Chapter 6: The House at the edge of Town (6)
The headlights arrived first.
They swept across the clearing in a slow, deliberate arc, cutting through the darkness and briefly illuminating the front of the house, its windows black and unreflective, its porch sagging like a tired spine.
Gravel crunched loudly as a second car rolled in and came to a stop beside Mark’s.
The engine idled.
Then stopped.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the driver’s door opened, and the car immediately looked too small.
A leg unfolded from the driver’s side, longer than seemed reasonable, followed by another.
The man who emerged had to duck instinctively, spine bending at an angle that made his silhouette wrong even before he fully straightened.
When he did, the air around him seemed to adjust, like reality itself was recalibrating to accommodate the extra height.
He was tall.
Not just tall in the way people sometimes exaggerate, this was structural.
His limbs were too long for his torso, his arms hanging low enough that his fingers brushed his knees.
When he straightened completely, his head rose well above the roofline of the car, forcing him to stretch his neck with a faint crrk that echoed in the quiet clearing.
Then another crack.
And another.
He rolled his shoulders back, and the sound of joints snapping followed the motion in a chain reaction, like someone breaking knuckles one after the other, but deeper.
Louder.
The kind of sound bones shouldn’t make when everything is working correctly.
“Ahhh,” he sighed, voice relaxed, satisfied. “That’s better.”
He twisted at the waist, spine popping audibly, then bent sideways, stretching one arm overhead. The movement made his jacket ride up his back, revealing how oddly his clothes fit him, tailored, but only barely.
As if whoever had made them had followed measurements that kept… changing.
He straightened again, dusted off his sleeves, and glanced up at the house.
Lena watched him from the upstairs window.
She stood just to the side of the glass, arms crossed, jaw tight.
The faint glow of the symbols she’d drawn earlier reflected dimly in her eyes as she tracked his progress with mounting irritation.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
Down below, the tall man stretched his neck again, this time rotating it in a full, slow circle.
There was a wet click at the end of it.
He smiled.
Lena turned and marched for the stairs.
The front door flew open hard enough to rattle the frame.
“You’re late!”
She yelled into the clearing.
The tall man looked down at her, smile widening.
Even from a distance, his eyes seemed… misplaced. Too far apart. Or maybe too level. They caught the porch light strangely, reflecting just a bit too much.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, lifting his hands placatingly. His fingers were long too. Too many joints.
“Sorry about that.”
As he spoke, he bent forward slightly, an unconscious courtesy gesture, but even that motion produced another cascade of cracks from his back, like dry wood bending under strain.
“Traffic?”
Lena snapped, planting her hands on her hips.
He winced theatrically. “I wish.”
He straightened again, stretching his arms over his head. His elbows bent the wrong way for half a second before snapping back into place.
“Lot of truck drivers suddenly walked,” he said casually.
Lena blinked. “Walked?”
“Yeah. Just… got out,” he replied, shrugging. The motion sent another ripple of pops through his shoulders. “Left their rigs right there on the road. Engines running. Keys in the ignition. Whole diner lot filled up in, like, ten minutes.”
He paused, then tilted his head.
“Actually,” he corrected himself, thoughtful, “they didn’t even leave. That’s the weird part. They were still inside when I snuck out.”
Lena stared at him. “You’re joking.”
He grinned.
“I don’t joke.”
As if on cue, something distant rumbled, far away, beyond the tree line. Not thunder. Something heavier. Prolonged.
The tall man waved it off. “More coming in every second, apparently. Boss is… antsy.”
Lena groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “Of course he is.”
He stepped closer to the porch, the gravel crunching under his boots. Each step looked slightly delayed, like his feet landed a fraction of a second after his body committed to the motion. He glanced at Mark’s car, then at his own.
“Nice spot,” he said. “Love what you’ve done with the place. Very… rustic apocalypse.”
“Focus,” Lena snapped. “You said you’d be here twenty minutes ago.”
“I said approximately,” he replied mildly. “And in my defense, when thirty-six people decide to stop existing correctly at the same time, it slows things down.”
He leaned down a bit to look at her more directly, grin still in place. “Anyway. Boss wants this wrapped up. Fast.”
Her stomach sank. “Already?”
He nodded. “All hands on deck.”
Lena glanced back at the house, up toward the sealed room. She could feel the pressure building there, like a held breath stretched too long.
“They’re prepped,” she said reluctantly.
“Good,” the tall man replied. “Then we don’t have to linger.”
He straightened again, spine cracking loudly, and stretched his fingers one by one. Each joint popped with unsettling clarity.
“Because,” he added, smiling down at her, “things are getting a little crowded back at the diner. He wants us all back to work as soon as possible.”
Lena closed her eyes.
And groaned.
***
The front door closed behind them with a muted thunk that sounded too final for a house that had already proven it didn’t like being told what to do.
The tall man had to duck, really duck, to get inside. He folded himself through the doorway in sections, shoulders first, then spine, then head, his body producing a series of small, irritated cracks as if reality itself were protesting the contortions required to fit him indoors. Once inside, he straightened incrementally, testing the ceiling height with a casual glance.
“Cozy,” he remarked.
Lena locked the door out of habit, then paused. She frowned, unlocked it, and left it ajar instead.
“Don’t,” she muttered. “You know better.”
