The moment Alice stepped out into the rising humidity, the tang of rain in the air, she regretted her choice. Overgrown and tangled, a veritable jungle of weeds choked the space behind the house, filling the large back yard with dead vegetation while new pushed its way through the rotting grasses left behind, forming giant, waving fronds overhead. Alice shivered despite the heat, a cold sweat breaking out over her skin as she stepped down off the bottom step and onto the grass.
Shudders ran through her feet, up her legs, wobbling her knees, making her sway until a little jab of pain pressed against her heart. She gasped in the thickening air, but the sensation was gone as fast as it came. Alice almost returned inside. Her hand grasped the knob, half-turned when she heard the sound of he
