Welcome Home Lazarus

I’ve always wanted to be a homeowner. I grew up in this nice house with my mom, dad, and older brother. We had a yard with a swing and a sandbox, and a big grill where my dad used to make hot dogs. Then recession hit. We had to sell the house and get an apartment. It wasn’t bad, but it was weird having to go from having my own room to sharing with my brother.

I decided I would live the kind of life that allowed me to have a place like that of my own. I tried to get a good job, but something always killed the momentum. The housing crisis, the pandemic, and this endless parade of things I couldn’t control. Even if I handled my job well, I had to start over again and again. Cutbacks, layoffs, restructuring, whatever you call it.

I got a remote job some years ago and decided to go for it. I found a cheap house in the town of Hilltop. Not the biggest place, but it was my own, and I could work remotely. Hilltop is not a big city, and not the most exciting area, but if you’re ever gonna be a homeowner you have to make some concessions.

It was a one-story building that had been empty for years. Four rooms, a large bathroom, and a refurbished kitchen. A garage that wasn’t connected to the main building. There was a storm cellar too.

I’ll be honest, my first thought was ‘I messed up’. When I got there with all my furniture and boxes, I didn’t know what to do. The floors were a mess. The bathroom didn’t have warm water. I barely had any reception, and I couldn’t get the wi-fi working. But what’s done is done, and day by day, I made it a little better. New doors for the garage. New floors. Fixed the bathroom tiling and redid some of the plumbing. I hired some guys to trim the yard, plant some bushes, and add some stepstones out front. The place gradually transformed, even if there were some strange groans and creeks when it got windy.

I was proud to call that place a home. I had my own yard, my wallpaper, and my furniture. Kitchen table, two chairs. Vintage leather couch. Not too shabby.

I was happy with that place. I’d work from about 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening, with a one and a half-hour lunch break. Sometimes I had to take client calls later in the day; then I could compensate by sleeping in and starting later the day after. I do a lot of technical illustrations for guidebooks and also act as a reviewing consultant. I get handed something that’s been worked through a dozen times when they need someone with a nice title to put a final stamp of approval. Pays well, but if you don’t pay attention you can screw yourself out of a job.

I’d lived in Hilltop for about a year and a half. It was summer, not that long after fourth of July. You could still see remnants of red, white, and blue balloons downtown. It was closing in on the weekend, but I had gotten a bunch of last-minute things to chug through because of a scheduling error. They’d accidentally written the wrong date, and something I thought was due in August was, in fact, due in a couple of days.

I had to pull a series of all-nighters. I was living on these cheap boxes of Chinese food that I’d saved up in the freezer, along with a big box of cheap energy drinks. Not my usual forte, but I was working 16-18 hours a day and barely looking up from my screen. I had a pillow next to my workstation for micro-naps. I usually read a lot of my work on a tablet, but I had to sit uncomfortably in order to stay awake. Even then I had a guy calling me once every six hours to get a status update. I had this default ringtone that had seared into my brain like a tattoo.

I was on day three. I’d had about four hours of sleep the night prior, and I was just over halfway done overall. It looked like I was going to meet my deadline in a couple of days, if only by a hair. At one point I got up to have my third energy drink of the day and splashed some cold water on my face. My hands were shaking, but I was so into my work that I wasn’t really paying attention. If I had, I would’ve looked out the window. I would’ve noticed the man walking up my driveway.

Just as the sun began to set, there was a knock on my door. I nearly choked on my drink. I’d only ever had delivery guys knock on my door – no visitors. Didn’t know enough people in the area yet. Looking out the kitchen window, I could see there was someone standing at the front door. I hadn’t put in a peephole yet, so I wasn’t sure about letting him in. Walking up to the door, I called out.

“Excuse me, who is it?”

“Lars, I used to live here.”

“Alright.”

“Can I come in?”

I looked around. The place wasn’t a mess per se, but I wasn’t ready for company. I had things to do.

“Sorry, I’m a bit busy at the moment. How about next weekend?”

“I won’t be long,” he interrupted. “Please, it’s serious.”

“You need help? Should I call someone?”

“Look, I don’t have much- never mind.”

