The EverBloom Estates

The sound of a buzzing alarm clock shot Neil’s eyes awake, he looked over at the alarm clock 

“2:20 am” 

It read. 

As he sat up in bed he looked around, he noticed his bedroom appeared more vibrant than usual;

He realized everything was incredibly focused in, like his vision was sharpened. 

He slowly got up and made his way to the bedroom door, then, opening it, the sound of the door slightly creaking echoed down the dark, quiet hallway.

Something felt off for Neil, he couldn’t put his finger on it but something about his house now felt… different. 

He slowly crept down the dark hallway into his living room and he froze;

In the center of his living room was a door, nothing else just a white door standing upright looking completely out of place. 

Neil slowly approaches the door and opens it, upon opening the door he freezes again as his brain short-circuits trying to process what he’s looking at. 

The door leads to a replica of his bedroom, neil starts to think logically realizing this isn’t even physically possible. 

He stares into the replica of his room wide-eyed eventually breaking his trance and stepping inside. 

“What the hell?” 

He mutters to himself as he looks out his bedroom window, he sees beautiful bright sunny skies with clouds and a row of what seem like infinite cookie-cutter replicas of his house.

The sound of a door closing makes him turn around to see that the door is gone;

He feels his heart drop a bit as he realizes he doesn’t have a way back.

He begins to walk around the house and its layout is the exact same as his real house, he steps outside and notices two people outside on the lawn of the neighboring house.

Instantly neil felt an off feeling, their uncanny smiles came off as almost fake;

Despite this neil flashed a friendly smile and a wave at them and they waved back, Neil noticed that both of their hands moved exactly in sync. 

“Hello! Welcome to the everbloom estates, my name is Dan and this is my wife Denise” 

The man says approaching the white fence.

“Neil… nice to meet you”

He responds awkwardly, despite their friendly demeanor neil felt uneasy, it was almost like their niceness was forced.

“We’re having a get-together tonight, we’d love to host a new neighbor!” 

Dan says.

“Sounds good, I’ll be there” 

Neil responds holding an awkward smile. Suddenly, Dan just turns and walks back inside with Denise, the same ear-to-ear grin plastered on their faces the whole time.

Neil turned and examined his surroundings now that he was outside, the houses all looked identical and they seemed to stretch on infinitely.

He then noticed beyond the suburban neighborhood there were green valleys that also looked like they went on forever;

He takes in the clouds and the sky and realizes he can look at the sun without issue and the clouds are not moving. 

“Where am I?”

He mutters to himself as he stares up in awe, then in an instant neil jolts awake in his bed as his alarm blares.

“7:12 am”

The clock reads and Neil jumps out of bed in a panic realizing he’s gonna be late to work.

He scrambles to get ready feeling tired and disappointed, Neil lived a mundane life in an unhappy marriage and he finally thought he found an escape.

“Neil! Get up what are you going?!” 

His wife Susan shouted from downstairs, her voice over the years began to sound like nails on a chalkboard to Neil.

“I woke up late give me a fucking break I’ll be fine!” 

Neil calls back in frustration, she didn’t respond to him but he knew she was just waiting for him to come down.

Neil frantically put on his polo shirt and khakis and spent 3 minutes brushing his teeth before he scrambled down the stairs.

“It’s 7:17 your gonna be late where are you fucking drinking again!?” 

Susan yells at him but he’s tuned out, he grabs his keys off the holder and leaves completely ignoring her. 

As he drives to the car dealership he thinks nonstop about the estates, he finds himself eager for the nighttime so he can fall asleep again. 

His entire shift at the dealership felt off, his tactics and conversations felt sort of flat because in the back of his head, all he could think of were the estates. 

At the end of his shift, he drove home a bit faster than usual, he made a quick stop at a CVS before he got home grabbing sleeping pills.

Neil entered the front door of his house, and he saw his wife’s car wasn’t in the driveway when he got home but he didn’t care, he was itching to fall asleep.

Neil shoots up awake in bed by the sound of his alarm clock

“2:12 am”

The clock reads.

He quickly gets up and makes his way to the living room and he sees the same door he saw last night, right in the middle of the room. 

Upon opening it and stepping inside he immediately realizes the difference, there are no blue skies this time just darkness.

He looked out the bedroom window to see all the houses and street lamps illuminating the streets, as he gazed in awe a knock at the door broke his concentration.

He made his way down to the front door and looked out the peephole, it was Dan and Denise showing the same smile they had on earlier.

“Come on out Neil”

Dan’s voice says from behind the door, the fact that they knew Neil was already there sort of unnerved him but he opens the door anyway and steps outside.

“We’re having a welcoming ceremony, come to our house neil and celebrate with us”

Dan says enthusiastically.

Neil kept an awkward grin on his face and just nodded 

“Alright, sounds good thanks man” 

He says before he follows them across the lawn to the neighboring house.

They step inside the front door and Neil follows them, has he looks around he realizes the inside is exactly like his house, they enter the kitchen to see 3 other people at the table with empty plates in front of them.

“Paul, Cynthia, Greg… this is our new neighbor neil” Dan says introducing them and Neil just waves casually with his awkward smile, they all look at Neil with the same uncanny smile that Dan and Denise have, neil starts to subconsciously think about the fact that they never show any other expression.

Neil sits down next to Paul and Cynthia while Dan sits down next to Greg opposite them, Denise goes to the stove and brings the pot over to the table, and begins to dump food on the plates.

spaghetti and meatballs with tomato sauce, Neil noticed how fake it looked, like it was made of plastic.

“So neil where did you move from”

Cynthia asks and Neil replies 

“Uh Idaho”

He says making up a random state, he begins to regret his eagerness to come back.

