My neighbors keep digging holes just to bury themselves within.

I woke up at 3 in the morning to the noise of someone breaking ground outside.

I hoisted myself up and fumbled for my glasses, pulling back the curtain to stare into the backyard from my second-story view. One fence over I spotted my neighbor Duke, an older man who should be enjoying his retirement but instead was busying himself digging up his own lawn. He'd just back from his latest trip, hadn't he? Was his mind finally going?

He'd gotten far, too. He was up to his waist, piles of loose soil surrounding him.

I pulled up the window, jostling my cat Jester out of his spot so I could poke my head out. “Hey, Duke!” I called. “Why are you digging in the dead of night?”

He paused, his movements rigid. “Hey,” he said, not turning to face me. “Gotta dig up this pipe. Water’s out. Dig it up so town can fix it.”

“Duke, you don't have to do that,” I said. “They'll do it for you. I'll even do it if you want. In the morning.”

“I'm up for the day,” he said. “Gotta dig up this pipe. Town will take forever doing it.”

“Duke, give it a rest,” I said. “If you need to use the bathroom or something, just come on over. You're always welcome.”

He paused, still looking down in the hole. “Okay,” he said. “I've done enough digging.” With that, he dropped his shovel and went back inside. I expected him to come over but he did no such thing. Eventually I just went back to bed for a few hours, planning to make several calls to his next of kin. Duke was a nice man, but he was getting up there in the years.

Morning came before I knew it, leaving me at the kitchen table wondering how much more I should have done last night. Jester had gone out the backdoor to patrol the garden as I called Duke’s remaining relatives, explaining what I had seen. I managed to contact his daughter and her family, who stepped up their plans to visit him and make sure he was okay.

I looked out the kitchen window, spotting his work from last night, or at least what remained. He'd apparently gone back out there again and filled in the hole. How had he managed all that work? He wasn't frail but his prime was far behind him. If he was endangering himself like this he needed somebody with him full-time. He'd lent me a spare key as I had him for precisely this situation.

I went out into the backyard and jumped the fence, spotting lots of dirt still littering the ground around his workstation, the shovel lying abandoned on top of the spot. I moved to his back porch and let myself in. “Hey, Duke!” I called out. “Just me. Wanted to check on you.”

Silence.

I went through the house from basement to attic and found nothing. His car still present in the garage. The shoes he kept at the door for walks lying in their cubby. Nothing out of place. He hated taking taxis, and I don't even think he knew what Uber was.

I called in a Silver Alert and waited while the cops and his family showed up. His daughter was a nice woman. Her husband was presumably decent but I'm not sure if I'd ever heard him say one thing to me. Her three kids took to the backyard with their Jack Russell and I hoped Jester was no longer maintaining his vigil so he wouldn’t confront the dog.

I shared everything I knew to the collected cop, the stony husband and the distraught daughter before taking my leave. They thanked me for their time and said they'd be in town for a few days until he was found. Whatever state he ended up being in.

That afternoon found me at the table again, glancing out the window as the kids played in the piles of dirt, the Jack Russell barking as they fumbled around it. Jester sauntered into the room and leapt up next to me, something orange and black between his fangs.

“What is it, cat?” I asked him as if he understood me. “You bring me a present?” He responded by dropping the gift in front of me, then meowing. I sighed as I used a napkin to grab what looked to be a mutilated butterfly, but as I rotated the mangled bug in my hands I stopped.

At first I had thought it was a monarch, but the pattern on the wings was wrong. They folded against the body in the wrong way, and the body itself wasn't shaped like any butterfly I knew. Yet it still had a proboscis, almost like this just a normal fly. Albeit one far bigger and more colorful than any house pest I'd ever seen, and with a head too big and thick compared to the rest of it.

That night, I woke up to the sound of digging again.

I shuffled to the window and was about to move Jester so I could open it up when I stopped, deterred by a low growl coming from him. I instead pulled back a section of curtain, what little energy I had pulsing through me at what I saw.

The daughter, the husband and all three children were out back. The adults used shovels while the kids did their best with trowels, all five digging holes of their own.

Jester followed after me as I prepared to go outside and confront them, cutting me off at the back door, his fur puffed up so he looked like a fluffy feather duster. I backed off and called the police again, but before they could arrive I dozed off.

