Subjective Reality

Haskell University

2014-07-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

Many of the places about which I write in this blog are creepy because they are dangerous, mysterious, or just aesthetically unsettling. Some are largely sensationalized in the telling of their histories and occurrences by locals or "ghost hunters" and others. The one about which I am writing now seems more present and shocking, at least to me personally. Let it be known that I find the events that occurred at this institution abhorrent and in no way wish to disrespect those involved.

Haskell University was founded as a boarding school that was marketed by the founders as "... an educational program that focused on agricultural education in grades one through five..." for Native American students. In reality, the facility was anything but the welcoming place of learning it pretended to be.

While this place is not abandoned, it is a very real and present reminder of the very recent cruelty and insensitivity with which we as Americans have treated people we consider to be in the minority. While seeing that reality may not be the creepy story you want, it's still unsettling to me.

To see the white-washed version of the history of Haskell, check the school's website:
http://www.haskell.edu/about/history.php

To read the real story, check here:
http://cjonline.com/stories/110401/kan_haskellghosts.shtml

I'm Coming Back

2014-07-08T22:55:00.001-05:00

I have been remiss in not updating this blog. I have many new abandoned locations and terrifying stories to share, both personal and referential. There is still a lot of unnerving material to post, and I'm going to be doing so every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

That's a promise.

Sleep well.

Edit: The updates begin Monday. Forgot to mention that.

Beast in the Dark

2013-09-25T01:05:00.003-05:00

Everyone likes to think that we are safe. Everyone likes to think that, in our advanced culture in which we have mastered the elements of nature, we are invincible. We are not. Nature is the very legitimate source of all of our fear, and the more we move away from it the more susceptible we are to succumbing to its vicious hunger.

As an example: the Sankebetsu brown bear 'incident'.

Click 'read more' to hear the tale of the animal that terrorized a small Japanese town for over a week.

Stalking from home to home, a large bear terrorized the people of a small town. In only five days, seven people were murdered. They were not eaten, nor was the pattern consistent with an animal defending its territory. No one has been able to determine the exact cause of the beasts' fury, which is why this has become such an interesting case. Perhaps a hunter wronged it in some way. Perhaps it simply saw humans encroaching on the forest and reacted aggressively.

But, if so, why was the animal so patient? Why did it move around, instead of simply barging into a population center and attacking anyone in sight?

The 'incident' has since become something of a minor cultural phenomenon. In the ensuing years there were a radio drama (1980), a novelization (1965 and 1977), a stage play (1986), and even a feature film (1990).

Outsider Japan

Wikipedia

Another notable bear attack: Sloth Bear of Mysore

Creepy Stories

2013-04-06T14:45:00.003-05:00

I've been getting into writing fiction lately. I've been neglecting this blog as a result, but I don't think that's the best idea so I'll work on updating more frequently.

Abandoned Places: Hashima Island

2013-03-07T14:19:00.000-06:00

     Continuing with our look at the forgotten places of the world, we now turn to something that is pretty unique: Hashima Island. It is perhaps better known by it's colloquial name, "Battleship Island". The concept of an abandoned island city it indeed a romantic one for the urban explorer or abandoned site enthusiast. But, like many of the places left behind, it has an overwhelmingly dark history.

     The island serves as a singularly perfect microcosm of Japan's hurried progress during the industrial revolution. When coal suddenly became an in-demand resource the owners of the island wasted no time in getting a rudimentary mining operation running. Over time, with the help of foreign advisers and merchants, the island both enjoyed and suffered the ravages of extreme progress without forethought or regard for the human side of business.

     All of the workers on the island were subjected to poor conditions and insanely crowded conditions. In point of fact, workers suffered through living in the most densely populated area in recorded history. 83,500/km² people lived in each square kilometer. To compare, the current population density of downtown New York is 10,429.6/km²

     Forcibly recruited workers toiled under conditions so horrible that many decided to kill themselves rather than continue to work. by August of 1945 over 1,300 workers had perished on the island. The operation continued to function until 1974. The Japanese government has decided to re-open a small portion of the island to tourists by constructing a walkway from which the interior of the island can be viewed. The structures within are considered too unsafe to allow people back inside.

For links with a full account of the fascinating history of the island as well as pictures and first hand accounts, click "Read More".

http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/earns/hashima.html
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2007081567758
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island
http://gakuran.com/gunkanjima-ruins-of-a-forbidden-island/

Abandoned Places: Swift and Co. Meat Packing Plant

2013-03-05T18:12:00.000-06:00

     Today, I bring you an abandoned location right from my own backyard: The Swift and Company Meat Packing Plant in Fort Worth, Texas. I've driven past this location numerous times but never thought of entering the grounds. I must admit that my lack of inspiration to go urban exploring has led me to a lot of regrets now that I don't live in an area that has much opportunity for it. I would urge anyone reading this to look into UrbEx and see if it's something in which they would be interested. Note that I'm not recommending any illegal activity!

     Anyway, I am very much interested in the concept of energy imprints. It's a catch-all term for what I think is the explanation behind hauntings and repeated odd phenomena that are associated with a specific location. I believe that when certain energies exist within a certain location they leave a lasting impact on that location. The intensity of these energies dictates the length of time required to leave an imprint.

     As an example: a loving family home that houses two generations of general happiness and familial warmth will have an air of friendliness and a certain 'home' quality. Perhaps an odd event or two may occur but they are generally harmless or well-meaning. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum a house that was the site of a violent crime like murder or rape may only need one single occurrence of the act to leave a significant mark on the location.

     So, how does this apply to a meat packing plant? Well, all kinds of energies can be left behind. It doesn't have to be human-on-human love or violence. There was a large slaughterhouse constructed and used on the grounds of the now abandoned Swift plant. Thousands upon thousands of cows were killed within a single building. Quite literally a murder factory. I would find it hard to believe that it didn't have a long-term effect on the building itself. Perhaps it is just the knowledge of what happens in meat plants but people are generally creeped out by them. In fact, Cutting Edge Haunted House in the very same city is housed in an old meat packing plant. It's the largest haunted house in the world, in point of fact.

     There are no guided tours of the plant these days. There is a chain link fence and even a full time guard to cover the grounds. The site was shut down after not one, but two deliberately set fires decimated the facility. A burnt-out meat factory with a full time guard that isn't an historical site feels oddly suspicious to me. Maybe there is something to find within the walls of the Swift plant. Or perhaps something that is better kept hidden.

Click 'Read More' for links to background on the plant, lots of pictures and a link to the Cutting Edge website!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nkerns/sets/72157603955252189/

http://rust2.com/?p=612

http://brandenharvey.com/blog/photography-exploration-abandoned-swift-armor-meat-packing-plant/

http://www.nbcdfw.com/the-scene/real-estate/Shells-Swift-and-Co-Packing-Plant-53222442.html

http://www.nbcdfw.com/the-scene/real-estate/Gallery-Swift-Meat-Packing-Plant-53740182.html

http://www.cuttingedgehauntedhouse.com/cutting.cfm

The New Hotness

2013-03-05T14:29:00.003-06:00

It may shock you to learn that I do not believe fully in the 'paranormal'. I don't believe ghosts exist as entities unto themselves. I don't believe that there is an afterlife. I don't believe in God or gods or what have you. What I do believe in is science. And science has afforded us amazing new insights into how and why we experience the odd things that we experience every day. A growing understanding of magnetic fields, light, and how they manipulate our senses has dispelled a lot of the clearly bullshit urban legends that have tormented people for so many years.

It's very sad in a lot of ways. In other ways, it's incredibly exciting. Think about it: We're human beings. We'll never not find a way to scare the bejeesus out of ourselves. It's just what we do. These advancements in understanding are only serving to evolve our legends and myths. Nothing is being lost in this exchange. The old things, the vampires and zombies and ghosts in the mirror will continue to scare us. Now we also get to be afraid of things like immortality, manipulation, brainwashing and ghosts in the machine. I'm excited to see how our culture will continue to adapt to our new knowledge.

I realize that this is a lame post. More Abandoned Places are coming tomorrow and in future updates!

A Few Links

2013-03-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

A simple link dump for today concerning a famous unsolved murder case in Germany, a mysterious body found in England, and an organization dedicated to protecting us from the unknown.

Click "Read More" to find the links.

http://armchairdetective.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/hinterkaifeck/
http://brian-haughton.com/articles/bella_in_the_wych-elm/
http://www.scp-wiki.net/

Just a quick note: You won't ever be seeing affiliate ads on here. Eff that noise.

Abandoned Places: Okpo Land

2013-03-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

I'm usually entranced by abandoned places. I love to see the pictures and imagine being there, surrounded by vengeful overgrowth and lingering ghosts of happy families or bustling industry. Most the of the time these places were left behind because of simple economics or a changing world. It makes sense and there's nothing eerie about it other than the emptiness of a once busy place.

Okpo land is different. This South Korean "fun park" was quite successful in its time. There was, however, a tragic accident that claimed the life of at least one guest of which we're aware. This was not the accident that closed the park. In fact, according to Wikipedia, no apology was ever issued and the ride continued to operate without interruption. Then, in 1999, another patron was killed on the same ride. This time it was a young girl. The owner of the park, again, never issued an apology nor gave any money to the victim's family. The park was simply closed and left to rot.

Check the links after the break to see the duck ride that claimed the lives of two (and maybe more) people.

Click "Read More" to find links to more information and plenty of pictures.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okpo_Land
http://abandonedplaces.livejournal.com/1814560.html
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/okpo%20land
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/01/abandoned-amusement-parks.html

Boundaries

2013-03-01T05:27:00.000-06:00

What makes you afraid?

