Chapter 4: The Neighbor
The silence left by the emergency broadcast was heavier than any sound. It filled every corner of the house, pressing in on them. Quinn stood with the aluminum bat in one hand, his knuckles white against the metal. Sarah held Lily and Tom in a tight embrace near the kitchen doorway, her body a physical shield against the unseen horrors outside. Mark just stared at the blank television, his face slack with a shock so profound it had erased all other expressions. He looked like a man who had seen the world he knew vanish in a flash of red light and a monotone voice.
Then, a sound from next door shattered the stillness.
It was not a scream of terror, but a sharp, guttural cry of pain. The cry was cut short. It was followed by the unmistakable crash of a window breaking, a sharp, percussive sound and the tinkle of glass hitting a wooden deck.
Everyone flinched. Tom buried his face deeper into his mother’s side, his small body trembling.
"Stay here," Quinn said, his voice a low command. "Stay away from the outside walls."
He moved from the kitchen into the living room, his steps silent on the thick carpet. The front of the house was shrouded in gloom from the drawn curtains. The only light was the weak, gray daylight filtering down the stairwell from the second floor. He crept to the large picture window that looked out onto their front lawn and, to the side, their neighbor’s property. Mr. Henderson’s house. A tidy, two-story home identical to their own. The man who mowed his lawn every Saturday at nine a.m. The man who had once brought their mail to the door when it was delivered to his address by mistake.
Quinn put his eye to the tiny gap where the curtain met the window frame. His view was limited, a narrow slice of green lawn and the beige siding of Henderson’s house. For a moment, he saw nothing but a bird feeder swaying gently in the breeze.
Then a figure moved into his field of vision.
It was Mr. Henderson. His familiar plaid shirt was torn at the shoulder, revealing pale skin beneath. His gray hair was wild. But it was his eyes that made Quinn’s breath catch in his throat. They were wide, frantic, and completely devoid of recognition or thought. He was not just angry or scared. He was feral.
He was standing over another man, Mr. Davies from two houses down. Davies was on his back in the grass, trying to scramble away, kicking his legs uselessly against the ground. He was pleading, but the words were a choked, terrified babble that made no sense.
The attack was nothing like a human fight. There was no posturing, no shouting, no hesitation. Henderson moved with a twitching, unnatural speed that was horrifyingly efficient. He fell upon Davies not with fists, but with a blind, ravenous intensity. He grabbed Davies by the shirt and slammed his head against the soft turf with a sickening thud. He did it again. The pleading stopped.