Edward awoke to the quiet.
Not the quiet sort.
The weighing sort.
The sort that lies on your ears, lodges in your lungs, and catches you purposefully slow-breathing without ever realizing.
The blanket had inched halfway off of him once during the course of the night. The couch groaned underneath his back, and the room air was warmer than when he'd first drifted off. The TV screen ahead of him continued to cast a dim glow — not on a show, but on an emergency broadcast that had hummed itself softly in the background.
Public Health Alert – Regional Health Authority
As a precautionary step, due to the recent outbreak of seasonal illness, people should not travel unnecessarily and remain indoors for one night.
Headache, tiredness, chest pain may ensue.
Fluids, rest, and relax.
Advice from the local health board will be given as and when necessary.
No dates. No town names. No figures. Just just enough to imply something was happening, but not enough to say what.
He shifted position. He groaned as he sat up a little further, and a tight throb coursed down the back of his neck. Everything was black around him, although the TV was still on. Shadows on the ground seemed to flow up the walls like ink blots at the periphery of his vision.
He glanced at his phone. 3:17 AM.
The room was quiet. Not quiet — silent. Silent, the type of air inside an enclosed automobile waiting to leak in sunlight.
It had texture.
Then—
Tap.
.tap.
.tap.
Edward got up, his heart racing. The sound wasn't in the room. It was under — muted and low and too consistent to be the house adjusting.
He was barefoot, cold floorboards under him, and stepped over to the other side of the wall — the side of his neighbor. He placed the palm of his hand flat on the plaster.
Cold.
A light tap, inches behind it.
He stood there.
It hadn't been the pipes, or the building settling. Slower, less metallic. Rolled onto one's side, moving with care — creaks of furniture by inches. Footsteps.
Perhaps his neighbor had been asleep? Insomnia? Spring cleaning?
But three in the morning?
The sounding of the taps was too intentional to be accident. Too paced to be happenstance.
He backed away, a line of fear running up his chest. The room had shifted inward in some way. Closer. Intimate-er. Like it had pulled in around him in defiance.
The taped curtains trembled minutely as he pushed them aside again. A draft? No — disturbed air from his movement. But enough to show a thin slit where one corner had not been tight. A thin white slash of moonlight lay across the wooden floor.
He stopped.
Drawn the edge back into position to secure it and added a new strip of tape. And another, just in case.
His mind wandered back to Sam's last message. Off balance, out of rhythm. Such as the individuals he had encountered previously at the store.
Ed… lights… wrong… something…
She'd left work early, or at least claimed to be leaving. But her coat still hung in the back room. Her car still sat in the parking lot.
No word from her since.
He glanced at his phone once more. No calls.
He called out her name.
You okay? You home? Tell me you're okay.
The message was sent. No read receipt was received.
He retreated back into the kitchen, the silence yawning again, taut and lengthy. His own breathing, even but shallow, was too jagged in the room.
The fridge's compressor growled loudly, brutally, in the hush. He jolted, swore, and shoved the door the rest of the way open out of habit, not appetite. Too bright was the light. Too clean the air.
He removed a water bottle and screwed another one on in a rush.
His phone beeped on the counter.
He looked down: Liz — uni friend. He had already messaged her in the hopes of some kind of confirmation that someone else was experiencing this.
Yeah. Dad's been off. Like, ill. Not with a cough, though. Just. weird.
No punctuation. No response. No background.
He responded:
Weird how?
No response.
He waited thirty seconds, then a minute. Still no response.
The message was no longer blue-ticked as it had been received.
He turned on airplane mode, turned it off. One bar of signal. Then nothing.
He opened a browser window. All the sites resolved to the same government landing page — no headlines, no stories. No reporters. Just a banner.
Mild seasonal illness
Symptoms may vary. Stay hydrated. Stay calm.
Further advice will be published if necessary.
He stepped back, his heart racing.
Behind him, the kitchen creaked — a plain creaking of wood, maybe. But with a richer ring to it. It echoed out into the quiet.
And then he heard it once more — but no tapping.
Something else.
A scraping. Outside. Low and drawn-out, like some big thing dragging over stone or concrete. And a pause to follow.
Then nothing.
He came back the same way, slow and quiet, to the back door. Didn't touch the curtain even. Just listened.
No echo of a sound. No whine of the neighbor's dog. No wind.
He took a step back and turned off the kitchen light.
Don't want to raise any suspicion.
He stayed on the stairs, phone still in his hand. His thumb trembled. He thought about calling Jamie — his brother — but didn't. What could he tell him?
"Weird stuff is going on here."
"I just had to sit and listen and hear knocking and scratching."
"Sam might not be here, or something worse."
It all sounded absurd when spoken.
He continued up the stairs anyway, but only reached halfway before his phone rang once more. He stopped.
Unknown number.
He read the message.
Don't open doors. Light attracts them. Not a flu. Don't believe what they're saying.
His fists tightened around the phone. No name. No thread. No number. He placed his fingers on the message — sender vanished. As if it never occurred.
His skin went cold. His lips dry.
He slowly turned and gazed down at the floor below, as if someone would suddenly appear behind glass. Nothing.
He ascended the stairs further.
The top hall was darker than the rest of the house. The only illumination was the faint one from through the taped edges of the bedroom curtain. Even closed, it was not capable of blocking all of it out.
He stepped in and inserted the bedside lamp. He did not desire it thus — in waiting to be switched on. Waiting.
Lying.
He sat on the bed, the bed creaking beneath him. The air was damp, too warm. He burrowed into the hood of the hoodie and pulled out the water bottle, gulped without savoring.
A creak materialized from the hallway.
Normal? Maybe.
He stared at the window. Closed. Not budging.
He simply stared at the phone in his hand for a bit, then he texted:
You okay? Things getting weird here. Tell me.
He sent it to Jamie. Held on until it timed out on "Sending…" before it moved to "Sent." But never did say "Delivered."
He set the phone down gingerly on the nightstand. The mistake.
He just sat there in the dark for a moment, blankly regarding the wall.
Listening.
Waiting for the tapping to resume.