Hey folks, welcome! Glad you could make it. I’m Jack, the new manager at Harmony Care Home, where we are ready to welcome your ailing elders and guarantee a smooth transition to caring, compassionate, harmonious senior living. Sorry did I italicize harm? That was a typo. I’m here to help you through the process, from application to move-in. Let me give you a tour….
If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you’re already familiar with the Chicken Soup dust jacket version of Harmony Care Home (and for those who haven’t been keeping up, the “dust jacket” is my clever way of referencing the dual nature of the care home—it’s like a Stephen King book, but with a “Chicken Soup to the Soul” cover thrown on it so that it seems like the sort of heartwarning story you’d want to read to grandma as she lives out her last days here. Sorry—did I say heart-warn-ing? That was another typo, lol).
Entering the front doors, you’ll find yourself in a sunlit lobby leading to the common room with tables full of white-haired seniors and happy chatter.
… but let’s slip that Chicken Soup dust jacket off now.
Let’s suppose you are able to see reality. To start with, the moment you enter these doors there’s the stench that wafts to your nostrils—rank and pungent like mildew and old garbage and rotting meat—putrefaction so potent not even the chemical cleaners can mask it. Holding your nose while peering out across the dim and empty lobby, you’ll notice figures in the common room. If you are brave enough to get closer, you’ll be able to distinguish mummified old ladies in floral-print dresses and decomposing old men in button-downs and slacks, posed at the tables with playing cards.
The creaking of a wheelchair or the patter of spilled pills might alert you to the arrival of one of the more mobile deceased—Gerard or Bern.
I’ll admit—I ran screaming the first few times the living dead approached me. But engaging with the recently departed is actually part of my managerial duties, so these days I stick around for a game of go-fish. After all, I wouldn’t want to get fired.
Really, really wouldn’t want to get fired.
Incidentally, our numbers are at historic lows, meaning I’ve got quite the quota to fill! And I’ve been told if I don’t fill it with somebody soon, then that somebody’s gonna be me.
So tell all your friends! I am so looking forward to welcoming you on your visit!
****
But wait a second Jack, when did you become THE manager of Harmony Care Home? Aren’t you supposed to be working on a plan to shut down that evil place?
Duh! I’m in the middle of said plan right now, obviously! That’s why I’m the manager. And as you can tell from my not-so-secret messages about being trapped in room 313, it’s all going great. But yes, let’s talk about the plan:
Part 1: become the manager ✔️
Part 2: sneak into the sub-basement and undo the ritual that opened the care home to the “other side.”
Part 2 is obviously the more problematic part. See, now that I’m working here as manager, I am realizing that the only way I’d ever succeed in this mission is if I had the personality of somebody brave. Or maybe somebody who likes Saw movies. Perhaps if I were the type of guy who reads a Stephen King story and says to himself, You know what would be great? If the children of the corn were real and I could babysit them. I bet a Jack who said that would do great at this mission. But since my favorite color is yellow, my favorite food is chicken, and I have a debilitating medical condition that prevents me from descending stairs because I am spineless… I am not well suited. And speaking of spines, please don’t let me return as one of those living dead. If I die here, cremate me. Lord knows I’ve urned it!
…
… I’d show myself out but as you all know, I’m stuck.
Right, so, how did I wind up here, room 313? Let’s hop back in time now to the moment I’m attempting to carry out my actual mission… the moment I make my shaky way down the basement stairs in the pitch blackness and everything goes wrong. Oh. Also. The lights down here don’t work because apparently the bulbs have never been replaced. So I’m navigating by flashlight as I tip-toe, cursing the debris that crunches under my shoes making a silent descent impossible. And I want to be silent, because I need to listen.
At the last step before the bottom, I pause—and I do hear something…
A soft shuffle shuffle somewhere down the hall.
When I shift my flashlight’s shaky beam, my heart slams like a sledgehammer into my ribs—because the light catches bare skin.
There is an old man down here in the basement, completely and unsettlingly naked.
His NAME is Ronny, room 224. From his shaking and mumbling, it’s clear he IS alive, and not one of the living dead. One of the handful of living residents whom the care home feeds on until their minds and bodies decay. (Applications still open! Arrange your visit today!) Behind him he has left a trail of bloody footprints, fresh red glistening under my light—probably from walking over the broken glass strewn on the floor. He’s so far gone I doubt he’ll make it much longer, but I can’t leave him here in the basement, especially overnight, so I call, “Hey Ronny, nice birthday suit! Come on, let’s get you back upstairs…”
Ronny is shivering. His teeth chatter as he rotates his head to look at me. His eyes are sunken and red, cheeks withered and spittle flecking his mouth. He says, “It’s coming for you, it’s coming for you, it’s coming for you…” And he raises a trembling finger and points at me.
