The photo wouldn’t delete.
Claire stared at her phone in the ruined basement. 10 chairs. 10 plates.
And in the last one, a shadow with her coat. Her hair.
Taken from above. Like someone was standing on the ceiling.
Her radio was dead. Her gun was empty.
But the breathing from the drain had stopped.
She ran.
12 hours later. Georgetown Diner.
Laura Reed was there. Eating pancakes. Alive.
But her eyes were wrong. Too calm.
“You’re not hungry,” Claire said, sliding into the booth.
Laura smiled. “No. Not anymore. Someone else is.”
She pushed a napkin across the table.
On it, in ketchup: COME HOME. TABLE 10.
“Where is this?” Claire asked.
Laura pointed out the window.
Across the street. An old townhouse. Lights on.
And in the window: a long table. 10 chairs.
“Daniel brought me here last night,” Laura whispered. “He said if I sat, I’d never be hungry again.
I said no. And I walked out.
But the table... it followed me.”
Claire looked up at the townhouse.
Every window had a table in it.
Every table had 10 chairs.
Every chair was empty. Except one.
The 10th chair.
With her silhouette.
“It’s not one table,” Claire realized. “It’s everywhere.
It copies itself. Every time someone says no.”
Her phone buzzed. Daniel.
A voicemail. 3am.
_“Claire. You broke it. Good.
But you can’t kill hunger by shooting it.
You just make more tables.
Come to Table 10. Sit with me.
Or it’ll keep making copies until there’s a table in every house.”_
Click.
Claire stood up. Left money on the table.
Laura grabbed her wrist. “Don’t go. If you sit, you’ll be stuck.”
Claire squeezed her hand. “If I don’t, everyone will be.”
She crossed the street.
The townhouse door was open.
Inside: cold. Smell of garlic and bleach again.
Long wooden table. 10 chairs. 9 empty plates.
And at the head of the table: Daniel.
He wasn’t alone.
In every other chair, a shadow. Flickering. Like bad TV.
9 shadows. The original 9.
And in the 10th chair, a mirror.
Claire walked to it. Her reflection sat there, waiting.
Daniel gestured to the seat. “Last time I asked.
Sit, and we end this. Together. We host. We contain it.
Get up, and it keeps spreading. New tables. New hosts. Forever.”
The shadows turned their heads to her. All at once.
The drain in the floor of this house gurgled.
Claire pulled out the brass key from Berlin. B.P.H. - Storage 9
She laid it on the table.
Then she did the one thing Hale never did.
She sat down.
But she didn’t wait.
She picked up the plate.
And smashed it on the floor.
All the lights went out.