Seconds later, the lock clicked and the door swung open. The front door was one of few things I hadn’t replaced yet, and apparently, this man had an old key.

Lars was a man in his early 60’s. Long white hair, slim and tall build. Messy beard that could use a trim. The moment he stepped in, he slammed the door shut and locked it. I was already taking a step back towards the bathroom, getting ready to call the cops. He held up a hand, showing he wasn’t armed.

“I need something from the bedroom,” he said “It’ll take five seconds. Five seconds, and I’m out, please.”

I was scrambling to find the right words. I got in the way, I yelled, I pointed, but I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t prepared. I could pull a knife on the guy, but was I ready to stab him? I didn’t know, so I didn’t do it. I just followed him, holding my phone up as a threat. He didn’t seem to mind.

He jogged into the bedroom, only to notice I’d put in a wardrobe that covered one of the walls. The thing was nailed to the floor, and he wasn’t about to move it anytime soon. He threw the doors open and crawled in, smacking the back of the wardrobe with his open fist.

“Damnit!” he called out. “A wardrobe. They never put in wardrobes. Why now?”

He got back out and looked me in the eye. He thought about what to say for a couple of seconds, then spoke in a low voice.

“I know this is weird. I know. But do you have an axe, or some kind of power tool?”

“I’m not helping you mess up my wall.”

“It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Then we need to call the police.”

“It’s not that simple.”

As he raised his voice, we stopped and turned. There was another knock on the front door. Lars looked at me, as if silently asking if I was expecting company. I shook my head. Someone knocked for a second time.

I stepped back into the main hall. I could hear muffled voices coming from outside.

“Sir, would you kindly open the door? It’s an urgent matter, if you please.”

Lars looked at me with these wide eyes, shaking his head.

“I can hears y’all walking around in there,” the muffled voice continued. “Don’t make me wait now.”

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“You got our buddy in there, right? Long hair, looks like shit?”

“Yeah?”

Lars swore under his breath and bolted for the back door – the one that opened into my beautifully trimmed yard. He pulled the door open and sprinted for the woods. Some of the voices on the other side of the door stepped away to speak into some kind of radio, and seconds later I heard a barking dog.

It didn’t take them long to come around the back of the house. I saw a German Shepherd bring Lars to the ground as two men with assault rifles zip tied his hands behind his back. I’ve never heard that kind of pained scream before, but it was only a prelude. My heart was beating out of my chest. The energy drinks weren’t helping.

“You don’t open this door in six seconds, it’s coming down. You want me to start countin’?”

“I’m not part of this,” I said. “I’m not part of any of this.”

“Then you’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Nothin’ but sunshine and rainbows.”

I opened the door.

There were six men outside, making them eight in total with the two out the back. Eight men and a German Shepherd. The two up front were about Lars’ age, with trimmed white hair and beards. Military, maybe law enforcement. Both had assault rifles resting on their stomachs with their arms crossed. Nondescript black baseball caps, blue fatigues and bulletproof vests. Handcuffs, stun guns, pepper spray, two sidearms. One on the hip, one across the chest.

As they dragged Lars back into the house, kicking and screaming, the man at the door gave me a big smile.

“Thank you kindly,” he said. “Name’s Jerome, this here’s Marcus. Mind if we come in?”

I didn’t say anything, I just stepped aside. Even if I managed to call for help, I’d be dead in five seconds if I made any sudden moves. These people weren’t messing around. Jerome walked right past me, but the second guy, Marcus, stopped and held out his hand.

“Phone,” he said. “Please.”

I handed it to him. He nodded, putting it in his breast pocket.

“I got one of these too,” he nodded. “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

One by one, a full squad of what looked like an armed militia crowded into my house. They closed and locked the front door as someone bandaged Lars’ leg. There was a big splotch of blood on the hallway carpet. It was enough that I could smell it, but it was quickly getting overpowered by sweat and gun oil.

They had to keep an eye on me without diverting their attention from Lars. They settled on sitting me down in the living room. I’d been compliant enough that they didn’t handcuff me, but they zip tied my feet just so I wouldn’t get any ideas. That, and one of the younger of the group had his attention completely on me.

They took one of my two chairs and strapped Lars to it. As they did, Jerome leaned back with a cigarette. Before he lit it, he looked over at me.

