S1, E5 The Strangers

At the end of Episode 4, Severn had given the kids, Tommy and Vi, powerful sleeping pills to knock them out for what appeared to be the beginning of another lurching. At the end of the episode, they were all sleeping. That's where we pick up Episode 5.

Transcript

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This is Ed Falco on the air, reading The Strangers. A novel in 18 episodes. At the end of episode 4, Severn had given the kids, Tommy and Vi, powerful sleeping pills to knock them out from what appeared to be the beginning of another lurching. At the end of the episode, they were all sleeping. That's where we pick up episode 5. The first time it happened, Severn recognized it and knew it for what it was. He waited a minute and then pulled himself groggily up far enough out of sleep to lay a hand over Tommy's neck. When he felt warmth and a pulse throbbing, he dragged himself to the bottom of the bed and did the same for Vi. She too was asleep and alive. The room was black as a cave. He felt around in the dark and found one of the wine decanters whereby had lined it up with the other decanter and the carafe on top of the dresser. She had put a glass in front of each container. He took a sip of water and then carried the glass and the decanter back to his night table and put it down carefully next to the candle and lighter. It was utterly black now and he figured he was in the middle of it. First the rain and the storm and then the event. He had felt that lurching from some place way down in his sleep, and he had recognized it. Now he was awake in a darkness he also recognized. First the rain and the storm, and then the event, followed by a slow clearing and a variable period of calm before it started again. Except, no, that wasn't right. The first three events happened overnight, within a period of eight or nine hours. Because they had happened at night, he had never been able to see the sky and tell what was happening with the clouds. But the storm hadn't completely stopped, and the weather hadn't completely cleared between the first and second lurching. He was sure of that. So there wasn't a predictable pattern. Three lurchings overnight, and then a break of several hours and a complete clearing. Then it started again. Sage made a small whimpering sound, and Severn considered getting up to pet her. But his body still felt like it weighed a ton. He settled down in the bed and closed his eyes and sank down again into sleep. The second time it happened he recognized it, but he didn't wake up. It happened in the middle of a dream. He had been lowering himself into a cave with an elaborate rope and pulley system. Sarah was on the ground above him, watching him descend. Something slipped and he lurched it down. Falling a dozen feet before the ropes caught him, and when he looked up, he couldn't see Sarah anymore. She had been a tall figure, looking down at him, silhouetted against a bright sky. But after the fall, he couldn't see out of the cave, and everything was darkness. Even in the dream, he knew what had happened. One part of him was in a cave, dangling on a rope, and another part of him knew that he was sleeping, and another event had just happened. But the part of him that was in the cave was stronger, and he continued descending into the darkness, leaving Sarah behind. The third launching woke him up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and was standing in the dark before he was fully conscious. Behind him, Tommy said, I can't see anything. Severn heard the bedsheets rustle, and then Tommy's feet hitting the floor. Tommy said, Is anybody here? And then he yelled, Hey, as if something had frightened him. And that was followed by the sound of the nightstand knocked into the wall. Severn said, What's wrong? And climbed over the mattress, feeling for Tommy in the dark. Vi's sleepy voice said, What? And then immediately, Where's Sage? Oh, Tommy said. It was the dog. Severn was behind Tommy, holding him by the shoulders. What was the dog? I bumped into him, Tommy said. I bumped into Sage. It scared me. Out of the darkness, I said, Her? You bumped into her? Sage is a girl. Great, Tommy said. Can somebody light a candle, please? Severn lit a candle and the bedroom emerged out of the dark. The candle's small light played over the shaded windows and the white ceiling and the green pale walls that looked dark in the glow of a wavering flame. He handed it to Tommy and then he lit another one and brought it to Vi, who was sitting up cross legged on her mattress. She looked like a kid up at night awake during a sleepover, except for the battered face and dirty clothes. Severn sat on the mattress beside