The baseball diamond was alive the way only a small-town field can be on a Saturday in late May: sunlight thick and golden, the air warm enough to soften everything except the sharp bite of nostalgia. The grass was so green it almost glowed, the kind of impossible color that only exists before adulthood ruins your ability to see it. Chalk lines cut across the earth in bright, perfect strokes, so clean they felt like they could divide time itself.
Kids in mismatched jerseys darted across the infield like sparrows flushed from a tree line. Gloves snapped. A clean metallic ping cracked off an aluminum bat and rippled across the stands like a firework. Laughter scattered in every direction. A lanky third-grader named Petey Ramirez stole second standing up just to show off, then slid anyway, erupting from the dust with braces full of dirt and a grin full of audacity. Parents roared like he'd just won a pennant. Someone's mom rang a cowbell until it echoed off the dugouts. On the baseline, a toddler wearing nothing but a diaper waddled after a foul ball and received a full standing ovation when he finally lifted it overhead like a holy relic.
Sheriff Good stood at the far edge of the chain-link fence, half-hidden by a leaning utility pole. His brown sheriff's jacket hung heavy on him despite the seventy-eight-degree heat. He had no kid on the field. No real reason to be there except that the department sponsored the league and someone told him he should show face. But he hadn't moved in twenty minutes. Not an inch.
He watched the game the way a man watches something that is already gone. Something he knows he will never get back.
A breeze rolled through the field. It carried summer with it—cut grass, popcorn salt, melting Dilly Bars, sunscreen thick as paint, the faint diesel smoke from old generators running the concession lights. For one impossible moment, the constant static in his chest dimmed, went quiet, like someone had turned down the volume on the ache. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and felt—briefly—like a drowning man breaking the surface.
When he opened them, Darwin Wills and his son were walking the baseline toward him.
Darwin's big calloused hand was wrapped around a smaller, sticky one belonging to Jake. Ten-year-old Jake: all elbows and sun freckles, chlorinated hair bleached nearly white by hours in the community pool. His Cubs cap, two sizes too big, slanted over his eyebrows, and his smile—gapped where a front tooth was missing—was so completely unguarded it hurt to look at. A Rawlings glove, same model good once saved up for as a kid, hung from Jake's belt like a badge of honor.
Darwin's grin was easy, uncomplicated in the way only a man who still had everything could grin.
"Sheriff Good, you old bastard," he said, sweeping Jake's hair back. "Didn't expect to see you hiding back here like you're avoiding somebody."
Harlan managed the smallest twitch of his mouth. For him, that might as well have been a laugh.
"Somebody's gotta keep an eye on the future of America."
Darwin chuckled. "This one's gonna be throwing ninety by high school. Tell him, Sheriff."
Jake looked up shyly, though curiosity lit his eyes—the exact gray-green of the river after a storm.
"Hi, Sheriff Good."
Good's voice cracked more than he meant it to.
"Hey, Jake."
Darwin crouched beside his son. "Show him that curve you've been practicing."
Jake's face flushed pink. He stared at his cleats like they were the most interesting thing in the world.
Darwin rose, clapped Good on the shoulder. "Kid's got an arm and a heart bigger than the whole county. His mom says it's trouble waiting to happen." His voice dropped. "You okay, man? You look like you're watching a funeral."
Good's gaze drifted back to the field. A batter tapped the plate, settling into a stance that reminded him of long-forgotten summers. "Just thinking how fast it all goes."
Darwin followed his eyes. "Yeah. One blink and they're sixteen, taking your truck keys without asking." He squeezed Jake's hand. "C'mon, buddy. Ice cream before your mom clocks we're late."
They started walking away. Halfway down the baseline, Jake turned around, walking backward. He lifted his small hand and opened and closed his fingers twice.
A little wave.
Bye, Sheriff.
Good lifted his own hand. The gesture felt ancient, worn out by memory.
And then the memory ruptured like a pane struck by a hammer. It didn't fade; it broke, bright pieces falling inward, and he fell through them into the world he actually lived in.
Now.
Good sat on the top step of the old porch, its wood bitten by cold and the kind of damp that lived here year-round now. The air smelled of fog and distant burning—diesel, plastic, maybe timber—hard to tell anymore. Somewhere down Maple Street, a dog had barked itself into a hoarse rasp for three straight nights. Tonight, the silence where that barking used to be felt louder than the noise ever had.
His hands wouldn't stop trembling as he rolled a cigarette. The paper kept catching on his fingers. Three times he had to start over. When he finally lit it, the flare of the match carved sharp shadows across his face. For a beat, he looked seventy. Hollowed out. A man scraped down to the bone.
Behind him, the screen door creaked with a tired, exhausted sound.
"Sheriff?" Kayden's voice. Quiet. Careful.
