A couple months ago, my best friend Bryce moved away to a town I’d never heard of before. He had just landed his “dream job”. It was gutting to say the last, but worse than that - he practically ghosted me after he left. I sent a few texts here and there, even rang him a few times, but heard nothing in return. Having been close friends since we were kids, the experience was jarring and definitely shook my trust in friendship as a concept.

Thankfully, he recently sent me a text message, apologizing for the radio silence and claiming that moving and starting a new position had “taken over his headspace”. He told me I should visit him in his new haunt, and I enthusiastically accepted. We carved out a week that worked for both of us, and the plan was set.

Armed with a backlog of Spotify playlists to keep me company, I plugged the address he provided into my GPS and went on my way. It ended up being a lengthy and confusing drive through roads unfamiliar.

Finally, I arrived in his neighborhood. I took in the scenery. This new neck of the woods was bizarre to say the least. On the same street housing tacky-looking detached homes stood gothic-looking manors straight out of a Victorian novel. Way too many convenience stores here for such a small community, and did I mention the town center? Well, wouldn’t you have it, it was a collection of skyscrapers piercing through the clouds that looked sleeker than anything I’d ever seen before in my city-girl life. The town planner clearly had a fragmented personality.

I pulled into the driveway of Bryce’s fancy cottage - really Bryce, a cottage? - ran up the steps, and rapped at the door. He peeked out through his living room curtains, and ever the goofball I knew and loved, shot me a puzzled look for minutes before he finally opened the door. I flung into him and gave my brother bear a big hug. Dude seemed tense.

“Friend!” I exclaimed.

“Rose! You’re… here!” he replied.

“Of course. Dude, you made us plan the trip down to the hour. You have gotten mad organized since we last spoke.”

I settled into the coziest couch I could find in his living room and let the snug air of his new place flood my senses. It was blissful. I had to admire what he’d done with the place - it felt like the culmination of years of settling in, not someplace he had just signed a lease for.

“Well,” I started, “Clearly you’ve struck it big with the new gig! All that’s left for you now is finding a girlfriend so you can do all that build-a-family nonsense everyone’s always yapping about.”

“Yeah… hey, let me get you some coffee, alright?” He walked into the kitchen.

Hm. More curt than I remembered him ever being. I wondered if the girlfriend comment threw him off? It was just a joke, friend.

He returned moments later, coffees in hand. He handed me one of the mugs then sat opposite me on another sofa.

“So! I gotta say this… area? Town? Lil’ city? Google wasn’t helpful - this neighborhood is pretty quaint!”

He looked out the window. “Yeah, no, it’s interesting.”

I waited for him to break from his stare. He wasn’t being particularly hostly. I interrupted with more small-talk. “Well, how are you settling in? How’s life?”

He leaned back in his seat and scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I’m settling in fine. It’s been busy. Definitely spend most of my time thinkin’ about work.”

“Yeah! Tell me more about that. You were pretty tight-lipped about it on text. Is the job everything you hoped it’d be?”

“Not… exactly.”

I poker-faced through the uncomfortable silence, hoping he’d say more.

“Like,” he finally continued, “It’s definitely not what I studied. Nothing at all like what they pitched me either. It’s pretty out there.”

“Well, what are you doing exactly?”

He hesitated. I could tell he was escaping up into his head.

“I think my coffee needs a bit more cream. BRB!” He left the room again. (Yes, he’s the kind of guy to say the acronym out loud)

I pondered in his absence. Dude was a secret supergenius who could land a gig just about anywhere. A job that required him to move to the middle of nowhere and leave his loved ones behind had to be nothing short of astounding. But, hearing him now, he just seemed tired. Uninspired even. I wondered how long this move was really going to last?

I stopped myself from ruminating further. This was too much honest reflection for what was supposed to be a vacation. A selfie was in order.

I pulled out my phone, coffee in hand and Bryce’s welcoming abode in the background. I already had the caption for the Instagram story - Finally found him you guys!

I waited for him to round the corner. He emerged, I clicked. Snap! The light flashed to immortalize a pretty derpy-looking me, and Bryce, mug caught in mid-fall, with his arm outstretched violently screaming “NO!”

Paralyzed by his yell, I turned to clock the shattered mug and liquid coffee beans spilling onto his hardwood floor. “Shit…” I looked up at him. “Sorry, what happened? Did I just–”

His attention turned from me to the front door. He ran to it, checked the lock, then pulled at the door as if to test its integrity. He did the same with the balcony door, muttering to himself along the way. “I’m so stupid, of course she was gonna take a picture, why would I be so careless, I should’ve known I should’ve fucking known–”

“Hey,” I walked up to him. “It was just a selfie, Bry. I’m sorry if it caught you off guard?”