“Okaaay.” Very unsettling. “Come on, Ronny.”
“Coming,” he says, still shivering as he takes a step toward me as if to follow me. But then the slap of his feet on the ground stop. I turn back, and he is shaking harder. “Coming,” he repeats.
And then he goes still.
The shaking stops.
“Here,” he growls.
That’s it—that’s all the warning I get before he lunges. I scram, leaping over a wheelchair in the hall, bounding off the wall and tipping the chair over behind me so that Ronny topples over it and spills face-first to the floor. I rush back up the stairs and slam the door. And yeah, I probably shouldn’t leave an old man who is still alive down there wandering around on broken glass with his bare soles, leaving bloody footprints all over the place, but also…
Rip Ronny.
**ʃ**
But now let’s pause a moment to backtrack because I realize where I left off the previous post, my eyes were stitched up, and I’d just met the custodian. And though we got Emma’s grandmother Darlene out, the care home took her friend, Lucas. So let’s talk about what happened that day.
I can’t exactly remember much of the aftermath. The notes I took are in my previous post—but beyond that? All I’ve really got to go on are some sparse notes jotted by Emma, plus a single video she took in the car en route to the hospital with me, Darlene, and Aaron.
Video: A disheveled old woman in a filthy sweater clutches the putrid remains of a cat while rocking and babbling.
Darlene: “Take me back, take me back, take me back…”
The camera wobbles, and Emma’s voice narrates over the rumbling of the car engine.
Emma: “… hope Grams recovers, but we don’t know if the effects are permanent. We had to leave Lucas behind, and this happened to Jack…”
The camera pans. In the shaky frame, a scruffy guy in a hoodie, face caked with blood from the stitches on his eyes and mouth.
Emma: “Jack… does it hurt? Are you gonna be okay?”
The man in the hoodie spreads his hands. Shrugs.
Jack: “Nm mn. Mm mm mm. Mm mmm mm.”
Emma: “Doesn’t hurt, I don’t know, I hope so?”
The man makes a finger gun gesture, You got it!
Watching this clip, it’s impossible to tell if video Jack’s jokey behavior is because he is less horrified than everyone else since he cannot see his own face, or if he’s just pretending. But I have a second video on my phone that I took later and never showed Emma. In this second clip, I’m in the hospital after the stitches have been removed, and I’m touching the skin beneath my eyes, whispering in a panicky voice, “Thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck…” presumably because I can still see. And the Jack in this video is not turning his mangled face into jokes. His eyes are wide in fear and the camera is shaking and he’s right at the brink of tears—and that’s the Jack who has written every post for you, barricaded in room 313 while trying to sneak out secret messages.
I’m telling you this so you understand—this video recap is all you’re gonna get of the elusive thing called honesty.
I lie. I lie a lot. It’s a coping mechanism… and a survival mechanism… and I’m doing it more in this post than ever before.
So. We reported Lucas missing to the authorities, but of course the cops never followed up on their investigation into the care home. In fact, it wasn’t until several days after the raid, while Darlene was under observation at the hospital and I was home healing from my stitches, that Emma learned Lucas’s fate. She did this by ringing the care home’s front desk. We’d called before, only to reach the answering machine or the raspy female voice of a resident named Queenie, always trying to entice us into visiting.
But this time a male voice on the other end politely said, “Harmony Care Home, how may we serve you today?”
“Lucas?” Emma gasped.
There was a pause, and the line went dead.
But it was definitely him, she told me later. His voice. Lucas was alive—and working at Harmony Care Home.
**ɪ**
“He thinks he’s been working there for months. That it’s his job,” Emma exclaims to me two days later. She’s just gotten off the phone with a mutual friend of theirs, Min-ji, who called the care home and spoke at length with Lucas. According to Min-ji, Lucas sounded and acted normal, save for the fact he insisted he’d been employed at Harmony Care Home for months and, when Min-ji worriedly asked him about his actual job as a firefighter, he hung up on her.
“And let me guess—they offer great benefits and a fabulous retirement plan?” I say.
“It’s not funny, Jack.”
“Getting him out is going to be as dangerous as getting Darlene out was.” I’m reviewing our notes—something I have to do every day because we’re both still affected by the amnesia.
