Free Bird Box by Josh Malerman Page B

George, being the kind of man he was, wasn’t satisfied with just talking about it. He wanted us to try these theories out.”
    As Tom talks, Malorie pictures the face in the photos along the staircase.
    “The night Don arrived, the three of us were sitting in the kitchen, listening to the radio, when George suggested there might be some variety of ‘life’ that was causing this to happen. This is before MSNBC proposed that theory. George said he got the idea from an old book, Possible Impossibilities . It talked about irreconcilable life-forms. Two worlds whose compounds were entirely foreign might cause damage to one another if they were to cross paths. And if this other life-form were somehow able to get here . . . well, that’s what George was saying had happened. That they did figure out a way to travel here, intentionally or not. I loved it. But Don didn’t. He was online a lot back then, researching chemicals, gamma waves, anything unseen that might cause harm if you looked at it because you wouldn’t know you were looking at it. Yeah, Don was pretty hard on us about it. He’s passionate. You can already tell he gets angry. But George was the kind of man who, once he had an idea, was going to see it out, no matter how dangerous it was.
    “By the time Felix and Jules arrived, George was ready to test his theory about refracted vision. I read everything with him that he pulled up online. So many websites about eyesight and how the eyes work and optical illusions and refracted light, how exactly telescopes work, and more. We talked about it all the time. When Don, Felix, and Jules were asleep, George and I sat at the kitchen table and drew diagrams. He’d pace back and forth, then he’d stop, turn to me, and ask, ‘Have any of the victims been known to wear glasses? Maybe a closed window could protect us, if certain angles were applied.’ Then we’d talk about that for another hour.
    “We all watched the news constantly, hoping for another clue, a piece of information that we’d be able to use to find a way for people to protect themselves. But the reports just started to repeat themselves. And George got impatient. The more he talked about testing his ‘altered vision’ theory, the more he wanted to try it. I was scared, Malorie. But George was like the captain of a sinking ship, and he wasn’t afraid to die. And if it worked? Well, that would mean he’d helped cure the planet of its most terrifying epidemic.”
    As Tom speaks, the lamplight dances in his blue eyes.
    “What did he use?” Malorie asks.
    “A video camera,” Tom says. “He had one upstairs. One of those old VHS cameras. He did it without telling us. One night he set it up behind one of the blankets hanging in the dining room. I woke first that morning and found him asleep on the floor in there. When he heard me, he got up and hurried to the camera. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘I did it. I recorded five hours of footage. It’s right here, here , inside this camera. I could be holding the cure to this thing. Indirect vision. Film . We have to watch this.’
    “I told him I thought it was a bad idea. I also thought it wasn’t likely he’d captured anything in just a five-hour span. But he had a plan that he presented to all of us. He said he needed one of us to tie him to a chair in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He’d watch the footage in there. The way he saw it, tied to the chair, he shouldn’t be able to hurt himself if things went badly. Don got really angry. He told George he was a threat to us all. He rightfully said that we had no idea what we were dealing with, and that if something were to happen to George, then something might happen to us all. But Felix and I weren’t opposed. We voted. Don was the only one who didn’t want him to do it. He talked about leaving. We talked him out of it. And finally, George told us that he didn’t need permission in his own house to do what he wanted to do. So, I told him I’d tie him to