He needed to move. When Tim moved into the apartment the neighborhood was undergoing gentrification. The little businesses and the spray-painted murals were burned away and replaced with clean glass and white stone.

No one came. The stores closed. New businesses moved in and the spray-painted murals returned. New people came, they were younger and looked different from Tim. They dressed different and walked without purpose. They called to each other in the street and Tim kept his head down, defiant. Why couldn't they walk like him? Why couldn't they talk quietly on their phones and just go where they needed to go?

Probably living on welfare. Probably never contribute a cent.

He worked late. Tim worked late nearly six days a week now. He had a new boss, a younger boss. The new boss said everyone needed to do his or her share. Money was tight. No raises. A lot of senior people disappeared from his commute and a lot of new, young faces took their place.

So, Tim worked late. They needed to see his value. He was sure they did. He worked late nearly every night now, after all. The stairway to his third-floor apartment rattled. He sometimes grabbed the railings and stood still for several seconds, as if his grip would stop the metal staircase and concrete steps from collapsing into a heap. At the top, he could see no man's land.

No man's land was a meant to be a slice of nature, a little stretch of grass and a quaint bubbling creek between his apartment complex and the one next door. In reality, it was a stagnant stream choked with trash and dead tree limbs.

Tonight, Tim glimpsed movement in no man's land. In a patch of ground by the stream, bare and muddy, stood a circle of people. They wore heavy coats and their faces were wrong. They were wearing masks. The circle widened as the people stepped back. Tim couldn't make out the genders or race. There was just a circle of masked people. Two of them stepped forward, one in a plastic clown mask and the other wearing a rubber skull mask.

He could see their shoulders rise and fall and the faint wisps of breath in the cold air. A blade gleamed and one dove for the other. They fell to the ground, wrapped round each other. The scene was almost intimate.

Go inside, Tim thought. Go inside, what are you doing?

The one with the clown mask gasped and groaned, almost like a hiccup. He pulled himself in a fetal position. The one in the skull mask stood. Another from the circle, this one wearing a plastic Lone Ranger mask, walked to the figure on the ground and removed the mask. Through the swollen eye and bleeding nose Tim could tell it was a young man. Maybe this was one of the loud ones on the street, yelling in his phone and walking without purpose?

They descended on him. Tim gripped both hands on the railing. Were they stripping his clothes? Yes. But they were tearing at him. He saw more flashes, more blades reflecting the outside lights.

They killed the figure on the ground. Aside from grunts and exhausted breathing, they made no noise.

Go. Inside.

Lone Ranger mask nudged a man in a wolf mask. Wolf Man looked at Tim.

He sees me.

Wolf Man tilted his head slightly. Wolf Man pointed at Tim.

Tim backed to the door and struggled with his shaking hands to put the key in the lock. When he opened the door, he dashed inside. As he closed it, he saw there were no masked men in no man's land.

Tim washed his hands, turning the water hotter and hotter. He made sure the blinds were closed. He stood by the door for three minutes before he peeped through the hole. No one there. He stared at his phone.

You should call 911, right? You have to tell someone.

Tim turned on the TV and watched a show about rival teams flipping houses for people in need.

Maybe you shouldn't be involved.

Tim stood up and paced the room. He looked at his phone and typed "911" before deleting the digits again.

Tim sat down on the couch and eventually fell asleep.

When he woke up, he went about his morning routine. He turned on the news and nodded his head in agreement with the nice blonde woman who lamented the state of the country.

She does seem nice. He let his coffee cool and downed his lukewarm cup of heavily creamed and sugared drink.

He almost forgot until the knock on the door. His breath came in quick successions, like when the man with dark skin and a hoodie had asked him for directions the other day. Tim didn't stop; he'd seen the news. He just ignored the man and hurried home.

"Do you know if I'm close to Preston? You can just point!" The man called, but Tim wouldn't slow down.

Looking in the peephole, he saw fisheye view of a smiling man in a nice white shirt and black tie. A nice white man, just like Tim. He opened the door.

"Yes?" Tim asked.

"Hello sir, do you have a minute to talk about Jesus?" The man asked, holding his Bible to his chest with one arm.

