This is an idea I’ve had kicking around in my head for quite a while now, and I’ve worked on it on and off. I’ve always liked stories told by outside observers; people detached from all that’s going on and yet at the same time a part of it in their own way. I also like horror stories where your mind has to fill in the blanks. Not sure if I really achieved either all that well with this tale, but I felt like writing something and this idea kept persisting, so clearly it wanted to be told.

(this notebook was recovered from the scene of the incident; although mostly damaged, the pages remained intact and were still legible)

6:00 PM

Welp. I’m officially bored. Made it fifty days into quarantine before I ran out of movies to watch and shows to binge, and now I’m left with all the books I’ve been putting off for forever now. I should read them, but as of right now, I have no motivation. So instead I am sitting on the porch with a six-pack of Budweiser and a couple of notebooks and trying to figure out if there’s another book in me or if I’m just one-and-done nobody like most of the world is.

You know, before this I was okay with living alone. I didn’t have to worry about sharing with anyone, didn’t have to hound my roommates for late rent or expenses, didn’t have to draw sides or anything. Now, though…Christ, I wish I had someone to talk to. Most of my conversations these days take place between me and my cat, and I guess I’ll know that I’m finally going bugshit when I start hearing the cat talking back.

There he goes now. Big fluffy bastard. Comes in and out whenever he damn pleases. I sometimes think I need him more than he needs me.

It’s so quiet here. I mean I’m not in the main city part, but it’s still usually a pretty bustling area. We still get cars passing by, but outside of my neighbor doing yard work, I haven’t seen a physical human being in weeks. It’s like that movie with the kid who lives in a giant bubble…the outside world is right there, all he has to do is step out and join it, but if he left he’d get sick. Die. I don’t know, I don’t remember the movie very well.

Bubble Boy That was the movie. We’re all Bubble Boy now. Living in our own personal bubbles.

…I could write something about that. There’s a story there.

6:45 PM

Wrote at a frenzy pace for the last hour or so. Wrote ten pages. Words just kept flowing out of me. Haven’t written like that since the book was published. I might actually have something here. My agent’s going to be ecstatic.

I got lucky with the first book. Sold decent, had a good amount of support behind it. But I haven’t had a good idea since then. Everyone knows the follow-up book is more important than the first book. You publish one book, woo hoo. You publish two, hey now, maybe this fella’s one to look out for. Maybe he’s the next Hemingway. Or King. Maybe.

If I keep going with this, I might have some gold. As long as my brain doesn’t stop me. The biggest enemy to creativity is your own subconscious telling you you’re not good enough. I must’ve scrapped eight short stories in the last six months because my mind just…beat me, I guess. Kicked my ass. I’d look over what I had and I’d just see verbal garbage thrown back in my face.

It’s enough to make anyone want to throw in the towel. Throw all your notebooks in the garbage, delete your Word documents, pick up some menial nine-to-five desk job for a company you despise and a manager whose sheer incompetence makes you want to plow your head through drywall, or co-workers that are so obnoxiously loud it makes you want to drive thumbtacks into your ears. Make you beg for the sweet embrace of death over and over and over again until you might as well be dead already.

Or move back home. With a family that doesn’t believe your vision. Laughs at the mere idea of you trying to make it big with writing. Think the creative arts are a joke. Everyone knows the type.

Well, I’ve started it now, and I hope to finish it. It’s a story about people trapped in their own little bubble worlds. I mean they’re not really worlds per say, but in their own bubbles, while outside the world goes on. Still formulating the idea in my head, but right now all I’ve been working on is just a day in the life of this one guy. Best way to go about a draft is just to put it on paper first and then work it out in your head later.

My neighbor’s been around his yard all afternoon. Not sure what he’s been up to. At one point he was placing tiki torches around the perimeter. To ward off mosquitos? I mean it’s May now, sure, but it’s still been pretty chilly, definitely not hot or muggy enough for mosquitos. Maybe he’s just preparing ahead of time. Who knows. It’s been interesting watching him scurry around though. Might just be the isolation talking.

