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to hope. It’s all darkness and dread.
    If my girl is on the other side of these doors then why hasn’t she called out to me?
    Nah, something more sinister awaits and I’m ready for it. After everything I’ve seen today, you bet your ass I’m ready for it.
    “Tasia, get the lights.”
    There’s the small plastic click of the switch flipping and the exposed bulb above my head flickers to life, bathing the small world around me in a sickly yellow.
    I steady my nerves, ready my weapon, and yank the door back.
    It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust, even with the assistance of the light behind me, the closet is still cloaked by shadows from the hanging clothes. But behind all of it I see an outline balled in the corner, moving…shaking. Despite the figure doing everything in its power to disappear into the shadows, the tip of a sneaker slips into the light; white with pink spots.
    Alisa’s sneaker.
    “Alisa, it’s me! It’s your dad! You’re safe!”
    “Oh, Alisa, baby!” Tasia starts charging in.
    I hold my arm up, stopping her.
    “You don’t have to be scared anymore.” I drop the hatchet and extend my hands. “Come on, it’s okay.”
    Alisa pulls further away from me. “I killed her,” her voice is flat, void of all emotion.
    “We all killed people today, sweetie. Your mom and me both killed people; we had to, to save you, to save ourselves.”
    “It was Rhonda,” her voice cracks as she says her friend’s name, “she wasn’t a person. She was something else.”
    “People are getting sick. And the sickness, whatever it is, it changes them; it makes them want to hurt people. You did what you had to.”
    Now she’s crying.
    I want to see her, to pull her from the shadows and comfort her. But I have to calm her down first. She’s been through enough trauma. This has to be on her time.
    “I came out of the kitchen and…she was…” the words get caught in her throat.
    “It’s okay; you don’t have to tell me.”
    “I’d gone to the kitchen because Rhonda said she wanted juice. Then I heard all this banging in the hall and I heard her parents and they were just screaming their heads off. So I thought Rhonda had gotten hurt or something. I ran around the corner and Rhonda was biting them on their stomachs and legs…but it didn’t look like Rhonda…her skin and her eyes—”
    “It’s the sickness, sweetie.”
    “I went back in the kitchen and I tried to call you guys but the phone wasn’t working. I was scared she was gonna get me next so I got a knife, a big one like the one mom has, and I started to run for the door cause I was gonna run home and find ya’ll. But when I opened the door, everyone was just…they was losing their minds. A couple of them were doing the same thing as Rhonda; just biting on people. So I came back in and locked the door. I didn’t know where to go.”
    “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry your mom and me couldn’t get here sooner.”
    “The screaming had stopped and I thought maybe everything was okay. So I went to check on Rhonda and her parents. But…Rhonda…she was just eating on them. I felt like I had to help them. All I had was the knife.” She’s crying so hard that she’s struggling to catch her breath.
    “It’s okay, we’re here now.”
    “Her parents…after Rhonda wasn’t hurting them no more…they came back to life. I…didn’t…I didn’t mean to hurt them, Dad.  I didn’t mean to.”
    “Come here, it's okay.”
    She pulls away. “You don’t want to see me.”
    “Yes I do, we’re not mad at you.”
    “No…Dad…you don’t want to see me.”
    “Alisa, come here, now.” I’m not loud, but I’m firm.
    She scoots forward, the light exposing her bit by bit: legs, torso, head.
    It takes everything in me to not let my emotions show, but I’m absolutely horrified.
    Tasia loses it. “Oh my god! My baby! What happened? What happened?”
    Alisa starts crying harder because of Tasia’s reaction and