"Oh, actually no," Tim said. "I need to head to work. Getting an early start, huh?"

"Yes," the smiling man said.

Tim started to shut the door, when the smiling man's foot caught it.

"We aren't used to being seen," the smiling man said. "What did you think?"

"Wh-what do I think?" Tim asked, trying to push the door.

The man pushed the door open, clapped a hand on Tim's shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.

"Did you like it? What you saw?"

Tim stuttered and fell back, landing on his ass. The man clutched his Bible and grinned, nodding to Tim as he stepped out of the apartment, shut the door and left.

Tim pissed himself. He felt chilled by the time he stood and changed his pants. He was already an hour late when he opened the door again. The man with the Bible was gone. A plastic Lone Ranger mask sat on Tim's welcome mat.

* * *

"You seem distracted today?" Mr. Prater asked.

"Sorry Mr. Prater. But! But I've been working. I've been working hard. Everything on Smith-Loves account is ready to go live."

"That's great, that's great. Look, I just wanted to give you a heads up that performance reviews are coming up." Mr. Prater looked like a kid wearing his father's suit. Everyone else's desk were piles of papers and sprinklings of post-it notes to keep things in order. Mr. Prater's desk was clean and free of any papers; Tim could almost see himself in the exposed surface.

"That's good. Like I said, I've been working hard."

"You aren't worried?" Mr. Prater asked.

"Well, no. I mean, should I be?" Tim asked.

"Keep your options open. Things are pretty tight right now."

"I thought with the Smith-Loves account things were-," Tim stuttered.

"I know, but the markets, man. You see-," Mr. Prater started.

"You said if we all worked hard and put in the hours then-,"

"Look, I gotta make a few calls. Go on back to your desk, you know what, just take a little break, huh? Go grab some coffee somewhere," Mr. Prater said.

* * *

He went around the block to a nice chain place where the tables were as bare and clean as Mr. Prater's desk. Tim sat down and a barista approached, a young woman with pink stripes in her hair.

"Hello, I'm Darlene, what can I get you?" She asked.

"Just...a tall. Lots of cream. Lots of sugar," Tim said.

"We have a celebrity in here today," Darlene said, motioning to the table behind Tim, where a nervous woman was staring at her laptop screen.

"Big time journalist," Darlene said.

"She looks upset," Tim said.

"Who knows," Darlene shrugged. "Maybe she had family in Marble Springs."

The barista went to the upset journalist and they spoke for a moment. When Tim tried to grab Darlene's attention, she just continued on to the back, followed by the frantic journalist.

"Rude," Tim said. He'll never come back here.

Another barista took his order again and brought him his drink. He drank his coffee, waiting several minutes for it to cool and the steam to vanish from the top of the paper cup. He was in no hurry; he had a day at the most.

The journalist hurried out of the door. Tim didn't notice.

What are you going to do now? You have no job.

Tim took a deep breath and swallowed a sip of the coffee, trying to bury the urge to cry.

"That all?" Darlene asked.

"Yes, thank you," Tim said, jumping slightly. "I wondered where you went."

"I know it seems tough, but we have to be. We have to thin the herd."

Tim started to agree, but stopped. "What?" He asked.

"He wasn't ready. The clown. He wasn't ready. Are you?" Darlene asked, winking at Tim.

Tim started to sweat. He felt a bead roll down the side of his head to his sagging cheek.

"Let me know if you want anything else," Darlene said.

A woman from behind the counter looked at Darlene and yelled to her. She ran towards the girl with pink striped hair, but she simply sat down her notepad and walked outside.

Tim glanced at the pad. The only thing written on it was his name.

* * *

Mr. Prater didn't make Tim wait. He knocked on his desk and called him back the office. He shrugged when Tim kept asking for another chance, another shot. He offered to take less money; he would take what the new guys earn. But Mr. Prater shrugged.

"We'll miss you here, Tim."

Tim started to say goodbye, but realized he didn't really know anyone. Did they know him? Did they even know his name? At least security waited until he arrived at the elevators before they started escorting him and his printer paper box of paperweights and office awards.

He hoped he qualified for unemployment.

When he opened his door Tim barely noticed the man at his desk. The man double clicked the mouse and turned around.

"Hello, Tim!"

