The foghorn sounded again. Low. Distant. Like something lamenting before, it knew what it lost. A sound that pressed against the dark.

  A warning no one else seemed to hear.

  We sat at the cruiser at the edge of Midwich, fog curling against the windshield.

  Graveyard shift. Just us and the fog.

  Storefronts flickered in the dark. The traffic light in front of us stayed yellow. No movement. It was the kind of silence that waits for something to go wrong.

  Reyes tapped the steering wheel with two fingers. Slow and steady. I watched the rhythm until I couldn’t anymore. Two warnings. One ignored. One internal.

  “Marisol’s still talking to that lemon tree,” I said. “As if it’s gonna bloom out of guilt.”

  Reyes snorted. “Maybe it owes her something.”

  “Or it’s cursed. She’s tried everything—sun lamps, compost, music. I even caught her whispering to it last night…”

  “She ever tried yelling at it?”

  I didn’t laugh. ” She’s Catholic. Yelling’s for Protestants.”

  “So, she suffers quietly?”

  “She thinks suffering’s how you earn answers.”

  "Maybe she should light a candle then." Reyes didn’t look at me. Just kept tapping. The foghorn sounded again. Closer this time.

  “We went in for tests last week,” I said. “Same results. No reason it’s not happening. Just... isn’t.”

  He exhaled through his nose. “You sure you want a kid right now?”

  “I don’t know. I want to want it. She really does. We’re both past thirty. It’s starting to feel like we missed the window.”

  Reyes stopped tapping. “Gaby’s eleven. Last week, she made the neighbor’s cat run into traffic.”

  I blinked. “Jesus. What, she threw something at it?”

  Reyes just shook his head. “She didn’t touch it. Just got close. The thing froze up like it forgot how to be alive. Then it bolted. Straight into a truck.”

  “Tomas… come on.” I rubbed my jaw. “What are you trying to say?”

  “She cried after. Said she didn’t mean to. But she’s been different since she turned nine. Quiet. Distant…”

  I blinked, trying to reset something. He kept going.

  “I used to think I was lucky. Now... I’m not so sure.”

  I felt it in my chest—tight, like something was pressing down.

  I thought about Marisol. About how she lingers in the baby aisle, looking at onesies she never buys. Reyes sounded sure. Too sure.

  I reached for the thermos between us. Lukewarm coffee. “Still bitter,” I said, giving Reyes a smile I didn’t mean. “Tastes like regret.” Just something to fill the silence.

  Reyes shifted in his seat. “You made it.”

  “Didn’t say I was proud.”

  We sat with that. Just the fog and the tapping.

  “You ever think she’s just… testing you?”

  Reyes raised an eyebrow. “Like a science experiment?”

  “Like a kid. Seeing how far she can push before you push back.”

  “She doesn’t push. She stares. As if she’s waiting for me to say something I haven’t said yet.”

  I didn’t answer. I was about to—but the radio crackled.

  “Unit 4, we’ve got a 10-33 in the neighborhood off Sycamore. Officer’s residence. Possible mass casualty. Repeat, mass casualty.”

  Reyes and I locked eyes. My hand went to my holster, instinct more than anything.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Sycamore?” I asked. “Isn’t that…?”

  Reyes didn’t answer, just stared for half a second too long. Then clenched his jaw as he threw the cruiser into gear. Fast. Focused.

  Sycamore was six blocks down. We’d be there in under a minute.

  ———

  The air itself seemed to crackle with an unseen energy, the fog thicker as we arrived at Sycamore. With the foghorn farther up, the quiet could almost settle. Then came a scream. Not loud, just sharp, glass breaking inside my ears.

  A kid ran past the cruiser, then his mother right behind. Then more came past our car, some bleeding, some dragging others.

  For a second, I was twelve again. Curled up behind the couch while someone screamed outside. Sirens. Gunshots. A neighbor yelling my name.

  That time, it was a gun. This time, I didn’t know what it was.

  But I knew the look on their faces.

  I knew what it meant to be too late.

  A low hum vibrated through the soles of my shoes, a sound I felt more than heard.

  People poured out of the houses. Some sprinted. Others stumbled. Not drunk. Not wounded. Just… wrong. Their hands pressed to their temples as though the noise was inside them.

  “They’re not running right,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I meant.

  One woman carried a suitcase. Another a rosary. Most people, however, had nothing. A few just stood there, bleeding, blinking, like they hadn’t caught up to the moment yet. One tried to go back inside, as if walls could still mean safety.

  There was a noise. Loud and deep, vibrating. As though a power line hummed inside my skull. And light. Not bright… not warm… just wrong. It pulsed from the cul-de-sac behind Reyes’ house, steady and slow.

  Reyes stepped out first. “Inés!” He didn’t sprint—just moved with a kind of desperate gravity, straight for the porch. “Gaby…” His jaw clenched, eyes locked ahead, like he already felt the damage waiting.

