Chapter 4 - The Arrival of the Horde
The sun was high and hot by 12:30 PM when Marcus’s black Chevrolet Tahoe pulled onto the gravel driveway of the New Buffalo house.
I wasn't there to see it physically, but I saw it through the eye of the small, weatherproof Nest camera we had mounted beneath the eave of the garage—a camera that was tied to an independent cellular hotspot I had left active. I was sitting in a Big Boy parking lot off I-69, three hours south, holding a cold cup of coffee and watching the live feed on my iPad screen.
On the screen, Marcus hopped out of the driver's seat. He was a large man, carrying a prominent beer gut over a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a faded golf polo shirt. He stretched his arms, looked up at the house, and patted his stomach with the satisfaction of an emperor arriving at his country villa.
The passenger door opened, and his wife, Brenda, stepped out, immediately checking her phone. From the back seat, their three teenagers spilled into the driveway like a small, disorganized army, leaving the car doors wide open. One of them immediately kicked a soccer ball against the side of the garage with a loud, hollow thwack.
Marcus walked up the front deck steps, his heavy boots echoing through the small iPad speaker. He reached out to the digital keypad on the front door frame, his thick finger stabbing out his old code: 1-9-7-5—the year of his birth, a code he had insisted on using because he couldn't remember anything else.
On the camera feed, I watched him press the buttons. A short, sharp red light flashed on the keypad. The lock remained silent.
Marcus frowned. He wiped his finger on his cargo shorts and tried again, pressing the buttons harder this time.
Red flash. Error chime.
"Hey! Ben!" Marcus shouted toward the screen door, assuming I was inside making his lunch. "The lock’s acting up again! Open the damn door!"
No one answered. The wind rustled the white pines.
Brenda walked up the steps, holding a heavy grocery bag filled with bags of chips and plastic jugs of orange juice. "What’s taking so long, Marcus? It’s ninety degrees out here, and the ice in the cooler is already melting."
"The stupid smart lock is broken," Marcus grunted, his face turning a dark, frustrated shade of red. He raised his hand and punched the buttons for a third time, slamming his thumb against the glass pad with enough force to crack it.
Three red flashes. A long, high-pitched digital whine.
The keypad went dark. The internal security protocol had initiated. The lock was now in an absolute twenty-four-hour electronic freeze.
Marcus let out a loud curse and slammed his fist against the solid oak door. "Ben! Open the door! This isn't funny!"
He stormed down the steps, walked around to the side kitchen entry, and tried the old brass key he kept on his car ring. He rammed the key into the keyway, but it stopped halfway in, the new pin configuration acting as an immovable steel wall. Marcus twisted the key with all his strength, trying to force it.
There was a sharp, metallic snap.
Marcus stepped back, holding the plastic head of his key. The brass blade was broken off completely inside the cylinder, effectively ruining any chance of using a physical override on that door.
"Son of a bitch!" Marcus roared, throwing the broken key ring against the gravel.
Just then, a second vehicle pulled into the driveway—my parents' silver Buick sedan, followed closely by my sister Sarah’s white Honda Pilot.
Within minutes, the gravel yard was a chaotic scene of confusion and rising anger. Thirteen people, two dogs, and three cars full of luggage were marooned on the driveway in the blazing July heat. My father climbed out of the Buick, his posture rigid, his brow furrowed with deep irritation.
"What is the meaning of this, Marcus?" my father demanded, walking up to the deck where Marcus was currently trying to jimmy the living room window open with a flathead screwdriver from his trunk. "Why isn't the house open? Where is Benjamin?"
"Ben’s lock is broken, Dad!" Marcus shouted back, sweating profusely through his polo shirt. "And his truck isn't here. The garage is locked up tight, and the key broke off in the side door!"
My mother, Nancy, stepped out of the passenger side, her face tight with an expression of supreme disbelief. She adjusted her sunglasses and marched up the steps, her wedge sandals clicking loudly. She grabbed her phone from her canvas beach bag and dialed my number.
In the Big Boy parking lot three hours away, I watched my iPad screen as my mother stood on our deck, her phone pressed to her ear, listening to the automated recording that informed her my phone was turned off.
"He turned his phone off," she said, looking at my father with an expression that was a mixture of shock and pure, venomous fury. "He actually turned his phone off. He knew we were coming, and he locked us out of the family house."
Sarah walked up the steps, carrying a crying toddler on her hip. "Mom, it's scorching out here. Toby's dog is already snapping at Sarah's retriever, and we have three hundred dollars worth of frozen steaks in the back of the Pilot that are going to spoil in an hour. What are we supposed to do?"
"We are going to open this house," my father said, his head-coach voice echoing across the lawn. He walked down the steps and stood at the base of Marcus’s ladder. "Marcus, use the crowbar from the trunk. Pop the frame on the basement window. We can climb through the laundry room and open the front door from the inside. We’ll figure out what’s wrong with Benjamin’s phone later, but right now, we need to get these children into the air conditioning."
On the iPad screen, I watched Marcus nod and run toward his Tahoe to fetch the heavy iron pry bar.
I reached down to my phone, switched it back on, and waited forty seconds for the cellular signal to find the local tower. The moment the signal bars hit full strength, a torrent of eighty-seven missed texts and voicemails flooded the screen, turning the phone into a vibrating brick of family rage.
I ignored them all. I pulled up my contacts and called Jim.
"Jim," I said, my voice cold and hard as stone. "They're attempting a forced entry. Marcus has a crowbar at the basement window right now. Call the sheriff."
"On it, Ben," Jim said, his voice dropping all professional pleasantries. "I'm looking at the trespass notification from the smart gateway right now. The local substation is only three miles down Red Arrow Highway. Deputy will be there in five minutes."
"Thank you, Jim."
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I hung up, rolled up my truck window, and put the Ford in gear. I looked at the iPad screen one last time. Marcus was standing at the base of the basement window, the iron crowbar raised, ready to shatter the vinyl frame we had installed last spring.
"Go ahead, Marcus," I whispered to the empty truck cabin. "Break it. See what happens."