Vi. Outside, the wind was raging and blowing a driving rain into the house. Sheets of rain crashed into the outer walls and the roof in a kind of rhythm, low to high, hard to soft. First, the hard hit against the walls, and then the tapering off as the rain splashed over the roof. The three of them were silent, and Severn figured that the kids were gathering their thoughts, remembering where they were, and trying to comprehend it all, which is exactly what he was doing. Sage waited with her nose against the dresser that blocked the bedroom door, motionless and silent. When it occurred to him that the dog being on her feet was a good sign, he seized on it. Sage is up, he said. That's good. What's she doing? How come she's standing? Tommy said, she's facing the hall. You think there's something out there? She just wants to get out, Severn said. She's telling us she needs to go out. Are you sure? Vi asked. Yes, I'm sure. Severn lit a third candle for himself, and then slipped the carbine over his shoulder. He pushed the dresser back from the door. I need to go out too, Tommy said. Vi said, I do too. To Severn, she added, Will you stand outside the bathroom? She said it defiantly, as if she knew she should be braver and didn't care. Severn pushed the dresser aside and waited at the bedroom door next to Sage, with his hand on the knob. A sense of foreboding and fear was with him again, but he felt better able to push it down. To Vi, he said, Indoor plumbing's not going to work but once. There's water in the tank now, but once you flush it, that'll be it. There won't be any more water flowing in. Vi nodded. But Severn was pretty sure she didn't get what he was trying to tell her. So what I'm saying, he added, is that if you have to go, you should probably go outside. In this rain, Tommy said. But I said, do you have an umbrella? Multiple umbrellas, Severn said. No problem, plus rain gear. He squeezed the doorknob about to open it, and then changed his mind, and pointed to the dresser and the containers of water. Anybody want a drink, he asked. And he lifted one of the wine decanters from his night table and drank from it. Vi and Tommy went to the dresser and each drank from their own container. Wow, Tommy said, draining his decanter. I didn't realize how thirsty I was. Vi looked up toward the sound of the rain pelting the house. Water won't be a problem, at least. Tommy said, I really have to go. And then Sage whimpered, as if seconding Tommy's request. Severn checked the carbine and turned the safety off. He felt better with the rifle on his shoulder, though he didn't really think he'd have any need for it. The chance of another lunatic being loose out there seemed nil. The chances of anyone at all being left, after what he counted as another three lurchings, seemed almost as small. But he couldn't completely shake a feeling of dread, and it was a small comfort to have the rifle on his shoulder. Vi said, Can I have a pistol? Severn said, Tommy's older. And he retrieved the pistol from the night table, checked to be sure the safety was on, and handed it to Tommy. Tommy looked at the gun as if it were a mystery to him. What am I supposed to do with this? Nothing, Severn said. Just keep it with you. He opened the door to find nothing in front of him but the dark hallway and the ceaseless sound of rain and wind. Sage brushed past him and went to the kitchen door, where she again waited. In the living room, in the small pool of light afforded by the candles, Severn retrieved rain jackets and umbrellas from the closet and handed them to the kids. I'll stay on the porch and watch you guys, he said. Then when you come back, he said to Tommy, you can watch for me. Tommy looked at the gun in his hand. I don't know how to shoot this thing. Severn said, you pull the trigger. Vi said, you going to watch me going to the bathroom? You can go by the hedges, Severn said, but I want you to talk to me, so I'll know where you are. Tommy said, what's this all about? What are we afraid of? Vi said, you didn't have some crazy man jump on you, else you'd know what we're afraid of. We're not afraid, Severn said. We're being cautious. I don't think there's anything to be afraid of out there. Vi said, suddenly sounding like she was a million years old, If there's nothing to be afraid of out there, how come everybody's dead? Severn directed her into the kitchen. For now, he said, let's just concentrate on doing what we have to do. At the kitchen door, Severn hesitated only a moment before stepping out into the night. Sage scurried around him and disappeared into the dark. Though Severn held a hand cupped around the candle to protect it from the wind, the flame was