"Goddamnit Tim," Brian groused as they struggled out of the truck and toward the door. It was dark out, and these days most people didn't stay out after dark.

Tim was in no condition, held up with Brian's arm under his shoulder, to really argue. It'd been a fight in the Water of Life over politics that turned into a fistfight. He was busy keeping the bleeding from his nose under control. Wham, one right to the face, and that was all it took. Brian got there in time to stop further damage and kick the two guys out, but Tim's nose was already broken.

"Get him to the ER!" John told him, except Brian knew that there would be no ER. Instead, they waited until after dark and tried to avoid main roads to get where they were going. It was a degree of caution that came naturally these days. Across the US, towns were now shutting down at dark, and only desperate people went out after it. Behind doors, rabbits feet, circles of salt, religious iconography. Guns. Lots of guns.

The one thing going in his favor was that the Sheriff's deputies and the EMT's stayed in after a certain hour and people didn't look out their windows, most of which were barred these days. When a glance out the window to see what was glimmering in the treeline or following a strange sound in the night could lead to a corpse the next morning, people lost their curiosity quickly. Night was a time to huddle near the lights of home, to light a fire in the hearth and wonder what would come next.

He didn't blame them; he was as terrified of it as they were, not that he'd be able to explain that to them if they knew he was an Emergent. And Tim couldn't go to a hospital, where they'd examine him and find the anomalies. They'd x-ray, they'd CT scan...they'd find something. They'd do a more careful and thorough check and find the 'stigmata.' Brian didn't know what Tim's were, Emergents tended not to talk about it too much. Then it'd be a call to the federal authorities, who would arrive a day later to take Tim off to wherever they were shipping them. That assumed that he wasn't dragged out by a mob with torches.

Things changed in America. That's why Brian was knocking on this door. Not too loudly, and not yelling, because he didn't want to draw any more attention than he had to. It sound louder to him than the pounding of his heart in his ears.

@carsgovroom

She was painting a seascape. She was always painting goddamn seascapes these days. Macy couldn't help it. She missed Florida. Not the humidity, which she had grown used to after nearly twelve years, but the sunshine. And the beaches. And the fact that it was...home. It was were Val and Henry were. It was were she had gone to college, where she had owned her first apartment, where she had had her first date, where she had gotten her first job. Her whole life had been there.

A life she couldn't go back to. Not now that she was an Emergent.

Macy put down the paintbrush and ran her hands through her hair, likely streaking blue paint through it. But she didn't really care at the moment. Once the locks had been long a dark brunette, but now they were cropped so they brushed the tops of her shoulders and were a shocking white. Back in Florida just about everyone she knew gave her looks of fear, mistrust, and even hatred. They had known her before, known what she had looked like before, and there was no way to hide it. People here gave her pale appearance strange looks, but they didn't know for sure. Fashion trends these days seemed to love pale, the paler the better. Or maybe she was an albino. No one here seemed to remember her, or her family. She had spent years of her life here before Florida, but that had been over twelve years ago. Here she was anonymous, no one. Just a regular person.

It was weird though. Being back in Haye. She had thought it would be different, almost unrecognizable since it had been so long. But that wasn't the case. Sure things had changed, but so many things were the same. She recognized her old elementary and middle schools, as well as the park she and Val had played in after school and on weekends. The bakery she had loved was still there. There were so many memories she had of these streets... She had told Val about it in the first email she had sent her since settling. It's weird being back, she had written, But a good weird. It's nice to be somewhere familiar.

She was jostled from her thoughts by a rapid knocking on her door. She raised her head from her hands and stared at it in confusion, almost believing she had imagined the knock before it happened again. Someone was knocking? On her door? Who the hell...at this hour? Macy looked over at the clock, wincing a bit as she saw the time. She had meant to go to sleep a while ago, but she had gotten distracted by her painting. Then there was another knock, and she finally moved.

