“What a nice night,” she said, her voice barely audible over the shrieking emanating from neighboring houses, “what a … lovely, lovely night. We’re having a good time. We’re okay.”

A genuinely scary short.  A world where you cannot show any emotion apart from shallow happiness or horrific former humans will subsumb you.  Eric is fighting perpetual nausea, trying for a promotion where even the walk to work can be deadly, and is very aware of everything while trying hard to ignore the dismembered ex colleagues, or the the eldritch horrors that are now the regional managers.   

Characters desparately Ignoring reality- yes  this powerful, well written short will linger with me for a long while.

So scary good. This was terrifying and had me on the edge the whole time. A perfect short story.