Yog-sothoth-s Yard Here

A voice came through the door. It had no sound he could name, yet it carved meaning directly into his thoughts, like acid on glass.

He tried to fire the pistol. The bullet left the barrel, hung in midair, and aged to rust in three seconds before dropping to the grass with a soft, final thud.

He stepped through.

Ezekiel looked down at his hands. They were already paling, elongating, the fingers fusing into something smooth and wooden-grained. He could feel roots trying to push from his heels. The fog curled around his ankles, patient as a gardener.

Ezekiel fretted anyway. He was a practical man, a retired surveyor who believed in boundary lines and right angles. The yard, however, refused to obey either. His GPS spun wildly whenever he crossed the fence line. His measuring tape, stretched between two oaks, came back with different lengths each time—twelve feet, then thirty, then a length that seemed to fold into itself like a swallowed sob. Yog-Sothoth-s Yard

“Ezekiel. You measured the land. But did you measure the space between the land and itself?”

The door closed behind him with the sound of a coffin lid—or a seed pod snapping shut. The yard remained, empty now, its fence standing crooked and patient. And in the morning, the town clerk would find a new post on the west side, carved with a face that looked remarkably like the retired surveyor’s, its mouth open in a silent, eternal O. A voice came through the door

That was when he saw the door.