I was making burritos when the stranger in the black suit appeared. He hooked his foot on the ledge beneath the counter and asked if he could stay for dinner. I worried there wouldn’t be enough food. There were uninvited people in the house—teenagers on phones, old men and women in the living room singing sweetly about Jesus.
But I said yes to the stranger because this was the first time I had seen him up close. He was tall, gaunt, with black hair, a lock falling over one eye. He looked exhausted. He rubbed against my shoulder like a cat. Now that I think of it, his voice lay flat in his chest like a waiting lion. For once, though, he wasn’t chasing me terrified through a forest. He’d been chasing me on and off all these years with one thing in mind—my annihilation. Now all he wanted was a burrito.