:)

One year ago, a woman named Roxanne Miller went missing. Without any close friends or family, it took two weeks for someone to finally notice her disappearance and report it to the police. There were no tearful pleas on the news for her return or adamant demands to keep her case active in hopes she’d be found one day. It was a quiet vanishing. Once the case went cold, it would be easy to assume that it would stay cold. Cold, dead, buried in the ground, forgotten by everyone except Johnny, Simon, Detective Bennett, and you.

You’re at the advantage over everyone right now. You know there’s new interest in her case, and you know where that interest needs to be directed towards for the culprits to be brought to justice. That advantage won’t last forever, though, because Detective Bennett’s not likely to give up trying to reach you, so if you continue to ignore him, he may just show up at your doorstep, searching for answers. If he lets it slip that he’s looking into Roxanne’s disappearance, then the watchful sentry above your front door will report back to your neighbors and your secret weapon will be ripped away.

So again, you have a phone call to make and a meeting to schedule and a plan to formulate for what you’re actually going to do at said meeting. Your first instinct is to walk in and out of the police station without speaking a word about Johnny or Simon or Roxanne, clinging to the safest option where you don’t risk incurring the wrath of your neighbors or implicating yourself in crimes of complicity. And maybe, just maybe, it would prove something to your neighbors. Show them that you’re worth having around with a gesture that demonstrates your loyalty and proper temperament.

But that’s what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it? Not talking to the police, silence with a smile, all your secret keeping—passive, gutless inaction has only gotten you so far. It’s not enough anymore, not when there’s an empty, ravenous basement waiting to consume its next victim and not when your own gluttonous desires include more than just survival and freedom.

So if staying quiet’s not going to cut it, what option does that leave you? Sinking a metaphorical knife in your neighbors’ broad backs, striking first before they get bored of you? Ratting them out to save yourself because if you can’t have them, the police can? Some secret third option that you’ve yet to discover? Leaves you with a headache, that’s what.

To remedy your throbbing temples, you lie on the sofa in your living room, staring at the whirling ceiling fan above you. Scratchy, pilling fabric rubs against your skin as you shift your position. It’s not the soft, worn-in leather of your neighbors’ couch, cool to the touch against the back of your thighs.

And when you turn your head to the side, there’s no one sitting across from you, staring you down like you’re the most amusing thing in the world. Johnny and Simon are instead out in their front yard again this morning, having resumed the removal of their dead shrub. Even from inside, you can still hear the rhythmic sound of shovels striking into dirt. Schick. Schick. Schick. You wonder if this was ever the last thing one of their pets heard before crossing over the rainbow bridge.

Bringing your phone up to eye level, you consider calling Detective Bennett now while your neighbors are busy. You put in his number, but your finger hovers over the call button. A nagging at the back of your skull warns that if you want to keep the conversation private, you’d best not make the call inside your home where unseen eyes and ears could be lurking in the walls.

It’s a new day, so another coffee run wouldn’t seem suspicious, right? Maybe this could be your new routine, and then Johnny and Simon won’t think anything of it when you one day leave the house and take a secret detour to the police station. And you could randomly alternate between the coffee shops at Somerset and Terrace so if your neighbors show up at one location, you could claim to have been at the other.

So focused on strategy and subterfuge, you fail to notice that the distant gravedigging ASMR has stopped. It only comes to your attention when the sound is replaced by a loud knocking on your front door. Scrambling off of the couch, you fly to the entryway because that’s likely either your neighbors or the police, and you don’t want to keep either waiting.

When you open the door, you’re actually relieved it’s Johnny and Simon instead of the alternative, though you do catastrophize a scenario where your neighbors were able to sense your scheming through dark powers and mind reading. There’s no deviance that you can detect in their countenance, though, or no more than the usual amount, at any rate.

“Hi there, neighbor,” Johnny greets, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “We’re goin’ out to get a new shrub.”

You blink owlishly, unsure of why they felt the need to announce this to you.

“We means you too,” Simon dictates. Confused blinking persists.

“Oh. Okay,” you respond. “Um. Why me too, though?”

Johnny tilts his head. “Who else would we bring along?”

You can’t argue with that logic. You can’t argue at all, really.

“I’ll get my shoes.”

...

...

...

