Panic started to make a home inside Chris’s head the moment he saw his mom get approached by those things. When she died, dread and just about everything associated with anxiety soon followed. It’s been days and he’s made no real move yet. He’s been at home since it happened. Hiding and barricading himself inside from whatever those things were that got her. He’s been too scared to even try to go outside of the main house let alone out of their lot. He’s been too scared to even try and see if his mother was alright, but he saw her get ripped part so he’s sure that she’s dead. Her body was just right outside after all, lying there, rotting, and then it moved. He wasn’t scared that she moved. He was scared because now he was all alone inside this house. 

Their house was pretty small, they had a small backyard, but at least it was fenced and made things pretty private. This was a good thing then and now. This house has been the main reason that Chris is alive today. The moment the screaming started, he locked the door, went to his room, hid in the closet and stayed as quiet as possible. It was really hard to though.

At some point Chris fell asleep and then woke up later. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark so it didn’t matter much. He could have checked any number of clocks or his watch, phone, anything that could tell time, but the first thing he did was check the window and see what was happening outside. He wanted it to have just been a nightmare, but that wasn’t the case. Life was too real for it to have been a nightmare. There were a few of those things outside standing around. 

He was content on standing there watching them stand there, but then something happened. It, what happened, was a person. Chris knew him; he lived in front of their house. He didn’t know his name, but he knew that his neighbor was living alone. From what Chris could tell he was moving away from his house and slowly creeping away to who knows where. It was like watching something straight out of fiction. Only this was real life and not something, he watched on TV. His neighbor made a small step, but his foot stepped on something and made a sound. The next thing he knew that thing standing outside was now running towards his neighbor.

Chris didn’t bother to watch anymore he knew what would happen next after all he saw the same thing happen to his mom. After moving away from the window, Chris went into the kitchen. He sat in the countertop for hours listening to the non-silence. He was too sluggish to move, he was too scared to make a noise, and even though he was feeling hungry, he dared not to eat since he was sure he was going to throw up if he did. After finally deciding to eat something, he spent more time doing nothing eventually he fell asleep again. 

In the three days that followed, he kept to the initial routine that he made for himself right after his neighbor died. He didn’t do anything else outside, eat, sleep, keep clean, and to an almost obsessive degree he just watched whatever happened outside through the front window, Those things were still outside, but since he kept quite they didn’t bother him.

Anything he did outside of the routine he did with utmost care and silence. He made sure that when he moved the sofa and the bookshelf to the front doors and windows there weren’t any of those things nearby. He got lucky and managed to finish barricading the house without attracting any attention. He made sure to do it slowly and carefully. When he moved the bookshelf he took out everything first, moved it, and then put everything back right after. 

He knew he could have done more, but he always felt tired and dreary. No one could blame him though, and now no one will. It was a little saddening. 

Boredom and a foreboding sense of fear has been companion in those days of calm. He could have entertained himself by watching TV or turning in the radio, which would have probably helped him, gather info, but he didn’t want to gather any attention. For the most part he read his books, comics, and stared out that window again and again. He watched the same view from the same window every day until his vision would begin to blur and his brain would begin to numb and fall asleep. Day in and day out nothing changed except the view from outside that window.