Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

by Clay Chapman

Genres: Occult & Supernatural; Psychological Thrillers; Supernatural suspense; Horror

Synopsis

“Clay McLeod Chapman is one of my favorite horror storytellers working today.”—Jordan Peele

“Surreal, hypnotic, unrelenting, profoundly claustrophobic, and an absolutely scathing send-up of the pitfalls of American divisiveness.”—Keith Rosson, author of Fever House

From master of horror Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media.

Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart—literally—as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn—but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from one of horror's modern masters holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.

 

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Release date: January 7, 2025

Publisher: Quirk Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

DECEMBER 18

Get your family out of there, Noah. Please. The city isn’t safe anymore. None of them are. If you’d been watching the news, you’d know this by now. Please, honey. Please. For me. For your mother. You need to leave New York before it’s too late, before your family gets hurt…

Mom left another message.

Noah didn’t even hear his phone ring this time. Her voicemails are digital mosquitoes buzzing about his ear at all hours of the day—and night—hungry for blood.

This one landed at eleven. Shouldn’t she be in bed by now? Fast asleep?

Paul Tammany must’ve just gotten off the air.

“Everything okay?” Alicia props herself up on one elbow in their bed, sensing tension.

Noah nods, still listening to his mother.

“Is it her?”

“Yeah.” The frequency of Mom’s calls has really ramped up since Thanksgiving. Something’s in the air. Or maybe it’s the fluoride in the water. Or the cell towers, all that 5G microwaving her brain.

I just watched another news story and they said there have been more protests—these riots and I, oh God, Noah, I’m so worried for you…So worried about my grandbaby…

When Noah was just a boy, growing up in Virginia, his mom would take him to the library. She’d let him check out two books. Any two. His choice. Their deal was simple: One for you and one for me. Mom would read one book to Noah at bedtime while he had to read the other on his own. He’d pick a picture book to tackle—the easy reads, Sendak or Silverstein—while for his mother, he’d tug the doorstoppers off the shelf. The cinder-block books. Tolkien. Dickens. King. He can still remember the sound of her voice, a soft southern lilt gamely taking on the personas of every last character, her words filling his bedroom, his mind, his dreams.

Noah can still hear her voice now.

When I think of you up there in that god-awful city, with all those awful people around, I—I don’t know. I wish you’d come home to us. You can’t be safe up there. Kelsey can’t be safe…

He doesn’t recognize her at all.

It’s not Mom. It can’t be.

Technically, yes, that’s her voice. But…the words. They don’t sound like her thoughts at all. These are someone else’s words in her mouth. Her mind.

It’s getting worse. She’s getting worse.

“Is it bad?” Alicia’s voice is calm. Fair and balanced. Working as an admin at a nonprofit will do that—her uncanny knack for putting out fires with nothing but the serenity in her tone.

“Pretty bad.”

“How bad?”

They’re talking about a reckoning, son…

Noah stares at the ceiling, phone pressed to his ear, his mind’s eye filled with his mother’s distorted visions of a city on fire, of protests right outside their window, complete chaos.

I know you don’t believe me and I know you think I’m overreacting, but I—I just wish you would wake up, honey, before it’s too late. I wish, I wish you would open your eyes.

“Can I hear?” Alicia slides in closer. There’s that curiosity of hers. That mettle. Probably the first thing Noah remembers about meeting Alicia was how she was the one to approach him at that Antibalas show in Williamsburg—what? Thirteen years ago now?—in the back room

at Black Betty. She kick-started the conversation, buying the next round. They danced with their drinks held up at their shoulders, those crinkly plastic cups, spilling G&Ts all over themselves. They both carried a hint of juniper all the way back to his apartment, seeped into their skin.

“You don’t want to hear this,” Noah says.

“What’s she saying?”

Somebody ought to do something. Somebody ought to put a stop to these people—

These people.

“Nothing.” Noah deletes the message before he finishes listening to it. What Alicia hasn’t said, but what Noah’s sensed anyhow, is that she’s starting to ebb. Pull away from him. His family. And she’s pulling Kelsey away with her.

When Thanksgiving discourse shifted to immigration, who’s creeping into the country, didn’t his parents notice Kelsey sitting across the table? Who just passed the mashed potatoes? Didn’t they realize their granddaughter is half Haitian?