Every morning we wake clueless about each other and our mission until we find notes and video messages recapping our prior days, so that by the time we meet each morning (at my place, since Emma likes to check in on Prometheus), we each feel like we’ve watched short films of each other’s lives. It’s awkward. But I’ve always got vegan sausages and oatmilk in my fridge for Emma, and she always brings me a caramel latte and bagel. And even though we meet as strangers, we can read each other with an intimate familiarity. It’s weird, how the care home brings us together but drives us apart.
“We need to find a way to reverse the ritual,” I say, while my brain ponders the beginnings of the idea that will be my doom.
“Yeah, but it’ll never happen, Jack! Everything I’ve read says the same thing—to invite or uninvite the entity, we need to know its name. Or the name Roderick used for it. And he didn’t write it down!” She slaps a hand on the stack of papers, letters, books, and various research materials scattered over the table. She’s right that we’ve been through Roderick’s writings—even a collection of short stories he penned that I suspect is a fictionalized account of his actual experiments. We’ve scoured everything down to his postcards—and nothing about the “custodian,” by that or any other name. But there is one place we haven’t searched…
“If we play our cards right, we can use Lucas where he is.” I look up at Emma. “He can search the care home—"
“Oh my God, do you hear yourself?”
“Lucas will be safe—at least for awhile.”
“How do you know that?”
“—Because the care home needs him.” I pull up our spreadsheet on the care home’s visitors, residents, and staff. Harmony Care Home’s current situation is actually pretty precarious because the previous nurse, Kendra Jones, was retired after she saw through the illusions. Her manager, a woman named Felicia Singh, stayed late one evening and had a run-in with the custodian. This means Harmony Care lost both its manager and its only on-staff nurse at the same time, leaving no one to maintain its operations. Lolita is there, of course, but she can’t answer the phones or work the computer—we discovered when her voice didn’t show up in recordings that she’s part of the illusion. And while the care home may be supernatural, it operates in the physical world and requires living people to manage those operations.
The number of residents has been dwindling. Currently they are down to five. And since the average length of stay between check-in and check-out (well… there’s no “check out” but you get the idea) is six weeks, and several residents are near the end of that, they’re in a serious crisis.
Simply put: Lolita cannot afford to harm Lucas. She needs him to be the face of Harmony Care Home until she builds recruitment back up.
“We’ll never have a better opportunity to find the name,” I tell Emma.
So she agrees.
But it’s futile.
Not because Lucas refuses to help—he genuinely tries, once we get him on the phone and congratulate him on his new job. No, the problem is, he’s stuck in the illusion. On the phone with Emma, he shares gossip about the dead residents. He even shouts, apologizing for the racket behind him (“It’s bingo night and everyone’s yelling”), while Emma and I hear only dead silence beyond his own voice.
He sees only the dust jacket.
No, we need someone who can break the illusion, who knows exactly what to search for and has enough prior paranormal experience to identify when they’ve found it.
In short, it has to be me.
**z**
After shutting Ronny in the basement stairwell, I have only one other means of reaching the ritual room: the elevator. I’ve searched everywhere else in the care home over the past few days, including Roderick’s office (which is now the manager’s suite), and no trace of the name. Based on Roderick’s notes, it is most likely to be among the symbols and script on the walls and ceiling in the ritual room. But if I enter that elevator, I’ll have no means of escape should I encounter the custodian on the way down.
From somewhere below, Ronny wails, sparking an idea.
The night shift at Harmony Care Home is stark, lonely, and silent. There is no illusion. The dust jacket comes off, and Lolita and her cohort of undead nurses cease operations. All residents and staff return to their rooms to sequester for the night.
Sometime after dark, the custodian appears.
Any living being encountering the custodian at this time will be “cleaned up,” the body drained of life essence or converted into a dead puppet for Lolita to control when she reappears with the illusion the next day. Shuffling around the basement corridor, Ronny is still living—the perfect unfortunate bait for the custodian while I take the elevator down to the ritual room. But I’ll need to get the timing right. I switch on three of the lights—near the reception desk, in the common room, and near the basement stairwell—and then I conceal myself behind a chair in the shadowed corner of the lobby.
Ding!
The swish of the elevator doors.
I strain my eyes… in the dim I see only a tall shape, a sort of rippling figure, almost like a person distorted through a filter and stretched floor to ceiling. There’s a tingle like spiders on my skin—and then the light in the reception area flickers out, plunging the lobby into pitch.
About thirty seconds later, the light in the common room goes out.
