October 30th, 2016
8:34 PM
His twitter timeline was full of Antisepticeye. Most of the tweets that had been sent Jack's way were about "him;" when "he" would appear, what "he" was going to do next. They questioned what Jack had planned for the next day, the day he had been counting down to.
The real answer was nothing. Jack had nothing planned for October 31st. In fact, he doesn't even want it to happen.
Jack continued scrolling through his feed, but the more Anti posts he saw, the more upset he got. Finally, with a sigh, he closed the app and placed the phone on the couch cushion next to him. He leaned his head back against the edge of the sofa, and stared up at the ceiling.
It was a few minutes before he heard the sound of suitcase wheels rolling down the hallway. Jack looked up as Signe walked into the room, a small bag behind her.
"Hey, Seán, I'm gonna head out," his girlfriend said, letting go of the suitcase handle and walking over to him. She leaned over the couch and planted a small kiss on his forehead. "I have a train to catch."
Signe was heading out to visit her friend in a nearby city, whose birthday was on Halloween. Her trip was a last minute thing that had only been planned the day before.
She kissed his forehead again, and Jack gave a small chuckle. Then he sighed again. "Do you have to go?"
Signe leaned more on the back of the couch, her elbows on either side of Jack's head. She gave him a small smile. "I promised," she said, "Are you sure you don't want to come? I'm sure everyone would love to see you."
"I don't feel well," Jack replied, repeating the same excuse he has been using for the last week for his odd behavior. "I'm really tired. I just don't feel up to going."
"Fair enough," Signe said, standing up straight and heading back to her suitcase. Jack rolled over on the couch, shifting his position so he could see her.
He took in everything about her; the way her brown hair fell over the shoulders, the way she always pushed her glasses high up on her nose. He analyzed the way her clothes clung to her body, the way she tucks her hair behind her ears whenever it gets in the way as she gathered up her things. Signe swung one of her bags over her shoulder and started heading towards the door, fumbling with her keys in one hand.
When she looked back at him, Jack stared into her blue eyes from across the room as if he'd never see them again. Signe smiled.
"Goodbye, you doof," she said with a grin, opening the door.
"I love you," Jack said seriously, in a much more somber tone than he meant for it to be.
Signe stopped, looking back, slightly surprised. "I love you, too." She stared at him, as if analyzing him. "You sure you're alright?"
Jack forced a smile, praying it looked normal. "Why wouldn't I be? Have a great trip."
Signe gave him one last strange look, said a final goodbye, and was gone. The door closed behind her, and he heard the lock click.
He was alone.
Jack sat in silence for another few minutes, his eyes on his cellphone on the couch next to him. He knew that if he opened it up, there would just be more and more Anti posts on his Twitter timeline, and more all over his other social media.
He put a hand on his forehead. How did this happen? He wondered.
There has been something wrong with his social medias for almost a month now. Tweets that he had nothing to do with would be posted on his account in this weird ass text, and changes would be made to his profile pictures and bios on everything. He wasn't doing it, and once they were up, he could not change them back or delete anything that had been written. It's like the sites wouldn't allow him to.
There was something else wrong with the sites. It was like he was being moderated. He couldn't tweet anything related to telling everyone he wasn't tweeting those things. He'd try to tweet it, but then it would just disappear, as if he never wrote it. But if he tweeted something normal, like a silly response to a viewer, it would post.
And his videos… someone was messing with his videos somehow. He knew it wasn't his editor, Robin, because Jack had repeatedly watched the completed videos after they were edited and before they were posted to his channel. They were fine then, but as soon as they went online, there would be… glitches…
Jack would see split seconds of himself looking like he was in pain, bloody, and insane, eyes wild, and his mouth wide open in silent screams throughout the videos. Every time he saw them, it would send shivers down his spine, and he had no idea how those disturbing clips had gotten there. And once the videos were up, he could not take them down.
All of these weird occurrences over the last several weeks have left Jack filled with this awful sort of dread that he couldn't describe. And he knew he couldn't talk to anyone about it; Robin and Signe assumed that Jack put those strange clips in himself, and even though Jack had tried to convince them that they weren't his doing, they didn't believe him. Despite not believing him, Robin did checks in his editing software and in Jack's social medias, but he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.
There was nothing that could explain what the hell was going on.
Jack rubbed his eyes tiredly as a yawn forced its way up his throat. He glanced at the clock on the wall above the TV. It was just after 9 at night. Jack must have gotten lost in his thoughts, because Signe left half an hour ago.
A little less than three hours until Halloween, he thought. Great.
Whoever was messing with his videos and social medias have put an emphasis on the 31st, as if they were planning something. The descriptions of his affected videos, as well as his random tweets, have been counting down the days until Halloween, which just made Jack want to skip the day all together.