An invasion, Noah’s mom called it. Why can’t they all just stay in their own country?

What about me? What about Kelsey? Alicia asked Noah’s mother at the table, point-blank, in front of Ash and his whole fam, Christ, everyone, having held her tongue as long as the first serving of turkey. What do you see when you look at her? Your own granddaughter?

Mom said, no, no, she wasn’t talking about her daughter-in-law or granddaughter. She was talking about those other people.

Noah hasn’t picked up a call from her since; just lets Mom go to voicemail now. Lets her ramble on for as long as she wants, filling up his inbox with her endless messages. He traps them. Suffocates them, like bugs in a jar.

But it’s not going away. Mom’s not stopping. This has festered for far too long.

Noah needs to deal with this.

“I’m gonna call,” he says, already dialing. It doesn’t matter how late it is.

No answer.

Strange. Mom always picks up. No matter what she’s in the middle of, she always makes time to talk to her boys. Particularly Noah. Mr. Golden Boy, Asher always jabs. Pampered Prince.

So why isn’t she picking up? Why won’t she answer?

“Maybe she’s asleep?” Alicia suggests.

“Maybe.”

Neither says anything for a breath. Alicia holds on to Noah’s eyes. Really takes him in. “Plenty of people are going through this,” she says, breaking the silence. “I read in The Atlantic—”

Noah drags his pillow over his face and releases a low groan. “Pleeeease. No more

articles about deprogramming your parents…”

It’s far too late for an intervention. That ship sailed last Thanksgiving. Noah already tried dragging Mom and Dad back from the ideological brink of their batshit conspiracy-laden crackpottery. Before packing his fam in the car and plowing through traffic to get to Grammy and Grandpa’s house for Turkey Time, Noah Googled “how to deprogram your parents,” like he was cramming for an exam. He clicked a couple links. Printed a few articles. He even highlighted a couple sentences.

Debate won’t help. Arguing only makes matters worse. Your loved ones are lost in a conspiracy theory loophole. They are falling down their own personal rabbit holes. Only patience and understanding will pull them out. Talk to them. See their side. Find common ground.

Did the writers of these listicles even know folks like Noah’s father? He’s the most stubborn son of a bitch Noah’s ever met. He’s lived with his bullheadedness his entire life.

But Mom…

Not her.

Mom is still Mom, isn’t she? Somewhere deep down? Trapped in her own body? There has to be a scrap of sanity left, just a glimmer of common sense buried deep beneath the calcifying wave of conspiracy theories shellacking her brain, one queasy meme after another.

“You’re not alone,” Alicia says. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Sure feels like it. This downward spiral may have started years ago, but this last month has been a wildfire of voicemails. Used to be just one a week. Now it’s up to three a day. Noah has felt so isolated from his family—his own mother—ever since she tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Whatever crawled back up isn’t Mom anymore.

 

DECEMBER 19

It’s almost time. Time to wake up, son. Open your eyes. The Great Reawakening is nearly here. December 20. It’s going to be a glorious, glorious day and I only hope you are ready…

When did she leave this message? Christ, four in the morning? Is his phone even ringing anymore? He left his cell on his nightstand just in case she called again. He must’ve slept right through it. He brings his phone to his ear, takes in a deep breath, bracing himself, aaand…

Listens.

Noah picks up the faintest hiss of static, an ambience in the background. Whatever room she was in when she called sounds cramped, confined, like a closet. Was she hiding? A butt dial?

One second of crackling silence, now two…

Three…

Noah is just about to delete the message, convinced Mom misdialed, when—

There’s her breath. A slow, ragged inhale groans right in the receiver. Her chest sounds wet, phlegmy, as if she’s coming down with the flu.

Is she choking? Asphyxiating? Is it a gas leak? Is she being strangled? What the hell is—

Then she speaks. Right into the receiver. Into Noah’s ear.

Time to wake up, son. Open your eyes.

Noah calls his mom straightaway.

No answer.

So Noah dials Dad. No answer there, either. Dad never picks up, so it’s not such a stunner. What a waste of a data plan. Dad always gripes that cellular phones are nothing but a ball and chain, tethering him to the twenty-first century. He doesn’t need to be reachable all the time, no matter what his sons insist. Leave a message on the answering machine, if it’s so important.

So Noah dials the landline. Mom and Dad aren’t answering that, either.