     What gives you the jumps? The shakes? The heebie-jeebies? Really think about it and be honest. Pick the one thing that frightens you the most. Hold it in your mind and then think about whether you've run toward or away from that thing in your life. Have you looked into it? Have you researched the phenomena/animal/serial killer psychology that frightens you so? Have you tried to recreate experiences that terrified you in order to deal with them? The answer determines the way that you deal with fear.

     I have Selachophobia. It developed over years and years and I don't know how it got to be so bad that I consider it a real phobia. If I am in any body of water (lake, ocean, even backyard pool) and I am alone I start to panic. I start to vividly imagine sea creatures emerging from the blue around me and eating or attacking me. I've woken up screaming from dreams where I'm being attacked by sharks. It is completely irrational and I am an otherwise mentally healthy person.

     I've loved sharks my entire life. I think, given the chance, I would swim with them. So what frightens me? It's not the animals themselves but being alone in water. Something about having no one else there gives me panic attacks. Which, in water, is actually quite dangerous. There is no name for this so I've settled on Selachophobia to make things easy.

So how do I deal with this bizarre and often crippling fear?

     I run towards it. I've gone snorkeling in muddy ocean water with manatees. I've swum in the ocean for hours. I've done laps in massive pools completely alone. If it becomes too much and I panic I thrash over to the edge, pull myself out as quickly as possible, let the fear subside, take a deep breath, and jump back in. Don't get me wrong; it is fucking terrifying. Closing my eyes in that moment before I re-enter the water is a moment of pure, primal fear. Still, I consider it a challenge that should be overcome. I tend to run towards fear.

   I spend hours each week finding creepy fiction, good horror movies, scary images, and real life horror stories. Fear and awful things fascinate me. I believe it's because society generally chooses to pretend that these things don't exist. "War is just a word. There's no way I could ever be the victim. My family is safe."

     It's worth it to embrace the fear and explore your feelings.

What do you think? Comment and let me know.

Sigh... a Rant

2013-02-19T13:30:00.001-06:00

Why do people believe what they believe?

Logically, there must be a core set of reasons that religious people continue to be religious when they have access to education and ample resources for personal fulfillment. How could anyone with the ability to process logical thought stay within a belief system that is so clearly and patently false? This is a relatively uneducated and sourceless rant, mind you. I'm not a psychologist nor am I a scientist. I am currently trying to educate myself on the subject but for now all I have is opinions.

As an atheist, it is hard to listen to religious or "spiritual" speak about their beliefs. The urge to cry out, "But that's wrong, you fucking idiot," is almost unbearable. I could argue with a deeply religious person until the end of time and nothing would change their thoughts on the subject. That's where logical people and theists differ: given sufficient evidence and a compelling argument I will seriously reconsider even deeply held beliefs and ideas. Religious people will not. It is, in point of fact, a major part of their faith that they don't ever question the authority of the church and, more importantly, God his/her/itself.

It is so clearly crowd control. If a governmental system that demanded blind obedience and utter compliance with an arbitrary set of laws existed in the world (the closest corollary being North Korea) it would be intolerable to free-thinking people. Yet, the Vatican continues to be a major influence on the world.

I just... I can't respect religious people after a certain point. Even if they are smart, altruistic, friendly, polite and interesting I know that deep down they hold beliefs that hurt people all around the world every day. And they feel superior for doing so.

It is beyond infuriating.

I Should be Writing Every Day

2012-09-08T18:03:00.002-05:00

Last "night" I stayed up until 5 in the morning watching clips from scary movies on YouTube. I thought, for some reason, that I had lost my taste for things macabre and unnecessarily gory. I watched a long series of bits and pieces from the Hellraiser series, Paranormal Activity 3 (which is hilarious, by the by), classic slasher and monster flicks, and a wonderful series by a YouTuber named TheSpringwoodSlasher called "Remembering". In each of the "Remembering" videos The Slasher has put together a great montage of clips from each movie and set it to an appropriate song. The series introduced me to some great B movies that I had never heard of before and also reminded me of some of the more esoteric roots of the tropes we are all familiar with today. I spent an hour researching the back story and costumes of Alien and learning all about the Space Jockey and LV-426. I miss horror, and I'm coming back in a big way. Time to delve into that Netflix playlist I made for myself and begin my horror education anew.

A few weeks ago I was at dinner with some new friends and the subject of horror movies cropped up. I went on a rant as I usually do about this and that. This time it was about Cronenberg's Videodrome and the societal implications that can be derived from it. I guess that I sounded like I knew what the hell I was talking about because one of my dining compatriots asked me if I was studying film. It felt unduly gratifying and sparked a train of thought with which I am still struggling: I should be writing every day.

Area Man

2012-08-21T22:02:00.003-05:00

This story falls under the category of "I can't believe this is legal" for me. Perhaps it's because it took place in Japan? Does Japan not have strict regulations on the preparation and serving of food?

Anyway, a guy cut off his dick and balls, advertised that he was going to cook and serve them to people for money, and over 70 people showed up to dinner.

The psychology behind this is staggering. The man, Mao Sugiyama, is asexual. In addition to his genitals, he has removed his nipples. He is not pursuing the option of having female genitalia surgically added or repairing himself in any way. The article and video linked after the break go into more detail than I need to here, but I'll say that it is definitely a bold statement for an artist to do something like this.

The creepiness begins at the point of him offering to cook and serve them. Up until that point I find nothing wrong with a person choosing to do with their body what they please. The idea that people not only are willing to sample such a delicacy but are willing to pay 100,000 yen to do so is just... fascinating. It describes a profoundly bored society that will jump on the chance to experience anything new. I don't have much to say about this particular entry, but I'd love to hear what you think.

http://newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/05/26/137-Japanese-man-cooks-and-serves-own-genitalia-to-guests-.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I4JQ64oRpg

Obviously

2012-08-03T20:20:00.001-05:00

Obviously this isn't really the forum for posting a story. Granted, it's probably hard to follow because it introduces about 11 characters in two pages. Anyway, expect the posts to return to normal linkings and strange occurrences that I find around the 'net. Thanks for sticking with me

Night Games Chapter 13

2012-07-27T16:25:00.002-05:00

The final chapter... after the break!

CHAPTER 13

Jennifer crept through the silent hallway on her tip toes. She flinched at the feeling of something squelching under her shoe but refused to look down. She kept her eyes as wide as possible but the candle made it impossible to see more than a few feet. She inched along in her flickering globe with one hand on the left wall. Dust motes parted in waving clouds around her without a sound. Past the swirls and eddies of the dust her mind filled the blackness with childhood nightmares. A tarantula the size of a horse with legs as thick as baseball bats and far too many eyes stalked along the corridor behind her just out of sight. Grotesquely deformed clowns and pantomimes crouched just inside open doorways adorned in jewelry made from pieces of their victims and bandoliers of rusted cleavers. Thick carpets of worms and cockroaches were parted by the wan light of the candle. She reached another dingy doorway and decided that she could take no more of the hallway she was no longer sure had an end.

Sliding carefully into this new room, she put her hand between her eyes and the candle so that she could see to the opposite walls. The orange glow revealed a completely empty room. The walls were still a more recognizable shade of blue than most of the others, and She jumped at the sight of herself in the mirrored closet doors. After twenty minutes of “hiding” in the absolute blackness of the rest homes’ halls and dilapidated rooms she had begun to lose some of her nerve. She twitched at every creak of the floorboards or rustling magazine page. Most unsettling of all was that since she had started wandering the halls alone she had not seen or heard any sign of the rest of the group. She began to have wild, far-reaching thoughts that she whispered to herself in the burnt orange light of her quickly dwindling candle. “Why did I come here? Were there ever others? Where the hell are they, if they are here? God damn it, God damn it, God damn it!” She yelled the last curse, uncaring as to whether she would be heard by her pursuer.

Her pursuer; that was another thing. She had lost all sense of for what she should be looking. Was it a man, a shadow, or the horrible thing she saw in the kitchen with Fred? Or were all of those things simply manifestations of a greater will? The questions in her mind weighed on her nearly as much as her lack of sleep. “Screw it,” she said, setting down her candle and sitting with her back against the mirrored closet doors. “If he wants me, he can come get me.” After a few minutes of silence Jennifer’s head began to droop. She had almost fallen asleep when the closet door behind her rattled with a resounding clatter. She jerked herself away from the mirrored doors and into the middle of the room, knocking over her candle. Hot wax spilled onto the dirty carpet. She stared at her own reflection in the doors. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She righted the candle and waited for them to move once again.

She heard rustling from within the closet, and… whimpering? She pushed herself to her feet and inched toward the doors, careful not to make any sound. It sounded like someone was inside the closet and that they were in pain. She reached for the grip of the right door and breathed deeply. She could not stop imagining what could be on the other side. Images of the thing she had seen in the kitchen flew through her mind unbidden. She threw open the door and stepped back.

Liz sat curled up into a ball in the corner of the closet. Her head was hidden behind her arms, but Jennifer could see that her shirt was soaked in sweat. Dozens of scratches covered her arms as if she had been clawing at herself, and her hands were pink with soaked-in blood. “… Liz?” Jennifer asked, stepping back towards the closet. She reached out tentatively to touch Liz. “Liz, are you okay?” She touched Liz’s arm and Liz slapped her hand away, screaming loudly. “No! Oh, God no the buh-uhgs, the bugs!” Liz began thrashing wildly at herself as if she were swatting away insects from her body. “What bugs, Liz? There isn’t anything on you!” “Cockroaches, spiders, oh God, nnngh!” Liz grunted, still clawing at her skin.

