Neighborhood

"Those sons a' bitches are doing what?!" Ed yelled, his face immediately red with anger. The old man's eyes bulged with veins on his temples that coiled like serpents once I told him the news. His toughened hands, peppered with liver spots, tightened their grip on his mug of tea. A flannel button-up and khakis adorned his frame to show professionalism while still being comfortable.

"I don't know, Ed, they were in their backyard around a bonfire, but they were in weird robes and saying weird things—" I rambled. How do I report something like this?

"What weird things?! What language was the chantin' in, Luis? Latin? Pig Latin? Aramaic?" The teacup was lowered and shaking from his anger.

"Ed, hold on now-" I had raised my arms, hoping to settle him down, but it was no use. My first week here, and I already knew how stubborn he was.

"Hell naw, Luis! This is somn' you gotta learn about once you become an HOA president! Can't give 'em an inch, or they take and take like a…like..." He trailed off as he stormed off into his house from the swinging porch chair, causing the wooden furniture to rattle and wildly move back and forth.

"Like a leech?" I asked after him. The dark of the evening had arrived early, being barely seven thirty, and I lost sight of the old man. For sixty, Ed was shockingly fast. "Wait, Ed! What are you doing? Just call them or something!"

A moment passed. "What words were they chantin'?" Ed hollered from somewhere in his abode.

"Uh—I don't—" My mind raced trying to recall their words. "Uh, it was something like 'alun ma, kartakh—'"

"Don't finish that damned sentence, Luis!" Ed hollered from his house again.

My head was burning with sudden pain. "Why? Ed, what's happening?!"

Ed walked from the shadows of his home wearing a hunting vest and brandishing a single-shot rifle. The vest had several items in the pockets, including a tactical flashlight, breakable glow sticks, a flare, and binoculars, all accented with a bandolier of bullets.

My heart sank. "Ed, what the hell—"

Ed looked directly at me with a look I hadn't seen before. "Luis, can you fire a gun?"

"Can I what?!"

"Can you, Luis Gutierrez, security guard to the Pleasant Acres HOA, fire a gun? A Glock 19, to be precise?" Ed asked slowly, enunciating each syllable.

"Y-Yes?!" My response poured out of my mouth.

Ed reached behind him to the back of his trousers and pulled out the pistol and handed it to me, grip first. "Go on, new clip inserted. Just be sure to cock it and take off the safety before engaging," Ed said, walking down the steps of his home towards the street.

The gun was heavy and cold, the situation making it feel like it weighed fifty pounds. "Ed? Ed?! Ed, what are you doing?!" I put the gun in my waistband in a panic, following my boss.

Ed casually walked to his prized 1999 EZ-GO model RVX 4 golf cart he lovingly named Lucille and sat after placing the rifle in the cart's small bed in the back. "I ain't got all evening, Luis; hurry up!"

I ran and sat next to him, barely holding on as he floored it and made me nearly tumble out onto the sidewalk. An electric whirring noise accompanied us as we floored it around the empty streets, passing by the peaceful suburban neighborhood that was coated in the fading colors of a setting sun. Lawns and shrubbery were immaculate, cars were clean and like new from the lot, not one animal dropping, no litter, and no children's toys in the road. Our trip was smooth.

"Ed, please, why the gun? What's happening?"

Eyes still facing forward and his head hunched forward Ed turned sharply. "Luis, y' ever wonder why Pleasant Acres HOA was so hard to find? Why yer background check took so long?"

"Um, not really?"

"Your generation needs to be more inquisitive! Question things! Pleasant Acres isn't just any suburb; it's the best suburb and 'HOA on Earth that also happens to land right on top of a mass meeting of all the worst ley lines in the US!"

I stared at him. "What?"

"God, they need to teach you these things in school, son!" Another sharp turn. I started to realize I didn't recognize this road. The cars all began to look too familiar, like they were repeating themselves. "Where are my tax dollars goin' anyhow?!"

"Ley lines? What's a ley line?! What does that have to do with anything?!" I asked, hanging on for dear life. Were people standing on lawns as we drove past? How many floors were these houses now? I looked back at him, trying to focus.

"Pleasant Acres is, for lack o' better term, the one spot closest to the realm of the dead! N' those neighbors? That group with chantin'? God-danged cultists trying to summon their dread lord!"

I stared at him, possibly slack-jawed, trying to understand what he was talking about. "Ed, that's insane!" I said.

"Really? That's what government goons say about anyone who knows th' truth about them! If I'm so crazy, then how are those houses lookin'?"

I shook my head and looked at the houses on my right.

