I had always hated halloween. I wasn’t liked in school, or in my town in general, and because of that now I had to walk to school.
These kids had slashed my mom’s tires and egged the house last night on halloween, and it had taken her all morning to clean
. Loud rock music blared in my ears through my headphones, portraying how I felt in the moment, my fists clenched, speed walking. I had decided to take a slight detour on my way to school. I know who had slashed the tires and I was about to get my revenge.
I rounded the corner of the street Tyler lived on, the huge trees towering above me, but his house wasn’t there. It had been replaced with a run down looking wooden cabin, the windows had been broken, the sharp glass laying shattered on the rotting wood porch. I was dumbfounded. How had a whole house disappeared and been replaced in one night? I had to have been imagining it.
I walked towards the cabin that looked like it hadn’t been lived in, or even looked at in decades. I gripped my phone in my hand as if it was a weapon, my knuckles turning white as I turned on the phone flashlight and stepped onto the porch. The door barely hung to its hinges, the angle it was at making it hard to get through. Sharp pain shot through my stomach as I tripped through the door. I had been sliced with an old nail that was sticking sharp end out on the door. I put my hand over the now bleeding cut, it wasn’t bad, but it still hurt. I slipped the headphones off of my ears and paused the song I was listening to. “Fuck.” I muttered under my breath after seeing the amount of blood that was on my hands.
I hadn’t even looked at the inside of the house yet, the vintage flower print wallpaper was peeling off the walls in strips, wooden shelves and curio cabinets decorated the walls along with dust and cobwebs. The khaki carpet had stains all over it, I could hardly tell what color it was. The whole house reeked of mold and must. It really had to have been abandoned a long time ago, it was fucking disgusting. I gagged at the smell of the mold becoming so overwhelming I felt like it was getting in every pore I had.
I decided this place was too good not to explore, things like this never happened here and I needed to see what was up with it. I headed towards the short hallway, it had 3 doors, one was the bathroom, cleaner than i expected it to be, a single rug on the tile floor, and a mirror with a wood framing next to the shower. I turned away and moved on to one of the other rooms, a smaller room with a single bed was behind the door on my right side, it looked like a guest room. It didn’t really seem too interesting so I went to the door at the end of the hallway.
This was the only door I hesitated to open, my hand hovering over the knob. A wrong feeling formed in the pit of my stomach as I finally opened the door.
It was just a normal looking room that looked like a grandma lived in it, dirty yellow curtains on the windows, a queen sized bed with cat comforters and flower design pillow cases, a shelf with tiny trinkets on the left side of the bed. I walked over to the shelf to look at what was on it, but a smell I’ve never smelt filled my nose. I gagged, almost vomiting, but still walked towards the shelf, wanting a souvenir. There were crystals, small porcelain cats, dice, old figurines, and those little toy army men. I grabbed one of the porcelain cats to give to my mom later, stuffed it in the pocket of my worn hoodie and walked over to the other side of the room to get away from the horrible smell, going towards the wooden closet, I looked back to the bed, and I wished I wouldn’t have.
My eyes wandered to a figure under the bed, black matted hair, skin whiter than healthy, I knew it had a face, I just really didn’t want to look at it. All I could see were the hands slightly sticking out from under the bed, the hair hanging low on its shoulders, and how horribly the bones have been distorted, jutting out in all the wrong places.
I took a step back and it moved its pale hand forward in pursuit.
Fear ran through my veins and chilled my bones, everything felt too cold all of the sudden and I knew I had to get out of this place, whether it was out of just the house or the whole town, I needed to leave, but I didn’t know if I would be able to anymore.
My heart started racing and I felt like I was about to have a panic attack, and I ran. I heard things clattering and falling to the ground as that thing chased after me. I ran faster than I had ever ran before and now everything in this house seemed so much bigger and harder to avoid. It was getting closer. Its bones cracked in protest as it ran after me.
I reached the door and tried to squeeze my suddenly heaving body through and tripped. I fucking tripped. I panicked and tried to push my lower half through but my left foot was caught on something. I realized with panic that I had stopped hearing the thing running after me. It had my foot and was not going to let it go. I sat up to get a better position to pry my foot away from it and its face was right there.
Right by my foot. Its face-or what was left of it- was dirty and white, its eyes were completely black, somehow impossibly darker than its matted hair, and half of its face seemed to be burnt off. It gave me a spine chilling crooked grin, its sharp teeth glimmering in what sun was showing on the cloudy day, and I nearly shit myself looking at it. The smile resembled that of a shark, the teeth and all. Menacing, waiting for me to move but I didn’t dare, so we just sat there for a bit, just staring at each other. My whole body was shaking, almost like I was having a seizure. The thing tilted its head, bones cracking from the slight movement, still smiling at me.
It seemed like it was mocking me, and this gave me the anger and adrenaline rush to attempt escape again, only this time I realized it was life or death. I kicked the thing with the foot it didn’t have an iron hold on, and it roared in pain. It could feel pain, and this gave me an advantage. I kicked again, but this time it caught my other foot in its hand, and pulled me back into the hell house. Its drool dropped from its mouth onto my cheek as it leered over me. I was done for.
I grabbed the porcelain cat I had grabbed for my mom from my hoodie pocket and threw it out the door, off the porch and into the leaves. When my mom noticed i was missing-which would be in hours and hours because she thinks i’m at school- i hoped she would know where to check, and she would find that damn cat.
The creature that resembled a human, but not quite passing as one opened its mouth, wider and wider until it actually did look like a shark’s mouth was over my face, and as it moved swiftly to my head, I fainted.
i woke up 3 days later in the hospital, and now i’m writing this on here. i don’t know if i’ll ever forget this day or if i will ever recover, but i needed to share it with someone. the cops told me they found me on tyler’s yard passed out covered in cuts and blood and his mom called the cops, and they brought me here and i was in a coma for a couple of days.
i don’t know what that thing was, or how it happened but i’m warning you, don’t ever try to get petty revenge.