“You can’t help her.” Jennifer jumped at the sound of Fred’s voice from the hall door. “Fred, Jesus, where did you come from? Where have you been?” Fred stepped toward Jennifer with his eyes fixed on hers. “No where you would understand.” Liz whimpered in the closet. Fred continued crossing the distance between himself and Jennifer. “Stay away from me, Fred,” Jennifer said, balling her hands into fists. Fred smirked and lunged at her with his arms outstretched. He grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into the wall with a hollow thud. She slid down the wall with her hands wrapped around her stomach in a reflex from the pain. Fred stood over her without speaking. “Why?” Jennifer asked. Fred leaned down and opened his mouth. On his tongue was a single maggot that writhed frantically. He spit it at Jennifer and it landed on her cheek.

She winced and wiped the maggot from her face. She looked up at Fred’s satisfied smirk and decided she had had enough. She braced herself against the wall and swung her leg into Fred’s crotch with as much force as her tired body could muster. He collapsed and fell backward, hands clutching his crotch. “Jennifer what the hell?! Why did you kick me in the balls? Ow!” Jennifer stared open-mouthed at him trying to process what was happening. Liz crawled out from the closet and looked at Jennifer with a shocked expression. In Jennifer’s mind a cog clicked into place. “Liz, check your watch! What time is it?” Liz rolled onto her back to rest her wounded arms and looked at her digital watch. “3:34,” she said with a desperate laugh, covering her face with her hands.

Epilogue:

Seven people trudge exhaustedly from the Sunny Vale Rest Home toward their cars in the fresh darkness of early morning. Birds chirp, the wind gently blows through blades of grass, and dew settles on flowers. Without a word they part ways and pile into their respective cars. In a small silver car a boy and a girl hold hands. “Sean, I can’t… Do you think it was real, or do you think it was some kind of mass hysteria?” The girl continues to stare out of the passenger side window at the front entrance of the rest home. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. With an exhausted shrug the boy pulls his car out of the cracked parking lot and into an empty street. As they disappear from sight thick black smoke begins to flow from one of the rest home’s broken windows.

Night Games Chapter 12

2012-07-22T09:15:00.001-05:00

Chapter 12 after the break...

CHAPTER 12

Liz wiped a trail of saliva from her mouth with the back of her hand. Jennifer’s footfalls had dissipated almost instantly when she ran into the hallway. She was alone in the dark once again. In her mind half formed thoughts and images fought chaotically to be heard. Minutes passed as she sat in the omnipresent shadows of the dilapidated room before she endeavored to light her candle. As she brought the match head to the striking side of the tiny box from which it had come, a sound froze her hand. Something had made a ‘thud’ in the hallway behind the wall against which she sat. At first she could not tell what it was, but it was quickly followed by two more. Footsteps. Heavier than any of the girls could make, and possessing a distinctive ‘click’ that ruled out Fred’s tennis shoes. She squinted at the inert form of Paul lying motionless on the floor and felt her throat tighten. Thud, thud, thud; the footsteps grew louder and clearer until they stopped in front of the doorway.

Liz tried to hold back her gasping breaths. Her sweat-slicked hair shook with the unbearable tension in her body. In the hallway she heard the sound of shoes grinding on the dirty floor once, a pause and an audible sniffing sound, more grinding, and then silence once again. “Oh God,” she thought, “he’s checking the rooms!” She could feel droplets of sweat rolling down her legs. After a few moments the footsteps began anew and headed off down the hallway at an increased pace. She listened to the night for a sign of their return but heard nothing. Her shoulders relaxed and she wiped her forehead on her shirt sleeve.

She set the match head against the box once again, paused to listen just in case, breathed a sigh of relief, and lit the match. The sudden light seemed almost blinding after trying to see in the dark of the retirement home for so long. She pressed the match against the wick of the candle and blinked. Once It was lit she waved the match out and set the candle in her right hand. Liz pushed herself to her feet, closed her eyes, and forced a pained smile. “I’m going to get through this,” she whispered. When she opened her eyes again she nearly screamed.

Not more than a foot in front of her stood an old man. He wore nothing but a stained pair of boxer shorts. He was slightly bent over and breathed slowly. She stared at his body. It had been ravaged by old age; it was a grotesque mockery of life. Liver spots and hairy moles peppered his sagging, sickly white skin. Old scars with soft pink skin stretched with the rise and fall of his chest. Small clumps of hair and fresh wounds covered his nearly bald pate in thin lines as if he had taken a straight razor to himself in the dark. He stared into Liz’s eyes with a blank expression stamped onto his weathered face. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” Liz whimpered, raising her hands as she stepped away from the old man. Her heart pounded in her ears. A cockroach the size of a silver dollar fell from the inside of his boxers to the floor and skittered away into the hall. Liz brought her hand to mouth and gagged. In the feeble light of the candle they stood and stared at one another.

Liz slid along the wall with her hands in front of her. The candle’s flame sputtered in a breeze coming from the open window. His gaze stayed fixed on the wall where she had stood, and he did not move. She stepped over Paul and winced at the old man’s back. His loose skin had been stapled over itself so that it stretched tightly over his emaciated torso in a crude rectangle of flesh. Written there, in little red lines of sliced skin, were the words: “NO FUN IF YOU DON’T HIDE”. Her hand shook and she nearly dropped her candle as she crept into the hallway. Her head swiveled wildly as she looked around herself for signs of the one who had been walking in the hall earlier, but she was alone.

Her footsteps echoed softly in the hall. Liz struggled to remember everything Paul had said about the Midnight Game. She knew that “hiding” meant only two things: that you had to keep moving, and you needed to keep your candle lit. If he found you, you needed to relight your candle quickly, and… that was all. She couldn’t remember anything else. She gripped the candle tightly in her left hand with the matchbox tucked into the space between her fingers. In her right hand she held only a single match that she kept close to the striking edge of the matchbox just in case her candle went out. In this way she began to creep through the silence of the retirement home.

In the light of the candle she could only see a few feet ahead of her. Her imagination ran wild with every step. The appearance of the old man had ruined her sense of reality, and her head spun on her shoulders as she tried to keep watch in every direction at once. She began to hear things at the very edge of her perception like a radio station blurring the chaos of static. The walls seemed to whisper to her. The doors beckoned, inviting her in. The carpet swirled and eddied in a maddening display. Only when she heard the first footstep behind her did she begin to truly panic. She ran, dropping the extra match from her right hand as she sprinted towards the pale light of the connecting hall. The footsteps suddenly changed direction and came from in front of her. She spun only to find that the ever nearing sound of clicking heels seemed to come from whatever direction she faced. In her confusion she tripped and slammed to the ground, burning candle wax dripping onto her hand. She set the candle down on the floor and wiped away the cooling wax. The footsteps grew in volume and number until she had to cover her ears to try and stop the noise.

“Please!” She screamed to no one, “It hurts, please stop!” And suddenly the noises were gone. She looked around frantically to get her bearings but could see nothing beyond the candle’s flickering light. She picked up the candle and was about to begin ‘hiding’ again when Fred stepped out of the darkness. “Oh Jesus!” Liz whispered, “Fred you scared the shit out of me! What are you doing? Have you seen Jennifer?” Fred stepped toward her and reached out to rest his hand upon her shoulder. Liz allowed herself to relax a little for the first time in hours. “I’m sorry; I don’t mean to freak out on you. I’m glad you’re okay. You need to get back to where we came in: Jennifer left candles and matches there. Hey, are you listening?” Fred smiled, put his other hand on her remaining shoulder, and blew out her candle.

Night Games Chapter 11

2012-07-21T09:20:00.001-05:00

Chapter 11...

CHAPTER 11

Earlier…

Hannah jumped as Ann tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey.” She rested her hand on her chest, willing her heart to slow down. “Ann, what is it? You scared the hell out of me.” They stood together in the hall between room B11 and the glass walled connecting hall, their flash light beams merely specks of light in the dark. For the first time since their arrival, Hannah noticed that she could not hear any noise from outside the building. Ann shrugged. “I’d rather be running around in the dark than sitting in that room with-“ Hannah shushed her mid-sentence. She craned her neck, listening intently. “Do you hear that?” Hannah asked.

Ann tilted her head and quieted her breathing. “No, I can’t hear anything but us.” “Right,” Hannah replied, “I can’t hear anything. It’s like they made the whole building soundproof or something. And it’s so dark, I can barely see you.” Ann looked again at the glass panels of the connecting hallway. Her pulse quickened as she watched the light outside flicker like a dying light bulb. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit!” she hissed, “Hannah, tell me you see this.” She grabbed Hannah’s hand and pointed to the short hallway. Since their arrival it had been the only source of natural light within the building. Hannah took a step forward, clicking the “off” button on the flashlight at her side. The bluish hued luminescence coming in through the windows sputtered again. “Are there lights outside? There are lights outside, right?” “No, Hannah, that’s the moon. The moon is flickering, what the hell is going on?!” “Ann, turn off your flashlight.”

“No way! Have you lost your mind?! We won’t be able to see shit!” Ann cried, fear making her voice rise in pitch. “Just turn off your flashlight! Turn it off! If it blacks out completely we can turn them on but right now we need our night vision! Turn it off!” Ann turned off her flashlight with soft but audible “click” and blinked rapidly, feeling the ache of her pupils reacting to the sudden bouts of complete darkness. The flashes of darkness began to speed up slowly, like a film reel, and something began to shift in the blinking shadows at the opposite end of the hallway. A cloud of black smoke began to swim into the sputtering light of the connecting hallway. It jerked and shifted in the air, its smoky tendrils forming themselves into terrifyingly familiar shapes.

Instinct tugged at Hannah’s mind, begging her to run from the horror before her. She slapped blindly at Ann. She could not look away. “We have to go,” Hannah whispered, as much to herself as to Ann. “We have to go, L-Ann we have to go now, now, we have to go! Now!” Her whisper was peppered with a panicked squeak as the black cloud stretched out to form the vague shape of a man. Its “feet” padded noiselessly over the worn carpet as it floated inexorably towards them. It came to the end of the hallway and stopped, bending over in a lurch as if it had vomited, and suddenly it was gone.

