⫸——⫷

The good news was that Wally was right about Home not wanting to kill you on regular days. The bad news was that you still had a lot of unanswered questions about him.

After going back to the post office from visiting Wally's house, your heart was racing. He had admitted to loving you. That alone was enough to frazzle your nerves, but combined with everything else that was going on with Wally, you nearly felt like you were going insane.

The heart-fluttering sensation remained with you for the rest of the day. You left work, leaving Eddie to his relentless, self-inflicted labor at the post office, and went into town to look at books. You bought several at a cute little bookshop you spied the other day. Then, you walked around with all of your books in a little paper bag, looking at houses. As you walked, the brisk autumn air biting at your face, you thought about Wally once more. 

Wally seemed normal earlier, like he had not just killed someone last night. You assumed that this would be the case, since it seemed like Wally had been doing this whole 'murdering for Home' thing for a while now; of course he would know how to compartmentalize. Yet it was still baffling to see how well he knew how to put on a facade.

Although your curiosity still ached about why Wally needed to kill people and who he had killed, you made an effort not to think too hard about it. Some day, you would find out all there was to know about Wally, and that day both terrified and intrigued you. But if Wally did not want to give you any more details yet, there was no point in pushing him for them simply for your curiosity. He had saved your life, after all, and he apparently loved you, so the kind thing for you to do would be to remain patient with him.

And, as long as he did not kill you, Julie, or anyone else that you found yourself liking around here, you supposed that you did not mind if he was a murderer.

On your walk, you eventually came upon a cute little house that caught your attention. Your train of thought snapped in two like a cracker.

There was a sign on the yard in front of the house, advertising a sale. You approached the sign and saw both a phone number and an address listed for the sale of the home.

Could this be an opportunity for you? You had seen other houses for sale, but none of them had caught your eye like this one. Currently, you had enough to make a down payment on a small house, since the cost of living here was so cheap, and the post office job would surely keep you up to date on continuing to pay it off.

You stood still for a while, staring at the sign, but something nagged at you in the back of your mind, something small and child-like and frightened.

Were you really going to do this?

There was no reason for you to be doubtful of yourself. Buying a house here had been your plan the whole time — what was the point in second guessing yourself now? But, staring at the sign and the adorable home in front of you, your heart twisted.

Perhaps you missed your family and your old life. Or, perhaps you were scared to fully settle down in this town, given how odd it was. Perhaps both of those things were causing you to feel weird. Or maybe you did not want to live by a serial killer, or maybe this house would be alive like Home and would force you to kill people —

You cut your thoughts short with a sigh. No more thinking.

This was your plan. This town was your town now, and maybe, this house would be your house, too. You could not reminisce in the past, not now, because there was no going back to your old way of life, not after everything that happened. There was no going back to your family, either, until you got the chance to safely contact them, which could end up being soon.

Your family would want you to do this. They would want you to settle down somewhere safe, somewhere where you had friends and a job and no risk of being found by your blackmailers or the police.

Thus, settled, you went to the address that was listed on the sign in the cute house's yard. You knew your way around town well enough now, all thanks to your job delivering mail. The address ended up leading you to a tiny real estate office. The building's exterior was paneled wood, painted a deep brown. There was a glass front door, which you stepped inside.

The building opened up to a tiny office-like room. There was a circular blue rug in the middle of a white tiled floor, and the walls were a deep beige. There were two doors against the back wall, and in between them sat a desk, directly across from the front door. A round-faced lady with curly black hair was sitting at the desk; she looked up at you, adjusting the set of comically large glasses on her nose.

"Hello," you said. "I'm here to see someone about the house for sale down the street."

The lady smiled then. "Well dear, you're in luck then! I'm the one selling that house."

"Oh, that's lovely," you replied. "Has anyone made an offer on it yet?"

"As a matter of fact, no, not quite. We don't get many new neighbors around here, if you can believe that." The lady had a sticky-sweet voice, like an old woman that ate too much candy all day. She stood up from her seat and waddled over to you, reaching out her hand to shake yours. "Call me Francine."

You shook Francine's hand. She told you about the house as she led you to the door on the left of the front desk; perhaps it was the only house she was selling right now, because she already seemed to know which house you were talking about. The door opened to an even smaller office, but this one looked more like a therapist's office, with two cushioned chairs and a coffee table instead of a desk. There was a filing cabinet against one wall and several crocheted tapestries hanging everywhere.

Francine briefly bustled through the filing cabinet, reaching for some labeled papers. She then sat on one chair, and you took a seat in the other one.

For the next half hour or so, Francine talked to you about buying the house. She made everything sound very straight-forward in her old-lady droll. When she gave you a contract to sign, you felt the same non-committal anxiety that you experienced when looking at the sale sign earlier.

This was it. This contract — which stated that you barely needed to pay anything to own a home in this safe, quiet town — almost made you feel more nervous than Wally's presence ever had, which was truly saying something.

However, you sighed again and signed the contract. You paid Francine for the down payment in cash.

The deal was done. The house was yours.

And this was your home now. This town, that cute house just down the road — they were yours. The job with Eddie at the post office was no longer temporary, it was your career for the time being. Your neighbors were no longer folks you saw in passing, but your friends that you lived near. And your past was gone.

The combined finality and newness of your decision made you want to puke. But, again, it was done.

Tomorrow, you would begin the move-in process, but you wanted to stay at the motel for one more night. There were a lot of thoughts that still needed time to settle in your mind.

On your way home from Francine's office, you saw Wally — however, he did not see you. He was on the road ahead of you, chatting with Barnaby, who stuck out like a sore thumb. Neither of them noticed you swiftly passed them by.

Ordinarily, you would have stopped to say hello to them, but you did not feel like talking to anyone right now. Instead, you wanted to lay in bed and wallow. The past couple of days had been stressful — you wanted to go back in time to a week and a half ago, when you thought this town was perfect and pretty, and you did not worry about any more news articles, did not feel scared about settling down, and did not know about Wally's terrifying secrets.

You spent some time reading one of your new books that night. It helped relax you, and spending some time alone reminded you that, no matter what was going on around you or where you lived, you were still you, and you would always be safe in your own arms.

⫸——⫷