No. 57 Olive Lane

Nobody lives in the last house on Olive Lane.

Nobody has lived in it since it was built.

The close-knit neighbours all know that the front gate at No. 57 opens itself at night - often very rudely, at inappropriate hours. It has been replaced several times, but the problem persists, and for now they take it as granted.

Yet, while they sleep, the residents of Olive Lane do not see the faint, shimmering light cast in the upstairs windows, as if by the distant headlights of a turning car.

On this particular night, most of the residents are already asleep, and none of those still awake are peering out their windows.

A total lack of observers is the only way that the secret people can move around.

Nobody knows where they go, and what they do whilst out of sight. Nobody knows that they exist.

A man steps suddenly out of a shadow far too small and faint to have hidden him, and walks with poise toward No. 57.

A woman emerges from the narrow opening between a house and its garage, composes her hair, and saunters in the direction of No. 57.

Several young men and women crawl out from under a porsche and skip off together toward No. 57.

The gate screeches open, and closed, and open, and closed, and open-

Mrs. Wensley looks out of her window, and sees dark windows along a deserted street, and the gate outside the empty house swinging to a close.

She murmurs to herself indignantly as she dons slippers and a dressing gown about how many appointments she has tomorrow, and how she really needs some uninterrupted sleep.

She takes her keys off the mantel and opens the door to the garage, fetches an oilcan, and heads out into the cold.

Shuffling down the road, Olive Lane feels to Mrs. Wensley somehow more empty than usual.

She walks past Mr. Billingdon’s porsche, and wilfully ignores it out of principle; it is a flashy show of pride.

She comes to the gate at No. 57. There are no lights in the upstairs windows, an absence which Mrs. Wensley does not note, for never having seen them.

Nobody is in the left hand window, watching her - another thing which Mrs. Wensley does not note.

She merely inspects the gate, and hinges, swings it open. It screeches horrifically as it closes itself. She pushes it open, it screams shut again.

“Ugly, heavy old thing,” Mrs. Wensley remarks of the gate as she oils its hinges, and opens it a few more times, until the shriek reduces to a faint whistle.

She fastens the gate closed.

Job done, Mrs. Wensley huffs and makes her way back home.

Because her back is turned, she does not see the young boy climb out of the letterbox of No. 54 and run across the road into No. 57.

Because she oiled the gate, she does not hear it open.

As soon as Mrs. Wensley is safely inside her house, and her door is closed and locked, a crowd of people emerges from a variety of unlikely places, all moving toward the house at No. 57 Olive Lane.

In bed once again, Mrs. Wensley starts awake with a troubling realisation.

When she had seen the gate out her window, it was swinging closed. The wind can’t push a gate as heavy as that. That means someone must have opened it.

Mrs. Wensley climbs once more out of bed and peers out of the window at the dark windows along the deserted street, same as before. Then a chill races up her spine as she notices the gate at No. 57 swing closed.