Your neighbors’ nursery of choice is on the other side of town. The car ride over is fraught with anxiety between Simon’s questionable driving maneuvers and the chance that this was all a ruse to take you to their favorite camping grounds instead. But you arrive at the garden center physically unharmed. The first thing you notice when stepping out of the car is how strong the sun is today. You commit to memory the feeling of unfiltered warmth on your skin, lest you one day never get to experience it again, all while trailing behind your neighbors as Simon pushes a cart around and Johnny walks beside him.

There’s an array of shovels for sale under a covered area in the middle of the nursery. They hang off of a rack all lined in a row, ordered by length and grouped by the shape of the head. One of them catches your eye by the brand name engraved on the handle. You recognize it from the shovels your neighbors were using yesterday and pause to take a closer look.

“Got somethin’ to bury?” Simon queries, stopping when you do and leaning on the handle of the cart.

“No, but...” You reach out and poke the shovel until it clanks against the one behind it. “...this is the same as yours, right?”

“That’s the one,” Johnny confirms. He walks up behind you, engulfing you as he reaches around and pulls the shovel off the hook, his head nestled against yours. “We’ll get one for ye. Our treat.”

It takes a moment to react because you weren’t fully listening, too distracted by the proximity of his mouth to your neck, the closest he’s been since they both kissed you. (Now five days ago when they last showed you any kind of affection, any shred of warmth or intimacy. You had hoped yesterday that they’d kiss you goodbye, would have settled even for a tap on the ass on the way out, but you left their home with nothing, nothing at all.) Your brain does eventually kick in and think to decline a matching shovel, though.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. You already got me that knife last time, and I haven’t even used that, so...” you fruitlessly reason.

“We never taught you how to handle that knife properly,” Simon states, taking the shovel from Johnny and putting it in the cart.

Your face wrinkles in confusion. “It’s not just...” You pantomime a few concise thrusting motions with an imaginary knife. “Stab-stab?”

“It’s mostly that,” Johnny laughs before sauntering over to you again. “But you gotta know where to stab.” While standing in front of you, he wraps a hand around your wrist and moves your fist towards his chest.

“And when to stab.”

A firm yank suddenly drags you forward until you stumble into him, your pretend knife driving straight into his heart. The rest of you presses against him as well.

“And who to stab,” Simon adds, voice stern and steady like he’s issuing a directive. Johnny winks while you stare at him, wide-eyed and stock-still.

“Aye, that’s the most important part,” he notes.

It’s unsettlingly intimate. You swear you can feel his heartbeat against your fist. You remain paralyzed until Johnny slips his other arm around your waist, giving a quick squeeze before spinning you around and nudging you towards his partner.

“Go on, hen. Give it a try on Simon.”

With small, reluctant steps, you shuffle over to Simon, whose smirk hasn’t faltered since you first wielded your simulated knife. Your neighbor’s size has always intimidated you, but he seems twice as large right now while up close, about to fake-stab him. You raise your clenched fist, eyes scanning his chest, searching for approximately where his heart would be, but hesitate to land a blow, too worried about missing, about disappointing.

“Not gonna get anythin’ done by staring,” Simon instructs. Your eyes snap up to meet his, and as if on command, you follow through without thinking, stabbing him with your not-knife in the chest. It’s a stronger jab than you meant, but it makes no noticeable impact to the thick wall of mass and muscle that is Simon. His smirk grows sharper, twists into a smile. “That’s it. Good.”

The praise drips down onto you. Buzzes in your veins, gives you a rush of adrenaline. You hold your hand there for a moment too long, reveling in the high until you have the sense to be mortified by your reaction.

“O-okay. Got it...” you stammer, hastily breaking contact and stepping back. “Where, when, who. I’ll remember that.” Johnny and Simon exchange a look of what you deduce is pride. But with the lesson over, they resume their plant shopping. You take to following behind them again, hand still clenched tightly around an invisible hilt.

You wonder if you could actually do it. There’s something so final about crossing that line, drawing a blade and striking. Once your weapon makes contact, there’s no turning back. You can’t undo a slice to the flesh, can’t force blood to return to the source. But when backed into a corner with your neighbors flanking you from the left and the cops positioned on the right and the basement door against your back, who knows what you’re capable of?

You have time to contemplate all that while Johnny and Simon inspect dozens of shrubs, searching for the best of the lot. Discerning eyes and high standards keep them from grabbing just any old shrub. This one’s drooping already from not enough water, this one doesn’t have enough new growth coming in. But after much debate, they finally select a nice, lush boxwood and pop it into their cart. And now that they’ve got what they came for, you hope they’ll take you straight home and not out to the woods to christen your new shovel.