The knocking wasn't loud, but she somehow knew it was urgent. The fact that it wasn't loud ruled out Jennings, who was the only other person who ever knocked on her door at night. Her landlord sometimes dropped by, demanding checks she had already given him, and she suspected he was trying to peep into her apartment to look for anything suspicious. He always gave her that mistrustful gaze, and it unnerved her. Kenny, her upstairs neighbor, told her not to worry about it. "He looks at everyone that way, even babies. You got nothing to worry about," he had said.

She reached the door, which was chained for the night, and peeped through the peephole. Two men stood outside, their faces unclear through the hole. Macy bit her lip, and after a moment she tentatively opened the door until the chain became taught. "Who are...," she began, speaking to the man with the beard and the shaved head at first before her gaze traveled down to the other man that he was supporting. "Tim?"" Macy asked, her eyes widening at the sight of his face. It was bloody. She experienced a sort of deja vu as she thought briefly back to the night she had met Tim. He had been bleeding then, too, in an alley behind the restaurant she worked at. She had found him there in the alley and had been unable to leave him there. She had known what he was, that he was an Emergent like her. It was a part of her gift.

"Holy shit." Macy quickly closed the door so she could unlatch the chain and opened it again. "Come inside," she said to the other man. She had quickly studied the fluttering colored light that surrounded him that only she could see. There was a sliver of gold that ran through it, same as Tim's. A telltale sign that he was an Emergent as well. She filed it away in her mind to process later.

Once both men were inside Macy quickly peered out into the hall. All of her neighbors' doors were shut. A good sign, probably. She closed the door, locked and chained it, and turned back around to face the two men. "Here," she said, gesturing to the couch as she darted over to wear a spare cloth was hanging on one of her mismatched kitchen chairs. She unfurled it and spread it out on the couch. "Lay him right here." Macy stood back to give him room. "What happened to him?"

"Political argument," Brian told her. It wasn't the most helpful explanation on the surface. On the other hand, Tim was an activist. He hid his status as an Emergent partially by campaigning openly for Emergent rights, along with Johnny Parr, Brian's brother. Brian stayed out of it because it seemed like trouble brewing. John wasn't an Emergent, as far as Brian knew, and Tim was roping John into unnecessary danger this way. So his tone wasn't entirely approving.

Still, he helped Tim over to the couch; he could explain the rest, if able, though his voice was nasal as he said, "They got all pissed off at what I had to say and slugged me!" Though it came out differently because of the nose.

"Those jackasses weren't serious about talking. They were showing off for girls." The bar business was a daytime thing now, because the night belonged to terror once more. They were back to the Puritan days, huddling behind chains. The problem was that the Water of Life was a good bar. The others in Haye were not as clean or as good with food. It was a place to bring girls precisely because it wasn't some oily redneck bar. Brian was used to the douchebag demographic.

"So you're saying that if I let it slide I wouldn't be here?"

"Yeah. You started on them when they said something off-handed." And then, of course, the comments. Why are you standing up for them against normal decent folk? Hey, fuck you shame-kisser.

It was so predictable that Doug and Butch or whatever their actual names were, would latch onto the chance to show off how tough they were. A couple of Happy Valley dickheads home because PSU was shut down for the semester, looking for an outlet, drinking too much.

"Isn't that cowardice?" Tim demanded.

"No, it's survival," Brian countered. That, of course, was the argument Emergents were having all over the country. Hide or try civil discourse. The other options were unspoken, as yet.

Macy nodded, somewhat sagely, when she heard what had caused Tim's newest injury. It sounded about the same as last time, although this time it didn't seem nearly as bad. At least he hadn't been dumped in an alley and as far as she could see his only serious injury this time was his on his face. She left the room briefly, ducking into her bedroom to fetch a bag of medical supplies before returning. The two men were arguing, Tim was getting agitated, and Macy definitely didn't need this right now. Especially if the fighting started to get loud. The last thing she needed was a neighbor knocking on the door.

