Only Fakes Go Out in Daylight

"Only Fakes go out in daylight." The rideshare driver said it with the noon sun blazing outside the window. "It's dangerous for a girl to be out in the middle of the day," he said. "You know that, right?" I blinked. "If you don't go out in the daytime, what, you sleep at home?" He turned around in his seat like I'd said something impossible. "People sleep during the day and go out at night.

That's how it works." "Only Fakes go out in daylight." He wasn't smiling. In the rearview mirror, his pupils were shrinking.

Smaller and smaller, down to two pinpricks, pinned on my face. Chapter 1 Noon on a Tuesday, and my rideshare driver was doing a horror bit?

Something went off in my skull like a struck bell. I opened my mouth to tell him to knock it off. Then I caught his eyes and went clammy all over.

In the rearview, those two pinpricks were still on my face. They hadn't moved once.

His mouth split open, wrong somehow, and the teeth behind it were shaped like upsidedown triangles. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I shrank toward the door without deciding to. Outside the glass, the sun was cooking the pavement. Inside the car it was cold enough to store meat.

That was when I noticed the shops. Every one of them shuttered. Not a single other car on the road.

He kept his eyes on me and let out a low, clicking laugh. "Chkchk." The wheel turned. We weren't heading toward my apartment anymore.

We were heading into a narrow side street I had never seen in my life. "Hey, man, I think you missed the turn." I said it calmly.

Under my coat, my thumb had already punched in 911. "Chkchk. Fakes get sent to a containment center for processing." My heart slammed.

Then something clicked in my head. "Come on, man, cut us dayshift wage slaves some slack. Aren't you running dayshift fares yourself?

You think anybody wants to work flipped hours?" Something in there must have landed. When I looked at the mirror again, his face had gone ordinary. "My mistake.

My mistake." "It's just, Fakes have been showing up a lot lately. My buddy ran into three of them in one day." "I thought maybe you were—" He laughed.

It was a completely ordinary laugh, and that was somehow worse. "Sorry about that." We came out the other end of the side street.

He turned the wheel and put us back on the right road. I watched the buildings turn familiar again and got my heartbeat down to something survivable.

A few minutes later he pulled up clean at the front gate of my complex. I paid in the app, opened the door, and memorized his plate on the way out. 7KJP482.

I waited until the car was gone. Then I called 911. "Hello, how can I help you?" "Hi, I need to report a driver. Plate 7KJP482.

The guy is not right in the head, he—" "I'm sorry, ma'am. In this city, crimes are reported to 311.

This line is for general information only." The woman's voice went into my ear, flat and pleasant, and my phone hit the sidewalk. "If you encounter a Fake, call 311 immediately." "Chkchk.

Fake. Disposal." It was the hottest week of the summer and I was cold from the scalp down. Something was watching me. I could feel it on my back like a hand.

I left the phone where it landed and ran.

I hung off the handle of the lobby door, dragging air, shaking so hard it took me three tries to get the key in. "Why are you home in the middle of the day?

Don't you have work?" My mother came out of the kitchen holding half a watermelon, frowning at me. Chapter 2 You have no idea what that sentence did to me.

I threw my bag at the couch, crossed the room in two steps, and grabbed her. "Ms. Doyle.

If you're reporting a crime, do you dial 911 or 311?" She pushed me off, baffled. "Is that a trick question? 911." "Do people sleep in the daytime or at night?" She put the back of her hand on my forehead.

Her face changed. "Oh, honey. You're burning up." Something in my chest let go. She was fine. She was normal. I told her all of it. The driver. The call.

She listened without a word, then shook her head. "That's not possible." "That driver's got something wrong with him, sure." "But 911? Sweetheart, you're running a fever.

You hit a 3 instead of a 9." I shook my head like a bobblehead and reached for my phone to show her the call log.

Then I remembered my phone was lying on the street outside the gate.

I dropped onto the couch and put my forehead in my hand. "No." "Even if I hit the wrong number, I heard what she said." "She said, to report a crime, dial 311." Mom sighed, went to the kitchen, came back with a glass of water and the fever reducer. "Take this first." "I'll go find your phone.

You sleep." I took the glass and swallowed it down. "Okay." "But something's off out there. Maybe don't go looking for it." "That phone's ancient anyway.

I've been wanting a new one." "Oh, you little moneyburner." She poked my forehead with one finger. "Quinn Doyle. Bed. Now." "Okay." My head was full of wet sand.

I dragged myself down the hall to my room. When I woke up I'd call again. Just to be sure. I lay there with my brain still humming.

The fever came in slow waves, dragging me under and letting me up again, and I could not fall asleep. "You're still awake? Are you feeling worse?" Mom was at my door.

I hadn't heard her come. She'd opened it a crack and was talking through it, soft. "Better. I'm sleeping," I said. She didn't say anything else. The door closed again, gently.

I shut my eyes and went looking for sleep. Nothing. There was a line of sight stuck to the gap under my door. It was cool on my skin. It made the back of my neck crawl.

I made myself call out to her. The feeling vanished immediately, and then there were slippers scuffing away down the hall. I bit my lip, got up, and eased the door open an inch.

My mother was bent over, her head down next to my phone. The phone somebody had picked up off the street. Her finger tapped the screen. Tap. Tap.

I never heard her leave the apartment. When did that phone come back?

And worse than that— She turned her face partway toward me, and her mouth was stretched wide open, and it was the exact same shape as the driver's.

I got my hand over my mouth in time. I started backing up. The fever had my reflexes in a fog and I misjudged the distance and hit the bed frame. The thud carried.

The tapping stopped. And then that clicking laugh came drifting toward the door. "Sweetheart?