But before you can take even two steps towards the exit, you hear a tapping that’s getting louder. Then a shout.

“Someone grab her, please!”

A small, fluffy white dog zooms between the rows of plants and shoots by you like a rocket, free and on the move, leash flailing wildly behind her. The dog’s too quick for you to react, but not quicker than Simon, who snatches her right off the ground once she passes by him. The pooch fidgets and squirms in his arms but can’t escape. A young woman jogs towards you all, flustered and out of breath and presumably the dog’s owner.

“Thank you so much. I didn’t have a good grip on her leash and something startled her, so she just took off,” she explains sheepishly, taking the dog from Simon.

“Lucky for you, we’ve got a knack for catching runaways,” Johnny replies, reaching out and ruffling the top of the dog’s head. He smiles, alluring and brilliant, and you can see the change in the woman’s posture, can clock when she realizes just how handsome your neighbors are as she tucks her hair behind her ear and returns the smile sweetly.

Ignored and awkwardly standing to the side, all you can do is watch. Is this how it starts? A chance meeting with a stranger, Johnny being his charming self, making casual small talk while Simon plays the strong, silent type, both of them evaluating their new acquaintance's appearance and disposition. And then if the appraisal goes well, some time later at a calculated, premeditated moment, this person has a last taste of freedom and vanishes.

You don’t want this woman to meet such a fate. You tell yourself that it’s altruism and a sense of decency that compels this wish, but you know that’s not the whole truth. Your neighbors’ affection is scarce. Finite. You don’t want to share.

You’re not the only one who’s upset that attention has been diverted away from them, though. The woman’s dog has also had enough, letting out two sharp barks and wiggling around in her arms.

“Oh no, don’t you start that,” her owner scolds, shifting her hold on the little furball. “You’ve caused enough trouble for one day, Roxie.”

The name sets you on edge. The hairs on the back of your neck rise as soon as you hear it.

“Roxie, huh?” Johnny comments with an amused chuckle. Baneful sentiment creeps across his face. “We had a Roxie once.”

“She was always tryin’ to escape too,” Simon adds. The same ill-boding fondness haunts his countenance.

If there were any lingering doubts that your neighbors had something to do with Roxanne Miller’s disappearance, this drives a nail in the coffin of that uncertainty. And really you were already convinced of the matter, but it’s different to hear it straight from their mouths. A wave of nausea overtakes you. Sweat beads on your forehead under the heat of the sun that suddenly feels unbearable. You begin to shuffle off to the side, seeking out the cover of a nearby awning, but Simon seizes you by the arm.

“Where you runnin’ off to, neighbor?”

You’re lightly jostled by his grasp which doesn’t help your stomach at all, and you suppress a grimace with a clumsily stitched together smile.

“I was going to go stand in the shade,” you explain. “It’s a little hot.”

Johnny moves in front of you, blocking the oppressing sun, and grabs hold of your face with an unexpected gentleness. “Yer not lookin’ too good, hen. We’ll check out and take you home.”

The woman with the dog, now realizing that you weren’t just some random person lurking nearby, offers one last thank you to your neighbors and makes herself scarce. You hope for her sake and your own that you never see her again.

When you’re back at the car, Simon mixes an electrolyte packet into their water bottle and makes you drink from it. A bit of water dribbles out the corner of your mouth as you gulp it down, and Johnny wipes it off with his thumb, licking his finger pad afterward. You want to soak up the attention fully, but you can’t help but bitterly wonder if they would dote on their new acquaintance or any of their other pets like this. When Roxie was in their care, did they rub lotion on her neck where the collar chafed her skin? Did they make sure she had a balanced diet that accounted for her new life without sun? Were their hands once loving and tender, even if the same hands eventually choked the life out of her?

On the drive home, you rest your head against the car window, staring aimlessly at the world outside passing you by. Simon drives with marginally more caution, perhaps his way of accommodating you, and Johnny carries the conversation for the three of you since you’re not feeling very chatty at the moment. There’s a lull, though, and when that happens, you venture to pose a question.

“Do you ever miss them?” you ask, voice small and wavering. “Roxie and the others.” Saying her name out loud burns your tongue like a curse, skirting the line between the usual charade and an actual discussion about the people they kidnap and murder and bury in lonely graves.

If it bothers your neighbors the same way, they don’t show it. Johnny turns to face you from the passenger’s seat, lips curving into an earnest but knowing smile.

