The house was cheap. That was the only reason I rented it. Twelve hundred dollars a month for a place that had been empty for three years, out in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, next to a lake that used to be beautiful and is now just gray.

I am fifty-two years old. My name is Tom Sullivan. I used to teach high school history. I taught for twenty-three years. I quit because I couldn't take it anymore—the kids who didn't care, the parents who didn't care, the administrators who cared about test scores but not about the kids. I quit because I started drinking, and then I quit drinking, and then I started drinking again, and now I am here, in a house that costs twelve hundred dollars a month, drinking whiskey that costs twelve dollars a bottle.

I am not alone in the house. There are three other people here. I don't know their names. I don't want to know their names.

Linda is in the upstairs bedroom. She lost her son six months ago. Car accident. She doesn't talk about it. She doesn't talk about anything. She just sits in the corner and cries and cries and cries.

Mike is in the living room. He owes money. A lot of money. He's hiding from people who will hurt him if they find him. He watches TV all day. He doesn't watch the shows. He just watches the screen.

Danny is on the porch. He ran away from the army. He doesn't talk about it. He just sits on the porch and smokes cigarettes and looks at the lake.

None of us want to be here. None of us want to be together. But the house was cheap, and we were all running from something, and running is expensive.

Then the stranger came.

He knocked on the door on a Thursday evening. I opened it because I had nothing better to do. He was young, maybe twenty. He was wearing clothes that had been dirty for a long time. His face was pale. His eyes were wide and unfocused.

"Can I use your phone?" he asked. His voice was quiet, uncertain. "My car broke down on the road. I need to call someone."

I looked at him. I looked at the road behind him, empty and dark. I looked at his hands, which were shaking.

"No," I said. "But you can have a drink."

I went to the kitchen and poured him a glass of whiskey. He drank it in one gulp. I poured him another. He drank that one too.

"Who are you calling?" Mike asked from the living room.

"Nobody," the stranger said. "I don't have anyone to call."

He sat on the couch and started talking. He talked about death. He talked about nothing. He talked about how everything is pointless and nothing matters and we're all just waiting to die anyway.

Linda came downstairs and listened. She didn't say anything. She just stood in the doorway and watched him.

Danny came off the porch and listened. He didn't say anything either. He just leaned against the doorframe and smoked.

The stranger talked until the whiskey ran out. Then he fell asleep on the couch.

We left him there. Linda went back upstairs. Mike went back to the TV. Danny went back to the porch. I went to the basement and drank more whiskey.

In the morning, he was dead.

He had choked on his own vomit. The whiskey had made him sick, and he had rolled onto his back, and his airway had closed, and he had died.

Nobody called the police. Nobody said anything. We just looked at him and thought about what would happen if we called the police.

My drinking record. Linda's medical records. Mike's debts. Danny's desertion.

We all had secrets. And secrets are heavier than bodies.

So we buried him. Mike dug the hole. I helped. Danny helped. Linda didn't help. She stayed upstairs and cried.

We buried him next to the lake. The ground was soft, which made it easy. The lake was gray, which made it fitting.

Nothing happened after that. Not really. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that would make a story.

Mike fell into the lake a week later. He was fishing off the dock, and the dock was rotting, and he fell through, and he couldn't swim, and he drowned. His life jacket was in the house. Danny had taken it. He said he wanted to practice using it. He never put it on.

Linda fell down the stairs two weeks after that. The stairs were loose. I had meant to fix them. I never did. She broke her neck.

That left me and Danny.

Danny sat on the porch and smoked. I sat in the basement and drank. We didn't talk to each other. We didn't need to. We both knew what was happening.

The house was dying. The lake was dying. We were all dying. And nothing was being done about it.

I sat in the basement one evening and listened to the wind blow across the lake. It sounded like crying. Or maybe it sounded like nothing. It's hard to tell the difference when you've been drinking for twenty-three years.

Nothing happened.

Nothing is happening.

Nothing will happen.

This is not a story about murder. This is not a story about mystery. This is a story about people who were already dead and didn't know it yet.

Linda was dead when she lost her son. Mike was dead when he owed money. Danny was dead when he ran away. I was dead when I quit teaching.

We just hadn't stopped moving yet.

The lake was gray. The house was cheap. The whiskey was cheap. The nights were long.

Nothing happened.

Nothing is happening.

Nothing will happen.