Chapter 2: The Man Who Flickered

The five days leading up to February 6th crawled by with agonizing slowness. Alex threw himself into unpacking, as if arranging their belongings could somehow normalize their situation. But every time he walked past the office, he felt the calendar's presence like a weight pressing down on his chest.

Tobi, meanwhile, had transformed into a man possessed. He'd created what he called his "investigation wall" in their bedroom—photos of the house, printouts of property records, and a timeline mapping every interaction they'd had with their neighbors. The blood-red circle around February 6th dominated the center of it all.

"Look at this," Tobi said on February 4th, his laptop balanced on his knees as they sat in bed. "I found three different real estate listings for our house over the past five years. Three different families moved in and moved out within months."

Alex set down his book—a futile attempt to distract himself with something normal. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."

"The Hendersons lasted four months. The Yakamuras made it six weeks. The family before us, the Garcias, lasted exactly three months and two days." Tobi's fingers danced across the keyboard. "Want to guess when they moved out?"

A chill ran down Alex's spine. "When?"

"February 8th. Two days after—"

"Don't say it." Alex's voice came out sharper than he'd intended. "Just... don't."

Tobi closed the laptop and moved closer, his hand finding Alex's. "Hey, I know this is scary. But we're going to figure this out. That's what I do, remember? I find answers."

"What if some answers aren't meant to be found?"

"Then we make sure we're prepared." Tobi's grip tightened. "Which is why I think we should set up a watch tomorrow. Document everything that happens."

Alex wanted to argue, wanted to suggest they pack up and leave that very night. But he also knew his husband well enough to recognize that look in his eyes. Tobi had caught the scent of a story, and he wouldn't let go until he'd run it to ground.

"Fine," Alex said. "But we stay inside. No matter what."

"Agreed."

Neither of them slept well that night.

February 6th dawned gray and oppressive, with low clouds that seemed to press down on the neighborhood like a suffocating blanket. Alex made coffee with hands that trembled slightly, while Tobi set up their "command center" in the living room—chairs positioned to give them a clear view of the street, notebooks ready, cameras charged.

"It's 8:47 AM," Tobi announced, settling into his chair. "Beginning surveillance now."

"You sound like you're narrating a documentary," Alex muttered, but he took his position by the window nonetheless.

The morning passed with nothing more exciting than Mrs. Patterson checking her mailbox and a delivery truck dropping off packages two houses down. Alex found himself relaxing despite his best efforts. Maybe the calendar was just the remnant of some paranoid former owner. Maybe their neighbors' strange behavior was just small-town weirdness.

"Movement," Tobi said suddenly, his voice sharp with attention.

Alex looked where his husband was pointing. Mr. Hudson had emerged from his house, wearing a faded blue cardigan and moving with the careful steps of a man who'd lived too many years. He paused on his front porch, looking around the neighborhood with what seemed like resignation.

"He's just going to get his mail," Alex said, but his stomach was clenching with inexplicable dread.

Mr. Hudson descended his porch steps and walked to his mailbox. He opened it, pulled out several envelopes, and began sorting through them. A perfectly normal Tuesday morning activity.

"Wait," Tobi whispered. "Do you see that?"

"See what?"

"The way the light is hitting him. It's... wrong somehow."

Alex stared harder. The overcast sky was providing diffuse, even lighting across the entire street, but around Mr. Hudson, the air seemed to shimmer slightly, like heat waves rising from summer pavement.

The old man finished with his mail and started walking back toward his house. But as he reached the halfway point of his front walk, something impossible happened.

He flickered.

Not like a lightbulb dying, but like a television with bad reception. For just a moment, Mr. Hudson's form wavered, became translucent, and Alex could see the sidewalk through him. Then he snapped back into solidity, continuing his walk as if nothing had happened.

"Did you see that?" Alex's voice came out as a croak.

"I saw it." Tobi's knuckles were white where he gripped his notebook. "Keep watching."

Mr. Hudson reached his porch and paused again. He pulled a cigarette from his cardigan pocket—Alex hadn't known the old man smoked—and lit it with a silver lighter. The flame was steady and normal in the windless air.

