💀How Ugly Neighbor Was Born (Part II) Play Me, Coward! 💿

Steve didn’t trust mornings. They were too bright. Too new. Too full of joggers with their motivational water bottles and smug little fanny packs. He liked the neighborhood for the most part, but something about those step-tracking fuckers just made his blood boil. What were they even running from?

Steve took a sip of coffee from his favorite mug — large, black and printed with the word moist in bold letters. It was a gift from his old UPS driver for Christmas one year. That made it kind of weird but it was still his go-to.

As Steve stepped out the front door to grab the mail that Tuesday, he was struck by just how quiet the morning was. The birds weren’t chirping. There were no distant calls of lawnmowers or leaf blowers. Crotch, the neighbor’s unaltered male chihuahua (and Steve’s arch nemesis) hadn’t even barked once. That thing hadn’t shut up in the 6 years he’d live there.

Steve scratched his head and shuffled to the mailbox. There, nestled between a Pizza Shed flyer, some crumpled wads of newsprint coupons, and a pink envelope addressed to “Resident,” was a loose CD. No case. No sleeve. Just the disc—silver, slightly smudged, and with the words “PLAY ME, COWARD!” scrawled across the top in thick, black marker. It looked like it had been written in the dark. Or in the middle of a mental breakdown.

Intrigued, Steve took the disc to his home office where, after short rifle through the closet, he produced an old laptop that still sported a disc drive. There was an odd sound of protest as he pressed the machine’s power button, but it booted without too much trouble. The drive spun and coughed, as it reluctantly ingested the disc.

For a second, there was silence. Then, the old laptop’s speakers crackled to life —it was Kenny G. That same song! You know the one. The soundtrack to every fucking hotel lobby, dental office, and elevator-related panic attack in recorded history. But this wasn’t just smooth jazz. There was something else underneath it. Something faint. It was a voice.

Steve froze. His first instinct was to laugh out loud — like maybe this was a some kind of prank.. Chris had a pretty weird sense of humor (and always had a Sharpie in his glove box). But then he heard it again. Just beneath the bleating saxophone. The low, breathy voice, saying his name.

“Steeeeeeve….”

Steve couldn’t move. It wasn’t fear, exactly — more like that soprano saxophone had pulled up a chair inside his brain and started redecorating. Goosebumps rippled across his skin. He wasn’t hearing the melody anymore. It was inside him, seeping through his pores like mildew. His fingertips twitched. One eye started to water. He glanced at the laptop screen, now flickering in slow pulses along with the brushed drums. It’s as if the machine itself was vibing to that fucking Kenny G.

Suddenly, the drive stuttered. The screen flickered and then shifted into a miasma of digital static — pink and green waves rolling like a storm on a broken TV. Steve leaned in, eyes narrowing. At first, it was just visual noise. Then, shapes. Then movement.

A face.

Doug from the third cul-de-sac around the loop.

He was smiling, wearing that same goddamn cardigan and mouthing something silently with exaggerated mouth movements.

It was four words.

“We’re glad you listened.”