It’s a nice night tonight. I can’t remember the last time May didn’t feel like a scorching inferno. Maybe those people on the internet were right when they said us all staying inside was clearing the planet up. Or maybe it’s like Day After Tomorrow where we’ve thrown ourselves into a new Ice Age.

Either way, feels nice.

7:15 PM

Was about to pack it up and head inside when I saw something that just about knocked me over. Next door started seeing a crazy amount of activity. Cars just started pulling up to the curb, and people started piling out in droves. It was like watching a fucking clown car exit.

What the hell are they doing over there? Don’t they realize we’re in a nationwide lockdown? There’s a body count on CNN for Christ’s sakes, surely they must know THAT by now. People really have no regard for either their own personal safety or that of others. I mean yeah, things are starting to open back up, but that doesn’t mean we can start throwing raves and keggers again. If next door turns into the next ground zero, I’ll never forgive them.

Well, at least they’re wearing masks. Although they’re not surgical masks, it’s like they’re having a masquerade party or something. They’re even dressed in weird outfits. It looks like Phantom of the Opera over there.

Still, I guess it’s better than nothing at all. But if it’s some kind of BDSM party, I’m calling the cops on them. For their own safety.

I just yelled at them from my window to keep their distance from each other. The ones who heard me just laughed. One actually waved me over as though he was inviting me to join them. Maniac.

8:20 PM

Spent the last hour looking over what I have. I’m already dissatisfied with it. 

The idea seemed good at the time but it lacks clear direction. Like, I have the bubble prisons thing. Okay. Sure. But then what? Why are they there? At first I was just using it as a metaphor for the quarantine, but now I’m really contemplating why I want them in this scenario. What is the in-world reason they’re in these bubble prisons? And how do you create powerful relationships between characters who never physically or verbally interact with each other? I can’t figure out a good idea for that yet.

Also, there are a lot of everyday questions that I don’t have an answer for. How do they get their food? What if they run out of supplies like paper towels or laundry detergent? What happens if something breaks and they don’t have the tools or skills to fix it? Those are things you as the reader take completely for granted, but authors need to think about that stuff.

And what about when the characters inevitably find a way to communicate? Do they use poster boards? Chalk or eraser boards? What happens if the markers run dry or the chalk breaks?

I suppose I could always just Mystery Science Theater it, but this isn’t a comedy, this is a drama. A sci-fi drama, I guess, but even sci-fi needs explanations for why things happen. It’s too easy to handwave as “just because” or some other bullshit. The explanation needs to make sense to the audience, or they’re not going to get immersed in the story.

…Well, I suppose it can still be salvaged. I mean the idea is there, I’ve just gotta…figure it out.

…God, they are being loud next door. What kind of music is that? It’s not any kind of party music I’ve ever heard.

Ugh, I need to focus. Maybe I’ve done enough for tonight. I think I will crack open one of those books after all. A little nighttime reading might be what I need to get my creativity flowing again.

9:00 PM

Alright, I just finished this book, and I’m thinking this wasn’t the right one to get creativity from. I picked this book up completely at random thinking it’d be at least an interesting mystery, but it’s got plot holes the size of a dump truck. You really can publish anything these days.

Maybe that’s the inspiration I should take from this. Just put anything out and it’ll sell. Fuck-a-doodle-doo.

How is that music getting louder? It’s already loud enough to make my walls shake, what, are they trying to wake the dead? How are the other neighbors not calling in a noise complaint? I’m about to, if it goes on much long

Well now it just stopped. It’s like they heard me. Maybe someone did finally call in a noise complaint. Although I didn’t hear any sirens…

9:30 PM

There’s some other kind of noise now…it’s not music per say, it’s more like some kind of…gregorian chant, I think? Like the monks do, or did…I don’t know, do they still do it? Who cares, not important. The point is it’s different music, not the weird shit from earlier, something…creepier.

