Swipe

he didn’t believe it.
    No one is after you. No one is watching you. It’s just you and your stupid secret flashlight and the mile between here and your front door. No problem at all .
    He refused to call home. He refused to call Erin. He would be fine.
    But a trash can rang out in a nearby alley.
    It’s a cat , Logan thought. Or a raccoon. Nothing with its eye on you . But Logan picked up the pace even so.
    He wasn’t far now from Wright Street. Just another couple blocks, and he crossed each with increasing speed. Along the way he gazed up periodically into the yellow-lit windows of the houses along the street, looking at each for the warmth inside. This one belonged to the Coles, that one to the Conways. He ran through the list of names in his head, bringing each to the tip of his tongue, ready to shout them out at the slightest sign of trouble.
    Carl, help! he thought. Rachel, I’m being attacked! Yes, good, that would work . That would bring them out here .
    If he’d had the Mark, Logan would have hopped on an electro-bus. He would have at least stopped in a deli or a convenience store on the way home, just for the respite of a lit room with a cashier to watch over him for a minute. But he didn’t have the Mark. And he had to get back.
    Footsteps. I hear footsteps behind me! Logan spun around and took in the scene. Long shadows under a crimson, three-quarters moon; tall, thin buildings lining the streets; wind blowing trash and stray leaves from a nearby park. No one visible. But there were plenty of places to hide.
    “Hello?” Logan called. No answer. Desperate, he took the flashlight from his backpack and swung it around in long, frantic arcs. Nothing. The shadows danced in its beam.
    “I can see you!” Logan bluffed, speaking to no one, knowing no answer would come, sure that this was just another one of his own delusions, but indulging it even so.
    For a split second he even contemplated walking toward the sounds in the alley, imagined confronting whatever it was that haunted him right here and now, to prove it to himself: that there was nothing there, that these fears were unfounded, that he was being ridiculous. But Logan knew that was a fantasy. He shuffled one step forward, and that was exactly as far as his nerve would take him.
    “So you might as well just come on out,” Logan said, startled at the sound of his own voice, the beam of his flashlight shaking wildly in the grip of his trembling hand. Stop. Playing. Games .
    Then Logan heard a shuffle just past the garbage bags on his left, and thought, Trash, leaves . . . that could have been anything. But it wasn’t a person . It couldn’t have been a person, because no one is following you . And with all the willpower he could muster, Logan shut the flashlight off and forced himself to turn around, to finish this walk home like a grown-up. Like someone he could respect. Like someone not afraid of the dark.
    But Logan heard another footstep now, close this time, and he couldn’t help but indulge his fear once more.
    Just one look , he thought. That’s it. That’ll be all I allow myself .
    He would glance over his shoulder.
    He would turn in place and face the moonlit alley . . .
    And that’s when Logan saw the boy. Real. Born not of imagination or paranoia or delusion but of blood and bones and skin and nerves. He was a teenager, unidentifiable in the shadows among the trash, but solid and actual and horrifying in a way entirely new from the abstract fears Logan had known until now.
    Five years of bottled terror flowed through Logan all at once, paralyzing him, filling him with a grave sense of acceptance that if this boy were to charge or attack, right at this moment, Logan would simply let him. Logan would simply let it end.
    But the boy didn’t attack.
    Instead the boy turned and ran fast down the blood-moon streets.
    And Logan followed before any part of him could think better of it.
    10
    Back in her apartment and still a little spooked by what Logan had been saying, Erin checked the locks on her front door twice before crashing onto the bubble wrap of her living room couch. It squeaked and popped beneath her as she slumped down and pulled her knees up, tucking her chin into the collar of her shirt and resting a tablet computer against her legs. She unfolded it and stared at her reflection in its blank screen, noticing her hair sticking out in unkempt wisps, seeing the bags under her eyes, realizing that her brow and lips were