Now that’s a red flag.

Don’t panic. Not yet.

Noah dials Mom again. It’s eight in the morning. She’s bound to be awake by now.

It doesn’t even ring this time. Straight to voicemail. Noah leaves a message, doing his damnedest to keep his voice even. “Calling you back, Mom…Just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

Noah speed-dials Asher. It rings…and rings. Does nobody pick up their phone anymore?

He leaves a message. “Hey, it’s me. Something weird’s going on with Mom. Have you—”

An incoming call cuts him off. Noah glances at the caller ID.

Ash is on the other line. Finally. “What,” he says in a flat monotone when Noah picks up.

“Hello to you, too…” His older brother has been royally pissed at him since Thanksgiving.

“I’m busy,” Ash grunted.

And I’m not? “You talk to Mom lately?”

“All the time.”

“…And?”

Silence on the other end.

“She’s leaving me these messed-up messages and—I dunno. I’m just worried about her.”

“Worried.”

“Could you just check up on her? See if she and Dad are okay?”

“Why.”

Because you live less than an hour away, asshole. Because you’re her son, too.

Because I want to make sure they’re not going full-on Unabomber. Because I’m worried they might be—

Might be—

Might—

“Just go over there, okay? See if they’re all right?”

“Fine.” Ash hangs up. No buh-bye, love you, bro. Not like the two of them have ever been open with their emotions with each other, but Ash has gone full-on Dad with his stoicism. It’s no mystery their father favored Asher growing up. The one time—the only time—Noah bolstered himself, all seventeen years of himself, and confronted his father about why he always took Ash out fishing, took Ash on camping trips, took Ash to baseball games, and not Noah, Dad’s stolid response was, Ash simply has more traditional values than you, son…

No arguing with that. Dad always saw himself in Asher. He never saw himself in Noah.

He doesn’t see me at all.

Even Asher’s own friggin’ family mirrors Mom and Dad. Look at them, the Fairchild Four: Ash, his wife, Devon, and their sons, Caleb and Marcus. It’s like Ash modeled his entire household after their parents. A cookie-cutter clan, complete with cookie-cutter values.

So why isn’t Mr. Traditional paying attention? Can’t he see what’s happening?

Noah tries calling Mom again around lunchtime.

Somebody pick up the phone…

He leaves another message.

“Hey, Mom…It’s me. Noah. Everything okay? Call me.”

Multiple messages.

“Mom? Dad? Anyone there? Pick up if you can hear me.”

Where in the hell are they? Did they go on a trip without telling anyone? Dad despises other countries, and Mom haaaates flying. The two rarely leave their house anymore.

Noah could call their neighbors to check in on them…but does he even have their contact info? Calling the police would take this all to an awkward extreme he’d never be forgiven for if it turns out they’re okay. Please let them be okay.

Noah calls Mom at dinner. This time she’ll answer, he thinks. She has to answer.

Pick up pick up pick up…

Calls Dad. Just one more time. Then the landline.

Pick up pickuppickup…

Calls Asher.

PICK UP PICKUPPICKUPPICKUP!

It’s been a full day of radio silence. Asher not picking up is the last straw. The camel’s back, snapped. Something’s wrong. The anxiety settles into his stomach, takes root.

What if…what if they’re…

Don’t go there. Don’t—

Go there.

Noah has to go down there, doesn’t he? If Ash isn’t going to help, he has to do it himself. Hop in the car and drive six hours—seven, if there’s traffic on I-95—all the way to his parents’ house in Richmond and make sure Mom and Dad are okay. That they’re still—

Still—

DECEMBER 20

“Sure you don’t want us to come?” Alicia asks as he packs the Prius bright and early the next morning. The fam sees him off like this is some kind of quest. Save the parents! Vanquish the evil lurking in their hearts!

“Probably best I do this by myself,” Noah says.

Alicia takes Noah into her arms, squeezing. “Call me, okay? Whenever. Don’t hesitate.”

“Will do.”

“Will you be back by Christmas?” Kelsey asks, unable to keep her hips from swiveling. She’s roller-skating even when she’s stock-still, no need to lace up, always gliding down the sidewalk on her way to school, the bodega, her friends’ houses. Such a city mouse, so at home in their multicultural neighborhood, so different from the white suburb Noah grew up in. But even here, Alicia is sometimes mistaken for Kelsey’s Haitian nanny. It’s everywhere, even in their liberal haven. Unavoidable. Inescapable.