I think…I think it’s them. The people in the house. I think they’re doing the chant.

What the hell kind of party is this?

9:55 PM

It’s been almost half an hour and the chanting hasn’t lightened up. It’s going to drive me crazy. I think they’ve added some kind of drum beat to the equation. Of course even I can tell from here that their drum is just them tapping on a pot, and the constant pinging is making me want to fill the bathtub up and dunk my head under water and hold it there until I drown.

At the same time, they’re really starting to creep me out. If it wasn’t for the quarantine, I’d go over there and demand to know what’s going on. I don’t like this.

10:10 PM

Now the drumming has stopped and…is that a cat? Do they have a cat over there? It’s making a hell of a racket, yelling loud enough to wake Lazerus. I didn’t know my neighbor owned a cat, why haven’t I-

I just realized I haven’t seen my cat since I came back inside…he hasn’t been bugging me for his dinner or anything…

No. No they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t have my cat over there. One of the party-goers must’ve brought one of their own, and mine is just doing his own thing like the little shit he is. I’ll go look for him and find him in one of his little hidey-holes and that’ll solve that.

10:18 PM

Okay I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find him, and that cat over next door is shrieking louder and louder, and I don’t want to think the worse but I can’t keep the thoughts out of my head what are they doing over there I don’t

10:20 PM

oh my god i think they just killed my cat

10:30 PM

I’m writing this with shaking hands. My cat was howling and then all of a sudden there was this loud screech that was cut off in the middle, and I haven’t heard it since. The chanting has started up again. I hear a woman’s voice speaking, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.

I can’t calm down. I can’t stop shaking. I can’t prove for certain that my cat is dead or that it was even my cat but I still haven’t found him and I’m running out of options. Even if by some miracle it wasn’t mine, why the fuck would they just go and kill a cat like that?

Oh God…is my neighbor in a cult? Are they doing some kind of blood thing? I mean the only reason people kill animals is because they’re psychopaths or they’re trying to perform some fucking ritual, and I’ve never heard of a bunch of psychos sitting in a room skinning one cat together to get their rocks off, have you? Jesus Christ, is there some kind of meeting going on next door?

What the hell was my cat just used for?

10:35 PM

I should go over there. I should just put my mask on and march over there and demand to know what they’re doing. I should kick the door down. I should break a window. I should call the fucking cops. Shit, I should do SOMETHING.

The thing that always stops me is…what if I go and I get myself dragged inside and they end up doing to me what they did to my cat? Nobody would know if I went over there. My family lives states away. I haven’t seen or spoken to any of my other neighbors in weeks. My list of friends in the city is frighteningly small. There’s no one I trust enough to let them know what’s going on. That’s what I get for moving to the city and not making any connections, I suppose. That’s what I get for locking myself in a house and not bothering to meet people. Nothing I can do about it now.

I could call the cops. But would they believe me? I wouldn’t. Even if I did, how would I prove it? I didn’t record the cat dying. In order for them to hear it I would have to get close enough for the phone to pick up the noise, and there’s little possibility that I wouldn’t get caught doing so.

Maybe I should just call anyway. Fuck it. Call in the noise complaint from earlier and they’ll have to send someone, right?

10:53 PM

I’ve had my thumb over the Send key for 911 for the last fifteen minutes, but I can’t hit it. Something keeps holding me back. Fear, I guess. That fear that I wrote about earlier that can paralyze you to your nerves, makes acting on impulse an impossibility.

I’m frozen to the spot. I can’t get up, I can’t call the police. All I can do is write in this stupid notebook and wait. So far as I know I’m the only person who realizes that something bad is happening. The least I can do is chronicle what happens here tonight, so that people will know. 

…Maybe this is the book I’m supposed to write after all. I mean what better to write about than real life events, right? That other idea probably would’ve ended up at the bottom of some bargain bin at some discount bookstore. This one might actually sell decently.

