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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/dlschindler on 2024-10-18 04:38:47+00:00.

I don’t feel that way anymore - like we don’t fit in here. My new job is perfect, it really is. I don’t think my boss is creepy or that they have weird rules about the edge of the forest - where we have those two mossy picnic benches and people come outside to smoke on their breaks. I’m really good with it now.

My husband wasn’t doing anything wrong. I know I said I thought he was up to something, like maybe having an ‘the A word’ or something. He is a really great guy and I trust him completely. It’s fine.

The kids are both doing really great in school, making lots of friends and everything. In fact, that’s what’s up, the whole thing with the kids and the school. It’s just going so well, I have to talk about that.

I would complain about one thing, though, off-topic, and that’s my new car. I really can’t complain though, since my new car is just fine. Everything is just fine.

I know we had some trouble when we first got here, like with my job and my husband and my car and the school and the kids and everything, but it’s all going so well. Nothing is wrong, and everything is just perfect now. You don’t have to worry, I am doing great.

Mike took Samual hunting the other day, since it is hunting season out here and all the guys go hunting. I was worried, because Mike knows almost nothing about hunting or the woods, but they were fine out there. They didn’t shoot anything, but they went out into the woods with their guns and camped and bonded and came home without even so much as a tick bite. So everything turned out fine with that.

Mike has lots of new friends in town, and he goes and does Karaoke every Saturday. I’d go with him, but there’s no need, it’s not like he doesn’t want me to come or that he stays out all night with those girls at the bar or anything. I fully trust him and I don’t mind him going out without me.

Samual asked out Sheila Steihl to the Junior Dance and she heard he’d gone hunting with his dad and totally said she’d go out with him. So Samual is doing great, he’s all smiles. I think we are starting to really fit in around here.

I know Iris was having some trouble, with the kids and the playground. She’s doing okay now, the vaccine took hold really well and she stopped seeing the sick things. You remember those childhood drawings that were pretty upsetting - stuff she was seeing. Well, I was seeing them too, of course, but my vaccine worked too, and now we are fine.

Porter’s Grove is a nice place to live, and I am so glad we moved here. I couldn’t find work doing the conduit job that pays like it does here. The whole town is built on the metric revenue of our work. You should see how the local economy flourishes. This place was dying before Orange got here.

Sometimes, now that I got my promotion, I feel like we sorta run this whole town. My family gets treated like royalty. Sheila Steihl’s parents didn’t want her to go to the dance at-all and she isn’t allowed to have a boyfriend - except she told them it was Samual, my son, who wanted to go out with her and they changed their minds. We’re royalty.

That’s why I love it here. Our lives couldn’t be going better.

Yes, I know it was scary, at first, living in a paper town like this, but we adjusted. The vaccine we got helped, as the sick stuff went away after that. Iris had it the worst, since she was too young for the whole first year after we moved here.

I almost forgot what’s out there. I haven’t seen anything for a long time. They are drawn to people, apparently, at least that’s my understanding. I’m not sure what those sick things want, but it isn’t good, since they might try to get inside you.

There is a rumor that when Orange got here, that’s when they started coming out of the woods, attacking people and getting into them. I’ve heard that several people got so full of those things that they actually exploded. Like really gross.

I can only imagine, with some trepidation, how it would work. If just one of those things got into you, they would change you right away, you’d get sick too. Then, how could you stop more and more of them from coming to you, climbing up all over you, getting inside of you, and - well I guess when that happens the human body can only take so much of the viral overload. You’d simply detonate at some point, the fermentation process going totally nuclear.

I was very afraid for a long time. I was afraid for myself, since I did get infected with one of them when we first moved here. I had to wear a special suit for awhile, kinda like a beekeeper’s suit, to keep any more of them from getting into me. Iris was terrified, I was terrified and the whole town ostracized us.

My car broke down and it was within the compound on the way to work. Those things found me out there, crawling all over the outside of my car, trying to get in. I was panicked and trapped. They started finding their way into the car, through the vents and cracks and from under the floor. I was covered in them. While I was paralyzed with dread, trapped in my car, my special suit covered in those things, I knew it wouldn’t be long until they got into the suit and into me.

I must have fainted from sheer terror, and when I awoke I was in the facility and they had my stripped down and in a decontamination. My car got repairs and I was administered the new vaccine, since it was too late to inoculate me. The needle was about five inches long and they had to put it into my thymus, through my neck. I really hate needles, and I was somehow even more terrified by the cure than the disease.

Mike wasn’t very supportive before the company reeducated him. After that he was great, since he was no longer able to ignore me or disobey me or lie to me. That’s how I know he’s fine out there with the waitresses at the bar and the Karaoke. I’m holding all the keys.

Our house is awesome. We moved out of the old haunted two-story one we moved here into. Orange paid it all off and bought me a new house, within the compound. It’s like living in a gated community. I did mention that I got a promotion, and I didn’t say they made me Senior Director. I only answer to Kinley himself.

Some people say terrible things about him. I know I was afraid of him for awhile, but he’s really not some crazy mad scientist billionaire. He’s just eccentric and misunderstood. You just have to get to know him a little. I love my boss he’s hard-working and really provided for me and my family.

So, things in Porter’s Grove are good, and great and just living the dream.

Iris had one last incident, involving an animal that wandered out onto the playground. I went the teacher’s conference, nothing to be worried about or anything. My kids get very good grades and never get into trouble. It’s just that one thing that happened.

Yes, I was scared to hear about it. It reminded me of some of the terrifying things I encountered here. I thought back about seeing all that sick stuff. The gross, deformed critters, half dead, attracted to me because of what the parasites had done to their brain stems. Modified hosts.

I guess it is like that nature video we watched that one time, the one with the zombified ants or the beetle with the worm in it that flips onto its back and kicks its legs until a bird eats it, or the slug that gets that thing in its eyestalk that also gets eaten by birds. Those sick things, those former animals, little more than robots controlled by the parasite inside them.

Before we were immunized they’d come for me, for Iris. So, it got pretty scary, when something all mangy and twitchy would limp and hop towards us. Like watching roadkill come towards you, knowing that it is dead and rotting. I told Iris not to let them come near her.

I’d watch those woods, couldn’t take my eyes off the edge of the trees all around town. Something was watching me right back, sending its probes, its spores, whatever they are. Iris was sitting outside at recess and the rest of the kids fled from it.

Iris just sat there, too terrified to move. My worst fear was that she’d come in contact with one of the sick things we often saw. They aren’t animals anymore. I guess this one was like a puppy to her, somehow, although it had empty eye sockets, it knew where she was and came straight for her, wagging what was left of its tail, trying to seem friendly.

I was told she had finally snapped out of it, that she had jumped up on the teeter totter and brought it crashing down on it before she got up and fled inside. It never got to her, didn’t have a chance. She was like a hero. The teachers praised her and told her how brave and special she was.

Somehow Kinley heard about the incident and asked me about Iris personally. I told him she’s my daughter, and that we might be scared, but we take action. He nodded and told me he appreciates both me and my family, and said there’s a place for us here. So, we are doing better than great.

As to us moving back out there, or just packing up and leaving all this behind and staying with you, that’s not going to happen. I appreciate that you were willing to put us up like that, but it isn’t necessary. In fact, my new house is huge. If you and Charles start having problems again, you can just take the kids and come live with me out here.

I know you’ll love it here, everything is just perfect.