“‘Course we do. Each and every one of them,” he claims.

A pause. Silence other than the hum of the car engine.

“Would you miss me?”

It hurts when it slips out of you, sounding wounded and desperate. Instincts urge you to take it back and hide it away, but you don’t.

Simon meets your gaze through the rearview mirror. “You plannin’ on going somewhere?”

There’s a warning and a threat in the marrow of his words. It answers and doesn’t answer your question, but as unsatisfying as that is, you’re too worn down to press the matter further. You glance between him and Johnny.

“No. I don’t know why I asked that. Sorry.”

It’s not even your real question. What you really want to know is would they miss you more? Are you special and different from the rest or are you just another Roxie, fifth in a line that continues long after you’re gone?

You fretfully brush your thumb back and forth over the car’s leather trim. You’re reminded of your neighbors’ couch at first, but then you think of your knife’s leather sheath. Your fingers slowly curl around the hilt of an imaginary weapon once again. A scar could be something to remember you by, a permanent, irreversible etching on their skin. With so many already littering their bodies, how mad could they be if you added one more?

But is it really a pound of flesh you seek? Maybe all you want is to have carved out even a sliver of their hearts, to hoard a piece for yourself that you get to keep and carry with you to the next life. So when someone speaks your name in the future, Johnny and Simon won’t just miss you—they’ll mourn you.

Where, when, who. The who is the most important part. Who are you willing to hurt to obtain your true, secret desires that you keep locked up deep within you?

In answering that question, the seed of an awful idea sprouts. An idea that is more likely to backfire spectacularly or do nothing at all or mean nothing at all to your neighbors. But it would be significant to you, it would be the change you’ve been searching for, even if it’s the last thing you do in this life. The walls are closing in, and there are familiar pipes running along them. You can’t delay the inevitable any longer. It’s time to draw first blood with your own two hands.

After you’ve quietly shut the door behind you, you break down in ugly, heaving sobs. Too many emotions flood your system—relief that’s soured by guilt that’s weighed down by fear and that’s tinged with frustration. You don’t know what you’re going to do. Johnny and Simon have raised the stakes and shown you what they’re capable of. Not that you truly doubted it before, but there’s no more hiding behind “allegedly” or “supposedly.” You sat on their couch and smiled and sipped tea and now someone is dead.

But could you really have saved them? You can’t even save yourself, not when your bloodied fingertips unconsciously make their way to your lips. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to be free. It wants to crawl into the lap of danger and snuggle with its belly up, begging for pets and treats.

It doesn’t help too that when you fall asleep that night, you dream of your neighbors’ parting gift to you. You relive every brush of their lips, every lance of their tongues, every ounce of simmering heat. What was seconds in reality is stretched out and repeated, but even then, you’re insatiable, so you cling to them just as tightly as they grip you. All things must end, though, and Simon nips at your ear and Johnny murmurs in the other (You’re so good at keeping secrets, love, what’s one more?) and the basement door beneath you forcefully swings open and darkness consumes all three of you.

You wake up, breathless, gasping, and alone again.

The morning unravels as you teeter between fearful anxiety and fervent anticipation, mentally preparing yourself for when your neighbors summon you again. You agonize over how you’re going to face them knowing what you know now—how they secretly took you down to the basement to meet their fourth victim, how they chain them up like animals ready for the slaughter. How encompassing their hands are when gripping your face, how ferociously they kiss like they’re trying to subdue you.

But soon enough, it’s the afternoon, and they’ve yet to contact you. Every notification from your phone gets you skittering to immediately check it, but it’s never them. At one point in the day, the doorbell rings, and you bolt to the door, but it’s just a package that you’d forgotten about.

In the evening, you’re reorganizing a bookshelf for the third time when you hear your neighbors leaving their house. Johnny’s laugh comes through first, warm and boisterous. It draws you to the window. You peek out through the blinds and watch as Simon fixes the collar on Johnny’s jacket, his hand lingering for a moment afterward. When you press closer to the glass, you can make out what they’re saying.

“Still checkin’ my gear, L.T.?”

“Someone’s gotta.”

