Where He Can't Find You

by Darcy Coates

Rule #1: Stay indoors after nightfall, or you’ll be taken.

The nightmares were always the first warning. They came before any of the other signs—before the birds that plunged out of the sky, before the streetlights all died, before the sickness. Before the disappearances.

Abby remembered how, when she was young and eager to have adventures, she’d wanted to explore some of those empty buildings. She’d quickly learned why that was a bad idea. It wasn’t unheard of to find things in them.

This was how you survived in Doubtful. You watched. You learned. And you figured out the rules that would keep you safe.

Most of the disappearances were like that—there were the facts you could establish, things you knew for certain, but so many holes left that you never felt as though you truly understood it.

It was at the lakeside where they’d first started calling themselves the Jackrabbits. Because a jackrabbit never drops its guard, Rhys had said. A jackrabbit runs, and it runs fast, and it survives.

It’s human nature. We want to feel that we have control over our destiny, that we wouldn’t ever make the same mistakes that cost someone else everything.

Rule #2: Red thread means a stitcher victim is close by.

First, complex technology fails. The cars and smartphones and computers. Then the less complicated machines; streetlights, radios. The simple machines, though…the clocks, the doorbells, the house lights… When they go, it’s as bad as it can get.

They were so careful. They had the rules. They were so careful.

But in every case? No one, no matter their personality or temperament, ever made a sound?

Alma, slowly pacing away, continued to murmur to herself. “So sad. He takes so many. And only one of them ever came back.” Abby froze at the door. Slowly, she turned toward Alma, who stood at the window and stared out into the morning light. “Did you say…” Her voice caught. Every hair rose as gooseflesh covered her. “Someone came back?”

Rule #3: Stay as far from Charles Vickers as you can.

Tiny, tiny mistakes that would have been inconsequential any other day. But for some reason, the universe’s gears get jammed at that exact second, and your tiny mistake permanently changes the remainder of your life.

It turned out a person could make the correct choice, and still feel strangled by regret.

You never know how you’ll act under pressure until you’re forced to find out.