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▇▇ SOMEONE GIVES HIM A NUMBER TO CALL.
they told him, you are not saved. call this number andyou will hear a series of sounds. you will know where you belong. he will answer. pray.
he hadn't known who the person was, if they're still in town, but they had the exact same look at the priest when he'd look down from his window, down at the people. all-knowing. (what did he know about him? does he know of his fate?)
he calls one night. the night where the bugs won't leave him alone and the deer won't stop knocking on his doors. maybe it's one of the believers in The End or the believers in the eternal salvation, boat of the dreams. but even that is more terrifying than three- eyed deer.
they answer, but it's only a series of sounds.
a cacophony of static. crackle. high-pitched screeching.
he ends the call and lives with the fact that he will never be saved.
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▇▇ HE TRIES TO LEAVE TOWN a total of five times. maybe it had been more but his memory is failing him.
the first time he tries, he hits something. he doesn't know what because whatever remains of it, was gone. no blood. only a dent on the hood of his car. the size of a human, maybe. the second time, the roads disappear. of course, the roads can't just do that, but they did. the town line was gone. it seemed hopeless so he turned around.
the third, the waitress at the diner poisons his tea. it tasted like gasoline (but how did he know the taste of that?). she drawled to him with a heavy accent, "darling, close your eyes" and he woke up in his room with a dull ache in his chest.
the fourth, the town line keeps getting farther and the void can no longer be filled again. he sees the same trees the same cracks on the road and a person with a lifeless gaze, a cup in their shaking hands.
and just barely, johnny can hear them say, they're coming.
the fifth was when he left his home and that same person with the cup held a knife to his throat, telling him that he was a sin, a dirty plate that could never be cleaned, a mistake made by permanent marker. a sin. a sin. he was not cleansed.
he could never reach the boat of paradise now. his wings are clipped and ashen.
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▇▇ HE HEARS SOMETHING outside on his porch. it isn't even his. the house doesn't belong to him. he had only woken up in it.
the noise. the noise was back. it sounds like a wolf. there are no wolves in town.
he grabs his shotgun off the wall and aims it at his front door. it's here.