extinguished the moment he put a foot outside. He turned to Vi and Tommy, standing back from the door, protecting their candles, flames with their hands and bodies. Leave them on the kitchen counter, he said. And he pointed to a spot well back in the kitchen, protected from the wind. Tommy said, what's the big deal? He put his candle down on the counter, walked casually past Severn and out the door into the darkness. Just as Sage came from the other direction and disappeared into the living room. Severn was already wet from the blowing rain. He stepped out onto the little kitchen porch and took Tommy by the arm. Don't you want an umbrella, he asked, but his eyes were scanning the darkness. Tommy said, we'll get wet anyway, the way the wind's blowing. Severn thought about it for a second and then answered by giving him a little shove out into the night. He held the carbine at waist level as he leaned over the porch and relieved himself. When he was finished, he stepped back into the kitchen doorway to keep the rifle dry as possible. He remembered reading somewhere that soldiers kept their carbines pointed down in the rain to keep water out of the barrel. He was tempted to fire the thing once just to make sure it worked. Tommy, he called out, talked to me. The boy had disappeared into the dark the moment he stepped out of the doorway. The candles barely illuminated the kitchen, and outside the house the light was blown away by the wind. I'm right over here, Tommy said, and his voice came from very close by, near the foot of the porch. Do you hear that? He said. Severn said, What are you doing? I'm peeing, the kid answered, and then added, I thought I heard something. Severn listened carefully, but heard nothing beyond the familiar sounds of the weather. Glancing behind him, he saw that the kitchen was empty. In the distance, one of Ricky's donkey's braid, an urgent, high pitched, horrible squeal that seemed to come from miles away, carried on the wind through the rain. Sounds like one of the donkeys got out, Tommy said as he emerged out of the darkness. He was soaking wet again. Vi joined them in the doorway. I put a blanket on the creeper for sage, she said, and I dried her off and covered her up. She was shaking. She added, sounding annoyed but resigned, Where are the hedges? You don't need hedges, Tommy said. It's pitch black. We won't be able to see you as soon as you walk out the door. You'll be able to hear me, Vi said. Not over the rain, Severn said. Hold on to the rail until you get to the bottom step. There's three steps, Tommy interrupted. Go at the bottom of the step, Severn continued. We won't be able to hear or see you. Fine, Vi said. And she buttoned up the rain jacket Severn had given her, pulled the hood over her head, and stepped into the darkness. The baseball bat was tucked into her pants. The grip stuck out the top of her raincoat. As soon as the darkness swallowed up Vi, Tommy said, I heard something again. What? Severn hadn't heard a thing. I've got like superpower hearing, Tommy said. I've always been like this. Vi's voice came out of the darkness. What are you guys saying? She yelled. She sounded considerably further away than Tommy had been, maybe out toward the middle of the driveway. There, Tommy said. And a moment later, Severn heard horses, a heavy clomping over sudden ground. A wet, steady cadence, as if a couple of horses were ambling down the hill across fields. One of Ricky's coons in the kennel started barking, and then one by one, the others joined in the racket. Horses, Severn said, and as soon as he said it, the horse's hose hit the road someplace nearby. The loud impact of their metal shod hooves over the blacktop approaching the house slowly but steadily, and then passing it, and continuing until out of hearing range, leaving again only the sound of the weather. Where are they going, Vi asked. Tommy said, they came down out of the woods. Are you about done, Severn asked, and before he got the words out, Tommy was off the porch and into the darkness calling for Vi. Severn heard the dogs an instant later. First it was just the sound of a pack of them barking, moving across Ricky's fields. The sound of them approaching slowly. And then the barking and snarling got louder and more ferocious as they got nearer. They sounded like they were on the other side of the field, near Ricky's house. They weren't running, as Severn would have expected from a pack of dogs. And then he realized that they couldn't see either. Which was likely the same reason the horses weren't running. They were feeling and smelling their way through the dark. Severn shouted for the kids to hurry, and as soon as he shouted the dogs started