Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror

by Jordan Peele

“Mushroom burgers!” Ami called excitedly, pointing at the picnic basket as if that gem couldn’t wait until she closed the fifty-foot gap. “Oh boy!” Kam called back. And then the lights went out. All of them. Sun, too. Nothing gradual. A sudden flick of a switch somewhere in the universe cast a dark so thick a flashlight couldn’t escape. Kam checked her other senses. Touched thumb to finger. Her arms were still there and so was the ground beneath her. It was the air that was weird, like when the power goes out and the fans stop circulating you can tell it’s stale. The car exhaust still hung heavy. It was the wind that was gone. There was a flattening of sensation. She could hear the confused murmurs, the crashes and car horns, the grass underfoot. But the rumble of the world, the electric hum of everything, could only be heard, not felt. The screams told her this wasn’t just her. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Twenty-one.