Houses were now the gutted torsos of giants, rib cages snapped open to portray hollowed-out bodies. Some had heads, some had none, some had several, and some were even still howling bizarre songs with infinite notes. The 'people' were a mix of walking bone golems, tentacled mouths, flailing wheels of limbs, and chimeras of every animal. The sky went from orange and purple to crimson red with ashen clouds.

"Luis," Ed said as he shook my shoulder. I slowly looked back at him, feeling hollow and shaken. His face was a blur as I tried to regain any sanity left. "Hold on!"

He made another sharp turn, veering left onto a road that seemed familiar, with actual homes and cars again. "Yup, this is the spot, looks like!"

Ed pulled up to park Lucille on the street. The house was white and two stories, had an American flag, and, besides the beam of pulsating crimson energy soaring into the sky from behind it, looked like it was up to code.

Ed stretched his neck as he looked. "Bastards didn't even put the trash out; it's garbage day tomorrow!"

I got out and followed close behind, holding the pistol in my hands. My head was hurting again from the cacophonous sound of deep chanting in the backyard.

"Luis! Dang it, start hummin' the American anthem! It'll block 'em out!" Ed ordered as he held up the rifle and walked towards their wooden gate to the side of the home. I hummed to myself loudly, unaware of what was going to happen next.

Ed peered through the slits in the gate and grimaced. Then stood and reached over the top to grab the lock in place and try to open it. "Damn, the bastards put a lock on it! Luis, through the front door!"

"The front? They'll expect it!"

"This is the HOA; they better be expectin' it!" He replied, walking around with the weapon raised. I followed behind and looked in shock as the door seemed to shimmer and grow and shrink like it was breathing. "Oh ho ho, they thought of everythin'!" Ed chuckled. "Luis, come 'ere!"

The heavy stench of sulfur and smoke and meat strangled my senses, but I approached right behind. Ed reached into his vest and pulled out a white candle and whispered to himself, and it lit brightly in his grasp. "Hold this with me," he ordered, "and say what I say, got it?"

I nodded.

"Al' Khem, Tu'ul Umah, Alakht Rem, Tiamat Yok-rem!" He said, and I watched as the flame grew higher and higher, the door beginning to pulsate faster. I repeated the words, quiet at first, but soon bellowed as the door shook and hissed. It twisted, the doorknob rattled, and as the flame rose two feet high, the door folded in on itself and melted into a hissing pink goo.

"Good work, rookie; now, safety off!" He raised the rifle and entered the home; I flipped the pistol's switch and moved behind him.

"What are we looking for?" I asked.

"Cultists!" He said.

"Ok, anything else? Monsters or demons?"

"You'll know it when you see it, Luis!" He replied.

I stuck close behind and followed his lead. The living room seemed somewhat passable, save for the reddish-brown writing all over the walls in some language I'd never seen before. The text had started on the corner next to a painting of a barn and circled around the room, and the longer it went on, the more haphazardly it was written, the more the symbols seemed to be intricately complex, and the more the color seemed to spread and hook itself to the wall almost like it was infecting the foundation.

They turned a corner and entered the kitchen, which had a massive sigil on the ground drawn in various fluids and possible sauces. Candles were around the edge, and flames flickered as if air was escaping from the center.

"What the hell is this?" I asked.

"Summonin' circle," Ed said. He bent down and put a finger to the fluid on the ground, picking it up to smell and taste it. "Yup. Ketchup."

"Ketchup? To summon a god?"

"Y'can use anything for a summonin' circle, blood is just the most powerful. If yer lackin' that or don't want the legal trouble, ketchup works. Takes long though, so that's good for us."

I stepped forward and peered into the red symbol. The tiling seemed fuzzy, and the lines trailed as I glanced around, like time was distorting. "Can't we just, I don't know, wipe it away?"

"Y'can touch it, but if y'break it while it's active like this, dead energy starts leaking and causin' chaos. Need to find the leader. Ugh, who bought this place again?" He asked out loud.

"Uh, it was the Parsons?"

"I knew there was somethin' wrong with 'em! They were too nice and upstandin'. Who has an 830 credit score, really?" He mumbled. "Just unnatural."

The other side of the kitchen had blinds that were down that flickered with light faintly. Ed walked around the sigil and pulled open a slit to peer through.

"What's out there?" I asked.

Ed held up a hand. I shut my mouth and watched him as he moved his lips like he was whispering to himself silently.

"Yep, Luis this is the Order of, ugh, I can't pronounce this one, Ya'aldabolagg? Nasty bastards."

"So, so what do we do?"

Ed looked at me and smiled. "Well, firstly, safety off. Secondly, only aim at what you intend to shoot. And thirdly, if it don't go down in one headshot, shoot it again."

"If what doesn't—"

"Now!"