The girls stood in utter silence. Too afraid to run, but unable to turn away, they stared at the now empty hallway. Hannah was jerked back to awareness at the sound of a sharp slap. She turned to see Ann rubbing her cheek. “Okay. I’m good, I’m good. This is happening, this isn’t a nightmare. It’s real.” Hannah nodded fervently in agreement, hoping that Ann had a plan. “We should-,” As she spoke, the light in the hallway blinked out once again. “Oh God, no!” Ann whispered, watching as the light winked on and off. The smoke man reappeared at the edge of the hall exactly as it had been when it disappeared. It lurched again, falling onto its vaporous hands and knees. It shook violently in the strobe light of the hallway, its motion seen only in short spurts by the terrified girls. It vomited with a deep-throated gurgle and thick liquid smoke sprayed from its head in all directions, coating the hallway in a viscous layer of darkness that swallowed what little light still filtered in from the moon outside.

Hannah flicked on her flashlight and shined the shaky beam on the shuddering monster in front of her. The light pushed back some of the thick black liquid from its body as though it had been sprayed with water. What was underneath made her gorge rise in her throat. Its body writhed with the distorted images of hundreds of distorted screaming faces, each with their eyes plucked from their skulls. Both girls screamed and ran from the sight, nearly tripping over one another as they tried to escape the thing behind them. They sprinted headlong into the nearest door and slammed it shut behind them.

Hannah jumped from the door to grab a moldy loveseat tipped on its side in the corner of the room. “Ann, move! See if there is anything else we can use!” She heaved her body against the loveseat, her arms shaking with exhaustion, and pushed it in front of the door. Ann frantically checked the room and bathroom for other furniture, but found none. She came back to find Hannah seated on the loveseat with her head in her hands. “It isn’t even chasing us,” she said through her palms, “I can’t hear anything out there. It’s like it didn’t happen.” She sniffed and wiped tears and snot from her face. “Am I going crazy?” she asked, looking at Ann with pleading eyes.

Ann sighed. A sudden calm had stolen over her, and she relaxed on the loveseat next to Hannah. “No. You aren’t going crazy. I saw… it… too. We both saw it. It happened, and we’ll have to deal with it later, but for now we just need to get our shit together and think.” She shifted in her seat, bringing her right leg underneath her and turning to face Hannah. “What time is it?” Hannah shrugged. “No idea. My phone is in the car. I didn’t want it going off during a shoot and messing up the scary mood.” Her face contorted into a grimace and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. Ann hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be okay. Like you said, you can’t hear anything from the hallway. So it isn’t chasing us, and it isn’t going to break down the door and eat us. We’re safe for now.” Hannah pulled away from Ann and smiled, saying, “I know, I just… I know. I’m good. Let’s find a way out of here.”

They stood and brushed the dust from their pants. Hannah looked at Ann and giggled. “What?” Ann asked. Hannah shook her head. “I’m sorry, it looks a little like you’re farting dust, it’s funny.” Ann smirked and wiggled her behind, sending little waves of dust to the floor. Hannah laughed aloud and wiped the last of the tears from her face. They nodded to each other and surveyed the room. Aside from the loveseat with two new rear-shaped prints on the cushions and the two by fours nailed into the frame of the only window, the room was empty. Hannah walked over to the window and pulled on the boards. “Man, these are solid,” she said with a grunt. “You don’t think we’re going to have to just wait here until sunrise, do you?”

Ann sighed. “I don’t know. I’m tired of all this, honestly. I kind of wish he’d just find us and get it over with.” Hannah did a double take. “’He’? You mean that thing we saw? You have to be joking. I’ll pry the boards from the window with my bare hands before I let anything like that touch me.” Ann plopped down in the center of the room, facing the bathroom door with her hands in her lap. “I’m really tired. I just want to sit here until morning.” Hannah stepped into the darkness of the bathroom. “Well I don’t. I don’t want to stay in this building another minute if I –ngh- if I can avoid it!” She said, her voice echoing from the tile shower. “Damn, this window’s nailed shut too.” “Yeah, it’s no use,” Ann said. She lay down on her side as Hannah stepped through the bathroom door. “What are you talking about?” Hannah asked. “Just…” Ann yawned. “Just let him take you. It’s easier, after all. He’s going to find us, just relax and let it happen.” Hannah squinted. In the light that came through the cracks in the boarded up window, she could see that Ann’s nose was bleeding.

Before she could reply, a sound from behind her made her freeze. It was Sean’s voice. “Hannah, just let him find you,” the voice said. As she turned to look a cold hand grasped her ankle. “Oh God, no!” More hands snaked out from the dark, grabbing her thighs, arms, hips, and neck. “Ann, help! Help me!” She gripped the door frame and pulled against the hands, her body lurching forward momentarily, but her fingers soon slipped from the rotting wood. She saw Ann lying motionless on the floor, blood streaming from her nose and mouth, and screamed as she was dragged into the shadow. The door slammed shut in front of her, shaking dust from the edges of the frame. “Try to relax,” Ann said again, tracing shapes in the dust on the floor, “It hurts less when you don’t struggle.” Hannah’s choked screams emanated from the closed door as it rattled in its frame. Ann smiled, rested her head on her hands, and closed her eyes.

Night Games Chapter 10

2012-07-20T11:06:00.001-05:00

I know no one has read any of this but I shall continue until the end of the story anyway!

Click "read more" to read chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Jennifer stopped abruptly and shined her flashlight into the inky shadows behind her. The connecting hall of Sunny Vale Rest Home was eerily lit, the moon shining pale beams of light through the clouds of dust only recently disturbed by the padded soles of their sneakers. “What? What is it?” Fred asked. Jennifer squinted, listening intently. “I don’t know. I thought I heard something.” Fred turned to shine his light behind him, and then back at Jennifer. The situation had finally begun to sink into Fred’s nerves, and he was beginning to fight off a growing sense of panic. “Well? What was it? Was it something random, or what?” “I said I don’t know. It sounded like Hannah, kind of, but she isn’t there.” She spun and shrugged at Fred. “My mind’s playing tricks on me. Let’s get to the kitchen fast.” Fred nodded. “Yeah, good, let’s get going.” He began to walk in the direction of A Hall, but stopped after a few steps when he noticed Jennifer wasn’t following. “Jennifer, come on! Seriously, we really need to do whatever we’re doing in there like A.S.A.P.” Jennifer frowned. “Fred, I know. Listen: I’m going to suggest something now, and you need to trust me. We can’t keep using these flashlights.”

Fred stepped toward her, whispering, “You’re messing with me now. I’m not walking around this place in the fricking dark!” She put a hand on his arm, taking a deep breath. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too, but you heard the story as well as I did. These flashlights are like a death wish. The Midnight Man hates cheaters, and right now we’re cheating by keeping these on. Only candles, remember?” Fred threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Fine! Whatever! Let’s just get on with it!” He flicked off his flashlight and slipped it into his pocket. She took his hand into hers gently. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “it’s just a hunch, but I think it’ll help.”He squeezed, almost hurting her hand with his grip. “It’s okay. Come on.”

They passed from the wan light of the glass paneled hallway into the common area of A Hall and stopped, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Standing hand in hand in the utter blackness, Jennifer felt a strange sense of calm wash over her. Suddenly and inexplicably she felt as though things were going to be all right. A shiver ran down her spine as she thought that it might be because they were playing the game according to the rules now. “Okay I can kind of see,” Fred said, gently tugging on her hand. She followed his lead, her eyes not yet adjusted to the dark. She heard a shuffling in front of her and a strong tug on her hand, and she giggled. “Everything going okay up there?” Fred cleared his throat. “Yeah just damn books everywhere on the floor, be careful.”

They inched through the common area and along the wall leading to the kitchen. Fred kept his right hand on the wall, ripping new gashes into the rotting wallpaper as he went. Jennifer clung to his left hand with both of hers, letting go with one hand ever so often to balance herself as she stumbled over an obstacle. “I can’t see a damn thing,” Fred said, tripping over an overturned chair. “It’s like no light at all gets in here. I mean, I can see light coming from that door at the end of the hall, but I can’t see two feet in front of me.” Jennifer looked at the sealed exit door at the southern end of A Hall. A small rectangle of bluish light filtered through the dirty Plexiglas window and illuminated the area in front of the door. Around this tiny island of light was a sea of matte black that allowed no light to escape.

She nearly bumped into Fred’s back when he stopped walking. “We’re here, come on.” They stepped into the kitchen and Fred groaned. “It’s no better in here! How are we going to find anything like this? We’re fricking blind!” Jennifer let go of his hand and walked carefully forward, her hands outstretched. “Just need to find the cabinets… here we go.” She opened a pair of cabinets underneath a tile counter and reached inside. “Start checking the ones above, I’ll look in these and the drawers.” Fred touched her upper back, patted her head, and found the counter. “Sorry.” “It’s fine just start looking.” Fred chuckled mirthlessly. “Looking, right. Looking with my hands. Oh gross! These things are filled with spider webs!”

Jennifer shut the first pair of cabinets and shuffled on her knees to the second. “Are you more scared of spiders or being found? I- Oh thank God.” Her hand had bumped into a pile of thick cylinders. “Candles! Oh there are matches here, too, awesome!” She handed a small box of matches and a candle to Fred. “Here, light this so I can see what I’m working with here.” He quickly obliged, happy to finally have a way of beating back the dark. The striking match was unusually loud in the kitchen, the sound echoing from its tiled surfaces. He touched the burning wood to the dusty wick and soon a pool of warm, flickering light slowly surrounded them.

