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Prologue
The only thing she could do was run. Run fast, run hard, find an exit, any exit. Her brain spiraled as her body found new sources of energy it conserved for only the most dire circumstances. Adrenaline pumped through her veins with such force it felt like her heart may burst before she found a way out.
Visions of her life back home began to flash across her mind’s eye, only exacerbating her panic. Was this what happened before a person died? Their life flashing before their eyes? Her mother, her boyfriend, her extra-long twin-sized mattress in her dorm room decorated sweetly with pink lace pillows, vanilla cupcake body wash… Anything she ever loved, any source of comfort her subconscious could provide flickered over and over in an endless circle like a flip book, but nothing could override the sheer terror at what would happen if she paused even for a single moment. The only things between her and a searingly painful death were her bare feet carrying her across the dark wooden floor with the frantic swiftness of a startled doe.
No matter what she tried, the creatures found her, and nobody believed her when she told them about the scratching at her door every night, or the eerie slither of otherworldly appendages that seemed to emerge from every dark corner. This mansion was meant to be her summer clubhouse—a place for her to relax and recharge and show off to her friends. Instead, it infected her mind with fear and isolated her completely until it felt as if it would become her grave.
The skin on her back was already shredded, her silky lavender pajama top along with it from the claws as sharp as razor blades that swatted at her in the dark. The pain was white hot, and she left a trail of blood as she bolted down the darkened hallway toward the direction of the spiral staircase she’d once so innocently admired. Just over her shoulder, she could feel the threatening aura of her pursuer teasing her like a saber-toothed tiger playing with a field mouse. The creatures that had been stalking her made it a game, and she knew the odds were not in her favor in the slightest.
She found the staircase washed in the clear blue light of a full moon shining through the skylight like a spotlight highlighting the final moments of her life. The stairs met her head-on, and her momentum carried her down the intricate stairway with a stumbling half-roll, as she ignored the additional pain of her body thumping violently against the banister on the way down. The massive, daunting double front doors were only feet away now, and the sweet promise of fresh air and a final sprint to safety was just on the other side of them.
Her hands shook like dead leaves in the wind as she fumbled with the deadbolt, and she whimpered a panicked “come on, come on, come on,” as she willed her body to steady so she could undo the chain lock above it that liked to get stuck on the track. If she could go back in time, she would have told her previous self to leave the front door unlocked, as the biggest threat of all will find you already inside.
Finally, as an excited gasp escaped from her mouth, the door was free to be opened, and she yanked on the handle, only to find it unable to budge. She slammed both hands onto the handle and yanked harder, leaning her weight against the door, to no avail.
“Comin’ to get you, comin’ togetyou,comin’ to get you,” a voice taunted from everywhere. It echoed in each ear and all around her head like a creepy playground song.
Still, the door wouldn’t budge, and even when she was able to pull it open just a sliver, it wouldn’t open all the way, as if something was willing it to stay shut. The woman let out a desperate cry in sheer terror, knowing that the creatures were closer to her than she was to making an escape. She marinated in her fear as her body and mind worked together to raise the bar for what panic could feel like.
She continued to pull on the handle as her energy wavered, and a long drip of thick saliva fell in front of her in what felt like slow motion as the glob accumulated at her feet. Something was above her, feasting on the sight of her struggle, and even though she knew she didn’twantto face whatever was toying with her, her head lifted in a morbid curiosity to face one of her assailants dead in the eye.
Attached to the wall above the door like some sort of hulking humanoid spider-monkey was such a horrible abomination that her mind struggled to comprehend the sight. The creature held its weight against one massive hand, holding the door shut against her pulls. Its body was skeletal with leathery gray skin stretched thin over a gangling frame, and a mane grew down its elongated neck and bony spine, thick with mats. Completing the vision was a deer skull that sat where the creature’s head would be, complete with antlers that stretched backward in an elaborate fanned formation. Freakish fangs took the place of the stumpy herbivore teeth of a regular deer, dripping long strands of saliva as it waited to pounce.
