1 - The Wrong Kind Of Quiet
Nona is the first one out of the trees. She pushes through the last tangle of branches, pine needles catching in her dark hair, and steps onto the soccer fields behind the high school. Three days of sleeping on uneven ground have left her back stiff, but the ache feels earned. Proof they've actually survived without checking in, without her parents texting every hour, without anyone knowing what they're up to.
Behind her, Otto stumbles out, blinking in the sudden sunlight like some nocturnal creature… but is just Nona's twelve-year-old brother looking like he hasn't slept in days. Which is probably true considering he's spent the last couple nights muttering about 28 Days Later and The Stand instead of actually sleeping. His thick glasses are smudged with dirt, and his oversized backpack makes him look even skinnier than usual.
"Zombie apocalypse, level one complete," he says, adjusting his glasses with the careful precision of someone who's been wearing them since age five. "No one died of dysentery."
Nona rolls her eyes. "The Oregon Trail isn’t zombies."
"Could be The Road. Post-apocalyptic survival narrative. Father-son dynamic, except we're—"
"We're the idiots who decided to go camping," Jun interrupts, pushing past them both. Even after three days in the woods, the high school senior and varsity field hockey star looks put-together, her dyed-blond hair pulled back into the perfect messy bun. Her clothes are dirty, sure, but strategically so, like she's calculated exactly how disheveled she can look while still maintaining some kind of social advantage. "And now we're back to civilization, so you can stop it with the nerd film stuff."
Nida emerges from the treeline next, along with Simon. The fifteen-year-old is already scrolling through her phone, frowning at the screen with the desperate intensity of someone who's been disconnected too long. She's spent the entire camping trip NOT talking about the TikToks she's missing, the group chats going silent, the algorithmic timeline that will forget her if she stays offline too long… but everyone knows she's always thinking about it.
Simon, thin, pale, hollow-eyed, trails behind her like a ghost. He hasn't said much of anything since his family died in the car accident two months ago, and the camping trip hasn't changed that. Simon is movie star handsome, somehow more so with the weight he's lost, especially around his jawline. He'll come back to normal, they all figure. Eventually.
"No signal," Nida mutters, waving her phone at the sky like she can conjure the bars back with a magic spell. "How is there no signal? We're in town."
The football field stretches out ahead of them, grass swaying in the afternoon breeze. Empty. No team running drills, no coaches yelling instructions, no students cutting across to the parking lot. Just wind and the distant hum of what sounds like electrical equipment, though Nona can't identify the source.
"Where the fuck is everyone?" Nida asks, still stabbing at her phone screen.
Jun shrugs. "Tuesday afternoon. People have lives." She's already walking toward the baseball diamond, which will lead to the path that cuts through to their neighborhood, her stride confident despite the wrongness settling over them like fog.
"It's not Tuesday," Otto says quietly. "We left Friday. Today's Monday." He pulls out his own phone, an ancient thing their parents have given him for emergencies, and shows them the screen. The date glows back at them, monochrome amber, undeniable.
"Monday, then. Whatever." Jun's voice carries that particular brand of dismissal she's perfected over the years. "I need a shower and actual food."
But as they cross the practice field, the wrongness becomes harder to ignore. The parking lot is empty, not just of people, but of everything. No cars in the spaces marked for teachers. No trash blowing around the dumpsters. No maintenance trucks or delivery vehicles. The silence is so complete it feels aggressive, like the absence of sound is actively pushing against their eardrums.
Nona's rational mind, the part that has gotten her through her first year of college by cataloguing every variable, every potential outcome, begins listing the discrepancies. The flag hangs limp despite the wind that moves the grass. The absence of birds, which should be everywhere at this time of day. The way their voices seem to echo wrong, like the air itself is too thick or too thin.
"Gas leak?" She says aloud, more to reassure herself than the others. "That's why it's evacuated. Emergency services cleared everyone out."
Otto has something for that. "In movies, gas leaks smell like rotten eggs. That's what they add to natural gas so you can detect it. This smells like..." He trails off, his film-obsessed brain apparently failing to provide a reference point.
"Like what?" Jun demands, her controlled facade showing the first crack of actual worry.
"I don't know," Otto says. "It smells like nothing, I guess."
They reach the corner of Maple and Third, where the familiar Wawa should be bustling. Instead, Nida stops walking so suddenly that Simon nearly walks into her. She's staring at something in the middle of the intersection, her phone forgotten in her hand.
"What’s that?"
A black pile sits in the center of the crosswalk, fine as sand but somehow more substantial. It's spread in a perfect circle about three feet wide, as if someone has very carefully measured and poured it there. The powder catches the afternoon light strangely, neither reflecting it nor absorbing it completely.