moving faster. He could hear the splashing cadence of them rapidly nearing. The kids were talking urgently to each other, and then Vi's bat scraped along the driveway as they approached the porch. Coming at them from the other direction out of the night, the dogs were running now, the noise of their barking and howling huge in the darkness. When Severn calculated that the kids wouldn't make it to the house before the dogs, he aimed the carbine in the direction of the barking and fired. Pulling the trigger a half dozen times before Vi and Tommy were out of the darkness and into the house behind him. With each pull of the trigger, a muzzle flash of illumination exploded into the night, the harsh, quick light bouncing off the wood beams of the porch railing. Severn had aimed high, not intending to hit anything, but meaning only to scare the pack, and he was briefly successful, the pack scattering away from the gunshots. But one of the dogs, a German Shepherd Suddenly appeared, snarling on the steps before Severn could make it back into the house. Severn pointed the carbine at the dog and shouted as Vi joined him brandishing her baseball bat, screaming not at the dog but at Severn, urging him back into the house. Severn took a step toward the door as a pair of dogs flanked the shepherd, each of them snarling, their teeth bared and their coats matted and dark. In the eyes of both dogs, Severn saw the same mean mix of fury and fear he'd seen first in that collie's eyes. He fired the carbine once, over their heads, and they bolted. An instant later, something hit him in the back, hard, and knocked him face first down the steps. Behind him, he heard a gunshot and saw a muzzle flash out of the corner of his eye. In front of him, more dogs were snarling and barking, and then he heard them lunging and retreating. He felt for the carbine, which had flown out of his hand. He found the stock in a puddle and grabbed it up, just as Vi took him by the arm, calling his name and helped yank him to his feet. Severn was soaked from the fall and his lip was bleeding. Three more gunshots came out of the kitchen doorway as he pulled himself up the stairs and saw Tommy crouched on the porch, holding the pistol in both hands, and then firing another shot at the foot of the stairs, this time aiming. Severn heard whimper in the dark someplace behind him. In front of him he saw the body of a dog lying against the porch railing, a big mutt of some kind that looked like a Doberman Pinscher, only bigger. It was dead and bleeding from a neat bullet hole almost exactly between its eyes. Severn understood that the dog must have leapt over the railing and hit him in the back, knocking him down, and that Tommy must have shot it point blank in the head. Tommy fired twice again and then backed into the house after Vi pulled Severn through the doorway. Before Tommy could get the door closed, a small white dog dashed into the kitchen, followed by a snarling boxer that managed to get his head and shoulders through the opening between the door and the frame. Severn rested against the kitchen counter, watching all this in the candlelight, watching Tommy struggling with his shoulder against the door, as the boxer wiggled and squeezed, trying to get into the kitchen. The small white dog came and sat at his feet, observing the scene at the door. The boxer looked crazed, foam dripping from his snarling mouth, and his eyes bulged as he snapped and barked. Severn thought to himself that the dog was terrified. He knew he should be helping Tommy, but he couldn't seem to gather up the resources necessary to move. He was conscious, he felt okay, but he couldn't get it together to move. And then suddenly he could. He leapt from the counter and planted his foot under the boxer's jaw, knocking it back but not entirely out of the doorway. Then Vi was there on her knees, using her baseball bat like a spear, ramming it at the dog's head. When the boxer backed away from Vi's blows, Tommy closed and locked the door. Vi wrapped her arms around Tommy and hugged him tightly. Both kids were drenched, water pooled on the kitchen floor at their feet. Tommy put an arm around Vi and then pushed away from her and sat in one of the kitchen chairs. Behind them, the dogs were still barking and scratching at the door, the noise of it competing with the driving rain and wind. Tommy put the pistol down on the table. Look at this, he said, and he nodded toward the shadows of the living room where Sage and the white dog were sitting quietly and watching them. Sage, huge and black, sat in the center of the doorway. The other dog, the small and white one, sat in front of her, between her legs. He's a Jack Russell, Vi