“You mind?”

I wanted to say yes, but the words caught in my throat. I ended up coughing. Jerome nodded, putting the cigarette away.

“Fair’s fair. We’re gonna have a chat with our buddy here and we’ll be gone in no-time. Sound good to you?”

“Great,” I nodded. “Yeah, great.”

“Fantastic.”

He slapped his hands together as they tightened Lars’ straps and pulled up my second kitchen chair. He turned it around and leaned on the back rest. He seemed comfortable with this. Not a drop of sweat.

They asked him a couple of basic questions just to get him talking. They asked for his full name, date of birth, and where he was born. When they asked what year it was, and what day, and who’s the President – that’s when things got complicated. Lars didn’t seem to know. Jerome didn’t seem to like that. Not one bit.

“You know why we ask those questions?” he asked. “It’s to measure cognition and function. And if I’m to believe any shit that crawls outta your mouth, you better get that cognition and function tip fucking top, my friend. So I ask again, who’s President?”

“I haven’t been keeping up, I-“

“You don’t know our commander-in-chief?”

“I don’t.”

“You been living under a rock or somethin’?”

They laughed at that. Some of them laughed a little too hard. For a moment, Lars looked up and met my eyes across the room. There was something he was trying to say, but I couldn’t tell what. Maybe he was asking me not to get involved. Jerome shook his head and patted the German Shepherd. It wagged its tail so hard it almost knocked over a lamp.

“Twenty-six years and counting. We’ve had one hell of a time planning your welcome home party. And here you are, stepping out of the dark and back into the light. Like a… what’s it called?”

“Lazarus”, Marcus added. “Like Lazarus of Bethany.”

“Like Lazarus of goddamn Bethany!”

Jerome smacked his knee as he punctuated each word. Then he pointed at me with his full hand.

“You read your bible, sir?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Don’t get more American than that!” he laughed. “True blue! An honest sinner! Pay attention, Lazarus. You’re gonna need a role model.”

Then he closed his fist, leaned back, and crushed Lars’ nose in a strike so violent that it knocked the chair over. The dog started barking but was held back by his handler as the zip ties stopped me from jumping out of my seat. The man keeping an eye on me held up a hand, silently asking me to settle down.

They got him back and straightened him out. Lars gasped for air, wheezing through a broken nose. There was already swelling on his face making one eye halfway closed.

“Word association time,” Jerome said. “Car.”

“What?”

Jerome slapped him across the face. It wasn’t hard, but anything stings with a broken nose. Lars flinched and closed his eyes. Jerome tried again.

“Car.”

“Loan.”

“Home.”

“House.”

“Box.”

Lars hesitated. Jerome raised his hand and grinned, but didn’t strike a second time. He turned to the others, as if acknowledging he was on to something.

“Box,” he repeated. “Your turn, Lazzy-boy.”

“Distant.”

“Now you’re lying. That’s not how people do this. See, I said one-syllable words. It’s in the nature of people to match that, so when you don’t, I know you’re considering your words. You’re lying. Now if you’d said ‘gone’, that’d be different. But you said ‘distant’. That’s not what it is, is it?”

He leaned a little closer, teasing the stun gun on his belt. He continued, quieter, almost whispering.

“It’s not distant at all, is it?”

The line of questioning continued. A lot of them implied that Lars had been somewhere far away for a prolonged period of time. They asked him things like the name of the ‘port of entry’, and the name of his sponsor. Lars tried his best to answer, but sometimes his words would get a bit muddled up because of the blood. Jerome could explode into violence at the drop of a hat, and he did.

They’d been there for about half an hour when he got into something I remember in detail. They’d wiped Lars’ nose with a paper towel, and two of the guys had started walking around the house looking for something. I figured it was whatever was in the bedroom, but I didn’t want to say anything.

“You know what’s funny?” Jerome asked. “I thought you’d stop aging by now. I thought you’d be a spring chicken once you got back.”

“Don’t work like that.”

“I can tell, you look like shit.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Got jokes,” Jerome smiled. “Man’s got jokes. Wanna hear one of mine?”

Lars didn’t answer. He just looked down and shook his head.

