* Author : Thomas Ha * Narrator : Eleiece Krawiec * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Discuss on Forums Previously published in Metaphorosis. Content warnings for fire and bodily harm. Rated R Where the Old Neighbors Go by Thomas Ha   The man standing on the porch that night seemed like an ordinary gentrifier at first glance: young and tall and artfully unshaven. His jeans were tattered but strangely crisp, and his shirt was loose and tight in all the wrong places. He had the appearance of someone vaguely famous, like his face could have been in a magazine ad or on the side of a bus. And to anyone other than Mary Walker, he would have successfully passed for a human. Mary widened the opening of her front door, knowing she could no longer avoid him. She clutched the edges of her stained bathrobe and stared up at the man through the tangle of her gray and white hair. He smiled, and there was something off, as if his features were meant to be stationary, not stretched in that way. “I thought I should finally introduce myself,” he said. “I’m the new neighbor.” The man gestured over his shoulder toward the house across the street. It was an ashen block of concrete and glass, with sharp and modern angles, sitting on a pristine lot with a newly paved driveway. Every time Mary looked at it, she felt nauseous. “I was wondering what you’d be like,” she said. “And?” “I don’t see any horns,” Mary replied. He laughed, and it, like his smile, seemed out of place. “I was wondering if we could talk, get to know one another. Unless this is a bad time?” Mary pushed her hair from her eyes and looked out at the dark street. No dog walkers or joggers in sight. “Why don’t you come in?” she said, standing aside. The man was already through the entryway before she had finished her sentence, peering at Mary’s walls and looking around the corner into the den. “What a lovely home,” he said monotonously. Mary tightened the frayed belt of her robe and walked behind him, watching as he ran his fingers along one of her sideboards and around the rim of a decorative vase. He paused at the sectional sofa in the center of the living room, then looked to Mary, as if inviting her to sit. Mary needed no invitation in her own home. She went to an orange armchair in the corner and dropped into it comfortably, then pointed a bony finger at the sofa. The man sat at her direction, a glimmer of annoyance in his eyes. “So,” Mary began. “You’re the one who bought Frank Abra’s home.” He nodded. “I met him very briefly after the closing. Nice guy.” “Hm.” Mary rested a weathered cheek on her hand. “A lot of people on the hill have been selling lately. But Frank? Didn’t strike me as the type.” “Truth be told, I don’t know much about him.” He shrugged. “I think the house was getting to be too much to maintain.” The man glanced at other rooms that were visible from where he sat. “You live alone too, don’t you?” Mary ignored the question. “Frank was getting on in years,” she said, scratching at a mole next to her eye with her index finger. “Still, I was surprised — not so much as a for-sale sign, let alone a goodbye. First time I knew what happened was when you got rid of the house.” She vividly remembered the day Frank’s place had been demolished last spring.