The scratch of wood splintering. Bob's breath catches. He doesn't remember making those marks. Three parallel gashes run down the bedroom wall, deep enough to show raw pine beneath the paint. They weren't there yesterday. He'd have noticed. He'd have run his thumb over them the way he does every morning, tracing the old watermark stain that's been there since before they moved in. Petunia stands rigid beside his bed. Her growl starts low in her chest, a vibration that travels through the floorboards into his bare feet. She doesn't look at the wall. She looks at the corner where the claw marks end—where the plaster meets the ceiling in a shadow that seems deeper than it should be. "What is it, girl?" She doesn't stop. Her ears are pinned forward, her whole body a coiled spring. Bob's seen her like this twice before: once when a bear wandered too close to the shed, and once when a stranger's truck idled too long at the end of the driveway. A knock at the front door makes them both flinch. Bob edges into the hallway, Petunia pressed against his leg. Through the frosted glass, a familiar silhouette: wide shoulders, curly hair catching the porch light. He opens the door. Johnny Maverick stands there, guitar case in hand, no jacket, no sunglasses. His eyes are dark and focused in a way Bob's never seen. "You heard it too," Johnny says. Not a question. "Heard what?" Johnny steps inside without waiting for an invitation. He sets the guitar case on the floor, unlatches it, but instead of a guitar, he pulls out a small radio—battered, with a cracked dial and a frayed cord. "Last night, around 2 a.m. I was tuning through static, trying to find anything." He twists the dial. White noise fills the room. "And then this." He turns a knob. The static breaks. A voice, thin and distant, repeats the same three words over and over. Bob's blood goes cold. *"The boy knows. The boy knows. The boy knows."* Petunia starts to howl.