My New Neighbor

My new neighbor was a mystery to everyone on our block. Officially, his name was Charlie, but he insisted that everyone call him “Zero”. As far as we could tell, he had never invited anyone over to his house; the only time we ever saw him was on Saturday, when he would get into his black BMW and drive out of town for a few hours. For the rest of the week, he remained confined in his house, with all the blinds tightly drawn. He never seemed to turn on the lights — in the evening, when the street was alight with the faint yellow glow of windows, his house became a looming figure in the dark, a void.

For the first month that he lived in my town, he never spoke to anyone. I went over to his house with a basket of fruit on the very day he moved in, but he never answered the door. I left the basket on his front porch, and he let it sit for a week until the garbage men came and took it away. The only time I saw him was when he left his house every Saturday. He would walk slowly and deliberately, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, with a black umbrella over his head, even when it was sunny. My friend had once suggested that he was in mourning, and he went to a gravestone every Saturday to grieve. It was a good idea, but far from the truth.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when I first heard him speak. I was walking home from work, idly scrolling through my phone, when I saw his BMW pull into his driveway. Curious about the shift in his schedule, I approached his car.

“Hi!” I said as he got out of his car. He was wearing his typical black outfit. “I’m your neighbor, Bella.”

He stalked over to the trunk silently and opened it. Inside was a large cardboard box, which he grasped firmly and attempted to lift out of the car. He struggled with it for a few seconds, trying to balance it on his knee while closing the trunk.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I continued. “Do you need help with that box?”

He glared at me with dark eyes. His skin was the palest I’d ever seen, so much so that he seemed translucent in the sunlight. Eventually, he gave a short nod.

I picked up his box, reading the label out loud. “Charlie Jones. That’s your name?”

“My name is Zero,” he muttered, slamming the trunk shut. His voice, which I had expected to be gruff, was the smooth voice of a young man.

“All right, Zero,” I said, following him to his doorstep. “But who’s Charlie Jones?”

He spun around and gave me a dark stare. “Me.” He yanked the box out of my grip and went inside his house, footsteps heavy, leaving me standing at his front door.

The next night, I heard the screaming. They were high-pitched, blood-curdling screams, as if someone was being tortured, but not the drawn-out wails of constant agony. Instead, they were short, about two seconds per scream and roughly thirty seconds apart. At first, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from; it reverberated off the walls, giving the impression that I was being surrounded by the screams of the dead. I tore outside, heart racing, hands sweaty, to find the screams emanating from Zero’s basement. It sounded akin to a person being murdered.

Suddenly, everything made sense. It all clicked in my mind. The black clothing, the umbrella, the pale skin. I knew what he was, and I knew what he was doing in his basement. I had to stop him before someone got hurt. Dashing back to my house, I grabbed a rosary and a clove of garlic, and I prepared for the fight of my life.

I had been ready to kick down the door, but his front door was open, so I just walked in. The lights were off, and his house was so dark that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Pulling out my phone, I turned on my flashlight and started to investigate.

The first thing I noticed were the pentagrams. Covering all of the walls and etched into the hardwood floor, there were at least three pentagrams in every room. Atop every doorway was an upside-down cross, one with a devil’s face instead of Jesus. And the awful screaming grew louder with every step I took. Eventually, I reached the staircase that led to the basement. There was a glimmer of flickering light down there, intermittent and tinted blue.

I took a deep breath and descended.

The basement, like the other rooms, had all the lights off. The walls and floor were black, making me feel as if I was floating in space. The flickering light I had seen was coming from a television screen. I could see his eyes, glinting in the dark, as I approached.

“I know what you are,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

The voice came from the darkness, where I could see his hands reach up to his head and remove something.

“Then say it. Say it out loud.”

“You’re…” My voice shook and died as I saw his silhouette move. A shadowy hand reached up to the wall and turned on the lights.

The room was a mess; littered across the floor were empty bags of chips, candy wrappers, and pizza crusts. He was wearing his black shirt, on which there was a dark stain. His hands held a black set of headphones, from which I could hear a faint voice shouting.

I took a few steps forward, able to see the television screen, and found my voice. “You’re…” I paused, glanced at the screen, and turned back to him. “You’re an edgelord.”

Then his Fortnite character died and he screamed.