He took a deep breath, then spoke in a tone that was very unbecoming of the Bryce I knew. “It’s my fault. I’m the moron. You always take pictures. It’s what you fucking do. And what did I do? I left you alone, twice. I fucked us.”

“Sorry but you are being incredibly rude right now. Explain yourself.”

A stern look. “We’re not supposed to take photos.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Not supposed to take photos of what? Your house?”

“Anything. Anything at all in the town.”

I became convinced this was all an elaborate bit he’d been planning in anticipation of my arrival. I chuckled accordingly. “That sounds… stupid?”

A touch of softness returned to his eyes. “I was hoping I’d get chance to ease you into the explanation, but fuck, there’s no easy way to break this to you is there?”

“...what on earth are you talking about?”

His glance returned to the living room window. He stared out for what felt like an eternity. I idled with him, secretly wondering if my friend had become a headcase since I last saw him. He’d never shown signs of being particularly paranoid or volatile, but maybe something had changed since the move.

The sound of soft tapping against the window wasn’t immediately obvious. When I finally noticed it, I saw a silhouette in the front yard below. Someone - or rather, something - was outside, stretching and reaching to try to peer into our elevated living room window.

“Hide behind the sofa,” said Bryce.

“Are you for real?!”

“Do it. Now.” The desperation in his voice was convincing.

I begrudgingly followed the orders and crouched against the end of the sofa I was just sitting on.

I peeked ever-so-slightly to watch Bryce approach the window.

“There’s nothing here for you!” Bryce yelled at the stranger in the front yard.

A beat of silence. The figure outside slowly lifted its hands, clutching a crumpled piece of paper between them which it then pressed against the window.

It was the selfie I had just taken.

Instinctively, I laughed. It took a few seconds for logic to flood my brain and for me to wonder how on earth a stranger had a printout of a photo I just took.

“That isn’t ours! No photos were taken here!”

The photo disappeared from view. Then, the entity raised a single finger, tapping the window and pointing in my direction.

“No one else is here!” Bryce held his ground for a moment.

Then, he closed the curtains.

He sat beside me on the living room floor and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. I was in denial.

“How is that even–”

“Shh,” Bryce interrupted. “He’ll be gone soon.”

Minutes passed, and the tapping finally subsided.

“Like I said,” Bryce broke the silence, “I was hoping we’d get a second to settle in first.”

“How does someone even do that? Like, technologically, how the fuck could someone do that with my phone? I don’t get it?”

“I’m gonna need you to calm down for a second.”

“Bryce what the fuck is going on?”

With a grimace and a restless shuffle, he struggled to find the right words. “So,” he finally spoke, “Let’s rewind a bit. I moved to a new town for a job that I couldn’t turn down.”

“Right.”

“When I got here, I knew pretty much immediately that something was very wrong. First - I thought I was renting this place but when I arrived, there was a deed taped to the front door signed in my name. My boss for the job I hadn’t even started yet stopped by after, congratulating me on the role and the new place. He told me my pay was going to be much higher than initially discussed, but that the scope of the role would also be way different. I asked him to explain what he meant, and he just said that I’d “figure it out over time”. He was insistent that if I did whatever he asked in a timely manner, that I’d live a “safe and fulfilling life.”

“And so, for some strange fucking reason, you then thought it’d be a great idea to text ME to come here?!”

“No! No. I never texted you. I never texted anyone. I ignored everyone’s calls, messages, everything. I didn’t want anyone to get sucked up into this nonsense with me. But I guess it didn’t matter anyways. Something reached out to you, pretending to be me. Which means that something wants you here.”

I tensed up. “So, I mean, we should get the fuck out of here then, right? Why didn’t you ever leave?!”

“Hah! Funny enough, I almost did. But then someone explained the ambulances to me.”

“Ambulances?”

“Yeah, they should be here soon.”

Bryce put a finger to his lips. The room went quiet for minutes, until…

The distant roars of an ambulance reached our ears. Bryce got up and moved to the kitchen window. I followed.

The siren’s blare grew louder and clearer. Outside the window, we could see it approaching. It turned a corner and parked on the road only a few houses away.

Then, I saw it.

The back door of the ambulance opened up, and out stepped a man cloaked in thick garb from head to toe.

He pulled a stretcher out the back door. Then another, then another.

All of the stretchers had people on them… people whose heads had been completely pulverized. Clumps of crimson-red flesh and cartilage where faces should’ve been.

