Chapter One
By late morning, the little sleepy town of New Hamlet found itself in a state of excitement and interest around Prospect Avenue, in the upper-upper-middle class suburbs section. There was a U-Haul moving van parked in the driveway of house number 308, a stately three-story house with an attached garage, a porch that wrapped around the façade of the house and a white picket fence bordered the property. The lawn seemed devoid of any trees or bushes, not even a single dandelion dared to take root along the walk that connected this house to the sidewalk.
The neighbors of Prospect Avenue edged closer towards this particular house without stepping into the street or treading unto each other’s properties to try and have a better look at the new arrivals. Only the elderly couple living across the street from the house succeeded in getting a glimpse every now and then: a pair of dark shapes would flit from the van into the garage door and back every few minutes, carrying boxes and furniture inside.
The elderly couple, Hunter and Agatha Huntington, took it upon themselves to inform the rest of their neighborhood as much as they could about this new couple. Hunter even had his old pair of binoculars trained on the garage for any glimpses, relaying what he managed to see to Agatha which would tell the others in turn.
“See anything more, dear?” Agatha, a stocky woman with streaky hair of brown and silver, asked. She had a pair of reading glasses resting upon her chest with a string around her neck which wore pearl necklaces that accented a pale gray summer dress.
“Hold onto your horses, will ya?” Hunter replied, a balding man with a scrawny build, wearing dark trousers with a pair of black suspenders, and a long-sleeved white shirt. He had his binoculars pressed against his eyes as if straining to see every detail in that garage of house number 308.
“Aha! There we go! We got something, Aggie! One of them’s coming out of that door there… did I just hear the van being closed up? Yep, that van’s driving out—wave to the driver, dear!” Hunter hastily put down his binoculars to wave at the driver of the van as it turned from the driveway into the street.
“Oh my, look! Look! He’s waving to us!” Agatha got Hunter’s attention back to the garage to find a man indeed waving to them. He returned the gesture, only to find three strange things: the waving man was wearing a black trench coat despite the humid summer day, his hair was closely-shaven, as if cut to the scalp by an electric razor, and he was inside the garage while its door was closing.
“What in God’s name was that?” Hunter muttered to Agatha, both wearing looks of amused confusion. Never in their lifetime had their neighborhood experienced something out of the ordinary, for as long as the neighbors of Prospect Avenue could remember, any new arrival always came out of their house to greet the others and introduce themselves.
“Must be city folk, Hunter,” Agatha said, clucking her tongue and shaking her head briefly. After five minutes, it was apparent to the neighborhood their new neighbors weren’t coming out to meet them.
“All right up there, babe?” the man called upstairs at the foot of the stairs, still wearing his trench coat. He had his glasses which he wore during waking hours of every day, only taking them off as necessary.
“Yes, Travis,” a dreamy feminine voice floated downstairs in reply.
“Good, I’ll be up in a sec,” he spoke as he walked around the house, eyeing the windows. He had them curtained the moment they moved in. He wasn’t going to give them a chance to see his wife, lest they risk themselves being ostracized again. The last time it happened almost cost them their lives. He found the neighbors’ curiosity irksome, though he couldn’t truly blame them, for it was human nature. Even so, he wished they would mind their own business. Stepping before the living room window, he stared at the dark curtains as he realized it may have been a mistake to move into a small town. The smaller the town, the more curious the folks are wont to be.
He smirked slightly as he remembered the precautions they agreed to prior to moving in, nodding in silent agreement as they worked flawlessly. But they only worked for this particular time, what about beyond that? Tomorrow, next week, what? His train of thought was interrupted by being wrapped around by a pair of arms that undid his trench coat. Then he felt being pressed against from behind.
“Playing hard to get?” purred his wife who licked at his right earlobe. He chuckled and faced her, his brown eyes gazing into her golden eyes before going into a passionate kiss, embracing her soft yet hard and supple form in his arms as he let her take off his trench coat.