And then, finally, the light nearest the basement stairwell—
As the entire main floor plunges into darkness, I scuttle soundlessly to the elevator bay, where the doors are still open. Press the button for the sub-basement, and with a shudder, the janky old doors close and the elevator creaks and descends.
Down… down…
Somewhere, Ronny screams.
Ding.
I hurry to the door of the ritual room. Push it open—
“Hi, Jack.”
Lolita grins at me, blue eyes bright and glowing. I’ve never seen her at night before, and she casts an eerie illumination. Even as she greets me, something spiderlike shimmies across the ceiling, and another figure lunges from the floor. Kendra Jones and another nurse. They grab me and drag me to the table, slamming me to the center amid all the arcane symbols and writing. Lolita leans her chin on her hand as they strap me down.
“I really thought catching you would be more of a challenge. But you’re so predictable…”
Then my flesh begins to crawl as if riddled with millions of spiders, and a buzzing like electricity sets all my hairs on end.
“He’s coming for you…” She croons. “Welcome to Harmony Care Home as a resident, Jack. I hope you enjoy your stay in room 313…”
**ə**
I don’t remember much after that. I only remember looking up at the ceiling, at the name etched there that wriggled in my brain and crawled like static in my skull. And then I was looking into the custodian’s face—that hole to some other place where its face should be—and fearing I would forget myself.
There’s one memory in particular I tried to hold onto as the static in my mind got louder and louder. One memory I clung to, as if I could just keep that one, maybe I could get through this without entirely losing myself.
It’s the last evening at my apartment. The night before I’ll be going in to replace Lucas, and Emma and I go over the plan, one final time. She’s gotten some pad thai and stir fried veggies for us to share with beer. It has all the solemnity of a last supper.
“How you feeling?” she asks.
“Great,” I say, and take a drink.
“Are you scared?”
“Nope.” Yes. Shitless. Duh.
Her brow wrinkles. She shakes her head. Sets her hands on the table and says, “No. No. We can’t do this.”
Not again, I think, and say, “What are you talking about? We’ve been over this again and again. It’s a good plan! And even if it’s not, it’s our only plan.”
Emma insists, “It should be me.”
“Uh, yeah! Agreed! But, it can’t be, so—"
“How can you just be okay with this??”
I sigh and set my beer down. “Look, best case scenario, we save Lucas, I embezzle some of that money they’re sitting on, you have all your people back, and we shut down Harmony Care Home for good. Worst case, I die, but you’ll still have all your people back! You won’t even have to remember me, because once the amnesia kicks in, I’ll just be that guy that scammed your grandma. What are you so worried about?”
This seems a sensible argument. I have just explained how she has nothing to lose. But Emma gets so mad at me. She balls up her napkin and bursts, “You’re so stupid, Jack! Even with all your clever plans, you’re so, so stupid!” Then she snatches up her keys and storms out. Doesn’t pick up her phone—it goes straight to voicemail.
She finally returns several hours later. Bangs the door open and tosses her keys on the side table and announces, “Jack, I need you to be real with me for two minutes.”
“Oh…kay.” I very much do not wish to “be real.”
“You know every time I ask you why you’re doing this, you always put me off with a different answer. Oh, it’s for Darlene. Oh, it’s for the money. And you’ll say shit like, ‘oh, I’m not a hero,’ but here you are, ready to sacrifice yourself for Lucas who you don’t even know. Why? Why is this plan so important to you, Jack, that you’re willing to risk your life?”
I sigh. Oh. She means real real. Well… shit. I raise two fingers. “Ok, first reason, there are no other options. And second…” I pause, grimacing. Honesty is like my kryptonite. Finally admit, “I… Ok, this past summer, I… made a contract with an… entity. I made a bargain that if I could stay out of its grip for two weeks I’d get a bunch of money… and I won, barely, but had to put myself into a coma.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“So, the reason the entity chose me, and not some other sap, was because I have no strings attached. She could take me out of the world and no one would notice. Just like… scraping a barnacle off the underside of a boat.” I’m sneering. I can’t help myself. Sneering at that barnacle that I know is me. “Well I escaped her. I beat that fucking monster and I lived, and I learned to hate monsters, which is part of the reason I’m going after the care home. I even kept some of that million.” (Oh yeah. I lied about that. Oops. To anyone who read my previous account, sorry. You didn’t really believe me when I said I gave it all away, did you?) “But… she was right. I woke up and there was no one. I mean… I had messages, but ninety percent of them were from people I’d scammed. The rest were just people I owed. And I just… I need to prove I’m not a barnacle. Okay? It’s a simple, stupid reason. I have to do something to prove that my life matters.”