Ed grabbed the sliding doorframe handle from behind the blinds and threw it off to the side with a loud 'shunk, and we were bathed in the crimson and pink glow of a massive bonfire that churned with the forms of snakes. The neighbors, or cultists as Ed insisted, were dressed in black and dark pink robes and circled around the fire with outstretched arms raised towards the corrupted heavens. Searing bright light poured out from a beam that shot directly into the swirling heavens.

"Parson!" Ed yelled, "Bonfires are against the HOA policy!"

Multiple of the cultists looked and dropped their arms, though some had become dried husks frozen in place and drained of all fluids. The cultist closest to Ed turned slowly, revealing glowing eyes and an unhinged, split lower jaw. The mouth opened, and a serpent with pink glowing eyes crept out and stared in our direction.

"Thou hast beheld the great birth—"

It hissed and spoke in a feminine whisper, dancing subtly. That was before Ed raised his rifle and fired a round into Parson's mutated and glowing head. The serpent screamed, flailing and spasming around, Parson himself stumbling from the wound.

Ed turned his head to look at me from the corner of his eye. "Now, Luis! It's what I hired you for!" he yelled before cocking the rifle with a loud click.

The Glock flew up, and I aimed at one of the cultists. His eyes were faintly glowing pink, adding a slight aura of danger despite the man's double chin and unkempt beard with cheap reading glasses. A crack erupted from my weapon, and his skull split in half, releasing glowing tendrils and a wet gasp as he collapsed into a lifeless pile.

Ed fired round after round, and, despite my hesitation at first, I followed suit. Bullets flew into skulls and torsos, and blood of various colors began to decorate the fence and shrubbery. The serpent flame coiled and burbled as the members dwindled in number.

"Ed! The fire's still growing!" I yelled.

"Find their book and throw it in the fire, Luis!" Ed yelled back. He was reloading his cartridge.

"Is that the only way to destroy the book?" I asked.

"It's just a book, dummy; any fire will do!" He replied, jamming the barrel of the gun into a cultist's maw and firing point-blank, the skull splitting open.

The scene was insanity. Two dozen or more cultist bodies lay on the ground, the eldritch flame grew and thrashed, and past the gates, the other homes began to twist and disfigure into palaces of limbs and organs. Still, some of the robed figures stumbled towards us holding sickles and knives.

One figure was off in the back, ducking behind a recycling bin, huddled over and holding something.

"You!" I said, running towards him. Another cultist tried to stop me, but I knocked him backwards into the unholy flames. He howled, and his upper half was vaporized; the lower portion fell to the well-trimmed grass with a solid thud.

The figure behind the bin held a large book to his chest; his hands were glowing and burning, his mouth split, and luminous bile drooled to the ground.

"Fools...it's already begun; there's nothing you can do—"

A bang erupted, and his head exploded; the glowing fluids spattered everywhere, and he slumped forward onto the ground.

"Thanks, Ed!" I said. I looked down, and the body melted into a sticky, writhing mass of snakes that slithered and coalesced, covering the book. My boots, luckily the one thing I didn't cheap out on, were used to poke them away, and I took the leather-bound tome that was coated with slime.

"Just chuck it in, Luis!" Ed hollered. "Hurry, a snake infestation's the last thing this town needs!"

I turned and walked towards the bulbous fire, the shape of massive serpents thrashing and wailing.

Read my words, child, a faint whisper said. Unleash my form unto this world for cleansing, and thou will be rewarded justly.

Ed looked at me. "If it starts whisperin' just ignore it! Ya'aldabolagg is a lyin' bastard! Burn it!"

Ignore the old man! What does he know?

"Luis you're still on probation, so you better burn that thing!"

Considering my finances, work history, and the fact that Ed was the only person who even got me an interview, I made a decision.

I ran and chucked the tome into the flames; almost immediately the pink flames erupted, knocking both of us backwards onto the ground. The serpentine shapes coiled and flailed violently before the beam shrank down and the beastly apparitions hissed and faded. The sky returned to the comforting orange and purple from before, and nearby houses went back to the standard amount of floors and architecture.

Ed pushed himself back up. "You okay?" he asked, rubbing his neck.

"I think so?" I replied. "You?"

"I'm old, Luis; everythin' hurts all the time," he grunted as he pushed himself up. The scene was grisly. Bodies and blood were everywhere; the ground near the base of the fire was charred and blackened. "Aw hell, it'll take weeks to fix the grass!"

"What about the bodies?"

"I'll call the janitor," Ed replied. "And the cleaning crew, they'll be here soon."

"Um," I started, wondering what else I should do. "Do I need to fill out a report?"

"Yup, but you can fill it out tomorrow, Luis. Looks like the main issue is dealt with. Oh, and Luis."

"Hm?"

"Welcome to Pleasant Acres."