Annie leaned slightly over the table when she heard Charlie coming back. She wasn’t ready for him to see this yet. He handed her a can of Coke and nibbled on a chunk of cheese and a handful of crackers he’d found for himself. He flopped back onto the floor and continued what he’d been doing before.

Annie worked on the creature’s body for a few minutes until she noticed she was losing her natural light. She glanced up at the skylights. Where had the sun gone? A bank of clouds the color of ink had moved in.

“Looks like a storm coming our way,” she said to Charlie.

He looked up. “Whoa,” he said. “I’m going outside to look.”

He was on his feet in a second and heading for the door. The train continued to run.

“Aren’t you going to turn off—”

But he was already running down the stairs. “Stay on the porch!” Annie shouted.

She slid off her chair and considered, briefly, turning off the train, or at least easing back the throttle to slow it down, but it had been running nonstop for a couple of hours without a problem and Charlie would likely be back up here shortly, so she left it alone.

Annie came down the stairs, not at a gallop like Charlie, but one careful step at a time. It had become so dark, so quickly, that she flicked on the front hall lights before she joined Charlie, who had left the front door wide open and was standing at the top of the porch steps, gazing into the dark sky. The wind was picking up and there were flickers of light in the creases of the clouds.

“Lightning!” he cried with excitement, pointing.

And five seconds later, a thunderous clap loud enough to make them both jump.

“That was close!” Annie said.

As if turned on by a switch, rain instantly came pelting down. Charlie took half a step back under the porch roof to keep from getting wet.

More lightning and another crack of thunder. Annie slipped her arm around Charlie’s shoulder and pulled him close.

“Look!” Charlie said.

He was pointing not at the sky, but down toward the road. It was Daniel’s wife, Dolores, who’d spurned Annie’s attempt at neighborliness that first day. She was walking down the driveway of their home toward the road, arms hanging down at her side, seemingly oblivious to the rain. She crossed the road without looking, not that there was ever much traffic, but still, Annie thought. Dolores moved as if in a trance, reminding Annie of Charlie during his rare episodes of sleepwalking.

“She’s getting soaked,” Annie said.

“She’s looking right at us,” Charlie said.

Dolores continued her robotic walk, her arms hanging motionless at her side. The rain had plastered her gray hair to her skull.