Free Bird Box by Josh Malerman

she says.
    “That’s incredible,” Malorie says, stepping closer. “I’m about the same.”
    “Fuck,” Don says.
    “I’m a neighbor of yours,” Olympia says. “I’m so sorry to scare you like this. My husband is in the air force. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He may be dead. I heard you. The piano. It took me a while to get the courage to walk here. Normally, I’d have brought over cupcakes.”
    Despite the horror everyone in the room just listened to, Olympia’s innocence breaks through the darkness.
    “We’re glad to have you,” Tom says, but Malorie can hear exhaustion and the pressure of looking after two pregnant women in his voice. “Come in.”
    They walk Olympia down the hall toward the living room. At the foot of the stairs, she gasps and points to a photo hanging on the wall.
    “Oh!” she says. “Is this man here?”
    “No,” Tom says. “He’s not here anymore. You must know him. George. He used to own this house.”
    Olympia nods.
    “Yes, I’ve seen him many times.”
    Then the housemates are gathered in the living room. Tom sits with Olympia on the couch. Malorie listens quietly as Tom somberly asks Olympia about the objects in her house. What she has. What she left behind.
    What can they use here.

eleven
    M alorie has been rowing for what feels like three hours. The muscles in her arms burn. Cold water sloshes in the boat’s bottom, water she has splashed, little by little, with each dip of the oars. Moments ago, the Girl told Malorie she had to pee. Malorie told her to do it. Now the Girl’s urine mixes with the river water and it feels warm against Malorie’s shoes. She is thinking about the man in the boat they passed.
    The children , Malorie thinks, didn’t take off their blindfolds. That was the first living human voice they’ve ever heard other than one another’s. Yet, they didn’t listen to him .
    Yes, she has trained them well. But it’s not a nice thing to think about. Training the children means she has scared them so completely that under no circumstances will they disobey her. As a girl, Malorie rebelled against her parents all the time. Sugar wasn’t allowed in the house. Malorie snuck it in. Scary movies weren’t allowed in the house. Malorie tiptoed downstairs at midnight to watch them on television. When her parents said she wasn’t allowed to sleep on the couch in the living room, she moved her bed in there. These were the thrills of childhood. Malorie’s children don’t know them.
    As babies, she trained them to wake with their eyes closed. Standing above their chicken wire beds, flyswatter in hand, she’d wait. As each woke and opened their eyes, she would smack them hard on the arm. They would cry. Malorie would reach down and close their eyes with her fingers. If they kept their eyes closed, she would lift her shirt and feed them. Reward .
    “Mommy,” the Girl says, “was that the same man who sings in the radio?”
    The Girl is talking about a cassette tape Felix used to like to listen to.
    “No,” the Boy says.
    “Who was it then?” the Girl asks.
    Malorie turns to face the Girl so her voice will be louder.
    “I thought we agreed you two wouldn’t ask any questions that have nothing to do with the river. Are we breaking this agreement?”
    “No,” the Girl quietly says.
    When they were three years old, she trained them to get water from the well. Tying a rope around her waist, she wrapped the other end around the Boy. Then, telling him to feel for the path with his toes, she sent him out there to do it on his own. Malorie would listen to the sound of the bucket clumsily being raised. She listened to him struggle as he carried it back to her. Many times she heard it fall from his hands. Each time it did, she made him go back out there and do it again.
    The Girl hated it. She said the ground was “too bumpy” out there around the well. She said it felt like people lived below the grass. Malorie denied the Girl food until she agreed