Any big city with planned subdivisions, schools, playgrounds, parks, man-made lakes and protected forests. Neighborhoods of curving streets with names like Spring Breeze Way, Sunshine Rise, and Blue Willow Crescent. They were the kinds of places where kids pedaled their bikes, or skateboarded around the block, or played basketball or road hockey; where gardens were tended with love, where SUVs were washed in driveways. They were places where the houses had double garages, pools, decks and patios, big kitchens; home offices, ensuite bathrooms, and fireplaces. They were the kinds of places where people pursued their dreams while trying to hang on to reality.

For behind the closed doors of their home the Griffins held secrets, kept them unseen, buried below the surface, so that on the night the horror began, no one, not Greg, not Jake, not Jennifer, no one, knew what was coming for them.

For there was no shriek, no immediate alarm because it came upon them silently, the way an anaconda captures its prey, slowly coiling around it, squeezing until escape is impossible.

*

The Griffins lived in the Buffalo-Niagara region of New York, in Trailside Grove, a new-ish and serene neighborhood not found on any map.

On that night it started around nine, when Greg wheeled his Ford F-150 into his driveway. After shutting it off he sat there in the late spring twilight, the engine ticking down, dragging his hands over his whiskered face and reflecting on the evening’s events.

What have I done? I should’ve put a stop to it.

Exhausted, yet his mind raced.

Did I go too far? No, relax. It’ll be all right.

Taking a breath he pressed the button on the remote opener. His double-garage door came to life, rising before him. The interior automatically illuminated.

Jenn’s Corolla was gone.

She’s at book club tonight. That’s why she’s not home. Right.

Grunting, he climbed out of his truck and entered through the garage, smelling the usual mix of rubber, engine fluids and fresh cut wood, barely glancing at items neatly placed there: the snowblower, the lawn mower, the ladder, Jake’s hockey sticks, Jake’s bike, Jenn’s bike, her gardening stuff, his tools, work bench, table saw and the recycle bins.

Stepping up to the interior door, he hit the wall switch and the garage door rumbled closed.

Greg entered his home with a sense of accomplishment because he’d built it. Well, he and his crew had built it several years ago. They were among the contractors framing houses when Trailside Grove was in its infancy.

“Where All Your Dreams Come True,” the developer’s billboard had said, the banner arching like a rainbow over an artist’s concept of a world of new homes and blissful families.

For Greg and Jenn, this was their dream home.

“Our forever home,” Jenn had called it.