“A gun sits down at a bar and asks the bartender who the pretty girl at table one is. The bartender says ‘I don’t know’. Then the gun asks who the handsome guy at table two is. Bartender says ‘I don’t know’. Then the gun asks who the cute old lady sitting at table three is. Again, the bartender says ‘I don’t know’.”

Jerome removes his pistol from its holster and undoes the safety. He continues the story, looking down at his gun.

“Then the bartender asks, why do you wanna know? Why you asking about these people? And you know what the gun says?”

He slowly lifts the pistol and rests it in the flat space of Lars’ forehead.

“I just wanna bang, man.”

For a moment, I think he’s gonna pull the trigger. Not from his face, but the face of the others. People behind Lars step away. One of the guys shields his face, expecting blood. Jerome doesn’t give anything away, but I can tell they’re waiting for something to happen. Lars looks at me one more time, as if asking me a silent question. I don’t know if he’s begging me to speak, or to shut the hell up. I can’t tell, but I don’t want a man dying in my house.

“The bedroom,” I say, my mouth dry like powder. “He was looking for something in the bedroom.”

Jerome tilted his head up, pulling his gun back.

“In the wall, behind the wardrobe. He asked if I had an axe,” I continue.

“No shit?”

I shook my head. Jerome put away his gun and got out of his chair, patting Lars on the head like an obedient dog.

“Look at that!” Jerome exclaimed. “Look. At. That! Lazarus won’t have to come back twice after all. He got his own Lord and Savior right there, with zip tied feet. Ain’t that something?”

Jerome’s right-hand man, Marcus, pulled out a combat knife and hurried into the bedroom. Within seconds, I could hear pounding on the wall. I tried to meet Lars’ eyes, but he didn’t move. I got the impression that maybe I chose wrong.

As the pounding continued, I got a couple more snippets of context. Lars had been gone for twenty-six years, and these people knew each other at some point. Lars would mention names of friends they had in common and used to know – some of whom had passed. Jerome didn’t bat an eye.

There was also the issue of where he’d been. They kept talking about him as if he’d been dead, but he’d clearly done something. Lars had been somewhere that Jerome was eager to know more about, but it was spoken about more as something abstract than a physical place. When asked how far he ‘delved’, Lars didn’t answer with a measurement of feet or meters – he answered in ‘levels’. Apparently, he’d been down twelve levels, whatever that meant.

When asked about other people, Lars acknowledged that he’d seen others. There was a city. There were businesses, and infrastructure, and strange inventions based on flora and fauna that didn’t exist.

“They got those blue sunflowers all the way down in Adventureland?” Jerome asked.

“Yeah,” Lars nodded. “Sure they do.”

“They kill people over there?”

Lars hesitated, then nodded. Jerome smiled at that.

“You ever see one come back?”

Lars nodded again.

He answered questions like how big the sun was, or how many hours of the day there were. There was also this one date that kept coming back up, 2030. That seemed to confirm something Jerome was suspecting. Some of the people in the room looked genuinely unnerved, looking back and forth. One of them had to sit down, wipe a tear, and blow his nose.

After a while, the pounding on the bedroom wall stopped. I heard wood break, and something plastic getting dragged out. Marcus returned with what looked like a small box wrapped in a dozen plastic shopping bags and secured with duct tape.

“It’s not gonna help,” Lars said. “You gotta stop this, it won’t help.”

“You’re a goddamn devil and don’t even know it,” Jerome spat. “Been spittin’ so much poison my ears gon’ turn green. Get the bag open.”

Marcus slammed the box onto my kitchen table and cut it open with his combat knife. Jerome motioned towards me.

“Secure him. We gotta find out how much he knows.”

The guy who’d shed a tear stepped up and zip tied my hands. He mumbled a quiet ‘sorry’ as he did, making sure they weren’t too tight. As he stepped away, he gave me a pat on the shoulder before returning to watching me with his hands on an assault rifle. He gave Jerome a nod as Marcus unwrapped the package.

The box was this completely black cube, about ten inches on each side. It didn’t have any visible ports or holes, but it was hard to see from where I was sitting. Marcus held it up over the table, dropped it, and it didn’t make a sound as it touched the table. He did it again, and we all just watched in awed silence. I’d never seen anything like that. It was just silence. It even fell slow, like it was light as a feather.