Noah feels this pinch in his gut. “I’ll only be gone for a night. Two, tops.”

He’s missing her holiday recital for this. Kelsey’s soloing, selected by her teacher to sing “The Greatest Love of All.” She’s been practicing all week, singing around the house, her voice filling their apartment. The girl’s got pipes.

“Promise?” Kelsey has her mother’s eyes. Plus her composure, thank Christ. What does she possess of him? What does he see of himself in her? His need to please? His corny jokes?

“Promise.” Noah holds up his pinkie. Kelsey brings hers up and the two intertwine.

There it is, his word, his solemn vow, locked in with a pinkie swear.

No take-backs.

---

Heart attack, home invasion, gas leak, oh my!

Noah can’t help himself. He imagines every worst-case scenario along the Jersey Turnpike. It’s a song sung to the tune of Dorothy’s panic attack along the Yellow Brick Road—

Heart attack, home invasion, gas leak, oh my!

It’s the radio silence that gnaws at him. As much as Noah hates listening to Mom’s messages, it’s worse when they completely stop. Mom always calls, even if he doesn’t pick up.

Heart attack—

He can picture it: his father keeled over at the breakfast table, Mom wailing away over Dad’s dead body, too distraught to even hear the ringing, ringing, ringing of the phone.

Home invasion—

Is Noah going to find their bodies in the basement? Hands bound behind their backs? Mouths sealed in duct tape?

Gas leak—

Will he step into the house and find their bodies tucked in next to each other, as if they’re just sleeping, waxen skin gone all gray?

Oh my!

Asher is closer. He could’ve spared a couple hours out of his busy friggin’ life as a corporate overlord to check up on their parents, but nope—he couldn’t be bothered.

Noah calls again—on the hour, every hour, closing in on the Mason-Dixon Line.

Mom’s cell, then Dad’s, then their landline.

Then Asher.

Pick up pick up SOMEBODY PICK THE FUCK UP.

Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.

This is all Fax’s fault.

Fax News took Noah’s parents away. You know their stupid slogan: Just the Fax—cheekily misspelled in some outdated Reagan-era wisecrack. This right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as a twenty-four-hour news network had been reprogramming his parents for years. Years. And Noah didn’t do a goddamn thing about it. Now they’re…

They’re…

Noah’s family always had an uncanny knack for repressing their politics. When he was younger, he never knew what his parents’ political affiliation was. Who you voted for is better kept private. It isn’t polite conversation. No ruffling of feathers at the dinner table during the holidays, that’s that. Simply pass the potato rolls and keep your politics to yourself, please…

Then something changed.

The channel changed.

It all started with Dad. He was such an easy target once he retired. Put out to pasture, was how he put it. Thirty-five years as a regional sales rep for Chevron doesn’t add up to much beyond a Walmart sheet cake. His days are now spent sprawled out in front of the television for hours on end, only getting up from his cozy recliner during commercial breaks.

Let’s see what’s going on in the world, he’d always say, picking up the remote. Cable news was his default, a steady stream of world events filtered through Fax. Noah wasn’t around to witness his father’s descent into far-right fantasyland in real time. On their rare holiday father-son chat, Dad sounded like he was rehashing poorly written conspiracy theory fan fic.

At first, it was easy to discredit his crackpot talk. The ol’ man’s just getting crankier. Noah and Alicia joked about it, miles away in Brooklyn, opining on the fate of every white man entering his golden years. “That’ll be you one day,” she teased Noah. “Just you wait…”

“Shoot me now,” he begged. “If I ever start sounding like that, you have my full permission to put me out of my misery.”

“Be careful. I just might.”

Then Mom started to sound just like Dad.

It started off with small things. Tiny cracks in her civility. Nothing too noticeable. Definitely nothing worth pushing back on. But when they spoke on the phone, Noah began to detect buzzwords. Slogans. Batshit news headlines she must have picked up from Fax.

Mom never had a political bone in her body. A farm girl plucked up from Powhatan and planted in the suburbs, she raised two boys on her own. Their household was her world, and she rarely bothered to venture beyond it. The one exception was her volunteer work at the local library for the last twenty years, reading picture books to toddlers every Saturday.