That is, if I live past tonight…

11:22 PM

I’ve been trying to think back. My neighbor moved in next door about a month after I moved into the neighborhood. I’m trying to think if there were any red flags that I should have picked up on that I missed. Did he act a certain way, did he maybe say something that at the time I passed off but in hindsight was super sketchy? Maybe he came out with a robe and ceremonial dagger and I wrote it off as a costume party?

I’ve got nothing. Because the fact of the matter is, outside of seeing him in his garden, the guy’s always kept to himself. I don’t think I even got his fucking name. Is it Jimmy? Jeffrey? Thomas? Did he have some weird foreign name? I can’t remember. I don’t know if we ever did formal introductions. Maybe someone else around here did the whole “come by with beef casserole and welcome them to the neighborhood” schtick, but I can’t exactly ask any of them now.

…You know, when you really stop to think about it, I’ve been living in my own little quarantine a lot longer than the actual quarantine. I couldn’t tell you a single one of my neighbors by name. I guess it never bothered me before because I at least still had options, but now I…

Oh who cares.

11:40 PM

It’s been quiet for a little while now. No chanting or music or anything. Maybe the meeting is over…no, no it’s not, the cars are still outside. They’re still in there. They’ve just quieted up.

I don’t know whether to be relieved or scared…

11:45 PM

The ground just started shaking. It was only a subtle one at first, but I can feel the vibrations, and the glasses in my cabinet are clanking together.

I don’t

oh jesus christ they’re screaming

11:47 PM

The screams keep getting louder. In them I hear nothing but fear. Even if by some miracle I lived another fifty years after this night I don’t think I would ever be able to get them out of my head. Jesus I wish I was deaf.

That’s not the worst part though. The worst part is that every so often I hear some kind of horrible ripping noise…and then the chorus loses one of its voices. Every time it does I feel like I’m going to throw up. Because I don’t need to be a fucking genius to know what’s happening.

Something is in the house with them, and it’s killing them one by one.

What’s going to happen when it runs out of victims?

11:51 PM

The shaking is getting worse. My walls feel like they’re going to come down any minute. There aren’t many screams left. I think I just heard a window smash upstairs. The china is shattering in the cupboards just from being shaken too much.

It’s time to go. It’s long past time to go. Fuck the quarantine and fuck staying to document what happens. I’m getting in the car and I’m driving as far away from this as I can get. If I leave now I can probably get out of the state before sunrise.

11:55 PM

Just looked outside and saw someone try and leave the house. Something long and dark wrapped around his ankle and dragged him back in. I could practically hear the skin being peeled off his palms as he clawed for safety. The look on his face as he was being dragged in was one of total desperation and fear.

I’ve finished packing what little stuff I need. Gonna leave now.

11:56 PM

oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god

As I was walking out the door and getting to my car, there was this blinding light and a loud smashing sound. When I could see again, my car was just…dead. Completely. Looking at it, it looks like a section of the neighbor’s chimney just catapulted right on top of the roof of my car and just completely compressed it inward. The glass is shattered. The hood has a deep dent in the center, and I’m betting the engine’s fucked.

Oh God. How am I going to get out of here? I’m looking around and I see people are leaving their houses, some putting their masks on, some not even bothering. Of my neighbor’s house…

Holy shit. The roof’s gone. I don’t hear the screaming anymore. The light is so bright and something…something is rising out of it. I can’t see what, but whatever it is it’s massive…I don’t know what I’m looking at at all. I can’t find the words to describe it oh my god what is that thing please let this be a dream let me wake up on my porch and have this whole horrible night be a dream that I’ll forget about in an hour anything just don’t let what I’m seeing be real god if you let me live i swear i’ll do better i’ll get out more i’ll meet new people i’ll call my family more often just please for christ’s sakes don’t let this actually be happening

it’s rising out it’s it’s

12:00 AM

Oh god! Its teeth!

(journal ends here)