"You, stop talking," she said to Tim in a voice she hadn't used since working with the kids at the hospital in Miami. She knelt down next to him, setting her bag down and sweeping her hair back behind her neck with a graceful motion and securing it with a band. "You," she said behind her to the other man, "If this is bad and I need to reset his nose I'm going to need your help holding him down, because I don't have anesthesia."

Macy opened her bag and got to work. It shouldn't become a habit, patching Emergents up on her couch, but it was the closest she had come to providing medical care in a year, and she missed it. She checked his heartbeat, his eyes reactions to light, his blood pressure, and his reactions before looking at his nose. At one point she reaching behind hr and held out a towel, asking the second man to dampen it with warm water to clean the blood off of his face.

"Sorry Tim, this isn't going to tickle," she said apologetically as she carefully started cleaning his face of blood so he could see his nose better. It actually improved tremendously, and Macy let herself settle. It was looking less likely that his bone had been displaced, which was a blessing. She could reset it, but it could get loud if she had to.

"You know," she started as she carefully dabbed more blood away, "A little warning would be nice next time, Tim. Before you just show up at my door bleeding half to death." She glanced behind her at the other man, studying his aura for a moment. She was still trying to figure out what all of the colors meant, but as far as she could see there was no warning sign in his. Plus the gold was a comfort. At least he was an fellow Emergent. "Also...it would be nice to get a head's up if you're bringing a friend over. Didn't I give you my number last time?"

She set the bloody towel down and checked his nose again. No displacement. Thank God for small miracles. Only ice for right now and any kind of pain killer she could dig out of her bag. "You got lucky this time, my friend. Hey," she said to the other man, holding out a fresh towel, "Fill this with ice from the freezer? Please?"

Good advice -- stop talking. Brian wanted to say something more about Tim having a moralistic crusade. His brother, unwittingly, was pulled into the whole thing. It gave Brian a much more visceral reaction. Sure, he cared about the issue, but he didn't care to have his family get torn apart in it.

"I'm sorry, we weren't thinking," Brian told Macy, perhaps lamely. He was trying to apologize for the whole thing, including the argument with Tim in her living room. She didn't deserve that sort of scene. It was something he could take up with Tim later on. He filed it away for later, considering how he'd explain the part about his fears for Johnny. Tim might sneer a bit, and that was the part that got Brian hot under the collar in the contemplation of it. It was borrowing trouble. He knew Tim was a bit of an idealistic prick, but it didn't mean that a heartfelt man-to-man conversation wouldn't work. It was easy to imagine things going worse than they actually did.

To fend off the worries, he followed instructions to get the ice and bundle it in a towel. Brian knew how to do basic first aid, but Macy seemed to have the training that made her a better hand at this stuff. He was handing it over when a scream pierced the night from a distance outside. Brian's eyes flicked over to the chains on the door and then over the rest of the house. Another cry, more unearthly and more like a roar, split the air again. He felt the adrenaline start to surge through his veins. His vision went a little gray around the edges and took on the aspect of a scene watched from a greater distance than the first person.

"Oh shit," he breathed, lowering his voice without doing so intentionally. It made sense, it was good survival instincts, "Do you have a gun?"

@carsgovroom

Macy paused for a moment as she heard the second man apologize. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him, studying him for a moment rather than his aura. It took a moment for her to focus, and her blue eyes fixed on his. It was irritating that they had shown up unannounced, one injured and both arguing. She wouldn't deny it. Macy worked hard to fly under the radar and remain as unassuming and normal as possible. The first time she had brought Tim home to patch up his injuries...it had been a one time thing. That's what she had told herself. But she had immediately reacted when she had seen them at her door that night, not hesitating before bringing them inside. Besides...how could she be angry at them? Where else was there to go?