They lock eyes, holding each other captive. You inhale sharply and keep the air trapped there like they might hear you if you don’t. Your neighbors only soften when they’re looking at each other. That’s the only time you ever see their bodies truly relax, expressions mellowing into something craveably beautiful. It’s always been fascinating to behold this love that coexists so effortlessly with violence. Do they share a look like this when they’re alone in the woods, standing over freshly disturbed earth? Do they share it with their pets down in the basement, fingers curled around a thick, metal chain? You’re the intruder this time, shamelessly spying on the exchange until they both turn and walk down the street.

Neither of them spare a glance towards your home.

You don’t hear from Johnny or Simon that day or the next day or the one after that. Gave you a taste of everything you ever wanted and then make you sleep in the doghouse until you’ve learned your lesson, you suppose. After enduring so much for so long, you break form once with a brief meltdown and a mild sassing, and you’re immediately put in timeout. Stuck in limbo, not invited in, not free to leave, forced to sit perfectly still and wait until they give you the release command. It’s worse than when they left to bury their dead because they’re right there within reach, simply ignoring you.

There’s also a chance they’ve lost interest. How fun could it be to have you over when there’s no prisoner for you to pretend to ignore? Or maybe they’re busy setting up the basement for their next captive, and that next captive is you, where they sent you down there so you’d have a preview of your new living arrangements.

(But what if it’s not you? What if when they left the other night, they were off to search for their next pet? Someone who listens and behaves and doesn’t keep little secrets from them.)

Irrational bitterness festers once again, making a home in the pit of your stomach and giving you something to gnaw on in your solitude. The thought of a fifth victim is unbearable for more reasons than you’re willing to admit.

On the following morning of silence, resentment gets the better of you, provoking you to tug on your end of the leash. Since Johnny and Simon don’t seem to be interested in what you’re up to, you go out for a coffee and do not tell them about it.

You have a horrible time. You’re unable to shake the sense of self-inflicted danger that builds with every second that passes, forcing you to constantly peek over your shoulder, praying you don’t spot two colossal shadows tailing you. There’s a line when you get to the nearby coffee shop, and no amount of nervous foot tapping makes it go faster. Once you’ve finally placed your order, you tuck yourself away at a table in the back and helplessly watch as the barista takes their sweet time making each drink, unaware of the precarious situation you’ve placed yourself in.

This wasn’t the best idea, poking the bear that lives next door with your rule breaking. But you’ve got a craving for autonomy and attention, and you won’t be able to settle until you’ve clawed back even the tiniest amount of either. And besides, they might not even notice you’ve stepped away without giving notice, Johnny and Simon are just toooo busy to—

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

Oh shit, oh fuck, that’s them calling, isn’t it? Your phone vibrates on the table in front of you, having been banished from your hands because you didn’t trust yourself to not text your neighbors. You spring forward like a jackrabbit and lift it up.

But once again, it’s not them. It’s a call from a number that’s not in your phone. A familiar number torn to shreds at the bottom of your trash can, a number you’ve repeated in your head like it’s an incantation that might protect you.

A deep chill runs through you. You don’t answer the call and remain frozen while it goes to voicemail, flinching when your phone vibrates again to notify you of the new message. Your spine curls in on itself as you hunch over and listen to the recording.

“This is Detective Callum Bennett with the—” Oh no, it’s really him, this is happening. “—Police Department. I’m trying to reach—” You’re going to throw up. You’re going to pass out. You’re going to throw up and then pass out right here in your local coffee shop, all while lamenting your life choices. “—to discuss a missing persons case. Please give me a call back at—”

The number he leaves is the one you know. You immediately delete the message and clear the record of the missed call. With everything that’s on your plate already, you really didn’t need the police to pile on to your problems as well. 

The missing person from the bar is all over the news now. Notably absent from all the articles, though, is any mention of the one who coincidentally disappeared from the same location a year ago. You’ve even searched for them by name, but nothing recent shows up, so as far as anyone else is aware, the police are not actively investigating this cold case. A secret between you and the authorities, apparently, and not one shared with your neighbors.

This could be your chance to escape once and for all. You could meet up with this Detective Bennett and tip them off on your neighbors’ transgressions without Johnny and Simon knowing. The police would have to look into it if you mention there are four potential victims, right? You could even let them know about your date that mysteriously stood you up and whose fate is unknown. And you’re a witness now too. A true witness. Although their face is still blurry and indistinct in your memory, you know you saw a person trapped in that basement.

But at the same time, how are you going to explain why you’re only now coming forward with this information? You don’t think the excuse of it was none of your business will hold up very well in a court of law. You’ve been tossed a lifeline, but your messy involvement and failure to act has tangled the rope. If you’re not careful, you might hang yourself by mistake.

