Episode 6: Death

Sally tried her best to be a good neighbor. Her and Paul even thought about buying the little red house for her parents––but then Ashley and Jake moved in and they were happy that a couple their age was on the block.
She didn’t want to be a nosy neighbor––but those sounds last night and now this morning, too, ––they were awful. Even if they were night terrors… it wasn’t right… something sounded off…
She’d grown accustom to hearing Ashley scream through the night (Paul even looked into how much soundproofing would be because they wondered what their kids would think when they grew up with a neighbor who barked like a wild animal at night…)
But, last night… Something made her skin really crawl. The sounds were too loud… and now the little red house… it was too dark… Neighbors get used to the routines of each other. Something seemed off.
Typically, after a bad night… Ash and Jake would have all the lights on trying to make the appearance of a comfortable, happy place. He’d be cooking and she’d be lounging listlessly in her robe watching mind-numbing TV. She wasn’t nosy, per se, but she couldn’t help but keep an eye on them through the windows. She’d watched enough news on the TV and Hitchcock movies to know how there was always a good chance there was something slightly off with all humans.
Sally also genuinely felt bad for Ash. They seemed to come from incredibly different backgrounds, but there was something about Ashley that made her try a little extra harder to be her friend––walking the line of nosy neighbor and good neighbor.
Jake had invited Paul over for a beer once, but nothing really came of it. For Sally, she saw a new neighbor as an investment. She hoped they could have kids and their kids could grow up and share a bond… one of those deep, like geographical bonds––you know… like the kind where kids share the memory of a place.
She decided it was best to go back. Go knock on Ashley’s door. Try again. Show her you care. Jake’s car hadn’t moved. After a few minutes of no answer, she peered in through the window.
The place looked like it had been burglarized. Furniture upside down. Broken glass. Pots and pans strewn across the floor. She gasped at the bloodstains all across the kitchen island and along the wall that led down from stairs.
It was a crime scene. She grabbed at her heart as if to push it back into her chest––and ran back to her house to call 911.

The flashing lights and sirens turned the block into a carnival. It disturbed Sally how many of their neighbors crowded the scene to catch a glimpse of Ashley and Jake. Words like murder and suicide circulated among the neighbors standing closest to the house. Some people even had their kids with them.
Her neighbors’ faces were not twisted, crying, or confused. Their faces appeared almost calm––as if they’d all been expecting this prophesy to play out.
Meanwhile, Sally had done that thing where she draws out an imaginary future in her mind––her and Sally taking walks around the block––pushing strollers––going out for beers and leaving the kids home with the guys––just talking shit. She knew she had a habit of misjudging people, but this was just, well, diabolical. She was just glad her kid was young enough that this whole scene, the violence, will eventually become a faint nightmare from his childhood. A story that people will tell, but will lose all meaning with the passing of time.
She backed away from the crowd. Their expecting faces. She didn’t want to see Jake or Ash. Their bodies. She hated wakes with open caskets because they left the worst last impression. A cadaver with makeup. So unnatural. So cruel to the living to make them witness the death done-up with the magic of a funeral home.
Sally tried to look away from the scene now out of respect for Ashley and Jake, but also out of respect for her memory.
The cops had to break down the door.
The worst of it was in the backyard. Sally could hear things on the officers’ radios.
She couldn’t stand to see the crowd waiting for the bodies to be carried out.
She slipped back into her house. Shut the door. All the noise softened. The sunlight across the floorboards made her feel ashamed. It wasn’t a survivor’s guilt or anything like that––she hardly knew Ashley and Jake––it was more of a grateful-to-feel-the-warmth-of-the-sun kind of shame, and the contrast of the awful wretched feeling––knowing her neighbors would no longer have that chance. One thought crept up into her mind that she immediately pushed back from wherever it came: at least they didn’t have any kids. As if it was some kind of consolation prize.
How long, she wondered, until everyone would act like nothing had ever happened? That bothered her just as much as the event itself.
Sally didn’t know what to do with herself. She couldn’t turn on the TV. She couldn’t wake up the baby. She couldn’t stand outside. She felt trapped inside her own home.
She noticed how the sunlight filled the space around the frame of the bathroom door. So much sun. Their bathroom window did have a clear view of Jake and Ashley’s backyard.
She couldn’t help herself. she opened the door––and walked to the window. She probably wouldn’t see anything anyway. Someone, ages ago, planted a sugar gum tree between the properties––an investment in neighborly privacy. Sally pulled back the curtain.
It was a horror.
She could see Ashley hanging from the tree. The way her neck had broken and her slacked-open mouth made her feel sick.
They were cutting down Ashley from the tree. One officer held her legs, as another cut away at the electrical cord it looked like she had hanged herself with.
Sally felt like she could say something. Even if no one would hear it. Not God. Not Ashley. Just something, as if the energy would pass from her to Ashley. Some sympathy. An apology. But for what? She hardly knew her. Someone had to show some sympathy though. Their neighbors were animals. All bloodthirsty. They couldn’t wait to set their eyes on the bodies.
Sally wouldn’t know this yet, but this scene, this horror, it would be something she’d bury deep in her subconscious. It would grow within her and manifest in ways that she wouldn’t even understand. She would eventually see herself reacting to certain images or movies in ways that would surprise her. She’d carry it with her through her life whether she knew it or not––the same way parasites live off of their hosts.
For now, though, she saw Ashley, being collected and carried off like any other piece of evidence––cold, inhuman––and there was Jake in the shadow of the tree looking up at the leaves, as if he were smiling.