said. She made a kissing sound and opened her hands. The dog flew to her and pushed himself against her as she petted him. Tommy held his head in his hands and said, This is all too weird. He sounded shaken. I'm sorry, Severn said. He pulled up a chair next to Tommy. I think I was stunned for a while. You hit your head again, Vi said. She was sitting on the floor now, holding the Jack Russell in her lap. Your lip is cut. Severn touched his lip. It was tender, but so was his whole face. His whole body, for that matter. And his head was throbbing again with another headache. Tommy said, Does anybody have any idea what time it is? Or what day? I've lost track. Sunday night or Monday morning, Vi said. One of those. Severn wasn't sure. They had probably slept at least eight or ten hours, which would make it Sunday night still, but he didn't know how long they had slept, so he couldn't be sure. Vi said, his name's Sterling. She was reading a small metal tag attached to the dog's bright red collar. Severn put a hand on Tommy's shoulder and said, Thank you. To Vi, he said, You too. I suspect those dogs would have torn me up pretty good. Why Tommy said, yeah, have I yet? I don't get what's, I don't know either. Severance said, I'm guessing they're scared. They can't see anything out there. They're probably disoriented and, and they're eating people. Tommy said, since there's no one to feed them, that's got to change their way of looking at us a bit. You think? Seems to be something else going on with them too. Seven said. It's like they're furious at us. Not this one. Vi hugged the Jack Russell. Or Sage. She nodded toward the big lab, who remained in the doorway motionless, her head drooping a little now and then. That's because they've got us now, Tommy said. They're expecting us to take care of them. That's what they know. And those other dogs, Vi asked. They are on their own, Severn said, and I'm guessing they know it. So what are we supposed to do now, Vi asked. The rain, if anything, was coming down harder. Severn was pretty sure that he had registered three lurchings while he slept. He remembered waking up after the first one, feeling the second one in his sleep, and then getting up after the third. If the events were following the same pattern as the previous night, it should be clearing now. And it wasn't. The weather was still raging. I think, actually, Severn said. It would be smart if we went back to sleep. Really, Tommy said. He seemed more frustrated than angry. What's the difference, he said, between being dead and sleeping all the time? The in between, Vyse said. At least we get the in between. Sure, Tommy said. Will we get to bury people and shoot dogs? Severn thought that Tommy was making an excellent point, but didn't say so. He said, we still don't know the extent of all this. That's right, Vi said, though only half heartedly. I mean, my parents and Daisy could still be alive. Could be, Tommy said. To Severn he said, I'm hungry. I'm starving, actually. Severn glanced again at the kitchen window, as if he might see something beyond darkness or hear something beyond the howling wind and rain. I think we should get ourselves dried off and get the dogs settled. Then we can find something to eat and take more sleeping pills. Then what? Tommy said. Then we see. Severn took a candle from the counter and handed it to Vi. You first, he said. Go get dried off. He pointed toward the bathroom. When Vi looked at him with pleading in her eyes, he said to Tommy, Go with her. Wait outside the door. Tommy took the pistol off the table and followed Vi out of the kitchen. Severn went ahead of them, found the dispenser with the sleeping pills, and brought it back to the kitchen. From the bathroom, he could hear Vi keeping up a constant stream of chatter as she dried off and cleaned up behind a closed door. Apparently both dogs were in the bathroom with her, and she spoke to them as well as to Tommy. She announced to Sterling that there were dry clothes in the hamper, And they look pretty clean. These shorts look pretty clean, don't you think, Sterling? She told Tommy, Severn's got some clothes hanging on the back of the door. In response to which, Tommy grunted. She went on talking, as she took her time in the bathroom. Severn brought the candles to the kitchen and tried to peer out the window. When he saw nothing, he unlocked the door and turned the knob. And as soon as he did, He heard rustling from the porch, and then the grunts of dogs stirring themselves. He locked the door again. The dogs, he guessed, would be looking for any shelter they could find from the weather, so it made sense that they'd be huddled on the porch, out of the rain at least. He