Secrets In Serenity Gardens

Moving into a new neighborhood is supposed to be an opportunity for a fresh start, a chance to leave behind the ghosts of the past and embrace a brighter future. That's what we had had hoped for as we settled into our new home in the picturesque utopia of Serenity Gardens. But little did we know, beneath the facade of beauty and tranquility, a sinister secret lay hidden beneath the well-kept flowerbeds, waiting to be unearthed. Masqueraded in towering walls and the illusion of safety, there was no reason to believe this couldn’t be our new home.

All the houses looked the same, with their perfectly trim lawns the perfect shade of green, and every house painted the same color beige. It was like driving through a dream, or something you’d see in a horror movie. Though I didn’t dare say anything in front of Thomas or the girls. Annie and August sat so quietly in the back seat, bobbing their heads along to the music in their headphones. I tried to ignore the pit in my stomach seeing the empty seat between them, where our little boy would have been. Thomas put his hand on my knee, as if he could sense how I was sinking back into the dark place I’d just crawled out from. I smiled and looked ahead, ignoring any sense of dread that came as I looked out at the houses.

As we unpacked our belongings, our neighbors greeted us with warm smiles and welcoming gestures. The doorbell would ring every fifteen minutes or so, as if they had planned their approach to us. They seemed like the embodiment of the perfect community, with well-manicured lawns, white picket fences, and children playing joyfully in the streets. Thomas and the girls were captivated by the serenity that enveloped this new place, a stark contrast to the tragedy that had plagued us in the years prior. I found it hard not to be sarcastic at their pinched smiles and plastic voices. Thomas told me to be nice and that I needed to have an open mind, reminding me that this was for the girls too.

I let the itch under my skin persist, and ignored my desire to scratch it. It was my grief that was twisting the goodness of this place into something I could critique. That’s what I told myself to swallow all my feelings. Though, my mind began to wander away faster than I could catch it. I couldn’t shake that there was an underlying sense of conformity, as if everyone was carefully playing a role. Even their names seemed too neatly folded into their teeth when they spoke. I tried telling Thomas, but he just reminded me that we’d been through so much, and that I’d always had a flair for drama.

As the days turned into weeks, we found ourselves being drawn into the tight-knit community. The neighbors were friendly, always willing to lend a helping hand or offer advice. They always wanted to be involved in our lives and day to day business, and insisted on us being in theirs. If it hadn’t been so eerie, I might’ve let myself fall as deep as Thomas did. Though in reality it seemed he was just relieved to feel something other than pain. He didn’t like to confront his feelings, and I understood that, but there was an undercurrent of uniformity that I couldn't ignore. It seemed as though everyone followed a set of unspoken rules, adhering to a rigid code of behavior that dictated every aspect of their lives. My girls were being sucked into this world too, and I couldn’t just let it go.

Curiosity gnawed at me, and I began to investigate the secrets hidden within the seemingly idyllic neighborhood. I delved into public records, historical archives, and practically anything I could get my hands on. The further I looked, the more my curiosity turned to fear, and that fear into horror. This place had not always been the haven it appeared to be. In fact, it had a dark past, one rooted in a series of mysterious disappearances and unsolved crimes. I wanted to know more, I needed to know more, but almost every detail had been redacted in the files I found. They were no names, no hard evidence, nothing I could bring to Thomas.

It was like a veil had been lifted as I continued pouring over these hidden details. Paranoia clawed at my sanity, and I struggled to untangle everything I was looking at. Every neighbor's smile felt like a sinister disguise, and each friendly gesture became laced with suspicion. I couldn’t tell Thomas, but I did my best to protect the girls, pulling them aside and whispering what I could into their ears. Their little minds were like sponges, so eager to absorb information from around them, I had to make sure I had planted myself there first. I made them unique before they would go out to play, but every time they came home whatever I had done would be removed. Special hairclips would be gone, braids undone, socks traded in. The neighbors smiled as they ripped away individuality, and each time it made me sick.

 

Thomas found out what I’d been doing when he found my little space in the basement. I’d pasted newspaper clippings and my own personal writings all over the wall. I’d dug up what I could and was trying to rationalize it before I brought it to him. Every few years, like clockwork, there were reports of missing individuals within the neighborhood. Yet, these cases had never been solved, quietly fading away with time. The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. This was a place where people vanished, their existence erased, their fates buried beneath a web of lies. That’s what I came to realize, and wanted to tell Thomas as he tore the pages from the walls, pleading with me to come to my senses.

 

I begged him to listen to me, pointing at every observation I’d made over the past few months. I knew I sounded crazy, but I was desperate for him to listen. I cried as he squeezed my shoulders, looking into my eyes as though he couldn’t believe I’d disappeared again. But I hadn’t disappeared, I hadn’t returned to the dark place, I was trying to tell him that we were in a new one together. He insisted I was just grieving, that I couldn’t accept this newfound peace. There was a part of me that wished he was right and that I could just let us freefall into the serenity this neighborhood offered, but I knew it was an illusion.

I had sunk to the ground that night, the cold concrete of the basement on my knees as I poured my heart out. If there was any love left untouched in his mind, I hoped he could reach it, that I wasn’t too late. He listened as I sputtered on about how I hadn’t stopped thinking about our boy that never was, but that wasn’t what this was about. This, everything I’d questioned, was about keeping all of us safe. Something seemed to crack the exterior this neighborhood had given him, and he sat silently as I continued to point out how wrong this place was. How twisted it was beneath the beautiful layers of fantasy. I felt my heart flutter as I saw the veil finally lift from his eyes too, he’d heard me.

He wanted to pack up the girls and leave immediately, but I knew better. After all these months, I knew they wouldn’t let us go so simply. I’d never found a single record of anybody leaving Serenity Gardens. In fact, there were no houses in the area that were even documented as unoccupied. I had no idea how we were supposed to escape. I’d been wracking my mind for months about how to get the girls out if Thomas didn’t believe me, but now he did, and I didn’t even have a plan. That was until we were cleaning up the articles he had ripped from the walls, and I saw our escape scratched into the cement. It was crudely written, and looked as though it had been painstakingly carved over time, but there in the corner of the basement was a small arrow pointing towards the wall under the stairs. Next to the arrow was only one word, “leave”.

I ran my hands along that wall until I found a crack that seemed to give when I pushed, and as I pried it cracked until it was floor to ceiling. Thomas came to aide me, and we pushed until the wall gave way to a tunnel dark as night. Just as soon as we’d grabbed the girls from their beds and gotten them downstairs, there was a knock at our front door. We dove into the darkness just the door slammed open.