He is in the middle of a story when he stops talking and the smile fades from his face. I follow his eyes to the box above the door and it is blinking red.

According to Walter, the herd of greyskins walking through the middle of Foley is gigantic. Hank stands next to us as Walter and Barry look at us like we betrayed their trust.

“We didn’t see anything,” Ethan says.

“We didn’t lead greyskins here,” Gilbert adds. “Sensors don’t do much more than tell you when something is coming do they?” He looks at Hank when he says this.

“We’re just going to have to wait them out,” Barry says. “If we stay quiet, they won’t come into the school.”

“We have everyone on lockdown?” Walter asks.

Barry nods.

Walter lets out a sigh. “We aren’t blaming you three for bringing them. Just weird timing is all.”

“We hate it worse than you,” I say, but it sounded better in my mind before it came out.

Walter looks at me sideways and shakes his head. “Hank, you got a place for them to stay?”

“Of course!” he says a little too loudly. “I’ve got plenty of more stories to tell. Some good, some sad, all of them with a purpose.”

“I’d almost rather take my chances with the greyskins,” Gilbert says.

Barry looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “We don’t know you, pal. Don’t tempt us to make you try.”

We sit for hours, waiting for the herd to pass like a slow moving storm and I feel like a child that can’t go outside because of the rain. The morning turns into afternoon, and the afternoon, evening.

“Oh, these herds can last for days,” Hank tells us. “It’s madness. Every step we take has to be taken with care. We aren’t even allowed to flush the toilets for fear that one of those creatures will hear.”

Gilbert makes another snide comment about having a wall, but he is ignored. By sunset we know there will be no traveling for the night and Hank helps us set up cots in his apartment that used to be Room 204 - Biology. He explains to us that in the morning, a few of the guys will try to go out and make noises away from the school to point the herd in a different direction. It is a dangerous job that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.