"It's alright," she told him, a corner of her lips flickering up into a smile. "Really. Just...give me a warning next time, yeah?" Macy turned her attention back to her patient. "Not that there should be a next time. Tim...I thought we talked about this. I might be always be around to patch you up whenever you break something."

While she waited for Brian to fetch her ice for Tim's nose, she was scribbling something down on a pad of paper. "Look, you're lucky the nose bones weren't displaced tonight. That would have been a hell of a lot more complicated for me and a hell of a lot more painful for you. It's going to be swollen for a while, and you might get some black eyes, but if you ice it and take meds you should be able to take care of it on your own. These pain meds," she continued as wrapped his hand around the slip of paper, "are the strongest you can buy over the counter. Since I can't, you know, write you a prescription. So right now...ice. And rest." Her tone made it clear this was nonnegotiable. "I'll get you something to help with the pain. And to sleep."

She stood and took a moment to stretch before turning to Brian, who was returning with the ice. Macy smiled. "Thanks," she told him earnestly as she reached out to take the bundle. "I'm Macy, by the way. I..." Her words were cut off by piercing scream in the night. Macy nearly dropped the ice bundle, and managed to catch hold of it when another cry almost cause it to slip from her hand again. "The Hell...," she swore under her breath as her eyes widened and glanced out of the window. She looked back over at Brian, and she didn't need to see his aura to know that he was tense and alert. "Here," she hissed to Tim, still lying on the couch, as she passed him his ice. "Don't you even think about moving."

Macy stepped beside Brian as he quietly asked if she had a gun. The question caught her off guard, as she had never held a gun before in her life, let alone owned one. "Um...no?" she told him, also taking on his hushed tone. "Should I...should I have one?" The question felt lame as she said it, but his rigid stance was making her heart start to race. Her eyes moved to the door, locked and chained, but what was a lock and chain good for these days? "What is it?" Macy whispered to him.

@HeySeuss

"No idea."

He was being honest. Tim started to stir, but Brian gave a curt shake of the head. His voice was still lowered, "Stay real still."

He wasn't sure what else to do in the situation. He had a handgun, but that was not an ideal weapon except it was easily carried. A shotgun, a rifle, something might have been better, but Macy didn't have one, end of story. His stayed in the holster under his shirt.

"Let's just stay real still."

It was already understood that neither he nor Tim were leaving the place tonight, not after that. Everyone was used to things happening after dark, but this was strange even by that measure. Usually it was whispers in the breeze or lights in the deeper woods. There were reports of 'acute Emergence' in some places, but Haye was not such a place. Those places tended to clear out fast. City block vacated, small town abandoned. People steered clear. There was a revival Puritan's distrust of the wild places and the deep woods. A village in 17th-century New England looked upon the untamed places with fear. 21st century Haye Township and a lot of other places across America were doing the same thing.

It was why Church was a popular thing, and not just for Sundays anymore. Brian got the feeling the pews would be packed after dawn tomorrow.

"What's the next move?" He would have told the nurse that Tim needed to be given xanax and knocked the hell out. That they'd have to spend a sleepless night hoping that whatever that was, it wasn't coming for them. If they were just sleep-deprived the next day, that was the best they can do.

It was ironic. In this situation, the locals would blame the three Emergents in the room, if they knew they were. But the Emergents were just as clueless as the others. They were thrust into this new world with powers that they could barely touch and didn't understand. They had a steeper hill to climb with society out to get them. They were just as likely to be messed with by the new things out there.

@carsgovroom

Staying real still. Shouldn't be an issue. Macy was glued to the spot, and if she moved she know her limbs would be trembling. Nighttime had always been a bit scary, even before the Emergence. And now, after whatever force it was the had caused of this had awakened, it was even scarier. She had heard stories on the road after leaving Florida, unintentionally eavesdropping on her fellow bus riders' conversations, of things out in the night. Things that hadn't been there before the Emergents started popping up. Macy had never experienced it before, though. Not till tonight.

