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Back The Neighborhood Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. Part I Reconnaissance
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Part II Incursion
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Part III Under Siege
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Part IV Course Correction
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Part V Balance of Power
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Part VI Spy versus Spy
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Part VII Winds of War and Flame
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Part VIII Strong to the Finish
  50. Chapter Forty-Two
  51. Chapter Forty-Three
  52. Part IX Spy Games
  53. Chapter Forty-Four
  54. Chapter Forty-Five
  55. Chapter Forty-Six
  56. Part X What Goes Around
  57. Chapter Forty-Seven
  58. Chapter Forty-Eight
  59. About the Author

Help who, Ben? Oh no. Please don’t do something stupid, you beautiful boy. Her emotions roiling, she stepped inside, closed the door on the sounds of chaos, and turned off the lights. She needed to calm down, to think, to plan.

* * *

Zack stood twenty feet inside the woods near the section of Founder’s Circle between the main drive and his street. He waited and watched, the night-vision monocular scanning the scene before him. The entire situation felt wrong, especially the police vans that were parked on the grass of the central hub. His fleeing neighbors seemed oblivious to them in their haste to escape, but Zack knew better. He also recognized next-generation communications equipment when he saw it, and the multiple antennas on their roofs screamed at him, echoes of a former life. These were not police vehicles, no matter how hard they’d tried to disguise them.

Once the sirens had announced the police presence, Zack had fled back inside and waited. He’d had a choice: ignore the police or wait and see what they wanted, praying they weren’t after him. He hadn’t committed any crimes—yet.

The officer that had finally come to his door several minutes later had looked and sounded like a sheriff’s deputy, but there was something off about him, an underlying menace just below the surface that Zack had once been trained to detect. Without that training, he never would’ve suspected the man was an impostor. It wasn’t obvious, but it was there nonetheless. He’s a killer, not a cop. But he also knew that none of his neighbors would see it. That’s not who they were. Hell, it’s not who I am, not anymore. So he’d played along with the officer, responding exactly the way any startled civilian in suburbia would in the middle of the night at the sudden appearance of law enforcement, especially in a community like Hidden Refuge. He’d only thrown one curveball at the impersonator, just to see how the man would react.

“Real quick, officer, before you go—do you have any idea why the phones and internet are out? I can’t get any kind of signal.” No urgency, no suspicion, just a question.

The officer hadn’t responded immediately, studying Zack’s face for a tell that the resident standing before him was a threat. Zack had felt that kind of intensity before, but he remained motionless and calm, as if standing before a coiled king cobra, waiting for the strike.