Neighbourhood Watch

by Lex Sinclair

  He didn’t recall the climb up the winding path beneath the shiny full moon, hanging low overhead, casting a silver light into the undergrowth. The rest of the journey home was filled in for him by Martha, who - like the other remaining residents of Willet Close came to visit almost every day, now that he was practically incapacitated.

  Naomi and Corrie baked him a cake shortly after the events, sat with him, remembering their dear friends and neighbours that were no longer with them in person, only in spirit. He got the feeling that Naomi was drawn to him now in a way she’d never been before... and yet, Joe’s love or lust, or both for the woman he’d admired from afar in his attic window that day he’d first seen her, had evaporated along with his memory.

  To make matters worse, Joe’s running days were over, along with any other form of vigorous exercise, such as boxing. He spent his days now sitting or lying down - as it was advised by his general practitioner and chiropractor - in his bedroom or living room, resting, loafing around watching TV; DVD’s (mostly ones of himself fighting in his prime) and films he ordered off AMAZON. A feeling of melancholy washed through him when he watched how graceful and effortless he evaded punches and hammered his opponents in the ring from all around the world. Now, here he was limited to doing anything besides everyday chores, and on good days a walk around town.

  Nevertheless, when agonising, sometimes paralysing cramps, seized his spine, keeping him glued to the mattress or sofa, wincing, gritting his teeth, Joe reminded himself that he could be a lot worse off. He could be dead - and just a memory in someone’s mind, and someday he would, but not at the hands of a sinister, ghastly-looking entity, tempting mortals with an unholy eternal life, where they’d only be a slave to their malevolent master for eternity.

  Epilogue

  On August 14th at 8:43p.m., the sun slid beneath the horizon, burning the sky a beautiful orange-pink hue over the town and the outskirts and beyond the mountain peaks out of sight. It was so beautiful that you couldn’t tell where the world ended and heaven began.

  Approximately an hour later, darkness crept furtively across the sky, a black blanket shrouding the suburbs beneath, announcing the inevitable nightfall that had been pending for some time, ending the long summer day with an unexpected chill in the air, sending the residents back indoors, wrapping their barbecue food in tin foil to keep the persistent flies away.

  For the first time in a long while, Joe was genuinely content. What had happened to him, had happened to all his neighbours, and even though he’d come off the worst out of the survivors, physically, there was no use living in the haunted past that had been devouring his sanity and his health for longer than was necessary. It was time to move on.

  He helped Martha, Emma and Naomi carry a tray of jacket potatoes back into Martha’s house, taking his time wending into the kitchen and placing the tray onto the worktop. The others followed and placed the other trays of food on the worktop; then they sauntered into the living room with drinks and a bowl of vanilla ice-cream for dessert.

  Beyond the locked back door, on the once emerald-green, now parched, yellowing lawn - where a man named Brian Shepard had burned to death, while nailed to a cross, before the ground swallowed him up away from the world, never to be seen again - a faint crumbling noise emanated underground. The noise of scraping in the earth grew louder and definite as something clambered to the surface. Then, the ground broke and collapsed inwards, as though the lawn was enduring an earthquake. Although the sound was louder now as the soil broke, no one at a greater distance than twenty yards could hear the underground eruption.

  Inside the house the remaining neighbours of Willet Close sat in the living room, sunburned, jovial, and enjoying each other’s company like they’d never have done if they hadn’t been through the terrifying ordeal together, watching a popular sitcom on the TV, laughing, talking amicably and smiling at each other, thinking they were safe at last, oblivious to the goings-on in the back yard.

  Through the tufts of soil and sweet-smelling grass, a large, long-fingered hand that looked more like a talon, burst through the surface and reached out, grasping at the darkness, ready to emerge from its unholy lair into the peaceful night...