The sky over Bittersweet Court didn’t just darken; it bruised.
Maya stood at the sliding glass door of the living room, her hand pressed against the cold pane. Outside, the world had been reduced to a violent monochrome of grey rain and black trees. The wind wasn’t whistling anymore. It was screaming, a high-pitched, mechanical shriek that vibrated in the fillings of her teeth.
“It’s a straight-line wind event,” Chloe said, her voice trembling as she tapped furiously on her phone. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by battery packs that were rapidly blinking red. “Seventy miles per hour. The National Weather Service just issued a shelter-in-place warning for the entire county.”
“He waited for this,” Maya murmured. “He saw the forecast. He knew the police perimeter would pull back.”
Behind her, the house felt fragile. The architectural glass that made Number 4 a marvel of modern design now felt like an eggshell waiting to crack. The recessed lighting overhead flickered—once, twice—casting the room into brief, strobe-like moments of darkness.
“We need to call the station again,” Sarah said. She was pacing the kitchen, hugging a throw pillow to her chest. “Tell them he’s armed. Tell them we have visual confirmation.”
“I tried,” Elena said from the sofa. She held her phone up. “Network busy. The towers are overloaded or down. I have one bar of 3G, and nothing is going through.”
Maya turned from the window. The image of Elias Thorne’s face reflected in the basement monitor was still seared into her mind. He wasn’t the bumbling bureaucrat playing poker at the library. He was the architect. And he had just called ‘Action’ on the final scene.
Crack.
A massive sound, like a gunshot magnified ten times, tore through the air.
The house shook.
“What was that?” Chloe shrieked, scrambling backward.
“A tree,” Maya said. “Sounded like it hit the street.”
She ran to the front window. Through the deluge, she could barely see the end of the driveway. A massive limb from the ancient oak on the easement—the one that held the birdhouse camera—had snapped. It lay across the entrance to the cul-de-sac, a tangled barricade of wet wood and leaves.
“The road is blocked,” Maya said, her stomach dropping. “A patrol car couldn’t get in here if they wanted to.”
The lights flickered again, longer this time. The hum of the refrigerator stuttered.
“He’s going to cut the power,” Maya realized. “It’s the trope. The ‘Dark and Stormy Night.’ He can’t film a finale with the lights on.”
“He can’t cut the power,” Sarah argued weakly. “ The lines are underground.”
“Elias is the HOA president,” Maya said. “He has the keys to the utility boxes. He knows exactly which lever to pull.”
As if on cue, the house died.
It wasn’t a fade. It was an instant, total amputation of light. The TV screen went black. The hum of the HVAC system groaned and silenced. The digital clock on the oven vanished.
For a second, the darkness was absolute.
Then, a flash of lightning ripped across the sky, illuminating the living room in a harsh, blue-white glare. It froze the women in a tableau of terror: Chloe clutching her tech, Sarah frozen mid-step, Elena reaching for her medical bag.
Thunder followed instantly, a physical blow that rattled the floorboards.
“Flashlights,” Maya commanded, her voice cutting through the panic. “Now.”
Beams of white LED light sliced through the gloom. They had prepared for this. The “No Secrets” pact had evolved into a tactical alliance. Every woman had a flashlight, a weapon, and a role.
“Check the perimeter,” Maya ordered. “Chloe, check the signal again. Elena, the back door. Sarah, stay away from the windows.”
“My signal is dead,” Chloe reported, staring at her phone. “Not just no service. It says ‘SOS only.’ And the Wi-Fi is gone.”
“The smart locks,” Maya said, a jolt of adrenaline hitting her. “The front door. It’s electronic.”
She sprinted to the foyer, her flashlight beam bouncing wildly on the walls. She reached the heavy oak door and grabbed the handle.
It was locked. The deadbolt was engaged.
“It fails safe,” Maya breathed, leaning her forehead against the wood. “Thank god.”
“Maya!” Elena yelled from the kitchen.
Maya ran back. Elena was standing by the sliding glass door that led to the patio—and the sunroom.
“Look,” Elena whispered, pointing her light into the backyard.
The beam cut through the rain, illuminating the patio furniture that had been overturned by the wind. Beyond the patio, the wetlands were a churning black ocean. The reeds were flattened.
But it wasn’t the wind Elena was pointing at.
It was the fence.
The pristine white vinyl fence that separated Maya’s yard from the empty house next door—Number 5—was gone.
It hadn’t blown over. A section of it, exactly the width of a person, had been removed. The panels were neatly stacked on the grass.
“He opened the gate,” Elena said. “He connected the properties.”
“He’s coming through the yard,” Maya said.
She looked at the glass wall of the sunroom. It was thirty feet of transparency. In the daylight, it was a feature. In the storm, it was a vulnerability.
“We can’t defend the sunroom,” Maya said. “The glass is hurricane-rated, but it won’t stop a sledgehammer. Or a bullet.”
“We need to barricade,” Sarah said. Her voice was surprisingly steady. The woman who had hidden in her bedroom for thirty years was gone. In her place was someone who had decided she was done being a victim.
“The furniture,” Maya said. “Move the sofa against the patio doors. Stack the chairs.”
