There was a sound from down the hallway, a distinct creak. Clay’s eyes lifted, and he set the file carefully back on his desk.

“John?” he called, but there was no response. With practiced calm, Clay quietly reached for the gun he kept in a holster under his desk and flipped the safety off. He went to the open office door and paused, listening for another noise from the dark hall. Nothing came. Clay pulled the door shut, snapping the deadbolts into place.

Clay stepped back into the center of the room and stood, listening. A moment passed in silence and his eyes dropped, his shoulders feeling at ease, but suddenly his eyes lifted again, and his jaw clenched. He took one deliberate step back, focusing directly on the center of the door ahead of him. He lifted and steadied his gun, and took aim. Several minutes passed, but Clay’s eyes never wavered. There was something in the hall.

*  *  *

John let his front door fall shut behind him with a heavy thud and tossed his keys on the kitchen counter. He sat down heavily on the couch, letting his head fall back, weighted down with fatigue. After only a moment, he lifted his head back up: the strange noise was coming from his bedroom again. It sounded a little like the sounds the rabbit’s head had been making, but something had changed, though he couldn’t pinpoint how. It sounded like a voice, then static, a voice, then static. Something was being repeated.

John’s bedroom door was almost all the way closed, and he got up from the couch and approached it slowly from the side, putting his feet down silently one after the other, the rubber soles scarcely tapping the floor. He eased the door open: the sound was louder now, more distinct: the voice continued, garbled and muffled. John turned on the light and went to Theodore’s head. He bent over so his eyes were level with Theodore’s plastic ones, and listened. The rabbit’s head stared back, muttered words, broke into static, then a moment later repeated. John grabbed a notebook and pen off his bed and closed his eyes, concentrated on the sounds.

After a minute, he began to hear words. “Shining?” John whispered. “Shining—something. Silver?” He continued to listen, but he couldn’t make out the rest. John gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, glaring at the stuffed rabbit’s head as it continued to repeat the same incoherent phrase. John drew in a long breath, then let it out, trying to release the tension in his neck, in his jaw, in his back. He sat down on the bed, put the pen and paper down, and closed his eyes once more. Just listen. The sounds repeated, again and again. Suddenly, they resolved, like song lyrics after the thousandth play: John understood.

“Shining Star? Silver … something. Silver Reef? Shining Star, Silver Reef.”