Jennifer blinked twice, amazed at how bright the candle light seemed after having had to squint into shadows for so long. She piled the fist-sized candles onto her shirt, using the bottom end as a pouch. She quickly stuffed several boxes of matches into her pockets and finally grabbed a candle for herself. She stood and turned to Fred, counting the candles clacking against each other in her shirt pouch. “Okay, light mine with yours and we can head back to the others.” “Heh, that’s what she- never mind.” Jennifer chuckled, the comfort of the yellow glow making her feel safer than she had in hours. “I’m not sure how that could be what she said, but I’ll give you that one. Considering the circumstances and all.” Fred tipped his candle to the side and lit the candle in Jennifer’s hand, dripping wax onto her finger. “Ow, damn it Fred! That hurts!” “I’m sorry!” Fred said, righting his candle. Jennifer headed for the door, the burning wax on her finger cooling quickly. “It’s really fine, let’s get back.” “Yeah, I- hey, did it get colder in here? It feels like it got colder.”

Jennifer turned back to Fred with a half-formed retort on her lips, something about shrinkage, but as she looked at him the words caught in her throat. Behind Fred, in the flickering light of the candle, stood something her mind couldn’t quite comprehend. It was over two feet taller than Fred, even hunched over as severely as it was. Bandages covered its head all the way around, with odd strands of hair poking through the top of the wrap. Its arms and legs were incredibly long and lean, its elbows nearly on the floor. Its skin was the color of rotting meat, and it was completely nude. One lidless, bloodshot eye was open to the air and the thing stared at Jennifer with incomprehensible intent. Below its open eye was a hole that had been cut into the bandages, but where its mouth should have been there was only a mass of writhing maggots. Jennifer gagged. Fred tilted his head in confusion, apparently unaware of the thing’s presence. “What?”

The thing leaned even closer to Fred. Maggots started to fall onto his shoulder, but he brushed them off nonchalantly. “Jennifer, what’s wrong with you?” the thing raised a single finger to its mouth in a shushing motion. Jennifer stood frozen in terror, unable to run or even warn Fred of the horrible thing towering over him. The thing took its rotting hand from its mouth and as it rested it on Fred’s shoulder, the candle he carried went out. Jennifer screamed, her paralysis broken by the sudden darkness, and sprinted towards the door. She stole a glance back at where Fred stood and, seeing only shadows, ran into the hallway. The silence of the building pressed in all around her. She heard nothing from the room behind her. No struggling, no screaming; nothing.

She dashed across the connecting hall, kicking books out of her path. Her candle flame sputtered in the wind of her panicked run. She nearly leapt into room B11, candles spilling from her shirt. Liz stood in the corner, her gaze transfixed on the open window across the room. Jennifer jumped to her feet and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Where’s Sean?! Where’s Hannah?!” Liz shook her head and her jaw moved up and down, but she couldn’t speak. Her face twisted with grief and fear, and she merely pointed at the window and began sobbing loudly. Jennifer followed Liz’s pointing finger to the window and cursed. She turned back to Liz and slapped her as hard as she could with her free hand. “Liz! Get it together! We have to make it through the night!” She fumbled with her pockets, boxes of matches spilling onto the floor with a faint clacking sound. She shoved a handful into Liz’s palm. “Here are some matches. Take a candle, light it, and go hide,” she instructed, and without another word Jennifer strode off into the darkness.

Night Games Chapter 9

2012-07-19T09:43:00.003-05:00

Chapter Nine after the break - shit has hit the fan, people!

CHAPTER 9

Liz sat next to Paul, stroking his shuddering back in a vain effort to soothe him. Ann had retreated to the opposite corner and sat curled into a ball, biting her fingernails and watching the argument in front of her explode. Sean stood over Jennifer, her face contorted with anger. “What the fuck are you talking about?! None of this is real! Are you in on it? Is that it?” Jennifer stood, bringing her face within inches of Sean’s. “No I’m not fucking in on it! Are you insane?! I’m tired, I’m freaking out and I want to go home! But we can’t! You don’t understand. I saw him. I saw him standing right in front of me!” “No you didn’t! You saw Paul standing in the hallway!” “Hannah.” Jennifer stepped around Sean and grabbed Hannah by the shoulders, shaking her. “Hannah you saw him. You saw him too, I’m not crazy!” Hannah nodded furiously. “Yes, I saw him, I didn’t want to start losing it but I saw him and I was so scared, oh Jesus Christ.”

Sean pulled Jennifer away from Hannah, her face red. “Will you all just stop this?! It’s impossible anyway! We didn’t play the stupid game, we didn’t invite him in, and so he can’t be here!” “Someone cheated,” Jennifer yelled, her hands weaving frantic gesticulations in the cold air, “someone cheated the Midnight Man and now he can’t leave! The rules of the game have changed, God damn it! We need to find candles, matches, and salt, and we have to hide. The kitchen probably has tons of that crap; we just need to get there so that we can hang on until 3:33.” Jennifer grabbed her flashlight from the floor. “I’m going. You all can stay here and hope that he doesn’t come for you but I’m not just going to sit in the dark and piss all over myself for the next two hours.” She pushed past Sean and stomped from the room. Fred shook his head at Sean. “I’m sorry Sean, I’m sorry but- Jennifer! Wait up!” He jogged after her into the dark, his flashlight bobbing.

Sean dropped her arms to her sides with a slap, her frustration turned to astonishment. “This is… ridiculous.” Liz looked up at her. “It’s not that ridiculous. Paul has never done anything like this. Hannah and Jennifer both saw something that scared them and it fits with what he told us about the game. Why is it so hard for you to believe?” “It’s not, I… It’s not that, I don’t think Paul’s a bad person, I just think that this is a joke that got way out of hand. Maybe he’s scared himself too badly; maybe what they saw was just them dealing with being scared by that bullshit story. It just isn’t real, it can’t be.”

Hannah stood suddenly and headed for the door. “Hannah, where are you going?” She bounced on her right foot, maintaining her momentum as she spoke. “I’m going with Jennifer and Fred, I can’t stay here with…” Her eyes flicked to the whimpering form curled up in the corner. “I just can’t stay here.” She trotted off, the sound of her footsteps disappearing almost instantly. Ann leapt to follow her into the hallway without even a look to Sean. Sean bobbed her head, pursing her lips in frustration. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m leaving. I’m taking Paul’s keys, and I’m going to get some food or something while you guys do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

She stepped over and reached into Paul’s pocket, fishing out his keys. “No! Are you crazy? We can’t leave!” Liz exclaimed. Sean stared at her with a furrowed brow. “Are YOU crazy? I’m not staying here! This is ridiculous! I don’t have to deal with this. Here, help me move him.” Liz stared at Sean aghast. “Help me move him or I’m going to drag his dumb ass through the broken plastic.” Liz opened her mouth to reply but the determination in Sean’s eyes made her believe she wasn’t kidding. She ran a hand through Paul’s hair and leaned next to his ear. “Paul, honey, we need to move, okay? We’re just going to sit up and slide over a little so Sean can get through the window, okay?”She asked in a soothing voice. He didn’t respond. “He’s catatonic, Sean. How can you still think he’s faking?” she asked, sliding her arm underneath his side. She lifted him to a sitting position, grunting from his weight. Together they slid him past the jagged bits of plastic littering the floor and leaned him against the wall just below the hole he had made with his fist.

“You make sure he’s all right and then you kick him in the balls for me, okay?” Sean said, smiling for the first time in hours. Liz nodded, her lips teasing into a grin. “Okay, I promise.” Sean slid the table to the right side of the broken window and got on her hands and knees. She began to crawl through the hole in the glass carefully, checking for broken glass they may have missed on the first time through. She rested on her feet for a moment and looked back at Liz, her hands invisible in the darkness outside. “Hey, are you going to want anything from-” She jerked forward violently, her chin smashing into the bottom of the window’s metal frame. “Sean, what’s wrong?! What’s happening?!” Sean set her knees against the small slab of concrete between the floor and the window and heaved her body backward. “Something’s got my hands!” she screamed, blood bubbling from her lips. Liz scrambled over Paul’s inert form. For an instant she swore she heard him laughing. She reached for Sean’s feet and grabbed her ankles, leaning backwards. Sean screamed incoherent pleas for help as Liz pulled with all her might. The thing in the darkness was too strong. It pulled Sean forward with an unwavering strength, Liz’s hands slipping from her sweat slicked skin. Her body slid over tinkling pieces of glass, her hips slamming into the metal frame once more before she disappeared into the darkness completely. Liz backed away from the window, clambering over Paul’s body, and was forced to listen as Sean’s strangled screams faded into the night.

Night Games Chapter 8

2012-07-18T12:29:00.001-05:00

Shit's getting pretty real in Chapter 8, click Read More to find out how.

CHAPTER 8

Hannah and Liz screamed, spinning to shine their flashlights on the bathroom door behind them. Liz dropped Ann’s flashlight in her panic. Ann ran to pick it up, cursing. “Guys. Guys! There’s nothing there! It’s just some crazy old bitch writing on the damn wall, calm down!” They stood there, panting, in the middle of the pitch black room. Suddenly their flashlights seemed less bright in the oppressive dark. “Let’s head back to B11, we’ve done the searching bit. He probably left knowing that we’d all go through this crazy bullshit without even checking to see if the table in front of the window had been moved. So let’s go see. If the table’s been moved, he’s at a Jack in the Box laughing his head off. If not, we’ll search the other rooms.” Liz nodded, being too shaken from the writing on the wall to speak. Hannah was all ready stepping towards the door with tears in her eyes. “Yeah, let’s go. Guys, I… I can’t take any more of this, I need to leave.” Ann lunged toward Hannah and hugged her tightly. “Soon. We’ll get out of here soon, promise. C’mon, let’s go.”