Nona crouches next to it, her analytical mind taking over despite the growing unease in her chest. "Charcoal? Ash from a fire?" She's seen plenty of campfire remains over the weekend, but this is different. Too fine, too uniform, too deliberately placed.
"Don't touch it," Jun snaps, but Nona is already reaching out. Her need to understand, to categorize and explain, overrides caution.
She drags a finger through the powder. It doesn't stick to her skin or leave any residue. It doesn't smell like ash or charcoal or anything else she can identify. It just sits there, wrong and silent and somehow heavy in a way that makes her feel full of dread.
Otto is filming with his phone, circling the pile with the focused intensity he usually reserves for explaining particularly complex movie plots. "In The Mist, the particles from the other dimension were—"
"This isn't a movie," Nona says, but her voice lacks the conviction she wants it to have. Because as they walk deeper into town, following the familiar route they've taken hundreds of times, they see more of them. Black piles on doorsteps like unwelcome gifts. In the middle of side streets. Heaped on park benches like someone has sat down and simply dissolved into component parts.
The houses are dark, windows reflecting the sky. No TVs flickering, no music playing, no dogs barking, no air conditioners humming. The lawns are neat, the gardens tended, but there's something sterile about the perfection. It's like a movie set between takes.
"Okay," Nida says, her voice tight with the kind of panic that comes from losing your anchor to the world. "I really need service. I need to text my mom."
Jun crosses her arms, her defensive posture more pronounced now, but clearly forced. "There's an explanation. There's always an explanation. We just don't have all the information yet."
"Is there?" Otto asks. He's still filming, his phone camera capturing the empty street with documentary precision. "Because in 28 Days Later, Jim wakes up in a hospital and London's empty, and the explanation is—"
"Will you shut up about movies?" Jun snaps, her carefully maintained composure finally cracking. "This is real life, you fucking idiot."
"Nora!" Otto complains.
But Nona isn't listening. Her gaze is fixed on something at the end of the street, where Maple dead-ends into the park. A figure stands there, tall and motionless. Dressed in black from head to toe, with what looks like a smooth, featureless mask where its face should be. No eyes, no mouth, no features at all. Just a blank surface that somehow seems to be watching them anyway.
"Do you see that?" Nona whispers, very much wishing she doesn't.
The others follow her gaze, their conversation dying mid-sentence. Simon makes a small, choking sound, the first noise he's made all day. The figure tilts its head with mechanical precision, watching them with eyeless attention that feels like being examined under a microscope.
Then, somehow, a machine gun is in its hands, the type they've all seen on the news too many times. Black metal with that distinctive angular shape that has become every parent's nightmare, every student's unspoken fear.
That is probably the most frightening thing so far.
They all feel it at once, that collective freeze response drilled into them through years of lockdown practice. The automatic mental calculation of exits and hiding spots, the hypervigilance that comes from growing up knowing that faceless figures with weapons aren't just movie monsters but the kid in your math class. The figure's stillness is worse than movement, that patient, predatory waiting they've all learned to fear during those seventeen lockdowns at Jefferson High, huddled in darkened classrooms trying to turn invisible.
Nona opens her mouth, but finds she cannot speak.
And then, impossibly, defying every law of physics Nona has studied, it is closer. Not walking, not running, just occupying a different space than it had a moment before. Thirty feet away instead of a hundred, as if distance is optional.
Nida's phone clatters to the pavement, the sound sharp in the unnatural quiet. "What the—"
"Run," Nona says, her voice cutting through the paralysis that has settled over them. She grabs Otto by the hand.
The others don't argue. Their footsteps pound against the asphalt as they bolt down the street. Nida’s house sits at the end of Maple, its white colonial facade as perfect as always. She fumbles for her key, hands shaking, while the others cluster behind her on the porch. The familiar weight of her house key feels reassuring. Something normal, like always.
They hear the lock open, but before Nida can push it open it swings open on its own.
The powder comes out like a black tide.
It flows through the doorway in a silent avalanche, cascading over the threshold and pooling around their feet. Fine as sand but heavier, it keeps coming, pouring from the hallway, spilling down the stairs, pushing them backwards into the front lawn.
Nida trips and falls back into it, screaming as it flows over her chest, the weight of it pinning her to the ground. She manages to flip over and scramble to her feet.
And finds herself face to face with a black mask, no eyes, no mouth, no features at all.
She keeps screaming.
Until a gloved hand closes over her mouth, shutting her up.
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Next week: Episode 2 - "Empty Houses"
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