went to the fridge, opened it, and put the candle down on the bottom rack. There wasn't much to eat. He knew there were steaks in the freezer, but they'd require cooking and so were out of the question. He wasn't worried about food. There'd be enough canned and dry food in grocery stores to feed the three of them until they all grew old. At the back of the fridge he found a large Tupperware container half full of a tuna mix of some kind. The sight of the container brought him immediately to a picture of Sarah at the kitchen table in her lycra jogging outfit, which he had often teased her about. It was some outrageous combination of colors, purple and pink maybe. He couldn't call the exact colors to mind, but something like that. When she came back from jogging, after she cooled down, she'd have a few bites of tuna mix before she showered and got on with the rest of her day. Severn pulled the tuna out of the fridge along with a six pack of yogurt containers and flung them onto the kitchen table. In the bedroom he gathered up the decanters, opened a window and held them under a stream of water cascading off the roof. Though he couldn't see a thing out the window but darkness, he knew that the gutter was torn loose from the roof by the way the water was pouring down. He imagined the wind had blown away some of the shingles too, and he wasn't going to be surprised to find a leak or two somewhere. Behind him, on the other half of the hall, Vi was talking to Tommy, who apparently was taking his turn in the bathroom drying off. They were speculating on the danger dogs presented, with Tommy thinking that they'd have to build a fence around the house to keep them away, and that it was probably the candlelight and the noise that had drawn the pack to them, and Vi wondering if it wasn't just some of them that had gone wild and maybe there were lots like Sterling and Sage that wouldn't be so dangerous. On cue, as she mentioned a sage's name, the big lab appeared out of the darkness of the hallway and moved gingerly back to his bed on the creeper. Severn knelt beside the dog to pet her and then pulled a blanket up over her. She was moving slow and he guessed she was still hurting, but he also thought if she could manage to get up and around already, she was probably out of the woods. As soon as he thought that, that Sage would be okay, the larger situation came back to him and he felt a darkness wrap itself around him in a way that was almost tactile. He hardly knew what he was doing or why he was doing it. From the kitchen, Tommy called his name and then Vi appeared in the bedroom doorway with Sterling at her side. You okay, she asked. I'm fine, Severn answered. Tommy had found spoons in a few bowls and was finishing off a second container of yogurt. You As Vi took a seat at the table across from him, in the candlelight, Severn noticed that Vi was wearing Sarah's white shorts. And her maroon t shirt, picturing a gas pump in black, and the words, Gas sucks, ride a bike, in white. She had used the belt from Sarah's rope to cinch the pants and t shirt, which were several sizes too big for her. Tommy had found one of Severn's black short sleeve shirts and dress khakis, and he had cinched them with what looked like cord from either the electric razor or the hairdryer. He looked roughly like Severn looked when he dressed for work, only with a weird twist of long hair and an electric wire belt. Severn took the pill dispenser from the counter and dropped it onto the kitchen table as he joined the kids. Vi slid two containers of yogurt to him and Tommy pushed a bowl in his direction. He said, you guys should each take a full pill this time, and he scooped a few handfuls of tuna into the bowl. I want you both to be knocked out for a good while. What about you? Vi asked. If you wake up before us, I'll take two pills, Severn said. Whoever wakes up first, if they're sure they're awake and can't go back to sleep, should wake up the others. Why? Tommy pulled a Tupperware container to him and began scraping what he could off the sides and bottom. Because, Vyse said, whatever happens, we want it to happen to all of us. Right? She turned to Severn. Severn said, we don't want to have to go it alone, no. To Tommy, he said, you agree? He agreed. Oh yeah, Tommy said it with a laugh, as if he thought of somehow wanting to go it alone in the midst of all of this was funny. I'll definitely wake you guys up. Goodbye said. Shall we feed the dogs? Not too much, Severn said. Otherwise it'll stink in here when we wake up. Oh yeah, Tommy said. Got ya. Severn went to the freezer and cut off two long, thin strips of steak. He tossed one to Sterling, who ran to a corner with it, before