for words.
Jake handed him the bigger flashlight. Their eyes met—two boys who used to build blanket forts now arming themselves against the end of the world.
At the door, Kayden paused. "If… if we're not back by nightfall—"
"We will be," Jake cut in fiercely.
But Kayden finished anyway. "Tell them I love them. Every stupid fight, every inside joke. Tell them."
Sasha couldn't speak. She just pulled him into one last crushing hug, memorizing the smell of his hair, the exact width of his shoulders.
Then the door opened and the mist rushed in, cold as funeral flowers.
––––––––
Outside was a museum of what had been.
Main Street stretched like a black river. The mist hung low, knee-high in places, swirling around their ankles as if testing temperature before deciding whether to bite. Their flashlight beams looked pathetic—thin yellow swords against a tide.
Every storefront told a story they didn't want to read.
The bakery: display case shattered, cakes smashed into the floor like colorful roadkill. A single birthday candle still stood upright in a puddle of buttercream, wax melted into a tear.
The pharmacy: shelves toppled, pills scattered like hail. A child's drawing taped to the counter—stick-figure family holding hands under a yellow sun—now dotted with dried blood.
The park across the street: swings moving though there was no wind. Back and forth, back and forth, chains creaking a lullaby for the dead.
Jake's voice came out hoarse. "Smell that?"
Kayden did. Copper and ozone, wet earth and something sweeter—rot gone festive, like fruit left too long in the sun.
They turned into the alley behind the hardware store because it shaved three blocks off the route. The walls pressed close, brick sweating moisture that ran in black rivulets. Dumpsters overflowed with things that had once been people—limbs at wrong angles, faces peeled back in permanent surprise.
Halfway down, their lights caught writing on the wall, fresh red paint or worse:
THEY LET US IN
Underneath, in smaller letters:
we were always here
Kayden's stomach lurched.
Jake gripped the crowbar tighter. "Keep moving."
They were ten feet from the alley's mouth when the temperature dropped so fast their breath fogged. The mist thickened, rising to their waists now, tugging gently at their legs like curious children.
Then the shadow appeared.
It didn't step out. It simply wasn't there one heartbeat and was the next—tall as the rooftops, thin as grief, edges blurring where it met the dark. No face, but they felt it looking. Measuring.
Their flashlights flickered. Once. Twice.
Jake's whisper barely disturbed the air. "Kayden…"
The shadow tilted its head, listening.
Somewhere deep inside it, something wet clicked—like bones learning a new language.
Kayden's hand found Jake's sleeve. Not fear. Anchor.
Together they took one step back.
The shadow took one step forward.
And the mist rose to swallow them whole.