They walked down the moonlit hallway toward B11, flicking their flashlights at every shape they saw in the darkness. “I’m so sick of being here. Why did we think this was a good idea?” Ann asked. “I thought it sounded fun,” Hannah said, “and we haven’t been on a shoot as a big group yet so I figured it was worth any possible creepiness we’d have to deal with.” She stopped at the threshold of room B11, turned, and shrugged, and forced half of a smile. “I’m starting think I miscalculated on that one.” She turned back around and headed into the room. She paused mid-step. “… Paul?”

Liz and Ann looked at each other wide-eyed before stepping into the room. In the far corner of the darkened room, near the broken window they had used to enter the building, Paul stood facing the corner. His hair and shirt were damp with sweat and his hands hung limply at his sides. At his feet was the lantern, the plastic guard now in pieces on the floor as if he had thrown it full force against the wall. Hannah shined her flashlight on a new dent in the drywall and realized that was exactly what had happened. “… Paul? Are you OK?” Liz stepped toward him slowly, sweat beading on her forehead. Her hands trembled with fear. Her mind raced, battling two conflicting ideas: if he was faking, she knew he would jump back and scare her. If he wasn’t…

Her shoes slid on the plastic pieces strewn about the concrete floor, making a soft grinding noise. “Paul, please,” she pleaded, her voice nearly choked with fear. Her shaking hand reached slowly toward his shoulder, fingers twitching in the dusty air. He wasn’t moving. She paused briefly, swallowed, and clamped her hand down on his shoulder. Paul shrieked loudly and spun with frightening speed, slapping away Sean’s hand with one hand and holding his balance against the wall with the other. He back away from her into the corner as far as his body would allow, bringing his arms up to his chest in a feeble protective gesture.

“Oh my God,” Liz whispered, her flashlight illuminating his face. He shied away from the light, bringing his arms up to block the flashlight’s beam. In the moment that she could see his face, she saw that his nose was bleeding. He stared at them through the crook of his elbow with his right eye, wide and red-rimmed. Tears had streamed down his face to make two large tracks down his shirt that ran nearly to his pants. His nosebleed had run down the middle of his shirt in a wide crimson swath. His left hand grasped his temple, his hair hanging limply over his fingers in sweat drenched curls. He slid down the wall with apparent exhaustion. As he hit the cold floor he wrapped his hands around his knees and hid his face. Liz kneeled, her fear forgotten in her sudden concern. “Paul, what happened to you?” Ann stood motionless near the doorway. “He… he has to be messing with us. We have fake blood, it can’t, I mean, what in the hell could have happened to him?!”

Hannah stared, shaking her head slowly side to side. “He must be having some kind of break down. That story, the whole thing, maybe he just scared himself senseless?” Paul raised his head from his arms and looked at the middle distance with bloodshot eyes. “The game,” he whispered, “We weren’t playing the game. We cheated.” Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. “He’s here. He’s here. He can’t leave. No one plays.” Ann turned at the sound of footsteps coming from the hallway. She shined her flashlight down the corridor to see Sean leading Fred and Jennifer. “We found Paul.” The flatness of Ann’s voice made Sean suddenly nervous. She turned into B11 and stopped, her eyebrows raised in confusion at the scene before her. “What the hell is this? Is he still dragging this joke out?” Liz turned to face Sean. “There’s something wrong with him. He’s been crying, and I think he’s been bleeding a lot.”

Paul slammed a fist into the wall behind him, smashing a hole into the rotting drywall. “You all have to play!” he screamed, he voice rising in a guttural crescendo. Snot dribbled down his chin onto the bare concrete. He slid further into the corner and turned to his side, curling up in the fetal position, and rocked back and forth. “You can’t leave,” he said, his voice suddenly emotionless, “No one can leave. You have to hide. You have to play.” He stopped rocking his body and was once again motionless in the glare of six weak flashlight beams. They watched him, hoping that he would tell them it was all a joke; that the Midnight Man wasn’t real. Instead he lay there breathing in short, ragged gasps.

“I know what’s happening,” Jennifer said. She stepped into the room and sat cross legged on the floor, her knees popping as she sat. “It’s the Midnight Man.” She sniffed, fighting back hysterical tears. “He is here, he is real, and we have to play his game if we want to escape this nightmare.”

Night Games Chapter 7

2012-07-17T08:19:00.003-05:00

The shenanigans continue...

CHAPTER 7

Sean watched the three flashlights at the end of the connecting hallway turn off to the right and disappear. She stood with Fred and Jennifer in the common area of the A Hall. They twitched nervously at every sound that came from the darkness, their flashlights bobbing up and down over pieces of broken furniture and the books and magazines that had been strewn over the floor. Jennifer bent to pick up a volume entitled “The Book of Lies” by Aleister Crowley and blew dust from the cover. “Not exactly average sitting room reading material.” The cover jacket was black, and the front depicted a dark yellow sun with an expressionless face drawn in the middle. She set the book down on top of the only standing reading table near the bookcase and looked at the other titles. “’The Necronomicon’ by H.R. Giger, Clive Barker and Stephen King collections, books on occult practices in modern society… Seriously: Why would they have all of these weird books here?” “I don’t know but let’s get this over with,” Fred said, pointing towards the Northern half of Hall A. “I keep feeling like someone is watching me and it’s creeping me all the way out the door.”

They walked slowly, keeping within ten feet of each other at all times. “Let’s do these two rooms first and move down the hall so he can’t slip by us. Jennifer you stay here, and Fred you check out Room A6 over there. I’ll search in A3 here and we’ll move up as a unit.” Fred saluted. “Yes sir! How many clicks do you think before we encounter Charlie?” he laughed. Sean and Jennifer stared at him, their glares piercing the twilight of the open hallway. “Jeez, fine, just trying to lighten the dang mood a little. Jennifer, are you going to be all right alone?” Jennifer nodded once and smiled. “Yeah, I’ll be ok. Just keep talking to me about what you see so I don’t scare myself too badly.” Sean took a deep breath and said, “All right, we ready?” She turned and headed into the door of the room marked “A3” behind her. Paul! We’re coming to get you!”

Sean walked carefully into room A3. The stench of mold and the first stages of decay that permeated the building seemed stronger in here. She held her shirt over her nose with one hand and wielded her flashlight like a loaded gun with the other. In the far corner of the room there was a small bed with a brass frame. It had both a mattress and a box spring, and fresh looking white sheets were tucked neatly into hospital corners at its foot. “Well that’s frickin’ weird.” “Is there anything in there?” Jennifer called from the hallway. Sean turned to reply, “Paul isn’t, but there’s… something…” She took a step towards the bed, flicking her flashlight to the bathroom door to make sure Paul wasn’t waiting to scare her. Satisfied, she bent down and shone the flashlight underneath the bed. In the thick layer of dust on the carpet something was laid flat. “A sketchbook?” she reached into the blackness underneath the bed carefully, keeping her flashlight trained on the bathroom door and looking back every few seconds to check for an ambush. Her hand found purchase on the brittle pad and she dragged it out from underneath. She stood and flipped the top cover over the spine of the pad and her heart skipped a beat. “Oh, wow.”

She stepped into the hallway and saw that Fred had already re-joined Jennifer. Jennifer stared at the pad in Sean’s hands. “What the hell is that?” Sean looked at them both for a moment before answering. “You guys, I’m not really sure what this is. I wanted you to look at it before I jumped to any conclusions. She turned the pad over, revealing the drawing on the first page. It was a charcoal image of a crudely drawn person. It seemed hastily drawn, with its body made mostly of chaotically jagged lines. The artist had poked a pencil through the left side of the head and drawn a large eye on the page underneath. “There are dozens of these. The pad is practically filled with them. Fred was anything like this in your room?” “No nothing creepy like that, although the room is in pretty terrible shape. The carpet’s all slashed up and it looks like somebody punched a bunch of holes in the walls.” “Let’s keep going,” Jennifer said, ”I want to get out of here.” Sean and Fred nodded in approval and they marched on to the next pair of darkened rooms.

On the other side of the building, Ann, Hannah, and Liz were slowly making their way through Hall B room by room, their backs to each other in a phalanx style bid to defend themselves against whatever might be in the darkness of the rest home. It had been Ann’s idea: “I’m not letting that butthole sneak up on me,” she had said. They had searched most of the Northern end of the hall and had only one more room to search before doubling back to check the rooms near B11. As they approached B4, the room furthest to the northeast of the corridor, Liz stopped. Hannah and Ann bumped into her back. “What? What is it?” asked Hannah. Liz shined her flashlight into the room looking for possible hiding places. “I don’t know, I don’t want to go into this room. I don’t know why. It’s worse than the other ones, I can’t put my finger on it.” Ann grunted. “Then let’s turn and I’ll go in first. I’m not even scared anymore, I’m just tired of this crap.” They shuffled their feet and Ann positioned herself in front of their little triangle. “Let’s go. I’ll get the bathroom, you guys check the closet. Ready? Go.” They fanned out into the room, searching every area as quickly as possible. Ann ran into the bathroom, ignoring the smell that emanated from within.

The white sliding closet doors had been pulled from their tracks, and one lay in two pieces on the floor. The closet was empty save for a yellowed pair of socks and dust. “Nothing in here!” Liz called towards the bathroom. Ann ran out of the bathroom as quickly as she had run in, now holding her nose shut with her hand. “Good Lord, it smells like eight people died in there while taking a simultaneous poop. Hey, what’s that?” She shined her flashlight on a wooden dresser that leaned against the far wall. “What, that dresser?” Hannah asked as she and Sean also pointed their flashlights at the dust covered dresser. “No, behind it. There’s something written on the wall behind it. Hold my flashlight.”