What's the next move? he had asked. Macy turned her head to meet his gaze, her eyes wider than normal. Dive under the covers? she wanted to say. Close my eyes and pray that whatever is out there doesn't come knocking at my door?

She didn't say that though. Even if she hadn't planned on having guests over, she did now. One of them was her patient. "Our first move," she began, forcing calm into her voice as she did so, "is giving Tim something for the pain, and to help him sleep. He needs rest more than we do. After that..." She shrugged and managed a small smile. "Coffee?"

She had fished some pain meds out of her medical kit after that, as well as a Xanax, and she had made sure Tim swallowed everything. "Thanks, Doc," he had mumbled sleepily and nasally a short while after taking them.

Macy's smile was sad. "I'm not a doctor." But she stayed by his side until he started snoring softly.

Then came the hours until morning. No matter how badly her eyes yearned to close and her brain screamed at her to sleep, she didn't. She wasn't sure her nerves would let her. She also couldn't leave Brian alone and awake all night. So she made a pot of coffee, offering a cup to Brian and any other refreshment if he didn't take it. Macy finished painting her seascape, checked on Tim periodically, and chatted quietly with Brian. She didn't think either of them wanted to wake Tim, or draw the attention of whatever had screamed in the night. She was grateful he was here, despite it all. Being alone after hearing that screaming would have been awful, and...she hadn't really talked to anyone in a while. It was nice.

She sunlight starting to creep through the curtains when Tim finally started shifting in his sleep, and was unable to stifle a fairly large yawn. Macy was suddenly grateful that she was working the dinner shift that evening. She looked over to Brian and smiled tiredly. "I can help you take him home, if you want. Make sure he's settled and has everything to take care of his nose." She picked up her mug and took a generous sip of her latest cup of coffee. "Want breakfast?"

@HeySeuss

Night always was nerve-wracking. There were a number of theories as to why the night was more dangerous and magical than the day. They were splashed all over TV as the 'research' into the Emergence progressed. Emergents weren't a part of that conversation, they were trying to hide from being interned in federal camps or having the neighbors show up with pitchforks and torches.

What it boiled down to was the constant awareness that the night was the other time, a constant reminder that Humanity no longer had control. Of course, it was hard to hold a conversation with that looming out there, and he knew, by the way the texts went off on the phone, that family was worrying. His sister was especially annoying with her 'praying 4 every1' text and macros of scripture. Maybe she thought it was reassuring.

The rub of it was that TV was generally following the trend of not talking about certain things after dark. It was light comedy fare. Fantasy and things involving magic were deeply unpopular now due to protests by people like his sister. Perhaps that was why the conversation the night through was kept to the past. That was a popular topic these days, harkening back to an era when there wasn't an evident magical presence in everyday life. It didn't always work to shut down at night. There were stories. It was also when people got attacked by other people on the suspicion of practicing magic.

Tim was out or they'd probably have a deep conversation about such things. He'd go on with the sermon, as annoying as his sister in a way. But toward dawn, Brian felt ready to have that conversation, "I don't know if I want to eat too much breakfast with whatever was screaming out there last night. The sun is going to be up and we're going to find out what went on." And he intended to go out and see.

That was grim stuff for the morning, but that was the way of it. Lock yourself in for the night and clean up the mess the next morning.\

@carsgovroom

Macy rose from her seat and collected her empty mug and the few dishes that were scattered around the room. "Well...if you change your mind there's bagels in the breadbox and cream cheese in the fridge. Help yourself." She put the dishes in the sink and rinsed them off before turning around to look at her guests, leaning back against the counter as she did so. Tim was still sleeping, but she had a gut feeling he would wake up soon. He had been still all night, and was just now starting to stir. Brian was still sitting in the chair she had offered him during the night, and part of Macy still couldn't believe she hadn't recognized him before. But it wasn't really surprising, all things considered.

