Sherman suddenly realized that the eyes he was looking at in the window weren’t his in reflection. They were yellow, and the face was sunken in and balding. Strands of yellow-white hair fell like corn silk, plastered against the grey skin by the rain.

He couldn’t move.

He didn’t want to scream.

Even with the air conditioner blowing on him, he could feel a drop of sweat inching down his neck.

It tickled.

It felt like a small finger tracing a wet trail down his neck and onto his back.

He was suspended, no longer aware of any pressure from the chair on his knees or where he held on to the armrests with his hands.

The eyes in the window blinked.

They shifted as if searching for something in the house.

The lips parted, revealing human teeth yellowed from lack of care but whole. No sharp canines. No filed or missing teeth. No crumbling and no bleeding.

The mouth opened, and breath started condensing on the window. A small circle grew until it hid those well-formed and hideous teeth.

All of this, Sherman watched with growing anxiety, unable to move. If he did, it might notice him. He didn’t know what it was looking for, but he didn’t want it looking for him. He didn’t know if it had the strength to break the window, but he didn’t want to find out.

After a bit, the head dropped as if it were an animal dropping to the ground.

Sherman felt his heart beating now. The thud filled his ears.

He gasped for air. He no longer had to breathe slow and shallow.

He slid off the chair and caught himself.

His foot was asleep.

He shook it, trying to wake it up. He needed to see where the thing was going, what it was trying to find.

He felt the needles return and the tickling that followed.

He winced as he took a step, trying not to laugh.

Stomping on the floor might bring whatever that was back to the window. He was pretty sure it wasn’t human. It might be one of those like Gramps.

It had the eyes of one. The skin was shrunken a bit as if it were half-dead already.

The face in the window kept flashing through his mind.

While his foot finished waking up, he stood in the middle of the living room and listened. Smitty was whimpering at the back door but wasn’t barking, growling, or scratching. Nothing too loud, but Sherman would need to check on him in a bit as soon as he knew what this other thing was trying to do.

He closed his eyes. The room was dark, but the sound formed a texture he could see—little blips on a black-silver landscape, like splashes of water frozen in space. Smitty’s whimpering was gritty, running off to his right. The front door was to his left.

The air conditioner showered the space with fine dust that sparkled as it fell in the background.

A scratch against glass pinged ahead of him, causing a hash of black and white.

He couldn’t hear any wind outside.

There it was again, as if something was trying to lift the window. He hadn’t checked to see if they were locked. He had come in the front door first, though he figured that if someone locked the door, they’d also lock the windows. But he’d gotten in through a window at the other house.

He hurried around the living room and kitchen, making sure all the windows were locked, and he locked the bolt on the front door.

He peeked out back. Smitty crouched down beside the door, not moving. He had stopped whimpering as if trying to hide from whatever might be out there.

“You okay?” Sherman whispered. He felt the back of Smitty to reassure him that he was there.

Smitty moved a bit but didn’t make a sound. Sherman could feel him warm despite the wet fur. Smitty couldn’t stay dry in this weather, at least not outside.

“Let me check the other windows, and I’ll be back.”

He closed the door and listened again for whatever was scratching on the windows.

It hadn’t moved to a different window yet. It sounded like it was coming from one of the bedrooms near the front of the house. It hadn’t gotten in yet, so that window might be locked. He hoped so.

Sherman didn’t want it to see him yet, so he started in the rooms at the back facing the creek. Save the wretched thing for last, if possible.

Almost all of the windows were reachable and locked. Even though the scratching hadn’t moved yet, he fumbled a few. His heart was racing. He didn’t want to see it but knew that he’d have to at some point.

He couldn’t reach the window in the bathroom at the end of the hall. It was high up to let out the steam from the shower, and its latch was at the top. It was closed and small, but he could see the handle facing down, letting the thing push the window open if it wished to.

He’d have to come back to that one. It was small, high up, and not as much of a problem as the ground-level windows. And he had forgotten about the basement windows. He’d have to go down and check those as well.