She tossed her flashlight to Liz. They watched with a vague sense of fear as she struggled to push the dresser along the moldy carpet, each heave revealing more black writing on the white wall behind it. “Oh Jesus,” Hannah said, her jaw agape. The wall was covered in small drawings of a stick figure person. In between the crude drawings were dozens of words, repeating the phrases “you cheated”, and “I’m sorry” over and over. In the middle of the chaotic rambling was one clear statement, written in all capital letters: “BEHIND YOU”.

Night Games Chapter 6

2012-07-16T07:47:00.000-05:00

Click "Read more" to continue the story with Chapter 6

Language warning, by the way.

CHAPTER 6

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. This is beyond unbelievable.” Sean was pacing in front of the sliding closet doors inside room A7. Each of them had turned on their flashlights and rested in various parts of the room. “He claims innocence, we go through that whole thing, and then he pulls this shit? I can’t believe this!” she slammed a fist against one of the closet doors with a resounding boom. “Sean calm down! What is wrong with you?” Fred asked. “There’s no way he would do this again, something must have happened.” Sean continued to pace with growing irritation. “When, exactly? When is he supposed to have gotten kidnapped? In the five seconds we were all in here? He clearly slipped out while we were looking at Ann and now he’s out there hiding somewhere and giggling to himself at how badly he’s going to scare us.”

Hannah leaned against the peeling paint next to the hall door, her flashlight at her side. “Well he was going on about how he scouted the location thoroughly. He would know exactly where to hide to freak us out.” Hannah saw Jennifer’s eyes shift from her to the open door on her right side. “… Jennifer, what? Is Paul coming back?” She pushed off from the wall and turned to look into the hallway. “C’mon Paul, we’re not scared of y-“Her last word turned into a scream as she fell away from the door, crawling backwards until she hit Fred’s legs. Fred stepped over her to search the hallway. He spun, and, seeing nothing, came back into the room. “Hannah, what?! Why did you scream? There’s nothing out there!” Hannah’s face had drained of color. She turned to Jennifer as if she hadn’t heard Fred speak. “Jennifer,” she said breathlessly, “I saw him.” Jennifer’s eyes were wide with terror. “I saw him too, Jennifer, oh God I saw him too.”

“Who, Paul? You saw him in the hallway?” asked Liz hopefully. Hannah shook her head, still catching her breath. “There’s no way that was him.” “What are you talking about? It’s dark, there’s no way you could tell,” Ann said, pointing her flashlight into the hallway, “It had to be him trying to scare us. It had to be.” Fred kept his flashlight pointed at the hallway door. “I couldn’t find anything. If he was there he’s somehow gained superhuman running powers or something because there was nothing out there.” Sean took Hannah’s hand and helped her to her feet. Hannah wiped some of the dirt and dust from her pants, yelling, “I just know, OK? It wasn’t a person. It was like a shadow of a person but with nothing casting it. It was darker than everything else, I don’t know how, but it was. It was like it sucked in the light from the air around it.”

“That’s exactly what I saw!” Jennifer exclaimed, “What if something really is wrong? We have to find Paul; we can’t leave him alone with that thing running around out there!” Sean sighed. “Fine, if you guys are really going to be taken in by his bullshit, we’ll look for him. I doubt he went very far. He’s probably just in the next room waiting to jump out and yell ‘BOO’ just to be extra retarded. Look, here’s what we’ll do. I don’t feel like going back to where we came in and spending the rest of the night waiting for Paul to stop being a douche. We’ll split into two groups and look for him. It’ll take ten minutes, we’ll find him, kick his ass, and then we can finish the shoot and get out of here. Does that work for everyone?”

“Nope, nope, I vote we just get out of here and call the cops or something. Even if what Jennifer and I saw wasn’t real, what if Paul really is hurt? What if there’s some kind of deranged hobo serial killer or someone in here with us? We should call the police immediately and then figure out what to do.” “Whoa, whoa,” Liz said, “Let’s not get crazy. We’re trespassing here, remember? My parents would kill all of you and then me if we got caught. He’s only been gone for, like, thirty seconds. If he had been attacked, we would have heard something. If he had hurt himself, I guarantee he would’ve been yelling for us the moment it happened. The only thing that makes sense is that he’s pulling this ridiculously elaborate prank on us and we’re falling for it.” Ann kicked a piece of plaster into the bathroom. “I’m with Liz, this is silly. We’re getting all worked up over nothing here! Let’s just do a quick search so he can scare us or whatever and get it over with. I really wanted to get some good shots out of tonight and we still have plenty of time to do that if we stop these shenanigans right now.”

Sean stepped into the middle of the group, her face set with determination. “OK here’s how this works: Ann, Hannah, and Liz, you search B Hall and get back to B11 so you can leave if there is trouble. Fred, Jennifer, and I will check out the rest of A Hall and the Dining Room before we head back to meet you. There’s almost no furniture in the rooms so it shouldn’t be hard to find him. I guarantee he’s just in a closet or something,” she said exasperatedly. She saw the looks of worry on the faces of both Jennifer and Hannah and took a breath, her shoulders relaxing. “He’s fine you guys, I promise. We’ll find him, or he’ll find us, and then we can never, ever, ever listen to another of his shoot ideas ever again. Right?” Hannah nodded, smiling. “Right.” Fred smiled. “Right. Besides, it’s like Liz said. He has to be pranking us. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Night Games Chapter 5

2012-07-15T07:16:00.001-05:00

Chapter 5! Just click "Read More" to read the latest chapter.

CHAPTER 5

A shrill scream pierced the night as darkness enveloped the room. Paul fumbled with the lantern, shaking it with one hand while the other covered his ear. The small bulb inside the lantern flicked back on, illuminating the room once again and revealing Fred as the origin of the scream. He opened his eyes and the scream quickly trailed into silence. “… Sorry.” “Jesus Christ, dude,” Paul said, shaking his head, “is everyone OK?” The group murmured affirmative replies. “I’m sorry, it’s an old lantern and the batteries come loose sometimes. We should probably light a candle in here or something because it could happen again.” “… You actually brought candles?” asked Sean. “No, Sean, I didn’t, alright? I wasn’t really packing for a romantic evening out here in the abandoned rest home,” said Paul sarcastically.

“Whoa, ok, maybe we should cool out a little,” Jennifer said as she crossed the room to squeeze in between Paul and Sean on the floor, “I didn’t mean to scare everyone. I was a little freaked out even before what happened in there, and I probably was just seeing shapes in the dark because Paul’s story was so specific about seeing a man in the darkness. Plus the room was really weirdly lit for the shoot so it was probably just my imagination, OK?” Paul rested his hand on Jennifer’s shoulder, saying, “It’s fine, really. I-““You know what?” Liz interjected, “I think Paul did it. He’s acting just a little too smug right now. Hannah, Sean, are you sure Paul was in there the whole time?”

Hannah looked at the ceiling and squinted. “Hm… actually, you know what? He did leave!” She stood, pointing at Paul. “He left about halfway through to ‘go grab a water’ and came back a few minutes later!” Sean’s jaw dropped in exaggerated surprise. “Oh my God, that’s right, you did leave! What the hell, Paul? This really isn’t cool. We’re already scared just being here. You don’t have to take it to the next level.” “Are you kidding me?” Paul said, his voice growing in volume with each word, “I left to get a bottle of water and while I was out I looked around a little to see how the rooms looked at night. I was here earlier, remember? I was just curious to see if there was a good location I might have missed.” Liz squinted. “Pretty convenient there, bro, and you seem a little too defensive, so… sorry, but I still think you did it. And OK, it was a good scare. Very subtle; but really we’re here to do some work and you can’t be screwing around like that.” Ann stroked her chin with an exaggerated “Hmm, yes, quite subtle. Excellent trolling, 9/10!” Paul stood, incensed. “Guys. I’m not fucking with you here. I didn’t do anything! I’m not that big of a dick! I know how creepy this place is. The only reason I’m ok walking around alone is that I’ve been here a couple of times before so I’ve gotten used to what a goddamn creepfest it is in here. I was not in A hall with y’all. I’m serious.”

“Ehh, it’s gotten a little desperate now,” Ann said, still stroking her chin in faux-contemplation,” I’m lowering my official score to 6/10. Should’ve quit while you were ahead, sir.” Fred stood, saying, “It doesn’t matter! We’re wasting time here. It’s getting late and we still have a lot of stuff to do so why don’t we just agree that Paul will promise to stay with whichever group he goes with the whole time, OK?” He nodded towards Paul. “OK?” “OK! Fine! I solemnly swear to stay within 10 feet of you guys the whole time so I don’t get blamed for any other random crap that goes on.” Jennifer stood, clapping Paul on the shoulder, saying, “Works for me! Besides, if you scare me again I’ll probably just kill you with my ninja dicks.” Hannah laughed so hard that she snorted. “Yeah, don’t mess with Jennifer’s ninja dicks, they come out of nowhere!” The room erupted in laughter, and even Paul couldn’t manage to stifle a giggle.

“All right, all right, Fred is right,” Sean said, standing up, “it is well after midnight and we need to get going on these group shots. Which room are we going to?” Liz grabbed the shot list and scanned it. “Uh… Looks like A7. Is that over by the kitchen thing? That part of the hall’s even creepier than the one we were in,” she said, laughing nervously. “We should check out B5, actually,” Paul said, “part of the closet wall was torn off for some reason and it looks really post-apocalyptic.” Sean set down her water. “Well I think we should stick to what we’ve already decided on, just to keep things nice and simple and avoid a bunch of location switches and stuff.” Paul shrugged. “Fine, no worries. Let’s get going.”