Good didn't turn. "Inside. They're ready for Tyler."
He dropped the cigarette to the boards and crushed it under his heel. Then he stepped inside.
The living room glowed with a single kerosene lantern turned so low the flame wavered. Shadows pooled in corners like spilled ink. The air tasted faintly metallic, as if the house itself was anxious.
Jake stood against the wall, arms crossed so tightly his knuckles were bone white. His jaw kept tightening, loosening, tightening again. Maya sat curled on the couch, hugging her knees like she was trying to hold herself in one piece. Emily twisted a loose thread on her sleeve until it snapped, then stared at the frayed edge like she'd broken something alive. Sasha cleaned her pistol with steady, practiced motions—her expression so flat it almost didn't look human.
Tyler lounged in the only wooden chair, limbs sprawled out like he was settling into a throne he didn't earn. His smirk gleamed sharp, but beneath it something twitchy hid in his eyes—something rattled.
He was the first to break the silence.
"Well? We doing this circle-jerk or are we gonna talk?"
Good dragged another chair into place. The legs scraped across the boards with a scream that made Maya flinch. He sat, hat in his lap, and fixed Tyler with a stare cold enough to put frost on glass.
"How did you get out of the school?"
Tyler rolled his eyes. "Wow. Hostile much?"
Kayden stepped forward. "We saw you die, Tyler. Those things had you cornered. There was blood—" he swallowed "—everywhere."
Jake's voice was rough. "Answer him."
The smirk on Tyler's face thinned, slipped. For a heartbeat, something real—not soft, but raw—flickered.
"I didn't die," he said. "I remember running. Lockers torn open. Kids screaming. Panic everywhere." He hesitated. "Marcus—the kid with asthma—grabbed my leg. Asked me to pull him up."
The room froze.
"I kicked him off," Tyler whispered. "Hard. He fell back. And they… they took him." He didn't finish. "I kept running. Next thing I know I'm waking up on Elm Street three days later. No scratches. No answers."
Emily's voice trembled. "We searched for your body."
Tyler shrugged, brittle. "Guess they didn't want me."
Jake moved before he even realized it. Good hand slammed into his chest, holding him back.
"Sit."
Jake sat, shaking with a fury too old for his face.
Good leaned forward. "Three days alone. What did you eat?"
Tyler met his eyes. "Anything that didn't try to eat me first."
A thick silence settled.
Kayden finally spoke. "The old man we saw that day —he said there was a ledger. At Blackwood Books. Names. Reasons. Everything."
Good's head snapped toward him. "Blackwood still standing?"
"Half the street's rubble," Kayden said. "But the sign was there. Door locked from the inside."
Maya's voice cracked. "You think a book has answers?"
"I think it's the only lead we've got," Good said.
Kayden swallowed. "There's more. Those things… they don't have faces. But they hunt like they see. In Jake's house, one walked right past us. Looked at me and… kept going."
Tyler raised an eyebrow. "So they're picky?"
"Or hunting something specific," Harlan murmured. "Something only some people carry."
The words drifted through the room like smoke from a dying flame.
Emily whispered, "Like a scent?"
"Or guilt," Tyler muttered. "Maybe they can sense who deserves it."
Jake lunged again—too fast this time. His fist hit Tyler's jaw with a blunt crack that made the lantern flicker.
Good hauled him back. "Enough!"
Jake trembled, breath ragged. "He left Marcus."
"And you left me in that school," Tyler snapped. "We all made choices."
"And now we live with them," Good growled. "Tomorrow we find Blackwood Books. Tonight, nobody kills anybody. Clear?"
No one answered. They didn't have to.
Later, when the lantern burned low and the others drifted into uneasy half-sleep, Jake stood at the living-room window staring at the moon. It hung bruised and swollen behind the mist, like the sky itself had been struck too hard.
Emily approached quietly. She touched his wrist—barely. Her hand trembled.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "About your dad. Your mom. Ellie."
Jake's jaw tightened until it shook. "They posed her like a doll," he said. "Arms out. Like she was waiting for a hug."
Emily's breath hitched. She leaned her forehead between his shoulder blades, grounding herself.
"I keep thinking about my little brother," she said. "If he's out there somewhere, scared—"
"He might be," Jake said, voice cracking under its own weight. Then softer: "Or he might not."
She turned him to face her. Moonlight carved hollows under his eyes that made him look older, carved from grief.
"Don't give up," she said fiercely. "Not yet. They took everything from us. So we take something back. Together."
Jake looked at her a long moment. Something ancient flickered behind his eyes—exhaustion, yes, but also something like stubborn hope.
"Together," he echoed.
Outside, the mist pressed patiently against the glass.
Inside, two shattered kids held on to the last thing that still felt human.