Page 18 of House of Horrors

Somehow, I forgot that I took drugs. I burst into giggles, unable to stop until my stomach hurts. “Acid can’t talk, stupid.” I wipe my tears away while watching a scowl contort his face.

The rustling of leaves in the wind snatches my attention. I watch the lamps sitting on the bedside tables ripple and stretch before my eyes, transforming into tall trees with glossy, hyperreal foliage. I inhale deeply. The air is filled with the scent of grassy pine, and imagined sunlight warms my skin. The sensation echoes memories of the place I lived before Grimwood. The mandala shifts before my eyes, morphing once more, this time into my childhood home.

Waves crash against the rocks, white sand brushes against my skin, and the most gorgeous trees stand tall, waiting for us to lie under them after a swim.

Something grabs my ankle, interrupting my daydream. I squeal, breathless, looking down to see a skeletal hand clutching my leg. My eyebrows crease as I try to make sense of the sight and I laugh, watching it scurry back under the bed like a little monster.

The room begins to fill as more people enter, and any lingering fear fades. Bodies move through the space around us, faces lost to me, but their energy presses against me to skim over my skin. My shoulders loosen, the tension draining away, and I tip my head back, the air biting against my neck like a kiss that almost hurts.

“You’re losing your mind,” Jason grumbles.

“My mind is open. I can feel something else in here with me.”

“Yeah, there’re people in this room, idiot.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “No. There’s someone else in my mind.”

Jason rolls his eyes and steers me toward a walk-in wardrobe. Frustration flickers on his face, and my steps slow. A toxic green light bleeds into my vision, spider webs glimmering along every inch of the ceiling and walls, weaving an intricate, shifting tunnel that pulses with movement.

“Woah.”

My head pivots rapidly, eager to take it all in. The lights around me are alive, their colors swirling and twirling through the air in hypnotic, dancing patterns that pull at my awareness, making it hard to distinguish what’s real from what’s not. If it wasn’t for Jason pushing me forward, I would have sat on the floor all night, immersed in this rhythmic psychedelia.

The wardrobe opens into something unthinkable. Red is splattered across the tiles, the shower curtain painted in dark splashes. I freeze. The bathtub is full of blood, and something shifts beneath the surface.

I try to turn around, but my body moves wrong—too heavy, too slow—as if something invisible keeps reeling me back.

Get Out Now is painted against the cracked mirror, drawing to mind my favorite cheesy horror film. Jason stands behind me, and I stare at our fractured images. My face doesn’t look like mine. It’s as if somebody else is wearing my flesh. I tilt my head, and my reflection contorts the other way.

Jason smiles, though it bends unnaturally high, and as he opens his mouth wider and wider, I notice his teeth have become pointed. It’s a grin that’s all wrong, but I love it. I’m drawn to everything twisted and horrible because it reflects what I am on the inside.

I’ve always felt out of place in the world, but this chaos is comforting. There’s a rebellion in craving what others fear, a thrill in knowing that something so wrong can feel so overwhelmingly right. That’s why I’m drawn to Jason. He understands me, even when I don’t always know myself.

A gasp tumbles out of my lips as mirror Jason grips my hips, fingers digging into them hard enough to bruise. Something about the pain, the roughness of it, makes everything in me awaken. Give me more.

I wonder if begging or promising him something would get Jason to fuck me against the sink. I clutch the ceramic basin, watching his reflection lick my neck, his split tongue dragging twin lines of saliva. Even knowing it’s just the acid making me see my desires come to life, I wish it were real.

My obsession with Jason began the first time he fixed those intense eyes on me the day Mom and I moved in. It was like seeing color for the first time in a gray world. From that moment, no one else could compare. And no one else could have him. Even as he glared at us over the balustrade, repulsed by our presence, I knew that I wanted to make him mine.

I lean back, imagining his hard length pressing against my puckered hole while his hand snakes around my neck, choking me hard enough to see stars sparkling in the darkness. Even if I passed out, I’d want him to keep going. Warmth ignites once more between my thighs.

“You good, Daisy?” Jason asks, snapping me out of my fantasy.

His voice brushes over me like a touch, nearly pulling a moan from my throat. My eyes flutter shut and I lean over the sink, breathing deeply.

“Great…just great.” I reluctantly open my eyes and turn around.

Jason looks at me curiously. I wish I could read his mind, unwrap his layers. I know we’d be good together if he let me in. Soon, a voice tells me.

“Alright. Hurry up, or we’ll be here all night.” I watch him walk away, each step leaving a glowing footprint. I sigh and follow Jason’s phosphorescing trail, wondering how to make us happen.

Ten

Jason

We step through the door in the bedroom into a small sitting room. Everything escalates instantly. The walls undulate, moving as if breathing. I watch the sides blow in and out, swaying like laundry on a windy line. Discolored hands pierce through the walls, clawing for freedom. My head tilts. Faintly, I hear groaning.

“That’s so weird,” Daisy murmurs. “I think they’re saying something.” Daisy presses her ear up to the walls to listen.