He was a young man, black, and wearing a wool sweater.

"I came by for this," he said, holding up the mask. "My friend needs it back. They also want me to talk to you."

Tim dropped his box and stumbled back to the door.

"Why don't you just close the door?" He said, no longer smiling. "Now."

Tim did so. The man stood up and patted the chair in front of the computer.

"Have a seat. Take a look."

Tim's mouth felt dry. He walked to the computer. The man kept his hand on the back of chair as Tim took a seat. On the screen were multiple pages.

"For such a lonely man you have an awful lot of these accounts."

"They're for networking. You have to have a web presence, right?" Tim asked.

"Do you have to use such outdated pictures though? You have way less hair. You'll probably lose even more, what with the job loss."

"How do you know?" Tim asked.

"Because you saw us. Which means we can see you. Take a look at your pages."

Tim went white.

"Just because you put your computer in incognito, doesn't mean we can't recover where you go. You have an awful lot of friends and they're about to learn an awful lot about you."

"This...this is private," Tim said, shaking, water filling his eyes.

"No, not anymore. Tim, you have nothing left. You think your friends, what little family you have, will talk to you now?"

"This was private!" Tim screamed, smashing the keyboard with one chubby fist, instantly grabbing his fist with his other hand in pain.

"We're meeting again. Outside. Tonight. You should join us," he said.

"Why?" Tim asked.

"No one sees us. We might need you."

"Just leave me alone!" Tim said, scrambling out of the chair. "Please, I won't tell anyone, I haven't told anyone."

"See you tonight," he said. He waved goodbye with the Lone Ranger mask.

* * *

He met them. He used a dumpster to crawl over the fence, and as he tried to mount and heave himself over the fence, hands grabbed his collar and pulled him over.

"Why are you doing this?" Tim wept, blubbering and wiping his nose on his sleeve. He felt very aware of his stature, as the masked figures looked down on him. One tilted his head, eyeing Tim with an animal's curiosity.

"Because you can see us," the man with wolf mask said, stepping forward.

"What does that mean?" Tim screamed.

The figures looked around briefly.

"Not so loud," the one in the Lone Ranger mask said.

"He's too old," said someone in an old woman mask.

"Give him your knife," Wolf Man said. Tim recognized the Wolf Man's sweater. Behind him, a man wearing what looked like a burlap sack with eyeholes crudely cut handed a small steak knife to Tim. He stared at the man's hand.

"Take it. Now." Wolf Man said.

Tim did, swallowing hard.

"He is going to try and take it from you," Wolf Man said, as a man in a latex old man mask stepped out of the group.

"What?" Tim asked.

"He is going to try and take it from you. If he does, he will kill you."

"What do I do?"

"Don't let him," the Lone Ranger said.

Tim stumbled back, but a figure moved to block his path. They widened, forming a circle with Tim and the old man in the center. The old man moved around the inside of the circle, hunched down, arms out, and never taking his gaze from Tim.

He lunged, Tim screamed and waved the knife, slicing the air in front of him. The Old Man laughed. Tim pulled his arm in, adjusting his grip on the weapon and wiping his sweat with the other arm.

The Old Man lunged again, slamming into Tim. His hands encased Tim's, prying at his fingers to take the weapon back. They fell, tumbling into the shallow ravine, the cold water sending a surge of shock into his body. The man's mask fell, blocking his vision. He struggled with his mask for a moment. In that moment, Tim took the knife.

He stabbed the man. He jerked the knife but it didn't slide out easily. He collapsed on the masked man, stabbing again and again until his head throbbed. Dropping the weapon, his hands felt numb and his knuckles ached.

The man didn't move. Tim could smell the man's final indignity. The others moved to him with caution.

"We could use you," Wolf Man said.

"Do you want purpose?" The Lone Ranger mask asked. "Instead of just blaming ill winds on who they tell you to?"

"Yes," Tim said. He felt like he was watching the proceedings from far away. Maybe standing on his porch, on his tip toes to watch himself in no man's land, handing over the knife.

"Keep it," Wolf Man said. "You'll need it."

"You will recruit another, a woman who saw us," the Old Woman said.

"Are you ready?" Asked the Lone Ranger.