A Father’s Final Lesson

Time, Ben had always said to his students, moves in only one direction. But that was before that last night in the woods, where past and present collided in the grotesque figure of Buddy Grayson.

The man materialized, stumbling in the darkness twenty feet ahead. His hunting jacket hung in tatters, darkened and smeared with something that might have been blood.

Ben’s heart stuttered. His seven-year-old daughter, Juniper, had wandered just a few steps ahead on the trail, and was now caught between him and the thing that had once been his best friend and neighbor.

Ben lunged forward and grabbed her shoulder, digging his fingers into the fabric of her jacket. His heart raced as he stared at the man ahead — or what was left of him.

“Ow! Daddy, that hurt!” Juniper squeaked. It was the same thing she had exclaimed three years ago, when he had grabbed her from running into traffic after her balloon. The same words, but a different danger. He remembered how he’d explained then that sometimes love means holding on tight enough to bruise.

Time doesn’t move in one direction after all; it moves in circles.

Yesterday morning, Grayson had been tending his roses, the same ones his wife had planted before cancer took her last spring. “Time’s funny ,” Buddy said, carefully pruning the dead leaves. “Milly always believed that roses taught you about life and death. You have to know what to cut away to help things grow.”

Now his head lolled at an awkward angle. His eyes caught the moonlight and reflected like shards of glass, but deeper still, they burned with a faint, unnatural red you’d see in the fractured glow of broken brake lights.

The infection that had started in the city had reached their neighborhood only hours ago. It had changed, they said, something in the transmission. Mutated. The infected were different now. Smarter. Organized.

When had everything changed? Ben thought back to the morning’s faculty meeting, with half the seats empty. Principal Alvarez had been mid-sentence, discussing emergency protocols when the lights flickered and died. “We’ll resume at three,” she’d said. But three o’clock never came — at least not in any way that mattered. The woods had seemed like the safest place to run. Now, it felt like a trap.

Grayson let out three sharp whistles that sliced through the silence. More whistles answered. Each response carried a name in Ben’s mind: Mrs. Patel from the coffee shop, who’d given Juniper free hot chocolate every morning; Donnie, the mail carrier who’d cried with them when Ben’s father died last year; Charlie, Juniper’s classmate who’d just made the Little League team.

All of them changed. All of them hunted now.

“Juni, listen carefully,” Ben said. He kept his voice steady despite the fear clawing up his throat. He remembered how he and his ex-wife had always praised their daughter’s ability to follow instructions. “When I say go, run straight back to Mrs. Hammond’s house. Don’t stop, don’t look back — no matter what.”

“Like… like Or-fee-us?” Juniper asked, her voice trembling but brave.

Ben smiled. Orpheus. Of course, Juniper would remember the myth they’d read together last week about escaping from the underworld. Even now, in this moment of terror, his daughter was making connections, finding meaning in the stories they shared. That’s what he had loved about teaching history and mythology — how these ancient tales could illuminate modern truths and serve as maps for the hard parts of being human.

But there were no ancient stories fitted for this moment, no myth to light the way through this particular darkness. The infected were coordinating their movements with those terrible calls, herding them toward something worse that waited in the shadows.

“Go!” Ben pushed her forward, just as he spotted Charlie emerging behind them, his Little League uniform stained black, his teeth curved like fishhooks — another new manifestation of the infection.

As Juniper’s footsteps took off into the night, time flashed through his mind again, about how a father’s love moves in only one direction, always forward, always toward sacrifice. About how every moment of protecting and teaching and loving prepared them both for this night.

The infected turned their heads in unison, locking their eyes on Juniper’s retreat. Without thinking, Ben stepped forward. “Hey! Here!” he shouted, waving his arms. “You want someone? Take me!”

The infected turned and formed a circle around him, swaying slightly. A deep, rhythmic clicking approached through the trees beyond Grayson. Ben heard his daughter’s voice in his memory, reading from their favorite mythology book: “The greatest acts of love are the ones that echo through time.”

He closed his eyes as the clicking grew closer. He thought of Buddy tending his wife’s roses, of Milly’s laughter echoing in the garden. He thought of Juniper’s future stretching out ahead like a trail through these dark woods, and all the stories they’d read together — myths of heroes and monsters, of love and loss. Every hero’s journey, he realized, begins with someone letting go.

The clicking stopped.

Ben’s last clear thought was a prayer that time would keep moving in circles, that somewhere ahead, his precious Juni would remember everything they’d shared — every story, every lesson, every moment of love — and find her way through whatever darkness waited for her in tomorrow’s world.

Then Grayson whistled one final time, and Ben learned what comes after the end of all stories.