He took a long drag, exhaled a stream of smoke, and then—

Gone.

Mr. Hudson vanished between one heartbeat and the next, as if he'd simply been erased from reality. The cigarette hung in the air where his mouth had been, smoke still curling from its tip, suspended impossibly in empty space.

Alex's rational mind tried to reject what he was seeing. People didn't just disappear. It was a trick of the light, a hallucination brought on by stress and sleepless nights. But the cigarette was still there, floating three feet off the ground, ash slowly building at its tip.

"Alex," Tobi whispered. "Are you recording this?"

Alex realized he'd been frozen in place, staring at the impossible sight. He fumbled for his phone, nearly dropping it before managing to start recording. Through the camera's screen, the floating cigarette looked even more surreal.

They watched in horrified fascination as the cigarette continued to burn. The ash grew longer, defying gravity, until finally it dropped to the sidewalk in a neat gray cylinder. The cigarette itself kept burning, consuming itself in mid-air.

"How long do cigarettes usually burn?" Alex asked, his voice barely audible.

"Four, maybe five minutes," Tobi replied automatically.

They counted the seconds, marking the passage of time as the impossible cigarette burned down to the filter. Finally, it too disappeared, leaving nothing but the ash on the sidewalk as evidence that anything had happened at all.

For several minutes, they sat in stunned silence. Then, just as suddenly as he'd vanished, Mr. Hudson reappeared.

He was standing exactly where he'd been when he'd lit the cigarette, silver lighter still in his hand. He looked around with mild confusion, as if he'd forgotten what he was doing, then pocketed the lighter and walked into his house.

The ash was gone from the sidewalk.

"Did that really happen?" Alex asked, his voice hollow.

Tobi was staring at his phone, scrolling through the video he'd recorded. "According to this, we just watched an empty street for six minutes. There's no cigarette. No Mr. Hudson. Nothing."

Alex grabbed the phone, watching the playback in disbelief. The video showed exactly what Tobi had described—an empty street, with only the sound of their own whispered commentary as proof they'd witnessed anything at all.

"But we both saw it," Alex said. "We both saw the same thing."

"Mass hallucination?" Tobi suggested, but his voice carried no conviction.

They both knew what they'd witnessed. The calendar's warning hadn't been metaphorical or symbolic. On February 6th, something genuinely impossible had happened to their neighbor. Something that defied recording, defied documentation, defied everything Alex understood about how the world worked.

"The calendar knew," Alex said finally. "Somehow, it knew this would happen."

Tobi was quiet for a long moment, staring at the Hudson house. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a new note—not excitement or curiosity, but something closer to fear.

"Alex, what if Mr. Hudson doesn't remember any of it? What if, from his perspective, nothing happened? He lit a cigarette, thought about something else for a moment, and then went inside."

The implication hung between them like a physical presence. If Mr. Hudson had experienced some kind of temporal displacement, if he'd been erased from reality for those six minutes, he would have no way of knowing. To him, time would have passed normally.

"We need to talk to him," Alex said.

"No." Tobi's response was immediate and firm. "Think about how the other neighbors acted when we asked about the calendar. They were terrified, but they were also... protective. What if talking about this makes it worse somehow?"

Alex wanted to argue, but he couldn't shake the memory of Mrs. Patterson's painted-on smile, or the way Mr. Hudson had hurried away when they'd mentioned the calendar. Whatever was happening in their neighborhood, the other residents knew about it—and they'd learned to stay quiet.

As afternoon faded into evening, they maintained their vigil at the window. But the street remained normal, mundane, ordinary. Children played in yards, neighbors walked dogs, delivery trucks came and went. The only sign that anything unusual had occurred was the careful way people avoided looking directly at the Hudson house.

"June 19th," Tobi said as they finally closed the curtains. "That's the next date."

Alex nodded, though the number felt like a stone in his stomach. Four months and thirteen days to figure out what was happening to their neighborhood—and what would happen to them if they were still here when their turn came.

Because as they settled into their new home that night, both of them understood something that chilled them to the bone: the calendar hadn't been left behind by accident. It was a warning, a countdown, and possibly a trap.

And they were already caught in it.