“Holy shit, you actually kept the damn thing,” Jerome mumbled. “But I guess you gotta leave a door open when you walk away, huh?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know I ain’t dumping shit in a river and hoping God sorts it out for me, how about that?”

Jerome raised his voice with every word, sparking a barrage of barking from the German Shepherd matching his energy. The handler had to struggle to hold it back as it gnashed its teeth, straining to get loose. It was only after Jerome sat back down that the dog calmed.

“You think I’m unfair?” Jerome asked. “You think it’s just me?”

Lars didn’t answer, so Jerome turned to me. He pointed with his full hand.

“Sir, I’m gonna need you to answer a hypothetical.”

He got up and picked up the cube. It seemed so light in his hands. He could spin it around with the flick of a thumb.

“Imagine you’re in Heaven,” Jerome said. “Angels, cloud nine, movie stars givin’ lap dances on apple pie lane. You’re livin’ it up, thanking the Good Lord for a life well spent. You with me?”

“Yeah?”

“Now, one day someone comes up to you and whispers in your ear. And he says, you know what? This ain’t Heaven. This is Hell. And one day all these Angels are gonna look your way, and they’re gonna show their real teeth. And those teeth are gonna be soft rotten black. It’s gonna happen. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. And then, you’ll be in a world of shit. Forever.”

I swallowed hard as he stepped over to look me in the eye. He bent down, flinching as his knees cracked a little.

“Now, would you want that man to tell you that? Would you want to know what’s gonna happen, or would you like to stick to a life of blow jobs and Christmas mornings? For all you know, that day ain’t ever gonna come! And if it does, wouldn’t you want to spend every waking moment up until that point living what little life you have?”

He looked at me expectantly. I opened my mouth, shut it again, and then nodded.

“I’d want to be happy,” I said. “If it’s already too late, I’d want to be happy.”

“He’d want to be happy,” Jerome nodded solemnly. “That’s a wise man right there. Happiness is a fleeting thing, and we gotta treasure it. Don’t we?”

I nodded. Lars kept looking down at the floor, staying quiet.

My phone rang. I heard it coming from Marcus’ pocket. I had this default ring tone to recognize job calls. I was late for my six-hour check-in, and someone was making sure I hadn’t fallen asleep on the keyboard. Marcus picked up my phone and, surprisingly, answered.

“Go for two.”

Then he looked confused. Looking down at the phone, I could see this realization come over him. The others turned to him, looking horrified, as he dropped the phone on the ground and stepped on it. For a couple of seconds, this silence settled on the house – undercut only by Lars’ wheezing breaths.

“It had the same damn ring tone.” Marcus said, picking up his own phone from another pocket. “It sounds the same!”

“You answered the wrong phone?!”

Jerome got up so fast he knocked over his chair. He stepped over, readied his pistol, and shot my phone three times. The bangs were so loud that they bounced against the walls, making my ears screech and crackle. He was yelling something about ‘doing it right’ and looking ready to pistol whip someone. Meanwhile, Lars is giving me a look. With his eyes, he’s looking over at me like he’s trying to hint at something. I follow his eyes to the side of the couch I’m sitting on.

It’s an older model. Leather, with sown-in buttons on the armrests. Probably something from Lars’ era. Looking a little closer, I realize the buttons are held in place with a sharp metal wire. Sharp enough to cut through a zip tie.

As the armed men kept arguing back and forth, I managed to snap one side of the zip ties. It was surprisingly easy, only needing a couple of twists and a pop. They didn’t seem to notice, they were too busy discussing something. My ears were still ringing, but Jerome was yelling something about interference, while another man was doing a countdown. Finally, Jerome picked up his own phone and checked something.

“Signal’s out,” Jerome spat. “Time’s up. Take this piece of shit outside, I don’t wanna sully this man’s floor.”

One of them grabbed Lars’ chair and started dragging him out into the yard. I was still pretending to keep my hands together, as if the zip ties were still in one piece. Marcus kept getting pushed around; it was clear he’d done something bad by answering some kind of “unsanctioned phone”.