There. Done. I fish around in the sofa for the bottle I keep between the cushions (classy, I know). Take a sip of this stronger stuff, and add, “Also, Darlene sent me flowers. So, y’know. One person. She was the only one. That’s why I did it for her.”
Emma doesn’t reply at first, just looks down and balls her hands into fists. Finally grumbles, “Yeah well that’s stupid. Obviously your life fucking matters.”
“Does it?” I growl. I just want to exit this conversation—which I am going to do through this bottle.
“Of course it does! Why do you think I got so mad at you earlier?”
“Ok.” The warm booze courses down my throat. I fish for the right words to appease her. “You’re mad that I’m… not taking things seriously. It would be a huge weight on your conscience if I died, every life matters—"
“Oh my God, Jack, you’re so freaking dense!”
And I just look at her, trying to figure out why she keeps blowing up at me—like, why does she continue to be mad? Seeing my clueless stare, she throws her hands up, and then she leans over and kisses me. It happens so fast, and I blink, shocked at the warmth of her lips on mine. She pulls back to look at me and see if I get it now, and I just say, “Oh. Oh.” Yeah, I’m an idiot. And then I take her into my arms, and everything ignites. Suddenly this evening just got so much better. I don’t need to forget my fears and insecurities with booze. I can forget it all through sex instead. Just lose myself in the delicious warmth of skin on skin and the brief flicker of being, for a short while, not so completely alone.
**m**
When I arrive at Harmony Care Home the next day, I approach the front desk and tell Lolita I want Lucas out, NOW. Tell her that I am willing to negotiate to be his replacement. That I’ve got years more management experience (I’ve even whipped up a fake resume). And more importantly, I’m the one Lolita really wants—the thorn in her side she wants to punish and make into her puppet—and we both know it.
She taps a pen to her mouth. “I dunno, Jack. There’s etiquette around this kind of thing. And the one who laid claim to you has first dibs.”
“Not anymore.” My voice is cold, and I’m not faking my anger as I growl, “I won her game. That contract is over. I am free to make my own choices.” I gesture to the building around us. “And I choose Harmony Care Home.”
“Hmm…” She sucks thoughtfully on the tip of her pen, and then smiles at me. “Done! Just remember once you sign… you’re mine…”
I’m reaching for the pen to sign the contract, but hesitate when she adds:
“… forever.”
I glance toward the decomposing husks in the common room. Note the presence of Gerard and Bern, their corpses shuffling around…
But it’s too late to back out now.
I sign.
****
So here we are, folks! You’re all caught up with present day Jack, who has written all of these posts from his laptop in room 313… sorry if the chronology’s a little hazy. I’ve been relying on my past notes and videos, and… it’s hard remembering, you know? Almost as if all this stuff happened to someone else. Someone else in a dream. A very long ago dream.
NOW, it’s all so hazy.
Tbh, I probably would’ve lost motivation to finish this post if Lolita didn’t keep telling me it’s fine to keep writing. That my friends outside might want to know how I’m doing.
Okay.
Well, I am doing great. Every day I play bingo with the other residents. My best friends are Gerard and Bern and Ronny and—yeah, I know they’re “dead.” But I just go with it, let the illusion wash over me. Forget about “reality” and sit around the table in the common room and play cards with everyone. As long as I stay in the illusion, things are pretty good.
Writing is actually very hard, because then I remember where I am and… it’s like a nightmare. A nightmare where everyone’s dead… and I’m alone, the only person alive, and it’s dark and cold and I’m starving, getting sicker and sicker, and my hair is falling out and soon I’ll be one of the corpses too… it’s such a terrible dream.
But then I wake up and breathe in the illusion, and everything is fine.
Tonight I’ll play bingo and hang with my friends. Such good friends! Soon, I’ll be just like them, always happy.
I can’t wait.
Since this is likely to be my last post, Lolita suggested I tack on a review at the end. Sure. I’ll happily keep writing reviews if it will help bring in more friends. I like making new friends. I’m an extrovert. So here is the review I made for Lolita, and it’s the truest thing I ever wrote:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I’d give it 11/10 if I could. This place is fantastic, everyone is friendly, the staff is great, I hope I spend my last days here! And if you want to be happy, to never worry about being looked after, to be comfortable and content, come and join us atHarmony Care Home! NOW! Today! We can’t wait to meet you.