Up until they replaced me with a transsexual, she told Noah.

Whoa, Mom…Noah’s ribs gripped his lungs. He had to take a moment to process the words that had just oozed out from the receiver. You don’t really believe that, do you?

It’s happening everywhere now. There was a gravelly drag to her breath, every word raked over wet rocks. It could’ve been a cold, but this sounded phlegmier. Mom insisted she was fine. Everywhere. Every last library. That’s what they’ve been saying on the news.

You mean Fax? That’s not news, Mom…

You don’t understand, son. There was the edge of belittlement in her voice, which frustrated Noah to no end. He was forty-two, married with a daughter

of his own, and his mother—some twisted facsimile of her, at least—was treating him like he was still a child.

You just don’t see it yet, she said. But you will. Soon.

Where was this sharpened edge in her voice coming from? Why was Mom so angry? Mom, who raised Noah to be a thinking man, as she always put it. Who cut the crusts off his peanut butter sandwiches. Who teared up during commercials about auto insurance.

That Mom. Noah had no idea who this woman was.

Noah flips to NPR. He needs a distraction. “Reports of protesters convening on—”

Noah turns the dial.

“A riot outside—”

On to the next station.

“Another attack at—”

Noah flips the radio off and drives in silence. Stewing; grip tightening into fists around the wheel. I just want my parents back, he thinks. Back to the way they were before all…this.

They were a family once. They still are. Bound by blood, even if not ideology.

Can’t they be a family again?

What if they’re…

What, exactly?

If they’re…

 

*****

Dead.

Noah sits behind the wheel, staring out the windshield at the one-story, brick and vinyl box that is his childhood home. Woodmont is one of those sleepy southern subdivisions where kids ride their bikes in the middle of the street without worry of getting run over. Noah and Ash skinned their knees on this very block plenty of times, years of their blood soaked into asphalt.

“Mommmyyyy…Mommmmyyyyyyyy…”

Little Noah’s in the street. His Nike is caught in the bike chain, ankle tangled into its links, while his leg folds backward. He’s like a deer snagged in a bear trap, only the snare is his own Schwinn. The pain in his shin radiates through the rest of his body, throbbing up from the shattered bone. All the other kids from the neighborhood have circled around. Most still sit on their bikes, staring down at little Noah. Even Ash is among them, jaw slung open. Gawking.

“MommymommyMOMMYYYYY!”

And just like that, there she is.

Mom answers his call, pushing through the circle of kids and swooping down. She untangles Noah’s broken leg, the linked teeth of the chain basted in blood, and scoops her boy into her arms, abandoning his bike. She’s taking him back inside, to the safety of their home.

“I got you,” Mom whispers in Noah’s ear as she rushes up their lawn. “I got you, I got—”

You.

The memory’s been waiting for him, right there in the middle of the street. Like it happened only yesterday.

Noah’s driven seven straight hours without a single pit stop. His bladder begs for relief, but he can’t bring himself to climb out of the car. Not yet.

The house seems to have shrunk. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. But this is where he grew up. So much of his life was spent under that roof.

Why can’t he just go inside?

Noah takes a deep breath, the air settling in his lungs, then opens the door and slips out.

The lawn is in sore need of mowing. Dad has always been a militant lawn upkeeper. The scraggly patches of grass remind Noah of when he first decided to grow his hair long back in high school. Dad wasn’t all too happy about it. Look who needs a trim.

Dad would never let his lawn grow this long. Not in a million years.

Mom’s flower beds have all shriveled. Scabs of chrysanthemums speckle the soil like a dozen red flags.

What’s on the other side of that door?

What’s waiting for him?

Noah rings the doorbell, which feels so formal. I should just go in, he thinks.

Heart attack…

He knocks. No answer. Knocks again, harder this time.

Home invasion…

Dad’s car is in the driveway.

Gas leak…

No outward signs of a disturbance. No broken windows.

Oh my…

The spare key is where it’s always been: under the terra-cotta pot on the front stoop. Whatever plant was in it is completely wilted, a husk of its former glory.

Here we go, Noah thinks as he slides the key in. The lock clicks.

The door won’t budge. Something—

a body oh God it’s a body

—is blocking it from the inside. Noah leans in with his shoulder and pushes, shoving the obstruction back. He pushes until there is enough space to slip his head in.

Not a body.