The barista finally calls your name. You gather your befuddled cluster of conflicting emotions and shamble over to the counter, grabbing your coffee and heading out the door. The sips you take from your drink are bland and tasteless, nerves muting any flavor, so you end up tossing it before you get home. A waste of a coffee, a waste of a morning. It was certainly not worth the consequences of partaking in naughty and forbidden behavior, running around on your own without permission.

You’re nearly home now, but nearly won’t cut it. Before you get too close, you stop and take a moment to steel yourself. Eyes closed, fists clenched, deep breaths. Rehearsing the excuses that might placate your neighbors, considering what lip service you might dare to offer, regretting which freedoms you might have to concede. One last weary exhale, and you continue on.

Your house is in sight when you turn down your street, but the light at the end of the tunnel is obscured by a pair of hulking silhouettes. Johnny and Simon are right outside their house.

Your brisk pace is cut off at the ankles, collapsing to a halt. Your neighbors are standing in their yard, shovels in hand, digging up a garden bed near their front door. It’s not a visual you ever wished to see, but at least you aren’t witnessing it while out in the wilderness with your arms and legs bound.

“Ah told ye, we shoulda put in a boxwood. Azaleas are just too much trouble. Not even my mam bothered with azaleas.”

“You’re the one who wanted some color.”

“Yeah, but not azaleas.”

They’ve yet to spot you, seemingly too engrossed in discussing the dead shrub in their midst, but you’ll have to pass by their house to get to yours. Although your legs want to spin you around and sprint back the way you came, you resist and will them to continue forward. If you move quickly and quietly, you can sneak by, hide away in your house, and plan your next move.

“Oh, there ye are, hen!”

You don’t get very far. You immediately stop when Johnny calls out, lingering at the end of the walkway to their home, keeping at a distance. But Simon raises an eyebrow and Johnny beckons you over with a wave of his hand and two pats on his thigh. You take cautious, measured steps to close the gap.

“Hi, guys...” you greet once you’re just at the border of their reach. From here, you can smell the dirt and sweat on them and can see how their shirts cling to their bodies from their laboring. “What are you up to?”

Johnny leans on his shovel. “Just a wee bit o’ landscaping. Gonna rip out this dead thing and replace it with something fuller that fits the space better.”

Simon abruptly turns to you, staring you dead in the eyes with an intensity that paralyzes you on the spot. It has you wondering if this is it for you.

“What’s Johnny’s favorite plant?” he asks.

Huh?

“Huh?”

His chest rumbles with a low, staccato chuckle. Johnny shakes his head and that worries you further.

“A full bush.”

...what the fuck is going on?

“Aye, the man knows me well,” Johnny remarks, affectionately bumping against Simon and clearly enamored by his joke. Simon looks so pleased with himself too.

You, on the other hand, are dumbfounded by your neighbors’ cavalier attitude. This isn’t how you expected the conversation to go.

You thought they’d be mad. You purposefully didn’t inform them of where you went, and you were even gone longer than you meant. Maybe they really didn’t notice you had left. Maybe they really don’t care anymore. But even if they aren’t bothered by your petty act of disobedience, you thought they’d at least address the elephant in the room that’s been trampling you for the past couple of days. But no, it’s just you that’s tormented by their actions. For them, it was just another foster pet that’s come and gone from their lives. It’s as mundane as swapping an azalea for a boxwood.

It irks you, how dismissive they are. Rubs salt in the same wound that they dug into your flesh, and the stinging displeasure leaks through the cracks of your facade. Simon notices.

“What’s the matter, neighbor? Didn’t like the joke?” he questions. “Or maybe you’re not happy to see us after all this time.”

There it is, that hint of malice you had expected earlier. You should have reveled in a good thing when it was absent, now you’ve pushed your luck.

“That’s not it. I’m just having a rough morning,” you hastily insist.

Johnny plants his shovel in the ground with a violent thrust. His now free hand glides to rest on the small of your back. “Why don’t you come in and tell us all about it then? That’ll cheer ye up.”

The offer revives your panic in full and gets you digging your heels in.

“That’s okay, I’m sure you’ll want to finish your digging before it gets too hot out.”

“Shrub’s not goin’ anywhere,” Simon argues, tossing aside his own shovel. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Oh, I don’t need any tea, I–”

“We got decaf,” Simon states, as if reading your mind. He must have because otherwise, how would he know you’ve had enough caffeine fueling your anxiety for the morning.

