The Blanks (The Shivers Collection, #3)

by Grady Hendrix

out here with no cars, fewer screens, and slower schedules, everyone was their best self.

Back in the city, their classmates have panic attacks and social anxiety. They have eating disorders and self-harm. But every summer, Zee and Callum and our neighbors’ kids run free with sand in their hair and sunburn on their noses, and they go back to the city with a force field of self-confidence and independence that keeps them safe. It was so good for sixteen years. Until the Litvaks.

We always tell the kids that if they see something funny, look away. Ignore it. But we never worried too much. The Blanks never act like this. They haven’t acted like this in years.

They’re standing in the trees, barely ten feet away, outlined by the Stannards’ backyard light. There are more of them than I’ve ever seen before. Their tall, still shadows stand out against the trees; their dead eyes reflect yellow in the houselights. All of them stare at this window—all of them stare at my son.

Nothing bad happens if you leave them alone, if you just pretend they don’t exist.

I’m shouting because it’s too late. We made a deal years ago, and the time to back out has passed. Our life is built on that deal. It’s built on these families. Birthdays, deaths, summers, everything. And now it’s too late.

“Rachel?” I turn around, so grateful to have her as a friend. “I just realized we promised the kids pizza tonight,” she says. “Let’s do margaritas another time, okay?” And I know this is goodbye.

I can’t move. I open my mouth, trying to get air, because suddenly nothing is the same anymore. I’ve been abandoned. I look at Jenn’s expectant face. She’s waiting for me to tell her “Cool! Some other time!” but I know there won’t be another time, and I can’t move, and her smile is starting to get stiff. She lied to me.

“Our daughter,” I hiss, “is not going to grow up without a father because you wanted to pop the hood and look at the engine! I am not going to be a single parent because you wanted to do performative macho bullshit!”