As Lars disappeared around the corner, he gave me one last look. A terrified, genuine, look. And this one I understood perfectly.

I was in danger.

Jerome walked over to me and leaned down. I held my hands together, pretending to be stuck.

“We’ll deal with this and be out of your hair,” he said. “But we have to check something on you too. It’s protocol. And I know you’ve seen some things, but I feel I can trust you. So once we’re done, we’re gonna let you go. But you gotta work with us a little longer.”

“So I’m safe?”

“Yeah, you’re safe.”

“For sure?”

“For sure.”

“Really?”

He looked me in the eye, squinted a little, then smiled.

“Yes, really.”

Maybe he didn’t realize I was using his own trick against him. Maybe he didn’t care. It was the same interrogation thing he’d done to Lars. If that trick was the real deal, he was lying to me. Too many syllables.

Jerome picked up the cube and joined the others out back. One man stayed behind to watch me, while another checked out my bathroom.

“Got a tub,” someone called out.

I wasn’t safe. I don’t know how I know, but I knew. For a brief moment, I’m alone with the one man watching me. But he’s looking out the back door, only keeping me in his peripheral view. There’s no way I can go toe to toe with these guys, so I have to try something else. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I had to be slow and methodical. I waited for him to look back at me one more time, then I burst into action as he turned away.

I leaned back and opened the window behind me. It’s quiet, they’re new. Then I get up and slowly shimmy forward. There’s a small storage space right ahead, across the room. I didn’t have time to fill it with anything, so I could probably fit in there. It is surprisingly fast, and the guy seems distracted. My entire body jerks as another gunshot goes off in the distance.

I manage to get inside the storage space the second he turns around to look. All he sees is an open window, and an empty couch. He screams at the others and rushes outside. I don’t think he even knew there was a storage space.

I take a moment to snap the zip ties around my ankles. I don’t have any weapons, and I can’t stay there indefinitely. They’d find me. If they wanted to deal with me, they’d pick the house apart. They seemed to be in a hurry.

I’d never actually been in that storage space fully before. There’s a small hatch at the bottom of the back wall. It’s been painted over, but it’s literally just a piece of plywood. Knowing the layout, I figured it lead straight into the guest bedroom. I hadn’t done much in there yet, seeing as I wasn’t expecting guests. Leaning down, I put pressure on the plate, and it popped out; ripping a piece of the wallpaper on the other side.

None of them were in the guest bedroom. They were rushing out of the yard, heading for the front. I could climb out a window into the back and disappear into the woods. It was my best shot. I put the plywood plate back, locked the guest bedroom door, and climbed out a window.

That’s when I saw Lars.

Still tied to a chair, he was lying in the middle of the yard. Shot in the back, just above the heart. There was so much blood.

My socks touched the wet grass as the evening air slipped into my lungs. I stepped forward, keeping my head low. There was no one around. As I got closer, I noticed Lars was still breathing, albeit faintly. I bent down next to him. He tightened his fist and looked me in the eye.

“Wait,” he wheezed. “Wait. Here.”

He smacked the grass with his hands. And, still looking me in the eye, he stopped breathing. I touched his shoulder, but there was no life there. Just more blood pooling in the grass, soaking into my wet socks.

As I straightened my back and considered the woods, a low noise snapped me to attention. The sound of a growling German Shepherd, rounding the corner of my house.

If I hadn’t stopped, I would’ve run straight into the woods. I would’ve run, and I would’ve kept going. But I didn’t. I stopped for a few seconds, and that was all it took for that dog to catch my scent. The handler rounded the corner, whistling. Seconds later, people were coming out of every door of the house. Jerome was first; holding his cube.

“What’re you doing out here?” he chuckled. “I thought I told you to cooperate.”

“You were gonna shoot me.”

“Now how can you possibly know that?”

“You were, weren’t you?”

Jerome pondered the question, tasting his answer before he spit it out.

“I was,” he nodded. “And I am.”

He raised his pistol, giving me a shrug.

“I was gonna let you go, but you seen too much. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, genuinely.”

For a moment, life slows down. I feel my heart beating out of my chest. I try to think in a thousand directions at once, as if there is a secret third option I’m not considering. I look at Jerome. At Marcus. At Lars, and the dog. Someone, something, somewhere – anything. The cube is so black that I can barely see the edges of it. But the gun doesn’t move. It doesn’t look away.

