" Bloody "

There's a few things they can't do.

They can't pass piles of small things- sand, rice, marbles- without counting them. They can't enter a house without an invitation. They're all allergic to garlic and roses- I think the chemicals break down their neural links or something.

But they're getting clever. They can't come in, but that doesn't stop them from dragging you outside when you open the door. Some of them wear gas masks now, moth-eaten things from wartime that they must've looted from some poor sucker's bunker. They've found loopholes.

And as I sit, curled up in my basement trying not to scream, there's something I just remembered that I can't get out of my head. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but even though I ripped open some sandbags and left mounds of rice in every room of the house, there's something I forgot.



I forgot to move the welcome mat.