The following evening, Claire braced herself outside the double doors leading to the dining room. It had been years since she’d been in this position, outside this door at this traditional, appointed time, but here she was. She heard voices through the doors, laughter, a hum that was years of Saturday nights old but which all of a sudden felt new to her, as if she were a rededicated convert to a church she’d attended when she was younger, where the rituals were familiar but still felt intimidating and foreign, cut with the same fear as when she’d experienced them as a child. She turned the handles and pulled the doors open, where they were arrayed waiting for her. They were all waiting for her.

When he had outlasted the limits of the suburbs, Tyler walked along the shoulder of the state road in the channel between the road and the fields, long into the heat of the day. He was desperately tired. His entire body ached, his face stiff and numb, as if it had frozen in place. His sweat smelled like gas. He put himself forward one step after the other, same as ever, a walking torch waiting to be lit, but he knew it was only a matter of time until the exhaustion brought him down, when his body just stopped working altogether and his vision spotted over completely, when the darkness took him for whatever was left.

Late that afternoon, along a desolate patch of road—the only sign of life was power lines, farmland—a car pulled over to give him a ride. By that point, Tyler’s concentration was too narrow to see the car as it approached, and he didn’t notice until it had slowed and followed alongside him for a period of time, until the door slammed—an interruption in the air, he didn’t read it as a car door—and the driver appeared in front of him, blotting out his surroundings. The figure braced Tyler’s upper half as his legs, finally, gave out beneath him, and he collapsed into the stranger.