The console table is

 overturned. It was pressed up against the door like a barricade. A last stand. His fam’s Alamo. Noah’s throat catches. What—who—were they trying to keep out?

The oily smell finds him first. A rotten-apple tang hangs in the air, fecund enough to coat the back of his throat. Something organic has turned. Something that could’ve been living at one point but definitely isn’t anymore. Whether it’s food or family, Noah doesn’t have a clue.

“Mom?”

There’s no light. Nothing is turned on. The shades are pulled.

“Dad?” It’s still a question. A plea. Please somebody answer just answer me please—

Nobody answers.

But someone is talking. Loud and clear. Defiant in his declarations, talking with a bald bravado that sounds familiar. It certainly isn’t a member of the Fairchild family.

“You guys here? Helloooo?”

Noah hasn’t set a foot farther in. He stands in the doorway, the sun still warming the back of his neck. Nothing but darkness waits ahead. Turn back, he thinks. Just go. Leave. Now.

“It’s…me. Noah.”

As he ventures down the hallway, step by step, he feels like he’s entering a cave, spelunking deep into the earth. Even the air feels different inside, as if it hasn’t moved in a month, maybe since Thanksgiving, humid and viscous. The dark is so all-encompassing, the world at his back may as well not exist. Sunlight can’t reach this deep.

Everything is an inch off from where he remembers. It’s as if Noah tried explaining to a drunk architect what his childhood home looked like, and then they attempted to sketch the house based on his hazy recollections. The broad strokes are all there, but the details are off.

The deeper he goes, the louder it gets.

The voices. Not just one—legion.

Their words winnow through the miasma of the house, louder now, practically shouting in synchronicity with one another. A harmonized screed. Definitely not his parents.

Chanting. That’s what it sounds like. An incantation of some kind. These voices are repeating themselves, saying the exact same thing. Just how many of them are there, exactly?

Is this some kind of ritual? Noah’s mind immediately leaps to a devil-worshipping cult crashing at his parents’ pad. Charlie Manson sacrificing Mom and Dad on the living room couch.

Wait, Noah realizes. Those aren’t different people…

It’s the same voice, merely reverberating from different corners of the house. The television is still on. Not just one TV, but…all of them? Each and every set in the house is turned to the exact same

channel, blasting its broadcast. How many sets do his parents have? When he was growing up, there was just the one in the living room. Now it sounds like dozens of them.

The volume is cranked up, flooding the halls with the baritone echo of—

Just the—

—Fax. Of course.

“Mom?” Noah calls out, louder now, competing with the anchor, Paul Tammany, that perpetually pissed-off pissant with a brick chin. “Dad? Anybody home? Can you answer me?”

The only reply he receives comes from the television. The news is too loud, eclipsing Noah’s voice. The dim glow cast off the living room TV faintly illuminates the hall. Noah can hear another television blaring farther off, in the kitchen. The same voice swarms out from each TV, bouncing off the walls like conservative claptrap echolocation. All the Paul Tammanys talk over one another. Listening to this shit gives Noah a headache. He can’t think straight.

Just the way Fax likes it.

Crrnch. There’s a crumbling sensation under Noah’s heel. He looks down. A light seasoning of frosted white glass is scattered across the floor. Shards of a lightbulb.

Crrnch. The brittle crackle of broken glass thickens under his feet. It’s not lightbulbs anymore. He’s stepping on a shattered picture frame. Photographs of himself as a child, along with the rest of the fam, no longer hang on the walls, all of them now flung across the floor.

What the hell happened here? A break-in? Were they robbed?

Noah bends down to pick up a picture.

It’s a black-and-white snapshot of Mom as a dimple-cheeked corn husk of a girl. There she is—Little Miss Spat, 1968—looking just like Shirley Temple, curtsying for the camera. That satin sash is still hanging around here, somewhere, its purple hue fading into a dull lavender.

There’s a photo of Noah and Asher in the backyard. Both wear cowboy outfits. Ash has a cap gun, his arm roped around Noah. He can still feel the noogie he got right after Mom snapped the picture, as if the sensation of Ash’s knuckles is ingrained into the picture itself.

Noah leans over and picks up a picture of Kelsey. Four years old. She’s smiling for the camera. Beaming. He chokes up. He can’t help himself. He wasn’t expecting to see her. He misses her so much. ...