Because Tom the man wasn’t the reason that house went mad. That outcome, that blood, stains the hands of Gary. Gary, who convinced Don to tear the drapes down. Gary, who entered the house like a little, lethal spider in thespian’s clothing. It’s been sixteen years and she still shudders at the thought of him. Of his voice. His face. His beard. His jacket. His notebook. His words. His chalky white hands upon Don’s shoulder. Whispering in Don’s ear like a demon. Telling him the creatures aren’t real, mankind has lost their collective mind. Man is the creature he fears.

Malorie walks up the hall, fast. Dean is close behind.

“You two had a fight?” he asks.

“Something like that.”

“Well,” Dean says. “My eyes are open. And I can tell you he isn’t in this hall.”

“How about the cabins? Is he in someone else’s room?”

“Whose would he be in?”

They’ve reached the end of the hall. Dean opens the door.

The air comes at her, fresh and cool, and Malorie, blind, turns her head left, imagining Tom leaping from the moving train, stepping off between cars.

She hears the sound of the slap, her hand against Tom’s face.

“He’s not in this hall, either,” Dean says as they enter the next car. “But there’s something ahead you’re not going to like.”

“What?” Malorie freezes. She thinks of the casket in storage.

“Sorry,” Dean says. “It’s just clothing. But…a hoodie and some gloves. And, yes, a blindfold, too.”

“Oh, God.”

Because now Tom didn’t just storm off. Now he’s discarded the armor.

Malorie can’t think straight. She needs to find him. She needs to get off this train.

And she can’t keep what she heard to herself anymore.

“I overheard someone talking about a creature on board,” she says, her voice rattled, nearly hoarse. “Someone in one of the cabins said something about a creature in one of the caskets in storage.”

Dean is quiet. Is he studying her? Is he weighing how paranoid she really is? And the next words he speaks…Will they placate? Will they humor? Will they dismiss?

“I’ll check storage,” he says. Firm. Decisive. Serious. “You keep going ahead. Find Tom.”

“Okay.”

Then he’s gone. And Malorie kneels to pick up the clothing Tom has left behind.

“He shed his skin,” she says. Or thinks. She doesn’t know.

But what if his skin is all that protects him from the new world?

She can barely stop from falling apart. The train rocks. Dean’s footsteps grow quiet behind her before she hears a door open and close. She’s alone again. Looking for her son. No, not looking. Never looking. Never looking at all.