Why aren't you asleep?" Chapter 3 "Mom, did you go back out for the phone after all?" I kept my voice light. It came out tight anyway. The footsteps stopped at my door.

The knob turned a little, then held. "Well, what was I supposed to do? That's money." Her voice hadn't changed at all.

But something in me knew: she was back to "normal." "Oh, right.

Your phone's dead." "Why won't the charger go in?" I took a breath and pulled the door open like it was nothing. "How many times have I told you? That phone's old.

The charger doesn't fit." She was standing right there. We looked straight at each other. That face. The most familiar face in the world. And something in it was wrong.

It took her a while. Then she smiled. "Oh. I forgot. Why are you being so nasty about it?" "Go to sleep." I didn't close the door.

I put my hand out. "Give me the phone." "What for?" I pushed my hand closer. "To charge it." She blinked twice. Then she laid the dead black phone in my palm.

I shut the door, dove back into bed, and pulled the blanket over my head. The air under there went hot and thick.

I held my breath until I was sure nothing was moving outside my door, and only then did I come up. I breathed. My whole body had locked up. I didn't dare roll over.

One thought, on repeat. That is not my mother. I had told her about the charger. Specifically. There was no version of her that didn't know.

I plugged the phone in and hit the power button. The startup takes maybe twenty seconds. I have never once cared about that. Tonight it took a year. It woke up.

Lock screen was still the two of us at the amusement park last summer. Exactly the way I remembered it. The call log was empty.

Not one trace of a 911 call. "Chkchk." The sound came out of nowhere and went through me like current. I stared at the closed door and sat up slowly, bare feet down on the floor.

The cold climbed up through my soles. I went to the door and put my ear against it. A lock turned. Someone was coming in through the entryway. "You're back?" Who was here? No.

Who was back? There were two people in this apartment. Me and my mother. That was the whole list.

I pressed closer. "Where is she?" A man's voice, low, familiar, and it detonated somewhere behind my eyes. That voice. That was my father. Impossible.

My parents divorced ten years ago because he cheated, and it was ugly enough that the smart money said Mom would put him through a wall before she'd let him in the door.

I already knew the woman out there probably wasn't my mother. Getting proof anyway made my throat close like a fist around it. "Fever.

She's in her room, asleep." Then his footsteps.

One at a time, into the living room. "She's running a fever?" "Make sure she's all the way under." "Otherwise it's hard to swap—" The sentence stopped. The knob moved, just barely.

Then my father's voice, low and close to the wood. "Sweetheart? Are you awake?" There wasn't time to get back to the bed. I was standing in his shadow, and his neck was crooked.

That isn't right either. The skin of his neck was holding his head on. That was the only reason it hadn't hit the floor. His head swung against his chest. "See?

Told you she wasn't sleeping." My mother came forward from behind him, and her eyes were furious. "Oh, for God's sake." Chapter 4 "Up in the middle of the day.

That's very bad behavior." "Fine. We'll do it with her awake." She opened her mouth and showed me a full row of upsidedown triangles. "No. Please. Don't—" My legs quit.

I went down on my knees on the floor, backing up, begging, and both of those things were useless. The room was too small.

All I could do was watch their hands come toward me and take hold. "Get the core out." "Careful." "Don't wreck the shell." "Don't touch me!" I bolted upright out of my own bed.

The sun through the window was too bright. I squinted against it. It was three in the afternoon. I'd been asleep two hours. All of that had been a dream.

Except I couldn't find the seam. I couldn't remember which sentence the dream had started at. Was it when Mom asked through the crack in the door whether I was asleep? Or earlier?

I sat there counting backward, and the further back I went, the colder I got. There was no line. I couldn't find it anywhere. I dragged in a few breaths and wiped my forehead.

Knuckles on the door. Mom came in with a plate of fruit. "What was all that? I could hear you from the hall." I stared at her without answering.

It took me a long time to climb out of the dream. "Mom. What time do you normally go to bed?" Her hand was already on my forehead. "Fever's mostly down. Nine, ten, same as always.

What is with you today?" I gave up and let myself sag against the headboard. "I had a weird dream." "You turned into a monster and tried to take my heart out." She set the fruit on my nightstand and looked at me the way you look at a lunatic. "Huh." Okay.

That was very much my mother. The world clicked back into place a little, and my laugh came easier. "Hey. Did you go look for the phone?" She shook her head. "I went.

Couldn't find it. Somebody grabbed a freebie, I guess." "Weird thing, though. Middle of the day and there's not one person out there.

Not even parents pushing strollers." "And that security guard, dead asleep. I had to yell at him forever before he woke up." "Oh, and then he snapped at me.

I'm filing a complaint." The smile came off my face. "It's the hottest part of summer," I said carefully. "People not wanting to go out is normal." "The guard was probably just… napping." The doorbell went off while I was still talking. "Got your phone here for you!" She went slapping down the hall in her flipflops to answer it.

Something turned over in my stomach. I got out of bed and followed her. "Here. This yours?" "It was in the flower bed." "Unbelievable.

Middle of the day and people are out here bothering—" The guard tossed the phone at us, complaining the whole time. My mother is an old lady with a short fuse.

She took one look at his attitude and put her hands on her hips. "Excuse me. What are you doing sleeping in the middle of the day?" "You're the guard. This is your job.

You're on the clock and you're slacking off. Nice money if you can get it." "And I was perfectly polite to start with.

You're the one who—" The little old lady was riding her high horse and didn't notice his face going dark. "Middle of the day.

Not sleeping?" His voice came out hoarse and low, and she didn't catch it. "What are you mumbling about?" "People. Middle of the day.

Not sleeping?" He said it again, eyes going wide, pupils snapping down to pinpricks. My mother had never seen anything like it. She froze where she stood