He smiled, amused, and nodded as if she’d just reminded him not to put metal in a microwave.
They stood in the foyer for a moment, the lights still on, the house wearing its most convincing impression of normalcy. Wallpaper. Stairs. A faint smell of dust and old wood. Nothing overtly hostile.
And yet.
Lena exhaled sharply and rolled her shoulders.
“I still don’t get why this is our problem.”
The tall man began pacing slowly, careful with each step. The floorboards didn’t creak under him. They seemed to wait, then comply.
“Because,” he said mildly, “you were available.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters.”
She shot him a glare and started toward the living room. “You know what I mean. This is stupid duty. We’ve got, what, two unconscious civilians upstairs, a localized manifestation, and a house that’s basically screaming do not touch if you know what to listen for.”
He followed, ducking under a doorway that had absolutely not been built with him in mind. “You make it sound so unappealing.”
“Because it is,” Lena snapped. “Why can’t they find someone else? Someone with more experience. Someone who actually gives-”
She cut herself off mid-sentence.
So did he.
They both stopped in the middle of the living room.
Not because of a sound.
Not because of movement.
Because something shifted.
It wasn’t dramatic. No flickering lights. No sudden cold. Just a subtle misalignment, like a word pronounced incorrectly in an otherwise perfect sentence.
Lena tilted her head slightly. Her irritation evaporated, replaced by focus.
“Remnant,” she said flatly.
The tall man nodded. “Mm. Weak, but persistent.”
She scanned the room with her eyes, not looking at anything so much as looking through it. “And… yeah. There it is. That pressure.”
“Breach,” he added calmly.
They exchanged a glance, not alarmed, not surprised.
Clinical.
“How thin?” Lena asked.
He considered. Took a step, then another, testing the air like one might test ice. His foot sank, not physically, but conceptually, then settled.
“Thin enough to wrinkle,” he said. “Not thin enough to tear on its own. Yet.”
Lena frowned. “You can feel that?”
He smiled down at her. “Of course.”
She bristled. “I can feel it too.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But you’re feeling the symptoms. I’m feeling the structure.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then paused. Thought better of it. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re learning,” he replied cheerfully.
They resumed walking, slower now, both acutely aware of the way the house seemed to listen. Lena gestured vaguely upward. “Whatever’s here, it’s nested. Not anchored properly. Likes the attention.”
“Most things do,” he said. “Especially things that don’t get much company.”
She snorted. “Figures it would pick a place like this.”
He hummed in agreement. “Rural properties are always a gamble.”
“Because they’re old?”
“Because they’re empty,” he corrected. “Because no one’s watching closely enough.”
She glanced at him sideways. “You’re saying the lack of people did this?”
“I’m saying it made it easier.”
They stopped again, this time near the center of the living room, where the air felt faintly compressed. Like the room was a fraction smaller than it should be.
He folded his arms, carefully, joints popping softly, and looked around.
“Places like this,” he said, “exist on the fringe. Fewer neighbors. Less traffic. Less noise. Less expectation.”
“Expectation?” Lena echoed.
He nodded. “Humans are very good at enforcing rules they don’t know they’re enforcing.”
She scoffed. “You’re telling me reality behaves because people expect it to?”
“In part,” he said. “Consensus is a powerful thing. Enough people believing the floor is solid tends to keep it that way.”
“That’s-” She stopped, grimacing.
“No. I hate that that makes sense.”
He smiled. “You will hate many things.”
They stood there, the house quiet around them. The lights hummed. The walls held.
“For places like cities,” he continued, voice casual, almost conversational, “you’ve got millions of eyes. Millions of assumptions. Gravity works. Time moves forward. Doors lead where doors should lead. It’s very hard for anything to misbehave when it’s being constantly observed.”
“And out here?” Lena asked.
“Out here,” he said, tapping the floor lightly with his boot, “there are fewer witnesses. Fewer minds reinforcing the script.”
She crossed her arms. “So things think they can get away with it.”
“Exactly,” he said. “They ignore the rules. Bend them. Skip steps.”
“And that creates… this,” she gestured vaguely, feeling the pressure again.
“Breaches,” he said. “Remnants. Echoes that didn’t fade when they were supposed to.”
She looked toward the hallway leading upstairs. “And people stumble into it without knowing.”
He shrugged. “People stumble into lots of things.”
Her jaw tightened. “I never signed up for this part.”
He chuckled. “You signed up for the job. The job includes this part.”
“I signed up to clean up after things,” she shot back. “Not to play zookeeper when reality starts leaking.”
He bent slightly, bringing his face closer to hers, not threatening, just earnest in an unsettling way. “Leakage is part of the ecosystem.”
She stared at him. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little,” he admitted.
They fell silent again.
The house shifted, not moving, exactly, but adjusting. Like it had noticed it was being discussed.
Lena felt it too this time. Not fear. Recognition.
“Can it hear us?” she asked.
He considered. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
They stood there, two figures in a perfectly normal living room, the hum of electricity steady, the night pressing against the windows.
“And sometimes,” the tall man said quietly, almost thoughtfully, “the rules don’t break all at once.”
Lena waited.
“They bend,” he continued. “They stretch. They slip.”
The pressure deepened. Subtle. Persistent.
“And if no one’s paying attention,” he finished, “reality forgets what shape it’s supposed to hold.”