holding it down on one end with his paws and gnawing on the other end. The other strip he put on a plate and handed to Vi. Take your pill and bring this to Sage. Vi popped the pill into the back of her throat, swallowed, and then disappeared into the darkness with the steak. Sterling watched her walk away as if torn between gnawing on the steak and following her. Then he hopped up with the steak in his mouth and scurried to the bedroom. When they were alone, Severn put his hand on Tommy's arm and thanked him for what he did on the porch. You probably saved my life, he said. Maybe all of us. Tommy licked the yogurt container clean. Good thing he gave me the gun. Severn lowered his voice. If he were to wake up before the kids, he had no plans to wake them also. What I'm getting at is You took over. You took control. What I'm saying is, you know you can do it. As long as I'm around, I'll do my best to take care of things. But if I'm not around, I'm saying, You can do it, Tommy. You showed us that. Tommy popped his pill and swallowed it. I'm like the world's biggest screw up, he said. Did Vi tell you why I'm living with her and her family? Because I got into drugs and drink so bad back in Brooklyn that my fosters couldn't handle it. Mr. Epperson, he was doing them a favor, letting me stay with his family. That's history, Severn said. That's another world. Really, Tommy said. He got up from the table. All I'm saying, he added, I wouldn't be so ready to depend on me. Remember, I survived in the first place because I drank myself into a blackout. You know what I mean? He smiled at Severn and then walked without a candle into the darkness of the living room. In the bathroom, Severn jived off to the sounds of the kids talking solemnly in the bedroom. He looked himself over in the mirror and the flickering candlelight. His face looked monstrous. There was a bump on his forehead half an inch high, and when he touched it the pain radiated through his head in a sharp, piercing wave. From the medicine backpack, which was resting on the clothes seat of the john, he took two Percocets and then thought better of it given he had just taken two powerful sleeping pills. He put the Percocets back. He didn't want to kill himself, at least not yet. He wanted to get through this night with the kids and see what the world looked like in daylight. He still had some small hope that these events weren't affecting the entire planet, but it was a very small hope. The events felt cosmic. They felt huge. He found a washcloth, stuck it out the partially open bathroom window, and used the wet cloth to clean himself up as best he could. He had noticed that Tommy and Vi had done the same thing, and he was impressed with their resourcefulness. It was a quality they were going to need if they had any hope of surviving. Not that that was worth thinking much about. The chances of any of them surviving too much longer seemed slim. If he could discern a pattern, it might be possible to sleep through the lurchings with the use of drugs, at least for a while. But there didn't seem to be a pattern. And, as the kid said, How much difference would there be between sleeping all the time and being dead? In the hamper he found wrinkled pants and a relatively odorless black tee. He dressed and carried the candle to the bedroom where both kids were sleeping. Vi was on her mattress with her head close to Sage's head and Sterling curled up at her belly. Tommy lay on his stomach with his arms stretched out along his legs and the pistol gripped in his right hand. Severn took the pistol out of his hand and placed it on the night table. The carbine was on Severn's side of the bed, the stock resting on his pillow. Vi, he assumed, had placed it there, worried that Severn might forget to go to sleep armed. She needn't have worried. Severn had taken a new clip from the medicine backpack and replaced the partially used one. He stretched out in the bed beside Tommy and closed his eyes. A moment later, he was unconscious. That was episode five of The Strangers. New episodes will be available twice a week on Mondays and Fridays until the novel is completed. If you want to read ahead, an inexpensive digital edition of The Strangers is available from Amazon, Barnes Noble, and other online bookstores. This podcast is an experiment in alternatives to traditional publishing. If you'd like to support it, and more like it in the future, please consider becoming a subscriber or supporter. If enough listeners choose to do so, that will go a long way to help ensuring the podcast's success and continuation. In any event, this is Ed Falco, I wrote The Strangers, and I hope you'll come back for the next episode.