Jesse

I slowed down and looked and kept driving.

As I passed the end of the road, I glanced in the rearview mirror.

The hollow was framed in the mirror like a photograph, the road and the trees and the ridges converging to a point behind me.

Something was standing at the tree line by the creek, tall and thin and still.

I didn't stop, I didn't go back, I didn't look again, but I know what I saw.

And I know it's still there.

It was there before Pearl.

It was there before the house.

It was there before the road, and the church, and the cemetery, and the name on the map.

It'll be there after all of those things are gone.

The only question is whether the people from Virginia know to salt the thresholds.

I'm guessing they don't.

Yes, sir.

Well, Jesse, as anticipated, the sirens are now wailing over Tel Aviv, indicating that another missile is inbound.

And it looks like those bright lights in the sky are the missiles.

And it looks like you can see an interceptor that is in hot pursuit of the missiles.

And it's always quite dramatic when you see those interceptors going after it.

And these ones might disappear behind our building here.

We're going to lose sight of them.

but they're still quite lethal and coming into Tel Aviv.