They moved with desperate efficiency. The heavy sectional sofa groaned as they shoved it across the hardwood. They piled the dining chairs on top, creating a tangled wall of wood and upholstery against the glass.
“It won’t keep him out,” Chloe grunted, shoving a heavy ottoman into the pile. “It just slows him down.”
“Time is all we have,” Maya said.
She checked her watch. 8:14 PM.
The storm was intensifying. The rain sounded like gravel being thrown against the siding.
“Where is he?” Sarah whispered, shining her light into the gaps between the couch cushions. “Why hasn’t he tried the door?”
“Because he’s enjoying this,” Maya said. She walked to the kitchen island, keeping her light low. She picked up the knife block. “He wants us terrified. He wants us to know we’re cut off.”
She pulled out the chef’s knife and handed it to Sarah. She gave the paring knife to Chloe. Elena already had a scalpel from her medical kit.
Maya took the heavy meat cleaver.
“We go upstairs,” Maya decided. “The ground floor is indefensible. We retreat to the master bedroom. One door. We lock it. We block it. We wait.”
“Wait for what?” Chloe asked, gripping the paring knife like a dagger.
“For him to make a mistake,” Maya said. “Or for the storm to pass.”
They moved to the stairs. The house felt massive and hostile in the dark. Every shadow looked like a man in a blue suit. Every creak sounded like a footstep.
As they reached the landing, a sound cut through the noise of the storm.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell.
The digital chime was dead without power. This was the old-fashioned mechanical knocker. Three heavy, deliberate raps.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The women froze on the stairs.
“Don’t answer it,” Elena whispered.
“I’m not crazy,” Maya hissed.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
It was polite. Rhythmic. The knock of a neighbor coming to borrow sugar. Or the knock of the Grim Reaper checking the guest list.
“Maya,” a voice called out from the other side of the door. It was muffled by the storm and the heavy wood, but it was audible.
It wasn’t the gravelly voice of the podcast. It wasn’t the reedy voice of Elias Thorne.
It was a recording.
It was Maya’s own voice.
“We’re not the Gables Gals anymore. We’re hunting.”
Maya gripped the banister. He was playing the recording of the pact. The recording she had made on her phone.
“How?” she whispered. “That file is on my phone. It’s encrypted.”
“He hacked you,” Chloe whispered, terrified. “He’s been in your phone the whole time.”
The voice outside changed.
“I saw Thomas Garrett kill her.”
Sarah’s confession echoed through the door.
“I forged his signature.”
Chloe’s confession.
“I write prescriptions.”
Elena’s confession.
He was playing their secrets back to them. He was showing them that the pact hadn’t immunized them; it had just given him a tracklist.
“He’s using a Bluetooth speaker,” Chloe realized. “He’s standing on the porch with a speaker.”
“He wants us to come out,” Maya said. “He wants us to panic and run.”
She shone her flashlight down the stairs. The beam hit the front door. The heavy wood vibrated with another knock.
Then, silence.
The recording stopped. The knocking stopped.
“He’s gone,” Sarah whispered.
“No,” Maya said, turning her light toward the living room. “He’s not gone. He’s moving.”
She ran to the railing overlooking the living room. She shone the light at the barricaded patio doors.
A figure stood outside the glass.
He was dressed in black rain gear, slick and shining in the beam of her light. He wore a hood that obscured his face. In one hand, he held a heavy, industrial flashlight. In the other, he held a fire axe.
He raised the flashlight and shone it up at the landing. The beam blinded Maya.
She didn’t flinch. She stood her ground.
The figure lowered the light. He looked at the barricade of furniture. He tilted his head, as if appraising a piece of art.
Then, he raised the axe.
He didn’t swing at the door. He swung at the glass panel to the right of the barricade—the one they hadn’t blocked.
CRASH.
The safety glass shattered into a million diamonds, raining onto the hardwood floor. The wind roared into the house, carrying rain and leaves and the smell of the swamp.
“Upstairs!” Maya screamed. “Go! Go!”
She shoved Sarah and Chloe toward the master bedroom. Elena was already moving, her scalpel held low.
Maya stayed on the landing for one second longer. She shone her light down into the living room.
The figure stepped through the broken window. His boots crunched on the glass. He looked up at her.
Lightning flashed, illuminating his face inside the hood.
It was Elias.
But his eyes weren’t the watery, anxious eyes of the man in the library. They were dilated, black, and utterly empty. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. He was smiling.
“Script change,” he called out, his voice carrying over the storm without a microphone. “We’re doing the home invasion scene live.”
Maya turned and ran. She slammed the master bedroom door shut and threw the deadbolt.
” Wardrobe!” she yelled. “Move the wardrobe!”
They shoved the heavy mahogany armoire in front of the door. It was heavy, filled with Dan’s suits and Maya’s guilt.
The room was dark, lit only by their frantic flashlight beams. The storm raged outside the window.
They were trapped. The power was gone. The phones were dead. And the director was in the house.
Maya looked at her friends. They were terrified, but they were armed.
“Turn off the lights,” Maya whispered. “If he wants a dark finale, he’s going to have to find us in the dark.”
They clicked off their flashlights. The room plunged into blackness.
Downstairs, the heavy boots began to climb the stairs. Thud. Thud. Thud.
He was coming.