There was a lot about the COVID-19 virus that wasn’t understood. For the health of the general population, being put on lockdown was completely understandable. But knowing the reason and even agreeing with it doesn’t make it any easier to endure.
Clay is beginning to feel the mental strain of being at home all the time. He is sick of his furniture, sick of his books, and sick of everything else in his bubble world. That’s the reason he sneaks out to go for nocturnal walks around the neighbourhood. And he isn’t the only one. One evening, he begins to regret he ever left the house.
As walks past an abandoned wreck of a building in a very unsavoury part of town at night, he gets a sense he is no longer alone. He picks up the pace and hurries away, but no matter what he does, he can’t shake the feeling someone, or something, is following him. He calls out into the darkness and immediately regrets it. Rather than knowing if anyone is there, he’d much rather know if he’s going to make it home or not.
Chapter 1He came in the night. During lockdown. Wearing the darkness as a cloak. It was the middle of autumn, though winter seemed in a hurry to arrive. The evenings brought with them an uncharacteristic chill that seemed to defy all efforts to prevent its entry into the house. Sleep was welcome not only because it was night. Not only because it was the end of another day. And not only because it was the warmest place to be. But during the COVID-19 lockdown, sleep was a welcome relief from the boredom the daylight hours brought with them. The furniture and ornaments Clay had bought. The magazines and books he had read. Even the rooms that contained them. All of them bored him to the point where he thought he might actually go crazy if he didn’t start getting out of the house. And at ni