They gathered their fake blood and camera bags and filed out of B11. Spirits were high after having debunked Jennifer’s sighting and the group chatted and giggled as they walked. Liz and Sean hung to the rear of the group while Fred and Paul went first at their own insistence. “So what was all that about?” asked Liz. Sean looked at her quizzically, “What was what about?” “That little thing with Paul about going to see that other room. You seemed kind of pissed off.” Sean shrugged and looked out of the glass walls that lined the hallway connecting A and B halls. “I don’t know, I’m just frustrated. It seems like we act very professional we we’re planning things like this but then when we actually get there we turn into a bunch of high school kids. I’m mad at him for scaring Jennifer like that. I guess it came out a little when I said that. Sorry, did I make things awkward?” “Oh no, not at all!” Liz said, her eyes wide,” I just thought it was a little harsh so I figured I’d make sure everything was OK.” Sean stepped over a pile of books as they passed through the A hall open reading area. “No, no, everything’s fine. I was just a little irritated, that’s all. Thanks for checking on me, hon.” They hugged briefly and entered room A7 behind the rest of the group.

“Wow this room is badass! Have you seen in here?” Ann asked from the ruined bathroom. Tiles had been broken off in many places and pieces of plaster littered the carpet in front of the empty door frame. She entered the main room again with a smile, shaking plaster dust from her hair. “This is going to look so awesome, I’m so excited you guys! Hey…” Her smile faded slightly as she looked at the rest of the group. “… Where’s Paul?”

Night Games Chapter 4

2012-07-14T09:02:00.004-05:00

The story continues after the break with Chapter 4!

CHAPTER 4

“Can we break into these sandwiches or what? I’m frickin’ starving.” Fred was perched on a creaking wooden stool he had dragged into the room through which they had entered the building from the hallway. He eyed the cooler in the corner like a puppy looking at a treat. “Just wait a sec, everyone else will be here in a little bit,” Ann said. She leaned into the dark hallway, her hands gripping the door frame. “Hey guys! If you don’t hurry up I’m going to start farting on these sandwiches!” Liz stifled a giggle with a snort and pretended to cough into her hand. Paul’s voice carried from the other room, “Keep your pants on, sugar snacks! We’ll be there in a sec.” Fred scrunched his face up at the sound, “You know, it’s weird, it sounds like he’s really far away but he’s, like, right there.”

“Right where?” Paul said, leading Hannah and Sean into the sparsely lit room. It was no different from any of the other rooms in the building but for some reason he felt more at home here. He felt safer. “Oh, I was just saying it sounded like you guys were really far away even though you were just in the other room. Isn’t that weird?” “Yeah, actually that is weird. I noticed it when we first split up. Once y’all had left the room it was like you’d disappeared.” Paul squatted near the cooler and opened it to make sure they had enough food for everyone. Seeing seven individually wrapped sandwiches, he nodded and started handing them out. “I figure we might as well eat now before we get entangled in another shoot.”He tossed a sandwich into Jennifer’s lap and she stayed stock still. “Hey Jennifer, are you OK? I didn’t mean to freak you out earlier. I was just bein’ a dick.” Jennifer looked at him blankly. Sean stepped over to grab a sandwich from the cooler. “Right Paul, as if you freaked anyone out with that blatant creepy pasta.”

Paul’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you? That really happened. I swear to God.” “You don’t even believe in God,” Sean said through a mouthful of turkey, lettuce, and bread. “Paul sat down on the bare concrete floor and twisted the cap off of a bottle of water. “Fair enough: I swear on my mother’s life that I wasn’t making that up. And anyway this isn’t about me, I was seeing if Jennifer was OK.” Everyone turned from Paul to look at Jennifer, who was still staring blankly at the wall behind Paul. Liz reached over to touch her on the shoulder, saying, “… Jennifer?” She lightly touched Jennifer’s shoulder and Jennifer flinched, recoiling from Liz’s hand. “Yeah, oh… Um, yeah I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head, “I just think, I don’t know, something kind of freaked me out earlier.” Ann and Hannah exchanged glances. “What freaked you out?” asked Liz. “Well, I’ll start by asking this: Paul, was it you?”

Paul swallowed a bite of sandwich and asked, “Was what me?” “Paul, I’m not fucking around here. I’ll ask one last time: was it you?” Paul raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Jennifer I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was with Hannah and Sean the whole shoot.” She analyzed his face for a moment. “Jesus Christ. OK. Well,” she said, looking at Fred, Liz, and Ann, “I didn’t want to tell you guys at the time because I assumed it was Paul pulling a prank, but…” She looked at Paul again, this time with desperation on her face. “I saw someone outside of the room we were using. Room B4, right?” Fred nodded. “I saw him, or it, whatever, just… standing there in the dark. I could only see their outline but I swear to God I saw someone standing in the hallway looking at me.” “How could you tell they were looking at you if it was so dark?” asked Fred. Jennifer shrugged, “I don’t know, I could just tell. I knew it was looking at me. Watching me; watching us. I looked away for a second, and it was gone. I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you guys.”

No one moved for several moments after she finished speaking. They looked at one another in wide eyed silence. Sean stepped carefully away from the door and slid down the wall next to Paul. They looked at each other in the wan light. “Paul, are you sure there’s no one here?” He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak the light from the lantern flickered once. Every head in the room spun to stare at their only light source as it sputtered again before plunging the room into utter darkness.

Night Games Pt. 5

2012-07-13T18:40:00.001-05:00

Obviously these are very short "chapters" so none of these updates will be very long.

Chapter's after the break this time because I don't want to keep cluttering up the front page!

CHAPTER 3

Sunny Vale Rest Home had been a retirement community for over twenty years before its closure. In 2008 the company closed its doors for undisclosed reasons. The very few who cared to inquire as the nature of the business' failure received differing stories. The official explanation was that when the original founder, James Mayweather, died in the front office in 2006, his children began the process of selling the business.

At the time Denton Regional and other area hospitals had begun venturing into the retirement community sector with the bountiful land surrounding their compounds, so it wasn't that hard to sell the company name. The odd part of the story is that they never reopened. Theories flitted around that the hospital considered it too expensive to convert the facility to their new technologies and decided it would be cheaper in the long run to build their own closer to the hospital itself.

The buildings' position within Denton rendered it unsuitable for retail or apartment housing and the city was already lousy with both. With the new facilities opening up near the highway no one found it a reasonable investment to open a new Home. So the building remained, left behind like so many of its former occupants. The building had two wings and rested quietly in a copse with trees bordering the back and sides of the property. Its sideways H layout made it an ideal place to use for a guerrilla shoot as any lights used in the east wing would be nearly impossible to see from the road, and the trees would block the noise from reaching the ears inside the small houses nearby.

Each of the two wings was a continuous long hallway with sixteen rooms each. In the middle there was a connecting hallway with glass paneled walls to let the light in during the day. On either side of the middle hall were sitting areas with bookshelves still full of yellowing romance novels and stacks of periodicals no one had found valuable enough to steal. In the years following the closing of its doors the plant life had taken a personal mission in attempting to engulf the structure. The vines and tall grass between it and the trees were now more reminiscent of unsettled woodland than the carefully managed lawn it had once been.

It was a perfect suburban hideaway; a fact that made some people in the group nervous.

"Seriously though, what if something does happen? Like, what if a homeless guy tries to come in or something?" Hannah asked, lights in hand. The first group had set out to find a suitably creepy room for a simple set of zombie shots. They had found that each room was equally unnerving as the one before, and settled on one just a few doors down from their initial point of entry.

In the amber twilight of the lighting set up Paul couldn't help but notice how little the interior of the building seemed affected by nature compared to the jungle outside. "You know, this place is actually in great shape. They must have taken good care of it before it closed down." Hannah set the lamp down so hard he thought it might break in half. "Are you even listening to me? I'm not freaking out over nothing. It's a legitimate concern."

Sean popped her head in, eyebrows raised. "Everything okay in here?" "Yeah, we're fine," Paul said, "I was just about to tell Hannah not to worry because I was here earlier today and I couldn't see that anyone had been here in a while. There's only one way in or out that isn't boarded up and we've put a table in front of it so no worries! We can easily get out and no one should be able to get in unless they're extremely determined. And in that case we would definitely hear it in time to get everyone together."

Hannah dropped her hands at her sides. "I know, I'm sorry. It's just freaky in here. I'm getting kind of stressed." Sean threw her arms around Paul and Hannah. "Group hug. I demand it. Like Paul said, we're pretty safe. Besides that we have two big scary men on our side, right?" Paul ducked under Sean's arm. "Hey I'm not... THAT... scary. Am I?" The girls shared a look before bursting into laughter. "What? What!? Oh whatever."

A thump on the door frame made their hearts skip a simultaneous beat. They turned to see Liz leaning limply against the hallway wall, her head hanging loosely at her shoulders. Her face was above the small aura of light from the lamp and something thick was dripping from her chin. "Hey guys check it out, don't I look awesome? Totally zombified. Jennifer is a genius. Also could you keep it down a bit? It's really creepy to hear laughter from the other hallway. It's weird because I know it's just you guys but from there it just sounds... off." Paul realized he had balled his hands into fists and unclenched them. "Yeah no problem. Do the same for us, yeah?" "No promises," she said with a wink, "but we'll try! Whooop!" She pushed from the frame but kept her arms straight before turning with a flourish to rejoin the other group.

"How is she having this much fun? This place is a creep fest." Hannah said. "I don't know but let's try to follow the example, eh?" Sean poked Paul in the ribs. "What's wrong? No more smiles for us, Mr. Morale?" "Sorry, yeah. It's nothing. It's nothing." He waved his hand dismissively, but for the rest of their time in the room Paul rarely took his eyes off of the door.