Lincoln tipped his canteen back and gulped down several mouthfuls of piss warm water before screwing the cap back on and setting it in the dirt beside him. He wanted more, but they had to conserve their water.

In the yard, Lana kicked a rock around like America kicking around a smaller nation and Lola fanned herself with a coloring book. The sunlight had pushed her all the way back into the bush and every so often she would cry out in pain as a branch snagged her hair. Leni had wandered off after a "cute little mousy thing" and Lori glared down at her phone, giving it a shake here and there and demanding that it work. "I will turn you into a digital pretzel," she said.

A little while ago, Lincoln checked his phone to see if by some miracle it had service, but it didn't. He checked it again now. 6:25. The sun still sat high over the horizon but its light was beginning to weaken. The heat, however, remained. Lisa said that it was "at least one hundred five degrees fahrenheit" and listed all of the horrifying things that could happen to the human body if exposed to extreme and prolonged heat. When she got to "eyes could quite literally melt from their sockets" he told her to stfu. Putting her hands behind her back and looking down her nose at him as if to say pathetic, she spun on her heels and marched off. When she was gone, Lana came over and sat next to him. "You think that crazy's coming back?"

He opened his mouth to say absolutely he is, but stopped himself. Lana's eyes were wide with worry and she chewed her thumbnail, somehow managing to look much smaller and more vulnerable than Lincoln had ever seen her. He let out a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't want to lie to her but he also didn't want to scare her; she was scared enough already. "Probably not," he said. It wasn't entirely a lie because he said probably which left room for doubt. Not enough room to fit all of the doubt he felt, but doubt nevertheless.

"Really?" she asked. "Why did he keep following us if he's not gonna come back?" She swallowed around a lump in her throat. "I think he's gonna come back."

Scooting closer, Lincoln put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "If he was going to do something to us, he would have done it already."

She pursed her lips and considered his response.

"If he was going to hurt us," Lincoln continued, "wouldn't he have done it back on the road?"

Sighing and looking up at the sun, Lana said, "I guess so."

"We'll be okay," Lincoln said. "Tomorrow Dad will get help and we'll be in Hollywood by dinnertime."

That proclamation sounded bound and confident but it tasted like a lie.

A few minutes later, Mom came out of the house holding Lily in one arm and dragging an overloaded bag along the floor behind her. "Kids!" she called. "Dinner!"

Everyone came from wherever they had been like pilgrims converging on Mecca. Leni had scraps on her knees and elbows and dust all over her dress from chasing after the "mousy thing" and falling down; Lisa's face was red and wet; and the hem of Luan's skirt was damp. Lincoln secretly thought she got it wet by squatting and carelessly peeing, and his nose crinkled. Gross, didn't she bring a change of clothes?

"Dinner" turned out to be a pile of chips, crackers, cookies, beef jerky, and Lunchables - the things Mom was able to harvest from the supplies they had brought with the. Everyone sat on the porch and ate in the minimal shade afforded by the overhang. Lily sat in Mom's lap and happily clapped her hands as she ate bites of mushed apples, her favorite. In between, she babbled a stream of cute gibberish that made Mom laugh. "You're hungry today, aren't you?" she cooed.

"Gahhh," Lilly said and leaned in for another bite.

Lincoln ate from a fun size bag of Bugles and snapped into a Slim Jim (ooooooh yeaaaaaah), then washed it all down with water from his canteen. Lisa was the first one to finish and left to go back to wherever she had been before dinner. Leni was next, then Luan. Luna balled her trash up and threw it over the railing. Like a cat drawn by the sound of a can being opened, Lynn popped out of nowhere and hit the ball with her head, soccer style. "Ten points for the Lynnster," she announced proudly.

"Groovy," Luna said sarcastically. She got up, grabbed her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm gonna find a quiet spot to chill."

She went down the stairs and disappeared around the side of the house. Lynn playfully lunged at her and she danced away. "Cut it out, dude," Luna said, "I'm not in the mood for games."

"Your face is a game," Lynn said.

Lynn followed Luna, and Lincoln was alone on the porch with Mom, Lily, Lola, and Lucy. Lucy had her nose buried yet again in a paperback and Lily giggled and leaned into the spoon for more food. "You're a little piglet," Mom said. "Mommy's piglet. Oink, oink."

