Going out of the station using whatever was the closest exit, you’re greeted by the emptiest city center of all time. Not a single person was there. Even peering into any of the buildings just showed a whole lot of no-one. Like everyone just up and left a week ago. Nothing looked abandoned, just left to sit for a bit. You passed by what you thought was every building there - the coffee shop, the pc cafe, the all-you-can-eat cafeteria, even the town hall just had no-one.

While you were kind of happy to finally be truly alone, you couldn’t help but know something was awry, like expecting a surprise birthday party, but just not having one at all. 

—

It took quite a bit of walking, but you finally see the house listed on that website, a red-roofed house lined with stucco, complete with a long backyard that went right up to a forest. Even looks like it has a shed in the back. Going up to it, you see the piles of boxes that are your things the movers dropped off, a good sign at the very least. You pull the key out from your carry on, in which came in the mail not to long ago, and head straight for the front door. The key takes a bit to slot in, but when it finally does you unlock it, and fling the door wide open. You immediately see how unkept the place is, filled with furniture of the last owner, still. You decide that, before you look around the house, you bring in all of the boxes.

Each one of those boxes were heavier than the last, that or the walking to and from tired your legs out. But, once each box was at least inside, you crashed on the old couch. As you lied down, you couldn’t scratch the feeling that there was some kind of crinkling noise coming from under the couch cushion. As you remove the cushions, you find nothing. But, it was only until you literally looked under the cushion itself where you found a piece of paper taped to the underside. You take the thing off and notice the writing on it. It seemed like just a grocery list until you noticed the paragraphs on the other half of the page:

“Howdy, Neighbour! I hope you don’t mind me putting my groceries on my will. Bagels are just too delicious to just forget about. Anyways, if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance I’m dead right now, brain eaten from bottom to bottom. My brain doesn’t have a top, because I’m CRAZY! Anyways. My name is/was Crazy Dave - you may address me by that and that only. Mainly because just calling me Dave undermines how CRAZY I am. I didn’t just give myself that name - no, no, no! Other neighbours gave me that name because I was able to fight off a huge zombie horde this one time - maybe not so much this second. You see, these zombies never really let up. They just keep coming back, over and over, because killing something that’s already dead doesn’t just kill it. Anyways, if zombies ever come back, just check my hand-dandy pool shed. And don’t mind the plant out front. 

Your dearest (and maybe deaderest) neighbour,

Crazy Dave”

Zombies? Surely not the strangest thing to happen today. I mean, it could all be some kind of delusion of grandeur, but it seemed pretty convincing. Maybe it’s just best to forget all of that.

Without much thought of what you just read, you lump yourself back onto the couch, which still had the cushion removed, and doze off in a trance.