Once all of the stretchers had been pulled out and left on the road, the cloaked man re-entered the ambulance from the back, then closed the doors.

The siren blasted again and the vehicle drove off.

“Uhm Bry, what the fuck, what the actual fuck I am freaking the fuck out.”

Bryce just stared at the stretchers on the street. They were gently rolling off in different directions.

“Aw man…” he said, noticing a particular demolished body on one of the stretchers. “I liked that guy. We went grocery shopping together one time.”

“Who the fuck are those people?!”

“People who tried to leave. That’s what happens to them.”

“And they’re just left on the street?!”

“Sometimes. Other times, they’re brought to the incinerator, or buried, or chopped up, or occasionally dropped off at someone’s house…”

I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. Instinctively, I pulled out my phone and queued up the numbers 911.

“Wait, wait Rose, you don’t want to do that. Rose, stop!”

His words bounced right off me. My brain was on autopilot, my body was moving on its own now. I ran into one of the rooms, slammed the doors shut, and then leaned against it.

He knocked violently.

“Rose, you don’t know what you’re doing! Please hang up! Please!”

Everything was fine. I had a half-baked plan in mind. I would call the number, then ask the operator to transfer me to a different county. The NYPD. They’d know what to do.

I hit ‘call’ and waited for an answer. Finally –

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Hi!” I replied. “I need to get connected to the closest police department outside this jurisdiction. Maybe New York’s?”

“Sure. Can you let me know what your emergency is?”

Bryce pounded with even more force.

“Yeah so, there was an ambulance, it uh stopped on our street, it… had bodies in it, dead bodies on stretchers that looked like they’d been completely fucked up, and then the bodies were just thrown on the street and–”

“Right. And sorry, these were people who were trying to leave town?”

What?

“I’m sorry. Could you say that again?”

“Yes. Were the bodies in the stretchers people who tried to leave the area?”

She said the last six words slowly, as if she thought I was stupid.

Stunned, I tried to redirect her back to the point. “There was also a man, a man who uh showed up in our yard, he - he had a picture of me, there’s no way he could’ve had a picture of–”

“Right, and sorry, did you take a photo before this man showed up?”

“I… I, uh, what?”

Bryce was seemingly ramming the door with his whole body now. I was struggling to keep it closed.

“Where are you now? We can send someone to you immediately.”

“I-i uh, no thanks?”

“Are you sure, ma’am? I promise it’ll be fun.”

Horrified, I hung up. I released my hold on the door and it burst open, sending me tumbling backwards onto the floor. Bryce entered, looming above me in anger. “You didn’t tell them where we were, did you?!”

I desperately shook my head. “No! No I didn’t.”

He sighed in relief, as if his whole body were exhaling with him. “Thank fucking God.” He addressed me with ‘disappointed Dad’ intensity. “You have to stop doing that. Fucking please. If they called someone to this place, you could’ve gotten us killed, or even worse. I’ve heard stories man. The people in this neighborhood talk.”

I stopped myself from speculating on what worse meant.

“Where the fuck are we Bry?” I asked. “What the fuck is this?”

“I don’t know.”

He wore exasperation on his face. I could tell he was at his own breaking point.

I got up and gave him a hug. More for my sanity than anything else. As I held him, the sinking, skin-crawling sensation of feeling trapped consumed me. I wanted to sob but I just couldn’t.

We returned to the living room and tried our best to settle in again.

“I’m trying…” he said, “To piece together exactly what’s going on here. I have some idea of the things we should avoid doing, but still, there are lots of question marks.”

“Uh huh,” I said nervously. I took a quick peek outside and spotted a sign. Shaped like an arrow pointing to the left, it read, “Exit this way :)”.

Before I could ask more questions, I heard his phone vibrate.

He checked it, then sighed. “They have another job for me,” he said.

“Another job?”

“Yeah. A task I was hoping I could avoid for some time. Wish me luck.”

He went back to his room. When he emerged, he was wearing a cloak not-too-dissimilar to the one the ambulance driver was wearing.

–

He left some time ago now. He gave me some clear directives before stepping out: Keep the doors locked until he’s back, and try not to panic. I’ll try not to overthink the second one.

He also showed me a special hand signal that he’d use when he comes back. He told me that I should, under no circumstances, open the door until he flashes the gesture.

It’s a good thing he told me. ‘Cause only an hour after he left, it felt like he had already returned. He’s standing at the door now, softly knocking while wearing a wide smile on his face. He hasn’t flashed the signal yet, so I’ll probably hold on letting him in.

Part 2