Neighborhood Watch Read Free Page A

motel.
    “Everybody wants to live in the suburbs,” my dad had once said. “Except for people who live in the suburbs.”
    I stared back to the young police officer. He seemed nervous or unsure, just judging by the way he was biting his lip and looking around. He kept peering around the corner of the house, and then he was following his curiosity. I watched him disappear around the corner, back to the screened-in porch.
     
    This is when I emerged. Back into the rain, as I approached slowly, feeling like eyes, somewhere, were on me. I approached like I was a professional killer, creeping up on an unknowing victim.
    But I was no killer. And I had no weapon. And something told me, I would never have it in me, no matter what, to kill another.
    I halted. The lights on the second floor suddenly went out. The other homes had their lights still on—so it wasn't a power outage. Somebody inside the house had turned off the lights. Or some thing ...
    I breathed heavily.
    The cop was coming back around from the side of the house. He was clearly unsatisfied, but didn't seem too bothered either. Taking one last look at the house, he muttered something to himself and then into his walkie. “Officer Browning here, no sign of a 415 , goin' in for one more check.”
    Begrudgingly he moved toward the house a final time. I watched on, returning to my hiding spot by the large tree. Again, the officer rapped the door with his knuckles and gave a ring. He even added his voice, announcing his presence with a deep “Police!”
    After no response, he turned away with a shake. And behind him, the perfectly still door exploded . The dark streak of a being shot out with the force of a cannonball, and as the sharp fragments of wood filled the air in front of the house, the policeman collapsed to his knees.
    Almost as quickly as he was down, he was gone. The burst of blood was almost instantaneous, and the man—the human form of flesh and bone—vaporized. Black and red and grey formed a mist as the trembling, shaking creature materialized before my eyes.
    I nearly fell over. My pulse was in my head and neck, and I couldn't believe it—I couldn't understand it.
    Seconds later, the being stood before a lump of flesh and goo. But this being wasn't what I had seen before. It was a black, bony and jagged thing, throbbing with dark, swollen veins and bursting with inhumanly hard and sharp muscles. Its eyes were a piercing bright yellow and its mouth was a pike pit of razors and decomposed gums. It was tall, easily 6 feet, and shaking.
    It wouldn't stop shaking. Convulsing , almost.
    But those eyes...
    What followed was the shrillest, most inhuman cry I had ever heard. The being jerked its claws out to the sides, releasing this guttural blow, displacing the soundscape of wind and rain in a single primal cry.
    I seized. And then a tingling sensation entered my chest. The extension to my sides wouldn't stop, like a million tiny spiders; like death. But I knew what it was. I was no longer looking toward the zombie, the house, the cul-de-sac or even outward. I was there, suddenly, in my head.
    I slowed my breathing, doing what I had taught myself to do. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts
    The warmth was already growing hot around my heart, with my lungs seizing. I stumbled back into my neighbor's yard, beneath that big old tree, and tried to breathe but I couldn't. The wheezing would happen soon. If I didn't get my inhaler and stop it there...
     
    You don't need your inhaler, you can stop it here
     
    I slowly breathed. My arms were out to my sides, and I pulled as much as I could. As much and as gradually as I could. Again and again and again. It had to be slow and I had to think of nothing but else—nothing else.
     
    Somewhere behind me, the inhuman cry sounded again.
    ***

A Perfect Strongh old
     
    It was heavier than I had ever seen. I could barely see my tires. I felt like I was moving against a wall of water, but it was an invisible wall because