The toddler tried to oink but sneezed instead.

The sun was lower, sinking inexorably toward the mountains defining the eastern horizon. Nothing moved on the highway, not even a tumbleweed, and Lincoln shook his head in disbelief. If any vehicles had passed since they'd been at the ranch, he hadn't seen them. It was like everyone else had fallen off the face of the earth leaving him and his family as the world's only inhabitants. He knew Arizona was a big, empty state, but this was ridiculous. A car hadn't been along in either direction in hours. This part of the world was remote but not that remote.

He was lost in these thoughts when Lisa's voice roused him. He looked up at her and furrowed his brows confusedly. "What?" he asked.

"I said," Lisa enunciated slowly, "I found a well. It might be a source of water but it's covered. I require yours and Lana's assistance."

Mom and Lily had gone inside while he was gathering wool and Lucy was so engrossed in her book that she might as well not have been there at all. Lincoln and Lana looked at each other and exchanged a glance. Why not? They didn't have much else to do, and if there was water in the well, maybe they could boil it and use it for bathing.

"Do you think we can drink it?" he asked Lisa and she led him and Lana around the far side of the house.

"I'd have to run a few tests on it," Lisa said. "Luckily I brought my portable chemistry set along for just such an occasion.

The well was next to a stable five hundred feet from the house, a circle of stone with a little pitched roof guarding it from the elements. A slab of concrete covered its mouth and a rusted metal bucket hung from a wench. He took up position on one side of the slab and Lana on the other. Grunting, straining, and sweating, they moved in unison and the cover moved with the grating scrap of stone on stone. Lincoln's back twinged and a fat vein stood out in the middle of Lana's forehead. They stopped, caught their breath, and tried again. The slab moved slowly, as just as it began to teeter on the edge, they both jumped slab fell to the ground and cracked into two pieces. Lisa went over to the well, slapped her hands on the side, and leaned over, peering into the depths.

"Dear God," Lisa said and held her nose.

Lincoln cocked his head curiously, then a second later, an awful, sickly-sweet stench blew over him. He had never smelled anything like it before, but if he were forced to compare it to something, he would say it was like rotten meat drenched in spoiled milk.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a penlight and turned it on as Lincoln and Lana both looked over the edge. Lisa pointed the beam into the well, the light reflecting on the placid surface of its contents. The water was so shallow that Lincoln could make out a heap of withered, half-submerged sticks. He leaned over even more, the stone lip of the well biting into his stomach, and narrowed his eyes to see better.

At the same moment he realized what he was looking at, Lisa gasped. "Bones," she said. "And they appear to be human."

Lincoln's heart started to race.

Human?

"Are you sure?" he asked.

She was silent for a moment. "Fairly sure, yes." She aimed the light at the pile. "Notice the elongated shape and tapered, ridge-like ends. Those are characteristic of human femur bones." She stood up straight. She was visibly pale and shaken. "Get that bucket. I want to see if I can fish one of them out."

Lincoln and Lana worked the pulley system and the bucket descended into the tomb. It took a few minutes but they were able to swing it back and forth hard enough to knock one of the bones off the top of the pile and get it inside the bucket. Lincoln pulled the rope up and Lana grabbed the bucket, sitting it on the rim of the well for Lisa's inspection. The little genius walked over, pulled on a single Latex glove, and pulled the bone out. She adjusted her glasses and closely examined it while Lincoln and Lana waited for her final pronouncement with bated breath. She looked up, and from the expression on her face, Lincoln knew.

"It's human," she said.

Lincoln let out a deep breath and raked his hand through his hair, his mind racing with terrible possibilities. The first image to come to mind was of a rusted truck and a man with a fedora. "How do you think it got down there?" he asked of the bone.

Setting the bone aside, Lisa shone the flashlight down the well and moved her lips without producing sound, counting. "There are at least five femures down there. Counting this one, that makes six. That means that there are multiple victims."

Victims.

God, victims of what?

"Do you think they fell?" Lincoln asked with a hint of desperation. Somehow, he already knew the answer to that.

She confirmed his suspicions. "It's possible but highly unlikely that multiple people would fall down a well. And even more unlikely that the last one down would pull a heavy slab of stone over the top as he did so. I can only conclude that foul play was involved."

