I know you’ve been jonesing for Jack Harlan

and here you go!

Chapter 19: Sarah Lets Go

The farmyard held the last heat of the day. Katydids started up in the pines. The shop wall blocked most of the breeze, so the Coleman and the percolator had the air to themselves. Coffee, rice, Kinder’s, and the faint metal smell of the De Buyer still hung around the table.

We sat in a loose circle. Tailgates. The old bench. Mikey on a crate with his boots hanging. Grok’s speaker sat on the table like another mug.

The road had been in us for days. Combat too. I could feel it in the way people held their cups. Too tight. Too quiet between sentences. Raych caught my eye and started to lean toward Sarah. I gave her the small sign. Not yet. Let it come if it was going to come.

Tom broke first. He stared into his coffee like it might turn into something better.

“I miss the old days,” he said. His voice was gravel, but softer than usual. “Before The Cough. Hardware runs. Bad diner coffee. Knowing my kids were just a phone call away. Simple damn things.”

Nobody jumped on it. The dark beyond the barn stayed still.

Sarah’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth. For a second I thought she was going to set it down and walk off into the yard. Then it all came out of her at once.

“It started in the living room,” she said. “Clover Lane. Meatloaf still in the air. Puzzle on the table. National Geographics stacked like we were ever going to finish them.”

Mikey went very still.

Sarah kept going. She did not dress it up. She did not look at any of us for permission.

The television had been cycling the same panic on every channel. People dropping in stores. People tearing into strangers. A woman in Atlanta on a police officer. David was in the recliner, pale and sweating, coughing into his elbow. Linda was on the loveseat under a blanket, flushed and glassy. Both of them had gone to that PTA meeting two days before.

Mikey had been pressed against Sarah’s side, trying to be brave.

David made a wet sound and coughed again. Then his head snapped sideways with a crack that did not belong in a living room. He went still.

Linda sat up. Her eyes were already wrong.

David looked at his own wife and son like they were food. Blood ran from his nose and mouth. Then he lunged.

The recliner flew. Sarah shoved Mikey toward the hallway and shouted for him to run. David hit the coffee table. Linda came after them with that same jerky speed and no recognition left in her face.

Sarah smashed the heavy glass lamp across David’s head. It staggered him and did not stop him. She kicked the recliner into him for one second of space and sprinted after Mikey.

They made the bedroom. Sarah slammed the door and threw her weight against it while Mikey, crying and moving anyway, shoved the dresser in front of it. Something massive hit the other side. Then the scratching started. Wet. Fast. Relentless.

Sarah’s hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped the phone. She called her dad.

It rang once. Twice.

“Pick up, Daddy. Please.”

Tom’s voice came back already tight, engine roaring behind it.

“They turned,” she told him. She got control the way he had taught her when she was little and upset. “David and Mom. We’re locked in the bedroom. Mikey’s with me. They’re trying to get in.”

“Keep that door blocked,” Tom said. “Do not open it for anything. I’m five minutes out. I’m coming, baby.”

Sarah slid down the wall with the phone against her ear. Mikey crawled into her lap. The scratching filled the whole house.

She stopped there, on Clover Lane, with the dresser holding and the dark hallway on the other side of the door.

The farmyard was quiet except for the percolator ticking down and a night bird off in the pines. Sarah’s face was wet. She was not done. She just could not push the next minute out yet.

Raych started to move. I gave her the nod this time.

We let Sarah have the silence. The Walkers were still out there on the Georgia roads. Hazelhurst was still five miles north. But for that moment the only thing in the camp was a little house on Clover Lane and a locked bedroom door that had to hold until a Marine could get there.