A gunshot pops the silence, and with it, the bulb of a streetlamp pops. It rebuilds itself while the sparkling asphalt twenty feet below turns into Matteo’s driveway. I’m floating over his fence, through the glass of his windows, which cut me open like an arctic wind.

This house was custom built. There’s nothing old about the room. The beanbags, trophy shelf, and workout bench all belonged to him. Music plays from the cracked door in the connecting bathroom, where a sliver of light spills out. Then I’m sinking through his bathroom door just in time for Matteo Mooney to step onto his bath mat, snag a towel from the rack, and fold it around his waist.

He greets himself in the mirror, pushes wet brown hair to one side, dabs his stubble with shaving cream.

In this mirror I’m invisible as a ghost. I might as well be a ghost. All I see in place of myself is the natural stone of his shower—a cut above the tile in mine.

Matteo sprays Axe all over himself as something sneaks into the corner of the mirror.

It’s a knife. A butcher’s knife, poking through the crack of the door and angled down, like someone’s holding it, ready to stab. Matteo comes out of the trance of his music. He sees it. Freezes. Widens his eyes and—

“Fuck!” He nicks himself with the razor and falls into the towel rack. “What the fuck?!”

The knife speeds toward his chest. Matteo dives for the bathtub, catching on the shower curtain. A ring goes snap!, and he folds, legs tumbling over the side.

The knife hits the wall, pulls away, does a flip through the air.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!” Matteo holds his hands up in surrender, like he can reason with the knife. “Stop!”

It can’t hear him . . . or whatever ghost is holding it isn’t listening.

The weapon traces an S in the air over his body. Matteo stands up in the tub so he’s face-to-face with it.

Run! I think, and the word rattles like an echo from the end of a cave. “Run!”

It’s too late. The knife has come to the end of its acronym. S.A.D. The same letters slathered all over the wall of my house. The same thing that wrote them is the thing that killed Matteo. It’s the thing that was on my patio and the face that was on the news. The menace that has come to my neighborhood.

Sawyer Doon.

The knife impales Matteo’s abs, turning his muscle to soft stomach. It yanks itself out and goes in again harder.

“St-stop . . .” His voice is weak as he slides down the wall, eyes fading, blood seeping over his belly button.