Halfway House Story

Even if you don't know it, you've been in one before. You might be in one now. It's easy to check- it only takes a second.

Do you ever feel as if you're being watched?

Have you ever seen, felt, or heard anything unexplainable?

Have you ever lost time within the house?

Has a child ever died of SIDS within the house?

Any of those seem familiar? If you said yes to more than two then let me be the first to suggest Two Guys and a Truck. Fantastic moving company, I can't recommend them enough. I'd suggest calling them today, right now ideally. If you're smart you won't waste the time reading the rest of this, but I'll admit it's hard to take my word for it so I don't blame you for being skeptical. But my advice is very, very serious. Everything I'm going to tell you is fact.

Imagine a Venus flytrap. The Venus flytrap is an amazing little plant that possesses no brain, no blood, and no organs, and yet it's carnivorous. It survives by catching and liquefying anything unfortunate enough to be caught. Even more remarkable, tiny hairs on the inside of the plant's mouth are so sensitive that they can distinguish between a drop of water and live prey. The plant wastes no energy on a worthless meal. In this way, the plant is intelligent, despite the fact that it has nothing we humans would consider even remotely close to sentience.

Halfway houses are, as we like to say, 'the ultimate urban predators.' They are completely invisible in plain sight. We assure them that their failure to spot any danger wasn't their fault. I mean, who would ever think to check a house for reflex points? You can do that, by the way. Tap on the walls until something groans or creaks in an 'unusual' way and there you go. You found a reflex point.

Like their very very distant Venus flytrap cousins, halfway houses aren't intelligent in the way we think of intelligence. They are very much alive, and they are aware of us, but possess no 'soul' or personality. We suspect they're able to communicate with each other through the earth itself via infrasound -which itself, as I'm sure you know, causes paranoia, anxiety, and the feeling of being watched. As for where they come from- that's always the next question- well, that's still being disputed. Not enough research has been done for us to be sure if the houses are somehow altered by an outside force, an invasive species, or if they are, perhaps, an organism that lives in common building materials like rock or wood. A kind of termite swarm, if you will, that lives inside the building material and can influence it. For a while we were almost convinced of the latter but as the internet has become more common it's clear that halfway houses can pop up anywhere and in just about any form. Even storage sheds made of solid metal were observed hunting.

Hunting, by the way, is a catch-all term for any action that the house takes against its occupants. Most commonly this takes the form of a haunting. Strange noises, lights flickering, pipes rattling. The house, of course, has total control of itself and acts autonomously. Hence why a door that was closed can open seemingly on its own. Some homes prefer to hunt in a less brazen fashion and slowly leach lead or other contaminants into the drinking water. They can even use chemical warfare by breaking gas lines or filling the interior with carbon monoxide.

There are, of course, more tragic cases. Homes that are particularly vicious are responsible for these. Homicides, murder-suicides, SIDS. We suspect that a famous multiple-infanticide may have been prevented had the family moved out sooner. I only bring these tragedies up as a warning, not to shock you.

To an ant, an elephant seems to move painfully slowly. To the elephant, the ant zips around at a breakneck speed. Although both perceive time, they perceive it differently. To the houses, we move blindingly fast, our lives over in a day. You will never outlast one. It will not get better the longer you wait. They're very, very good at what they do. Like I said, they're the apex urban predator. A dinosaur in a wooden body. They'll wait for the perfect moment before the jugular strike. A heart attack in the night. A baby dead in his crib. A fall down the stairs. They only need to eat once a day, and can go a lot longer than that if they have to. They can, and will, out-wait you.

Here's my advice: Super 8 motels are cheap and offer good extended stay plans. Roll your clothes, don't fold them- it saves space. Call the company and get them out today, tomorrow at the latest. It'll be pricey but better than the alternative. Tell the kids it's an adventure. Go where you've always dreamed of going. You'll miss the money and the home but your life is worth more. Just remember to check for reflexes in the next house you buy.