Neighborhood Watch

Every neighborhood has its routines. Kids on bikes. Retirees pulling weeds they don’t even like. The guy who mows his lawn at 7 am on Saturday because he’s a menace. You get used to these things. You pencil them into the map of your life without ever meaning to.

What you don’t expect is the same four people standing on every street you turn onto. Not similar people. Not close enough lookalikes to make you shrug and keep jogging. The same four. Same clothes. Same expressions. Same strange stillness, like they’re bracing for something only they can feel coming.

The first morning it happened, Tom Whitaker chalked it up to being tired. He’d turned fifty-two last month, and his knees were starting to mutter about mutiny whenever he pushed past a mile. He figured the shapes in his peripheral vision were nothing more than early morning haze and the quiet dread of another workday waiting for him at the county utilities office.

He jogged past the Jennings house and saw them. Two men. Two women. Standing in a neat little row at the end of the cul-de-sac. Not talking. Not walking. Just… watching him go by. The woman on the left lifted her hand in a small wave, polite as you please. Tom nodded back because that’s what you do in suburban Florida. You wave at strangers so you don’t have to explain yourself.

The next block was where the unease started creeping up his neck. Same four people. Same arrangement. Same silent attention fixed on him like he was the last boat leaving shore.

Tom slowed to a walk. He looked back down the street, expecting to see the first group standing where he’d left them. Empty road. Empty yards. Dogs sleeping in driveways. Normal life rolling along. But ahead of him were the four figures again, waiting like they were part of some track team relay he hadn’t been invited to join.

He considered saying something. Maybe it was a church group doing some kind of vigil. Maybe they were selling something and thought he needed it more than most. Maybe the HOA had come up with a new and exciting way to make people uncomfortable before nine in the morning.

He turned onto Pine Needles Drive. And there they were.

This time they weren’t waving. They looked worried. The kind of worried you see on paramedics right before they tell a family the news isn’t good.

Tom stopped. Not the dramatic horror-movie stop where the music swells. Just the kind of stop a man makes when he realizes something is happening he can’t file under normal.

“Alright,” he said to nobody, though his voice came out smaller than he liked. “What is this?”

The man at the far right stepped forward. Tall guy. Grey hair. Strong shoulders that suggested he once worked with his hands. His eyes had the kind of depth you don’t get from living a soft life.

“We’re not watching you,” the man said.

That did it. Tom felt his stomach go tight. It wasn’t just what the man said, it was how he said it. Gentle, almost apologetic.

“Then what are you doing?” Tom asked.

The woman in the center turned her head, slow and deliberate, like she was afraid of spooking something.

“We’re watching what’s behind you.”

Tom’s skin went cold. He didn’t turn around. There are certain things the body knows before the brain gives it words. And right now his body was screaming to keep moving.

“What do you mean behind me?” he asked, though part of him already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.

The tall man looked over Tom’s shoulder and winced.

“You shouldn’t stop running,” he said.

Tom fought the urge to spin around. He could hear it now, faintly. Something like breath. But not human breath. It was too close, too steady, like someone whispering right at the back of his neck.

“What is it?” Tom asked.

None of them answered. They only stepped back and parted, giving him a narrow lane to run through.

He didn’t thank them. He didn’t think to. He just ran.

At first he didn’t dare look behind him. Every primal instinct screamed to focus on the pavement ahead. He pumped his arms harder than he had since college. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. And that breathing, whatever it was, stayed right on his heels.

A block later, he risked a glance.

Nothing.

But the breath got louder.

He saw the four watchers ahead again, forming their tidy line. Their faces were pale with fear, but not surprise. They’d seen this before. Maybe every day. Maybe every morning for years.

The woman in front shouted, “Don’t look back again!”

Tom didn’t plan to.

He could feel it now. Not heat. Not cold. Something else. A pressure. Like the air behind him was being sucked in and exhaled by the same unseen mouth.

He wasn’t a fast runner anymore, but adrenaline can buy you a few minutes of borrowed youth. He tore through the neighborhood, every street the same, every corner revealing the four silent figures urging him on.

The whole suburban maze felt different. Houses leaned inward. Trees seemed to hold their breath. The sky had that strange early light that makes everything feel like a dream you’re not fully awake for.

He made it home. Slammed the front door. Locked it. Then braced himself against it like a flimsy slab of wood could stop whatever followed him across half the subdivision.

Silence.

He listened for the breath.

Nothing.

Tom went to the window and peeked out.

The four watchers stood at the end of his driveway, all of them staring at his front door like it might burst open at any second.

The tall man lifted a hand. Not waving this time. Warning.

“You can’t skip your run tomorrow,” he said quietly. “If you stop moving, it catches up.”

Tom wanted to ask what “it” was. But when he opened the door, they were already gone. No footprints. No cars. No neighbors peeking out of blinds. Just the long quiet hum of a Florida morning.

He didn’t sleep that night.

And when dawn came, he laced up his shoes.

Because something was already breathing outside his window.