“Since yer lookin’ a little jittery,” Johnny clarifies, but then swiftly changes the subject. “Really, hen, yer gonna hurt our feelings, makin’ us think you didn’t miss us.”

“I didn’t say that,” you refute.

The hand on your lower back presses with more force, guiding you along.

“Maybe you’re sick o’ seein’ our ugly mugs.”

“They’re not—”

The door opens.

“Speak for yerself, Simon. I know for a fact that she likes how my face looks.”

“I like both of your...”

The door closes behind you, and you trail off. You’re inside your neighbors’ house again, effortlessly corralled back onto the path of a death spiral, where you’ll go round and round until you expire. So flummoxed by your situation, you don’t watch where you’re going and proceed to bang your knee into something that rattles on impact.

“Careful there, neighbor,” Simon chastises.

Glancing down, you see that you’ve bumped into a wire dog crate which has made its way into the foyer. For a second, you hope your neighbors will offer up a kiss for your banged knee, but that kind of treatment may only be reserved for when you’re truly suffering. Perhaps you’ll break both your legs and then see what sort of remedy they’d be willing to apply.

Something bothers you about this cage, though. This isn’t the first time they’ve had a suspiciously large dog crate out in the open, but this one is black. The one you’ve seen before was silver.

“Is this new?” you ask.

“Oh, yeah, the old one was all bent and beat up from one too many escape attempts,” Johnny explains with a fond chuckle as if he was chatting about a rambunctious little scamp. “We like getting a new one each time anyway. Fresh start and all.”

“Are you...getting another pet?” you inquire, smiling defensively.

Johnny casually shrugs. “Never know when you'll come across a stray that you can't just leave out in the cold.”

Rancor bubbles and resurfaces. You tighten your smile. “I see. That’s generous of you.”

After maneuvering around the cage, you follow your neighbors further into their house. Back at their beck and call, you reluctantly take your normal place on the couch and see your normal view of the basement door. But nothing seems normal about it. It’s a different feeling knowing the basement is empty. A worse feeling, maybe.

True to their word, you don’t see a trace of blood on the basement door. There’s no more blood on the door and no more blood on your hands, all washed away and out of sight. You know it was there, though. You’ll always know what’s been spilt in this house.

Johnny plops down unceremoniously in his chair across from you, legs spread and hands on either of his knees. Simon settles in his own chair with his arms crossed tightly over his broad chest.

“So what’s botherin’ you, neighbor?” Johnny prompts, beginning the interrogation.

Your gaze dithers between Johnny, Simon, and the basement door. Your clammy hands clasp together politely in front of you and your back straightens to proper posture.

“Oh, well, I didn’t sleep very well again last night. And then I went out for some coffee, which took forever, and...”

And you got a call from a detective who’s investigating multiple missing persons cases, one of which almost certainly has their bloody fingerprints all over it.

And it was mean of them to ignore you for so long, leaving you high and dry when you’ve always done your best to meet their expectations.

And you don’t want them to get another pet to stash in the basement, choosing someone else over you.

And you don’t want to be the pet in the basement that they’ll one day discard like all the rest.

And you don’t know what you can do to prove to them that you’re worth keeping.

“And the coffee wasn’t even that good.”

Confessions won’t solve any of your problems, though. You swallow all your secrets and conceal them with a pleasant smile. Your neighbors mimic it back.

“You went to that place on Brooks, right? They’re always servin’ burnt shite, hen. You gotta go to the one on Somerset instead,” Johnny proclaims.

“One at Terrace is better,” Simon refutes. 

“Ye only like that one better ‘cause they’re faster.”

“That’s why it’s better.”

While your neighbors debate their preferred coffee shop, you fight to keep your composure intact. You’re able to keep up appearances for now, but your veneer is worn down. Chipped and peeling, barely masking the turmoil beneath it.

It’s difficult to put back together something that’s been shattered. Try as you might, the pieces won’t quite align like they’re supposed to. Even if Johnny and Simon can continue as if nothing happened, you can’t. You can’t go on living your life as you did before in pretend ignorance, can’t go back to playing happy neighbor in hopes that it’ll keep you safe forever—not after what you experienced in that basement. You need to adapt and evolve and find a way to take a step back from the edge of the cliff you’re always standing on, never knowing when you’ll feel two sets of hands on your back shoving you off.