That admission, spoken from the lips of a genius, hit Lincoln in the stomach like a boot, and he began to breathe hard. "It's the demon," he said, "he lured us here. This is his lair."

"Calm down, Lincoln," Lisa said sharply. "From the discoloration, I'd say these bones have been here for at least fifty years. The man who ran us off the highway has nothing to do with it."

"Are you sure about that?" Lincoln challenged.

"Fairly sure, yes," Lisa said.

"I'm not. What do we do?"

Lisa didn't reply for a moment. "I don't want to frighten the others, so we keep it to ourselves. Once we've reached civilization, we can inform the authorities, but until then, I urge you to remain silent on the matter."

Lincoln and Lana shared an uneasy glance.

"Not a word," Lisa said.

After shaking Lynn, Luna walked around the parameter of the house with her Tupperware container tucked under her arm. The backyard was dusty and covered with sparse grass and her boots kicked up clouds as she walked. Past a cattle fence, strands of barbed wire strung through crooked and rotting posts, the grass gave way to hardpan. In the distance, a mountain range overlooked the open desert like a sentinel. Like her brother, she was interested in history and imagined that once upon a time, Indians looked on that very same range with religious wonder.

She figured she would find a back porch to sit on, but there was none: A door led back into the house, but it was flush with the ground and exposed to the pounding sun. A bulkhead led presumably into the basement, its hatch-like doors standing open. Luna walked over and considered going down into the cool gloom, but she didn't know what was down there. Probably spiders. Ui-uh, no way, Jose, she did not do spiders. She could handle snakes but spiders were no good. She hadn't seen a real life scorpion yet, but from the pictures she'd seen in science class, she didn't like those mothers much either.

Where could she go to "chill" though? She wasn't about to just plop down right here. That sun had already eaten her alive, and there'd be nothing left but a little bitty pile of Luna ashes.

She looked around and her eyes fell on the stables way off to the left. The roof had caved in during some long ago storm and the doors hung askew, but she was pretty sure there was at least one little space she could slip into.

Mind made up, she crossed the yard. At one of the half doors, she stopped and looked in. The roof had collapsed into a giant pile, leaving the stalls and open rooms around it clear. A line of stables flanked a wide walkway that was open on the other side. Straw and dead bugs covered the floor. Luna glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her, then followed the path to the opposite end. A rickety wooden ladder provided access to a hayloft overhead and wondered if the steps would support her weight. They looked kind of weak and old.

Just like Pop-Pop.

Sorry, Pop-Pop, love you.

Shoving the container up her shirt, she decided to give it a go, fuck it. She placed one foot on the bottom rung and started up. The rungs creaked and protested but held. She reached the top and paused.

Without warning, something smashed into her face and dazzling white light filled her vision. She flew back and for a terrible moment, she was falling, blood gushing from her ruined nose. She hit the floor and her spine snapped like a twig. Her back arched and her eyes bulged from their sockets, a silent scream wedged in her throat. Numbness spread through her and tears of exertion welled in her eyes, blurring the world. She could just make out a tall, broad shape standing on the hayloft and looking down at her.

The thing let out an inhuman screech and jumped. Luna's vision cleared and she watched it coming down, falling through the air with its back straight and its feet together. It landed on her midsection and the numbness in her body burned away in an all-consuming conflagration of agony. Dark red blood burst from her mouth and nose, and her intestines squeezed out of her rectum, filling her underwear like so much diarrhea. Her ovaries exploded and she felt something - a spleen, a kidney - slip wetly out of her birth canal. The thing stomped both of its feet and more of her insides ruptured from her mouth like toothpaste from a tube; a broken rib sliced her lungs and blood filled them. She tried to breathe but gurgled and drowned instead.

Getting off of her, the thing picked up the container and opened it. It took a whiff of the remaining brownie then let out an angry idiot grunt. He bent and slammed the brownie into Luna's mouth, breaking her teeth and splitting her lips. Shattered bits of molars and bisupids ripped her escghocial lining on the way down, but she was already passing out.

Already slipping away.

The monster picked her up and the last thing Luna felt was its fangs ripping into her throat.

Death, when it came at long last, was a relief.