The moment Jerome pulls the trigger, he slips. Not much, but just enough for the bullet to graze my ear instead of piercing my cerebellum. My face feels like it’s on fire as a scorching liquid rolls down the side of my neck.

I look over at Jerome as I see the ground under him moving. Something has wrapped itself around his leg.

A hand. A pale, thin, hand.

I don’t stop to think. I turn and run, and as I do, gunfire goes off. Even in my panicked state, I notice one thing – they’re not shooting at me.

Someone is screaming. Then another. As I get to the edge of the forest, I can hear Lars’ voice. It’s hoarse and dry, but it’s unmistakably his. Albeit… different. He yells, but I can barely hear it over the gunfire.

“I’ve been back so many times!” he yells. “So many times! So many times!”

I look over my shoulder.

The yard is a massacre. There are people coming out of the ground. Men in their 60’s, all with white hair and messy beards. Some are almost completely skeletal; others looked like they’ve barely begun decomposing. One of them is almost eight feet tall, with gangly looking limbs that reach all the way to the ground.

Jerome backs away, holding up the cube like a shield as he makes a retreat. Others are being dragged to the ground and torn to pieces. Gunfire ceased to the sound of cackling laughter and snapping joints as Lars’ voice echoes in a dozen different mouths.

“I knew you’d be coming!” one laughs. “Not a surprise to me! Not a welcome home party!”

“Home! Ground! Home! Ground!”

The laughter echoes as identical voices join in a ceaseless shriek, repeating the same words over and over.

I’m just standing there for a couple of seconds, but it feels like minutes. Hours. More hands reach out of the ground as the entire yard dissolves into mud and gore. A couple of them run for it. The handler with the dog backs away, firing indiscriminately. Someone is already at a car out front, and I can hear an engine starting. Jerome is already gone.

Marcus makes it to the back door, but doesn’t get the chance to step through. The upper half of a decomposed torso grabs his leg, pulling his pants halfway down his knees. As Marcus topples over, something in his leg snaps. Seconds later, two figures loom over him. One grabbing his arm, the other holding him down. He starts screaming as they bend and break him.

Others go out faster. People are disassembled like broken toys. Up until that point, I wanted to run from the guns, and the death. Now I didn’t know why I wanted to run. It wasn’t because of the danger. It’s because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want this image burned into my mind.

And before I can finally step away, I see Lars’ body, still tied to that chair. Still not breathing.

But his eyes are still moving. Still looking my way.

I ran until I reached a road. I think I followed it for about three hours before I ran into a car. From there, it wasn’t hard to call for help. I looked like a train wreck before all this, but by the time a passer-by saw me I looked like I was having an episode of something. They could’ve just called the police and moved on, but they stopped to make sure I was okay.

Once the police got involved, things moved fast. They didn’t take the idea of multiple men armed with assault rifles lightly. I wasn’t there when they swept through my house and yard, but it was clear it didn’t go smoothly. There were multiple bodies. Some were very old. Too old for me to be a suspect.

They had to dig up the entire yard. They confirmed over a dozen bodies, and some recent. I gave the description of Jerome as best I could; they even made a phantom sketch. I don’t know how many others made it out.

It’s been a couple of years, and I’ve moved since. I couldn’t stay in a house where there’d been bodies buried in the yard. I kept waking up to imagined knocks on the door. Now I got a nice townhouse. Much smaller, but new. Same town, lower price point, and no complicated history to consider.

Looking back on those days, I feel kind of stupid. Not just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but for putting so much time and effort into a place. A place is just something that holds people, it’s not a destination in and of itself. If I have to work myself to death just to keep living there, what’s the point? Can you really live if you can’t enjoy yourself?

For all of Jerome’s strangeness, I think the one point he made that stuck with me was that it’s okay to choose joy. It’s okay for me to acknowledge that this happened, and to move on. It’s okay to change what I want. I don’t want a house; I don’t need one. I don’t need the most well-paying job. I don’t need a life that looks like Heaven.

After all, with the twist of a soft rotten smile, it can turn out to be something different.

Something different entirely.