He had shaved his head and wore a beard now. It had also been about twelve years since she had last seen Brian Parr, or anyone in his family. Their families had lived next door to each other since before she had been born and until the summer she and Val turned fourteen when the Keens moved from Haye to Florida. She had also been closer to the youngest Parr, John, than either of his siblings, who had been older, cooler, and a little intimidating. But Macy and her sister had spent many hours throughout their Haye years at the Parr house with John. After school ours and weekends had been spent running around the backyard, playing on bicycles, hanging out in John's bedroom playing games, going to birthday parties and holidays, and just being kids. Brian and the rest of his family had always been around, and of all the families in Haye the Keens had been closest with the Parrs. Val had had a crush on John's cool older brother, and maybe Macy had, as well. Another life ago, at least. They had obviously both changed, since they were both sitting here.

Macy was less surprised that Brian hadn't seemed to recognize her, since the Macy Keen he had known had been a sun tanned brunette and not an ivory skinned platinum haired zombie lookalike. A part of her couldn't believe he remembered her at all, since she had just been his younger brother's friend. She couldn't tell if he had been surprised or shocked by how her physical appearance had been transformed by her Emergence.

She adverted her gaze for a moment, fixing her eyes on the photograph of Val and her that was propped on a table. "Look, uh, Brian... I would really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone that would remember me that I'm back in town." Macy shrugged her shoulders. "No one seems to remember me or my family, and even if they do they don't recognize me. I'm getting away with my appearance because people think I'm really committed to the goth aesthetic. But if someone who used to know me knew... I just don't want to have to pack up and move. So...please?"

Tim made a half asleep noise and stretched his arms. His head raised from the pillow she had tucked under it during the night and Macy met his bleary eyes. She had bandaged his nose overnight, but she could still see that it was swollen. Still...it could have been worse. "We should take him home," she said tiredly, the fatigue of an all nighter starting to hit. She could hear movement from the apartments above and beside her, which meant the sun had to be at least rising.

@HeySeuss

"Yeah, I get it." Brian had plenty of his own bagfuls to hide. He wore long sleeves now, because yesterday his tattoos were a scene of punk rock skulls and graffiti. This morning, they were a Japanese geisha scene, something out of a Hokusai print. They'd probably change in a couple hours to something else. His hair was gone because there was a white lock in the middle of the dark. It happened one day. These things got a person in a lot of trouble.

"You got some kind of ID? Something you can fake? If they ask for your license, you might get caught that way."

It would be easy, Says here you're a brunette, missy, and you sure look awfully tan in this here picture... A lot of the cops were getting tougher. Sheriff Luntz was in charge for now and keeping them reigned in, but there was an election coming up and a lot of people wanted someone that seemed more aggressive. A person that took drastic action to reassure people. It was bullshit, of course, but that didn't change the craving for something more forceful if only to reassure.

Tim was starting to stir, of course, but he was still pretty out. Painkillers and something for sleep, he seemed groggy. Perhaps, due to the chemicals interacting with an altered physiology, he was hit particularly hard. Brian tried to nudge him awake, but didn't get very far.

"Might need some help out to the truck," he observed wryly. Meanwhile, outside, there was the sounds of car engines and movement out nearby. It coincided with the dawn. The authorities got the calls last night but waited until the morning to send patrol units out to check everything. It was eerily like "The Purge." Services resumed at sunrise...

@carsgovroom

"Thank you," Macy told him, visibly relaxing when he said he'd keep quiet. He asked if she had a fake I.D. to cover the change in her appearance and she smiled slightly. It was true, she did not own on gun. But some fake identification...

"Don't worry about that," she said, reaching into the handbag that had been tossed onto the counter hours ago and pulling out a wallet. She plucked her driver's license from it and held the card so Brian could see it. "Say hello to Taylor Rose, Pittsburgh native." The age, height, and weight hadn't changed from her old license, but the new Pennsylvania license had a picture of Macy post Emergence, as well as a Pittsburgh address and other fake information.