The woman froze. Until now, her assailants would hide just out of view, only giving her hints as to what they could be, allowing her mind to fill in the rest. She found that the true appearance of this particular creature was much worse than anything she could have come up with in her mind. What was worse was that a normal animal predator wouldn’t care to torment her as this one had. Itwantedher to fear. They all did. They’d worked together to torture her for days, slowly building on a foundation of unease, knowing that her claims would go unheard by her friends. She would die under their claws and teeth and snakelike appendages entirely alone, wrecked with terror, while knowing that nobody was coming to save her.
The monstrous beast that clung to the wall watched her, its breath heaving, and without taking its gaze off of her, it removed the hand that held the door shut and whispered in a voice that sounded like wind rustling through a forest.
Run.
The woman was still struck stiff with fear, like a rabbit in a trap. She couldn’t will herself to move over the primordial desire to freeze and meet her fate. The bony creature reached down with its knobby arm and pulled the door open for her, inviting her to leave.
Run, he whispered again as saliva still pooled out between his bottom two fangs like a slow-moving fountain.
Then, an internal force kicked into gear in a last-ditch effort to save the woman in her little lavender pajamas from a violent, bloody fate. She bolted through the door, fueled exclusively by her subconscious need to survive, to self-preserve, to put herself as far away from the threat of pain and death as humanly possible. Her legs and arms pumped together as she ignored the discomfort of running barefoot down the rocky driveway.
“HELP! HELP!”her voice cracked as she screamed, projecting her final hope into the universe that someone might hear her and rescue her, that someone maybe would be in the right place at the right time, ready to whisk her away to safety.
But none came. A faint echo could be heard as her voice bounced off the trees that bore witness to her final moments.
“HEL—”she cried out one more time as she reached the wrought-iron gate at the end of the driveway.
A smoky black tendril that wrapped around her body and face cut her off halfway, gagging her, muffling her pleas. The tendrils wrapped her up entirely, like an otherworldly spider wrapping up its prey in thick, black webbing. The woman’s body was spun as the tendrils fully encapsulated her, and she was blinded.
The next things she saw were the three monsters that had toyed with her for so long as she was slowly released from her tendril prison and dropped to the floor with a heavythud. The same creatures that had watched her from the shadows now admired her helpless body as if displayed for them like a delicately plated meal. Her wrappings, she realized, were some sort of additional limbs that emerged from the spine of the creature centered in her vision before her. Whatever it was, it looked more like a man than the monster that had blocked the door, who now stood to her right. It was tall, taller than any other man she had ever seen, with an emotionless face and burning red eyes. To this creature’s left was another monster whose form kept changing, like its face and body were dough being mashed by an unseen force. As she stared at the formless figure, she noticed it began to look a bit like her. Same blond hair. Same facial structure. She had to be dead already. There was no way this was possible. She had to be already suffering in the depths of some corrupt underworld, but the searing pain from the slices down her back assured her that she was still alive, and her end was only just beginning.
As she looked upward at her captors, a flash of motion from the animalistic beast to her right brought down a slice across her stomach that immediately made her feel like her entire body was on fire. The three creatures pounced upon her bleeding torso like starved hounds, and the last things the woman saw before she met her death were the mouths of the terrible monsters pulling at her insides with their hands and claws to devour her bite by bite.
* * *
A silver Tesla pulled up behind an old pickup truck in the mansion’s twisting driveway the following morning. The sunny sound of birds singing to one another filled the morning air as a portly older man in a set of tan canvas coveralls leaned against his truck, drinking coffee out of a travel mug and bouncing his leg nervously.
Another man, the first one’s opposite, emerged from the Tesla dressed in a slick navy suit, perfectly tailored to his measurements. He looked like sheer accident pulled him off the side of an advertisement in the mall and planted on the lavish West Virginia property. Even the most handsome men in Tallpine couldn’t hold a candle to his masterfully chiseled jawline and well-kept blond hair, barbered in a perfect fade.
“Morning, Ted,” the man in the Tesla called to the other. “Definitely appreciate you getting here earlier than usual. I’ve got another coming in a couple of days. Just wanted to get a head start on clean-up.”
“Oh no problem at all, Mr. Silver,” the chubby man replied with a shaking voice before taking a small sip from his travel mug. “Besides, it’s not much earlier than I tend to get here, anyway.”
The attractive man removed his suit jacket, tossed it onto the driver's seat of his car, and rolled up his shirt sleeves.