Something felt off, the fake plastic-looking food, the strange cookie-cutter houses, they’re unsettling seemingly forced kindness.

All of it begins to make Neil think deeper about his current situation, 

“You're from Utah”

Greg says casually looking at Neil with a wide smile.

Neil’s awkward smile vanishes;

“How the hell does he know that?”

He thinks to himself inside his head.

suddenly as soon as Neil’s awkward smile drops all of their faces change for the first time in sync.

All of their faces turned to angry-looking contorted scowls, their eyes began to beam at Neil with a look of icy murderous hatred, as he had just said something extremely offensive or rude.

Neil’s eyes widen slightly as he looks around, his body begins to feel hot and his heart rate kicks up a bit, the sudden switch of the energy in the room completely caught him off guard.

Without another word they all stand up quickly in sync, Neil stumbles back standing up, and this chair tips over.

They all just point at Neil with their now angry faces and scream, the scream sounded inhumane and horrifying, Neil’s survival instincts tell him to run and he turns and sprints to the door, he hears them all chase after him still screaming as he bursts out the front door and across the lawn to the other house.

Though Neil was a 47-year-old out-of-shape car salesman his adrenaline made him move surprisingly fast, he gets inside with seconds to spare and sees the 5 of them charging up the porch.

Neil slams the door and locks it running up the stairs, he hears the screams fade out slightly along with the doors banging as he gets upstairs towards the other side of the house.

To Neil’s horror, upon barging into the room with the door he sees that it’s gone;

“What? No” 

He mutters to himself when he hears glass shattering and footsteps running around the house 

“NEIL!”

a distorted horrifying voice screeches that echoes throughout the entire house.

Neil stands frozen like a deer in headlights, he quickly breaks out of his trance and dives under the bed covering his mouth with his hands.

Seconds later the bedroom door violently swings open and he sees 2 pairs of feet walking around the room ripping the room apart, inhumane grunts and growls ring out as they rip drawers open, throw things around, and even rip the closet door right off the hinges.

Neil knows it’s only a matter of time before they check under the bed, he extends his hands and suddenly feels cold metal, the ridges in it immediately told neil that he was touching a vent grate.

He flips it open and crawls inside and falls headfirst down a metal chute, he slides downward picking up speed before he flies out of the exit and lands in the water.

Neil pops up out of the water and looks around as he treads water, he’s in a ymca styled swimming pool, with white and blue tiles covering the walls, floors, and ceiling.

He swims to the edge and pulls himself up, he begins to speed walk down the long corridor on a small walkway, next to him is pool water, and on the other side is another narrow walkway.

He suddenly sees a door on the wall and he stops in his tracks and enters it, he finds himself in another tiled pool area. 

In front of him were rows of different long rectangular-shaped pools and tiled floors in between. 

His mind raced with a million thoughts a second as he slowly walked and took in his surroundings.

The splashing of someone rising from the pool makes Neil jolt back and he almost loses his balance and falls into the pool behind him.

“NEIL” 

The figure screeches in a watery distorted voice, Neil scrambles back on his hands and legs in a sitting position as the creature crawls out of the pool revealing more of itself.

It looked like one of the estate's residents, it wore a button-down shirt with dress pants but its skin looked rotted.

To Neil’s absolute horror more residents began splashing up from different pools, Neil frantically gets to his feet and begins to run down a dark corridor on the other side of the room, he hears the clacking of dress shoes hitting tiles as the residents run after him, neil had a solid head start but his age and the fact that he was getting worn out was starting to take its toll.

He heard them gaining on him and in a desperate effort, he jumped into the water.

Seconds later he heard splashes of multiple people jumping in after him, exhausted but determined and fueled by pure adrenaline neil swam quickly into what looked like a slide that was underwater.

He soared down the plastic tube and eventually after a few seconds shot out into a different themed pool area.

The water now has purple LED lights in it and everything else had led lights beaming purple across the walls.

Neil crawled out of the pool onto the black tiled floor and coughed and took deep breaths, he was shaking and terrified but alive.

He slowly got up and began to walk around when he heard splashing behind him, he didn’t even have to turn and look to know it was them coming out of the slide.

He ran down a hallway and found a push door, he practically threw himself into it and froze;

He was back in the estates, the row of houses and street were in front of him, he was back somehow.

He turned to see what the door was even attached to, nothing… It was just a standalone door in the street.

Neil turned and quickly made his way into one of the houses, as he closed the door and locked it a familiar voice called from upstairs,

“Neil?”

The voice innocently called out.

Neil’s eyes widened, it was Susan, he whipped around with a mix of confusion and slight fear.

“Neil I’m up here”

The voice called again, it was definitely Susan but he hadn’t heard her speak to him in the innocent tone since they were in their twenties.

Neil found himself slowly walking up the stairs when Susan’s figure appeared at the top of the stairs;

As Neil got closer he could see more of her, she looked completely normal, no uncanny smile or weird behavior.

He reached the top of the stairs and she gently put her arms around his neck, a small smile began to flutter on Neil’s face as he gazed into Susan’s eyes.

But just as he was relaxing, to his horror that same uncanny odd smile formed across her face and her grip tightened.

Neil couldn’t move at all, the combination of his being frozen in fear and Susan’s unnatural strength kept him glued to the floor.

“Welcome home honey”

Susan said before she began to slowly open her mouth to a horrifyingly wide open mouth, her jaw was practically at her chest as Neil just stared into the gaping mouth in pure horror.

And then, in one fast motion, Susan lunged forward a few inches and chomped down completely engulfing and tearing through the upper half of Neil.