  I followed, hand still on my weapon, though I didn’t know what I was expecting. Not this.

  She was already outside before Reyes finished shouting. “Tomas!”

  Her voice cracked. Not panic, only from holding it in too long. She hadn’t wanted to scare Gaby. Seeing Reyes let her speak again. “Tomas… what’s happening?”

  "I don't know, baby," Reyes said, his voice tight, "I think something's wrong with the air."

  She reached for her husband—fingers trembling, locking together. He held tight. Their eyes met. Wide and searching. “Is this real?”

  He scooped some blood from Inés's nose.

  “Oh god, is it gas?” She blinked, staring at the blood.

  Reyes just kept inspecting her for wounds.

  “Are we under a chemical attack?” She said, but the sound of her words came late.

  Then came a scream from inside the house. Jagged, as if it was being shredded on the way out.

  ”No.. not her!” Reyes shouted, rushing inside the house. “I’m coming, mija!”

  “Don’t yell. She’s already scared.” She went along with Reyes, trying to calm him. “That sound… It’s overwhelming.”

  I stayed near the door. Scanning the family room, the kitchen, the hallway, there at the end was a window, and through it, a hint of light. Just a glow that made the air feel brittle.

  Reyes’s daughter was crouching next to the couch, near the entrance. Knees to her chest, fingers jammed into her ears. She rocked with the hum. Not perfectly, just close enough to feel wrong.

  I reached for the radio. Static. No response. Just the hum bleeding through.

  Like the others, she also had blood on her nose. She trembled. Not just her hands… her breath, her eyes. Pupils blown wide, shimmering like they saw something I couldn’t.

  Reyes reached for her. “It’s ok! Daddy’s here now!” But the air buzzed before he touched her. My hair lifted, the socket behind me popped. “We need to get out.”

  He didn’t stop. Just pulled her close, as though instinct could outrun physics.

  “Now!”

  Gaby screamed again, short, yet sharp. Then the fridge door slammed open. A shelf jerked sideways. Metal screamed. Then something unseen struck Reyes low and hard.

  And Reyes dropped.

  “Something hit me,” He said, his breath hitching as he tried to force his limbs into movement. “Metal. I think...” His legs twitched once, then went still.

  I knelt beside Reyes, my fingers tingling when I reached for him. “Go,” he said, his breath shallow, his eyes unfocused. “I’ll stay with them.”

  Gaby’s hum pulsed deeper, the floorboard shaking louder.

  Then Inés gasped. Her bleeding got worse, red tears leaving her .“I’m fine,” She said even as she clutched her head.

  Tomas tried to reach for her, but his arm wouldn’t move. All he could do was groan as blood trickled from his ear.

  Gaby started bawling.

  The shimmer pulsed again. Closer.

  I didn’t think. I moved. Not to fight. Not to fix.

  Just because they were bleeding, and I was the only one left standing.

  I tried the PTT again. “Unit 4… Reyes is down. I don’t know what this is. We need someone… anyone.” Just static. Louder this time. Rising. Until it wasn’t static anymore—just screeching.

  I breathed shallowly. Skin tight. Hand trembling near the holster. not fear. Just knowing it wouldn’t help. I pushed forward, toward the other side of the house, toward the epicenter, as though the hum was summoning me.

  Every step hurt. But Tomas and his family were behind me. That was all. That’s enough.

  It started as pressure behind my eyes. Then heat… deeper. Harder to name. As if my bones were being pulled apart bit by bit. I tasted copper, my nose was bleeding.

  But I kept going, even though my vision blurred and my ears rang.

  An old man convulsed on the grass. Limbs jerking… as if something vital had been cut loose. His hand reached toward the woman beside him, but she didn’t move. Eyes open. Red. Blood blooming under her head.

  Then I saw it, right in the middle of the cul-de-sac.

  A small figure. Floating.

  Ten feet off the ground, his body hunched, limbs limp at his sides. Around his head, a shimmer flickers. His hair striped itself, bleaching wherever the shimmer touched, like memory being erased. Clothes hung loose, untouched by gravity. Skin looked wrong… pale—as though light couldn’t decide whether to pass through.

  I couldn’t move. It was a boy, no older than Gaby.

  He turned his head toward me, and the world tilted on its axis. His eyes were black. Not dark. Not shadowed. Black. No whites. No pupils. Just pure, unadulterated void. An abyss that seemed to swallow all light, all hope.

  Something inside me snapped. Not pain. Not fear. Something deeper. A thread pulled too tight, finally giving way.

  He doesn’t look angry, I thought. Just… unraveled.

  And in that moment, I thought of Marisol. Of the lemon tree she still watered. The one that never bloomed. The one she whispered to, like it might hear her.