I awoke in the morning with the power out, Jester sitting on me while scanning everything around him. He chirped once he saw I was awake and took off, moving to the back door again while I got up and checked the kitchen window. No family, and now six holes in the backyard.

I heard a shovel breaking dirt from the other side of the house.

I moved to the front window and looked out, something inside me twisting as I saw two police officers standing outside their patrol car, holding two shovels taken from Duke’s backyard while they worked to dig holes of their own. I smacked the window, hoping I could signal them without opening it, but they didn't look away. They just kept digging in that same robotic, tireless manner.

I moved to the second floor and looked out each window, spotting more neighbors digging holes of their own, all shapes and sizes and varying depths. I grabbed my binoculars and focused on a house at the end of the block, where I could just see a muscular neighbor hard at work.

He had apparently reached the depth he wanted, so he had now started filling in the hole around himself. He squatted to fit his body and angled his shovel to move the loose soil onto him, moving on far more than I'd have thought until he was just an arm above ground. Once done, he abandoned his tool and his remaining limb snaked into the dirt like a worm, vanishing from sight.

Something landed on the window, and I started when I saw it was one of those flies, expertly posing as a monarch. Birds flitted about outside but left the insects alone, fooled by the bugs’ masquerading as one of their poisonous brethren.

I tried to make several more calls but my connection was lost. Internet was gone with the power and I had no idea where to find a satellite phone. I could do nothing but watch as my other neighbors buried themselves right outside their houses, more of those flies landing on the windows. Jester kept moving from room to room, checking each window in turn before restarting his rounds yet again. I found every can of bug spray I owned and seeded them throughout the house before blanketing myself in repellent. It had to be the flies.

Then a knock on the front door. I rushed toward it and looked out the peephole to see Duke staring back at me. Or rather, it was like he was staring through me, looking at something he imagined was behind the house. His eyes didn't blink and his body stood rigid. His chest only rose and fell when he talked.

“Hey, neighbor,” he said, his words slurred and uneven, parts of his face drooping as he braced himself against the door with an arm. “Let me in. I'm okay now. Everyone’s okay.”

“What on earth is going on, Duke?” I yelled.

“You must be so cold in there,” he said. “Come on out, okay? It's so cold being alone. But we're all warm together.”

“It's just you out there, Duke,” I said.

“I'm never alone,” he said. “We’re all one big family, share and share alike. See?” He gestured behind him and moved to the side as his daughter stepped up, followed by her children.

“Thank you so much for looking after my father,” said the daughter in that same half-paralyzed slur, eyes blank and unblinking. Her head lolled to the side as if she couldn't be bothered to face him. “You must be so cold. But join us. We'll warm you right up.”

“What did you do to them?” I asked, hands shaking as they rested on the other side of the door.

“They're warmed up,” said Duke. “And now we can all grow and thrive together. You must be so cold all alone in there.”

A knock from the other side of the house. I rushed back to see the husband at the kitchen window, looking in with eyes other than his own. I saw a wriggle move under his neck, my own skin crawling at the thought of what was lurking in his flesh.

“So cold,” he slurred. “So alone. No company but a cat. You don't need a cat. We'll make it so you're never alone again.” I darted back to the front door.

“Leave!” I snapped.

“So angry,” slurred Duke. “So alone. So cold.” He shook his head then left it hanging down. “We can wait. So many new hosts to share in our warmth. To give themselves to our warmth. But we never have food. And so long as fools keep letting us in, we'll take every bit of it.”

Duke’s neck burst from within, and out of his half-eaten insides burst a swarm of the orange flies, rising up into the air in a tornado of putrefied filth. His body fell like an empty sack, everything within consumed except for the bare minimum needed to move and talk. I almost felt warmth through the door from the constant buzzing motion of the flies that now swarmed around my house. His daughter and her children burst as well, countless more flies joining the swarm that blocked out everything like a black, living fog.

They still surround the house. I don't know how long it's been, but while my groceries are holding out for now I won't be able to stay here indefinitely. I don't know how long these things will last as adults. It can't be forever, right? And if I found enough of a signal to share this, they must not be in complete control, right?

I hope so, but every time I look outside I see more people stumbling, digging holes, emerging later once the flies have fully taken hold. And every day a new face comes to the front door.

“You must be so cold in there. Come out and we will warm you up.”