— Homecoming —

My family was one of the founders of Shepherd's Glen and had the honor of the town being named after them. Mom used to say that there was always a home for us there because it had our name on it. But that changed when I left.

When the Army realized they couldn't get anything more from me, they gave me my final orders and told me to go home. I'd almost forgotten there was a place outside the barracks I used to call home.

Shepherd's Glen was a nice little town once you left it. I never understood how someone like Wheeler could come back to it after all those dreams he had of living in the city. But I got to understand after I left, when I just kept my thoughts on the good things, what few of them were left.

— — — — —

Alex trudged through the wet grass on the side of the road, separated from the asphalt by a metal road guard decorated with yellow reflector lights. He had no qualms with the mud since he was wearing his combat boots. He never had a good pair of civilian shoes outside of the ones he ran in. There was never a reason for him to leave the base, other than the few incidences when his squad dragged him out to one of the local bars.

When everyone left for home on leave, Alex enjoyed the quiet desolation of the barracks. There was no other home for him outside of that small room. He'd only made one effort to come back to Shepherd's Glen on Christmas two years ago, but the moment he saw that sign on the side of the road, he simply couldn't cross it.

It'd been nearly four years since he left in the middle of the night, with nothing but the same faded duffel he carried over his shoulder now. It hung limply across his back with only a handful of memories resting inside it. "A. Shepherd" was printed across it, but the "A." didn't stand for Alex. It belonged to his father, one of the few things Alex had willingly taken from him.

The mist floated across the moon lit road and carried a bitter cold with it. Alex zipped up his Khaki jacket with the faded, tri-color skin of desert camoflauge. It was similar to the stale smelling, olive colored field jacket his father use to wear proudly, when he wasn't wearing his Sheriff's uniform. Alex even sewed his unit's patch on the left shoulder and an American flag on the right so there wouldn't be any mistake what kind of jacket it was.

The forest was surprisingly quiet, even for that time of year. The sound of the mud squishing under his soles seemed to carry for miles in that thick fog. The wind occasionally whistled past and rustled through the trees, but no animals or insects called out into the night. It was an empty, desolate feeling, the same feeling Alex had expected his hometown to give him on his return.

But the mud stopped gurgling when Alex suddenly came to a halt. He thought he'd heard something, a faint whisper hiding beneath the wind. It called quietly, "Alex". His eyes walked across the tree line, doubling back across their tracks several times, but there was nothing behind those trees but a thick curtain of darkness.

Alex opened his mouth to call out, but quickly stopped himself and instead chose to wait for the voice to graze his ears again. He wasn't convinced he'd even heard it, and as he stood there in the silence, he could feel himself sinking into that thick marsh of fog. But then the voice spoke loudly in a quick breath, "Alex!" A trail of loud footsteps followed the voice like a shadow, until they faded into the emptiness lurking within that forest.

Alex still didn't call out. He recognized that voice, but knew he didn't really hear it. It wasn't possible. He cautiously walked towards the tree line, his head shifting left and right as his eyes tried to catch a glimpse of anything or anyone that may be out there.

He found something abandoned in the tall blades of grass just before they disappeared beneath the treeline. It was a stuffed animal, a Robbie the Rabbit doll from the Lakeside Amusement Park. Alex looked over it suspiciously, speaking aloud to himself, "That's Josh's." He looked at his duffel, checking to see if it was sealed as he wondered how the stuffed animal could've gotten out of it.

When he rummaged through the bottom of the duffel, he found that it was in fact Josh's doll. He still wasn't sure how the stuffed animal had gotten out. Alex bent down to pick it up, but instinctively reached with his left hand. He stopped himself midway and looked at that left hand, the lifeless fingers hidden beneath a black leather glove.

Alex's name was at the bottom of a long waiting list for one of the new, sophisticated prosthetic arms with the moving electronic parts. The Army had given him this old one as a temporary replacement. It was a fairly simple design. As he bent the elbow, the metal claw at the end tightened its grasp.

They even gave him a rubber prosthetic hand to fit over the claw if he felt self-conscious about it. But those oddly colored rubber fingers looked more like an obvious lie to Alex, so he hid them under a glove. He wouldn't mind taking off that glove when he got around to seeing his father though. He was more than happy to show off a sacrifice only a good little soldier could make.

Alex picked up the stuffed animal and dropped it back in his duffel, then continued down the road towards Shepherd's Glen. He cast an uneasy glance behind him as he walked away, but quickly dismissed any strange notions running through his mind.

When he crossed that cement border that separated nature from man, he found the town was dead quiet. Even the wind tread lightly through the empty streets. Alex wasn't sure what time it was, but it didn't seem that late. He figured his father must have tightened his stranglehold over the town. A nervous apprehension squeezed around his heart as he moved deeper into Shepherd's Glen, but he looked to the watch on his right wrist and forced his legs forward.

His eyes stopped on a poster pasted to the pillar of one of the silent buildings. It was a Missing Persons poster with Josh's face printed on it. It looked brand new, unlike the quiet decay that ate away at the rest of the town. Alex turned his back to the poster and continued on, but he could still feel Josh's eyes following him.

"Welcome home," he spoke to himself through a forced smile. Despite his whispering voice, those words bounced across the buildings and shot back at him in hollow echoes that almost seemed to mock him. He started to frown and glared at the town.

Alex stopped in front of the path leading to the town hall, looking over a monument with his family crest on it. It held two crossed swords, a typical military theme he would've expected to be the symbol for his family. He looked around, waiting for some friendly face to appear from the fog, but there was no one.

This was the town he had pictured coming back to. This was the cold, indifferent, forgetful town he imagined, the one that didn't even care when he left. There had been some hope in him that it would find a way to change his mind. But that hope finally left his body in a deep sigh as he continued down the road towards his parents' house.

The night was darker than he remembered. Only a few street lamps still flickered with life. All the buildings were pitch black. Alex's feet kicked around random cans and debris he came across on the road, trying to wake those buildings up, but not a single light shined through those windows. The grass was growing wildly, tree roots were slithering across the road, and vines were gradually swallowing up those buildings.

But it didn't strike him that something was wrong until he stopped in front of that house. The pillars of the front porch were lazily leaning in various directions, paint chips were leaping off the walls, the picket fence was falling apart, and the roof was sinking in on itself. As Alex looked over that dilapidated home, he thought aloud, "This isn't my father's house."