She also had a birth certificate and a social security card for Taylor Rose. Val had somehow procured them for her. Macy didn't know how, where or how much it had cost her sister to get these things for her, but once the package had arrived at the house Val had put her in for the first month after fleeing Miami, she had been grateful It had meant she could leave, go somewhere and start over and make a new life for herself. It wasn't much of a life that she had now, truth be told, but at least it was a life. And it beat the alternative.

"So call me Taylor in public. I'm pretty much covered, except for a passport which means not international travel. Which I wasn't planning on doing anyway." Macy had pulled on some comfy boots and was looking at Tim thoughtfully. He was conscious, but only barely. She wasn't a short woman, so she could help Brian support him while they made their way to the car. "I can help you," she told him now. "But...if you think we need an extra pair of hands I've got a neighbor upstairs who can help. He's good." Kenny was good, or at least good enough for an average citizen in today's society. He had his quirks, like the rest of the people who lived in her building, but overall she knew he was a decent guy. At least compared to some people, like Mr. Jennings. But Kenny wasn't like the landlord, Macy could see it, and she was confident that would help them out without asking questions.

@HeySeuss

Brian took a look out the window. Ford panthers, cruisers. Sheriff Mark was on the scene, so were some deputies and an ambulance. Brian shook his head at Macy, "Let's not risk it right now. Let's leave Tim to sleep it off."

He stepped out the door, and into the front lawn area of the apartment, along with other crowd types. He could hear the muttered prayers and rumormongering discussion among the others, but didn't join in. Sheriff Mark picked him out of a crowd.

"Brian, thought I saw the truck." Mark Luntz was a big man with a fairly large belly, but also muscle. As a small town Sheriff, his humdrum job became that much harder with Emergence. He looked like he hadn't slept well, but that wasn't unusual. Lots of people had nightmares these days.

"Yeah, was giving a friend a ride home from the bar. Wound up shuttering in place when I heard whatever that was last night."

Mark had a grim look on his face.

"It's not pretty." He gestured him toward the cruiser, away from the others. Brian followed along in silence, rubbing his head. He knew that look on a law enforcement officer.

"Truth is, Brian," Mark shuffled from one foot to the other a bit before steadying himself, "It's ugly. You sure you don't want to deputize? Guy with your experience, I could make you senior deputy, reporting to me only."

"No thanks, I just don't want to get into it again." He made it sound like he'd seen something so traumatic that he resigned from the Marshals. It was his usual story that he told friends and family.

"Yeah, I kind of figured."

"So what was it, you think?"

"No idea, but there's a body," Mark's voice was lowered, "And it looks like it's been eaten. But what's worse is that there's signs that the body was methodically butchered."

"Fuck," Brian breathed, "A cannibal?"

"Who knows these days? But keep that to yourself. There's going to be hell to pay with the locals already without knowing the details. EMT's and deputies know to keep their mouth shut. I'm just telling you as a professional courtesy. Start carrying a gun."

"Yeah, I get that." It was hard to say what Brian felt around him, except there was a sense of dread around the place and no real reason why he'd feel that. But there'd been impressions since Emergence started. He'd hear things that weren't there, or see symbols here and there. And where the body was covered, there were symbols painted over it, as if in blood red. He knew that it wasn't something others were seeing. He couldn't tell what the hell that all meant, because he had no idea how to read any of it.

"Thanks for the heads up, Sheriff. I'm going to get out of your way."

He made his way back to Macy, while the crowd murmured and muttered. A couple locals that knew him asked him what was up, and he didn't say much. But then, Brian Parr was known as the closemouthed middle child. His brother and sisters had the gift of gab, but Brian was more taciturn. But once he and Macy were more alone, he told her, "Something killed, butchered and ate a person. That's what we heard last night. Maybe you should take a look from a distance, see if you get something out of it when the crime scene unit clears out..."

