The people in this town aren’t real. I don’t mean that there’s a bunch of mannequins all nuketown style, I mean that they’re just, wrong. Everyone wears plain clothing, no brands, no words, not even pictures. Whenever they speak it’s only what needs to be said, prices for groceries, gas, but rarely anything else. I once got bumped into while walking back to my apartment but they didn’t even say “Sorry.” Or “Excuse me.” Originally I just brushed it off as them being an asshole but the more I paid attention, the more things didn’t seem right.
I moved here two months ago due to a natural disaster in my town. My entire block was leveled and I decided that it was time for a change of scenery. About a week and a half after I moved here however, the only bridge to exit this small island had collapsed. At first I didn’t mind because I didn’t see any reason to go back to the big city. Now I feel trapped.
I’ve tried to talk to the people here from time to time but I’m only ever met with curt responses or blank stares. I tried to ignore it because I assumed they didn’t like non-locals. The people however, were not the only thing off about the town.
There were no emergency service buildings, bar a single hospital. There was only one grocery store and a handful of gas stations, even though there weren’t even that many cars to begin with. After I decided to look closer I noticed a couple of things. One day while I was getting groceries for the week I decided to peek at what the person in front of me was buying. I’ve never been particularly nosey but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. What she had on the conveyor belt didn’t make any sense; bleach, cat litter, baking soda, shampoo, and one apple. At first glance it just looked like anyone’s normal groceries, but none of it coallessed, none of it belonged together without at least some other miscellanea to make it seem like you’re actually shopping and not just grabbing things to make the flow of life seem convincing. I would have almost brushed it off if it wasn’t for one thing: the apple was rotting.
This would seem all the less strange if you would attempt to apply some logic to the situation, maybe she couldn’t find everything she was looking for, maybe the produce section was just desolate today, but here’s the thing, I’ve never seen a single shipment to the store, the shelves are always fully stocked every time I go in, there’s not even anyone else in the store except the few customers and single cashier. There’s no evidence that anyone has even bought anything except for the people waiting in line to check out.
I only realized just how strange of a situation I was in when I saw how they acted when they thought they weren’t being observed. In the rare circumstance that multiple people were at one singular stoplight they were… empty. All of their faces were completely vacant of all emotion or expression, as if it were just stamped onto an action figure. They all looked forward completely motionless and I could swear not a single one of them blinked. Yet when the light turned green, all five cars moved in unison, without hesitation. Once again at a glance this looks like a completely normal action- green means go, right? But when you stop to think. You would usually only start going once you see the person in front of you move. They did not. I’ve been doing a lot of stopping and thinking recently.
I don’t know when I decided to follow someone home, but I picked a random person and just kept behind them. They walked for hours with seemingly no direction, a left here, a right over there until the sun had fully sunken under the horizon and they decided that it was time to go inside. Now I don’t mean that they walked home. That would be too simple, no instead he just picked the closest house and went inside. I watched tentatively from the windows to see what he would do. Check the fridge? Watch TV? Maybe just sit on the couch and start reading a book. What he did was far more unsettling. He just walked into the bedroom, laid on the bed face up and fully flat, without even removing so much as his shoes and jacket, and closed his eyes.
On the walk back to my house I felt shaken, everything about what I just witnessed was so wrong on an instinctual level that I couldn’t stop my skin from crawling. When I finally reached my home and inevitably my bed I collapsed onto it, exhausted from hours of walking. Even though I was completely spent I couldn’t find sleep. I stared at my ceiling and walls for hours just trying to pass out but I couldn’t. I started to feel just as unreal as the inhabitants of this alien island. Eventually, in the late hours of the A.M. I passed out.
I woke up to the sound of knocking at my door, which was terrifying for more than a couple of reasons.I cautiously opened the door to see a mailman with absolutely zero notable features. Without a word, he handed me a letter, and left. When I opened it there were only four words on the sheet of paper. They were very clear and housed an implicit threat. Mind your own business. Obviously, there was no return address.
The next few days were notably different from the rest of the time I had spent here. Had I not spent the last several weeks heavily observing the population around me I don’t think I’d have noticed. People looked at me. They acknowledged my existence. I had never felt so naked before in my life.
As time went on it got worse, so much worse. This town full of people that just pretended to be alive had started to live around me. But only during the day. At night it was still so empty you could mistake it for a model. I constantly would drive up to the collapsed bridge in hopes that it would magically be fixed or at the very least under construction. No such luck.
I tried to pretend it was fine for so long until eventually one followed me home. He just stood outside the window, even after nightfall. Eventually he left but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of imminent danger. They all watch me now, waiting for something. So I’ve begun to blend in, I keep my face blank, I grab things at random when I go to the store, and at night I make sure to get home as quickly and as inconspicuous as possible. No one looks anymore. But I can still feel their eyes burning behind me. I am trapped here. They all know it.