I hit the floor hard, sending a flood of pain up my spine. My phone flies from my hand and skids across the boards, the screen cracking like a gunshot.
“No!” I scramble, palms scraping raw wood. My nails bend, split. Pain sparks bright and useless.
The vines surge up through the cracks in the floor, wrapping my calves, my thighs, my waist. They squeeze until my bones ache. Another snakes around my wrist and pins my arm above my head. Then the other.
I’m flat on my back, spread out like a sacrifice on a carving table.
Blood drips into my hair. I don’t know if it’s mine.
“Please,” I choke, snot and tears streaking my face. “You don’t have to do this.”
Drew steps into view.
The pumpkin head tilts. Seeds spill from its mouth and plop onto my chest, sticky and warm. One rolls into the hollow of my collarbone. Another slides between my breasts.
Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew.
A vine snakes up my throat and presses just enough to steal air, not enough to knock me out. It wants me awake. It wants me scared.
I kick, bucking my hips, managing to smash my shoe into one of the smaller pumpkins nearby. It bursts with a pop, guts spraying my leg.
“Yes,” I gasp, hysterical. “That’s right. Bleed, asshole.”
The vines cinch tighter, cutting off my scream.
Fred’s body lurches forward, boots dragging through pulp and blood. The front of his shirt is soaked dark, skin split where vines have threaded through muscle and bone. In his hand is an exposed wire, copper ends sparking faintly, still humming with stolen power.
They loom over me together.
One vibrating.
One dripping.
A family photo from hell.
“No,” I sob, thrashing uselessly. “Please. I’ll leave. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”
Drew kneels. His—itsvines writhe faster now, excited. The carved grin widens as seeds spill onto my stomach, warm and slick.
Fred’s dead triangle eyes don’t shutter as it draws the wire closer to my chest.
Tears drip down the sides of my face. “Please...”
The wire hits right over my heart.
Cold.
Then heat.
It can’t end like this.
Agony explodes through me. Every nerve lights up at once. My back arches as electricity rips through my body. My jaw locks. My heart slams against my ribs, frantic, trying to outrun the pain.
The smell hits next. Burnt skin. Hair. Copper and smoke.
The lights flicker.
The grinder whines once, then dies.