@carsgovroom

Brian stepped out of the door and disappeared, leaving Macy behind to bite her lip thoughtfully. She glanced over her shoulder to peer out of the window and saw the police and other emergency vehicles barricaded on the street outside of the old boarding house. The sight of them made her got still for a second. The screaming that had rung through the night was still very present in her memory.

Tim was fitful on the couch, so Macy left him a glass of water, a couple of pills, and half of a plain bagel on the coffee table in front of him. Then she pulled a thick black sweater on over the paint splattered button up and trudged out of the door.

There was a respectably sized crowd standing on the lawn watching the police work. Jennings was either not yet awake or too caught up in figuring out what was going on to yell at them all about standing on his grass. Many of onlookers were Macy's neighbors from the boarding house, but there were some who looked like they lived nearby or had been passing by on their morning walk or jog and had stopped to see what all of the commotion was about. Everyone looked very pale and the whisperings among the clusters of people were quiet. That couldn't have been a good sign.

Macy paused behind one cluster of her neighbors. Among them were Kenny, her upstairs neighbor. He was fairly young, not too much older than Macy herself, and was a thrill seeker of sorts. Rock climbing, backpacking, and spelunking were among his various hobbies, and he told anyone that would listen about the big Australia trip he was saving for. Mrs. Emerson, who was a widow with a few too many birds that lived down the hall from Macy, was also among them. Macy joined the cluster of people who all knew her as Taylor Rose, and they nodded to her solemnly before turning their attention back to the police cars.

"What's going on?" she whispered to her neighbors. She spied Brian walking with the sheriff, and the two of them looked to be deep in conversation. She watched them for a few moments before turning back to her neighbors.

"Some kinda murder, I think," Kenny said. He was typically a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but under the circumstances his trademark grin was gone. "They must have been the one screaming like that last night." He shivered, and Macy didn't blame him.

"Poor soul," Mrs. Emerson commented sadly, and the others nodded in agreement. "Dreadful, dreadful thing. I've lived in this town my entire life, and this sort of thing would have been unheard of. Before..." She trailed off, but she didn't need to finish her sentence for everyone to know what she was going to say. Before the Emergents. Her neighbors were, for the most part, decent people, this Macy could see. But everyone had their fears and suspicions. She was still trying to get used to reading auras and deciphering their meanings, but Macy knew that they were wondering if an Emergent had done this.

It made her nervous. Understandably. For her and her two house guests.

Brian was walking back towards the house, having finished his conversation with the sheriff. He rejoined her, and then they disappeared back into the sanctuary of Macy's apartment. She closed and locked the door behind them, then leaned against it as she exhaled.

Brian told her what he had found out from the sheriff, and it made her feel nauseous. "Jesus Christ..." Maybe Mrs. Emerson had been right, and something like this would never had happened before. Or maybe it had always been like this, and now whatever it was just didn't need to hide.

Macy glanced over at Brian after he suggested that she take a look and bit her lip. "I'm not sure if it works like that... I'm still not sure how it works at all." It was just color and light, and being outside a few moments ago had exposed her to a lot of it. If she hadn't had practice in seeing past the auras it would have overwhelmed her, and truthfully it had still started to give her a headache. She crossed the room to pull back the curtains a bit more to peer outside. Swirls of color is what she saw, and in various shades. It all meshed together to create something rather unpleasant, and her eyes started to ache.

Macy looked away, turning her back on the window to face Brian. "A lot of fear, suspicion, and mistrust. I think. I'm not sure what all of the colors mean, but it wasn't pretty." She crossed her arms and closed her eyes, trying to will the headache away. "I'll look again, but I'm not sure what you want me to see. Plus we still have..." She nodded her head towards Tim. "It's gonna be crazy like this for a while. And moving him will be very conspicuous. Which isn't good for me, personally."

@HeySeuss