However, despite whatever was happening, Jack couldn't just skip making videos for the day. He's always been very proud of his consistency with YouTube. He already had gaming videos recorded in advance, but he knew he had to do something special for the day.
With a sigh, Jack pulled himself off the couch. He wobbled slightly, because at some point, his right leg had fallen asleep. Shaking his head, he began walking down the hall, flicking off the light as he left the room.
A few seconds later, he was in his recording room, which looked exactly as he left it. The standing desk was in one corner, holding two monitors, a camera and a keyboard, with a mess of wires dangling underneath it. His bookshelf next to the door held tons of collectibles from various video games, as well as some of the coolest gifts he'd received from viewers at conventions. They always made him smile.
In the opposite corner was a small table, on which was a framed photo of himself and Signe from the year before. It was a selfie that Jack took, in which he was standing holding a carved pumpkin in one arm. His other arm went out of frame, since he was holding the camera in one hand. Signe was standing behind him, her arms thrown around his neck and her hair up in a messy bun. She was so pretty. The two of them had huge smiles on their faces, both of which suggested they didn't have a care in the world. It was his favorite picture of the two of them of all time, so much that he had it framed. He never shared it with any of his viewers; this was one of those special photos that he kept to himself.
Jack smiled, picking up the picture and scanning their faces, a warm feeling growing in his chest as he examined Signe's beautiful face. Even after more than two years together, he still looked at her like a teenager with a crush.
Eventually, his eyes fell on the pumpkin that he had been cradling in one arm. It had what was supposed to be a scary face, but it had turned out a bit cliche, not that he really cared. He had carved it for a Halloween video that year. The memory of that video gave him a solution for his problem. He and Signe did just buy a couple Halloween pumpkins a few days before, and the bigger one was sitting outside on the front step, untouched and uncarved.
10:12 PM
Jack paced around his kitchen, eyeing his setup. He had nearly finished preparing for the pumpkin carving video; the uncarved pumpkin rested on the kitchen table, surrounded by an assortment of carving knives and spoons. He had dragged his huge, professional lights for his let's plays downstairs, and they shined a bright light on the wooden table.
He already had his camera set up and was about to start filming when he suddenly remembered something he had hated about last year's video. The echo.
"Shit," Jack mumbled, hearing his curse reverberate slightly in the empty room. It wasn't too noticeable now, nor was it super obvious in last years video unless someone was looking for it, but he knew it would bother him endlessly.
He looked around the room, peering through the kitchen door which lead to the living room. In front of the couch near the stairs laid a dark black coffee table. Jack closed his eyes and sighed, leaning against the wall slightly. He really didn't have the energy for this.
"Fuck it," he murmured, reaching down and pulling the plug on one of the lights. It went out immediately.
10:38 PM
It had taken him way longer than he had originally thought to drag the dark table upstairs. The legs had gotten caught on every single step, catching the toe of his shoes every couple minutes. As he dragged it through the door of his recording room, it became stuck in the doorway. He pulled hard on it, and it came through, leaving indents in the carpet as the table was dragged across it.
Jack suddenly grunted in pain as a burning sensation manifested in his side. He swore quietly, putting one hand on the affected area, and leaning on the table with the other, his fingers imprinting themselves on the polished surface. Hunching over slightly, Jack tried to take deep breaths as his side burned on.
"What the-" With a small gasp, the pain disappeared as quickly as it started, and Jack stood up straight. He blinked a couple times, looking around the room in slight confusion. "What the fuck was that?" he mumbled to himself. His eyes fell on the door handle and he furrowed his eyebrows. Did he hit his side on the door handle?
He brushed it off as that, despite the fact that he wasn't anywhere near the door when it started.
Jack finished moving the table into position in his room and retreated downstairs to collect the rest of the supplies. The lights were much easier to move than the table had been; it took a couple trips to move them and the camera back into his recording room. After putting them into place, he returned to the kitchen, where the pumpkin and carving supplies sat waiting on the wooden table.
He scooped up the pumpkin in his arms, as well as a large spoon that was next to it and hurried up the stairs, the cold surface of the fruit attempting and failing to slip from his grasp. He placed it on the black table of his recording room and ran back downstairs, passing the clock on the wall, which told him it was a little more than an hour until midnight. Until the thirty-first.
As he stepped into the kitchen, he felt a small shiver run up his spine, stopping him dead in his tracks. His vision became slightly blurry around the edges, and his eyes couldn't focus on anything. The outline of every object in the room became fuzzy, with the exception of one thing.
The only thing he was able to focus on clearly was a carving knife that was resting on the table. The blade glimmered slightly in the kitchen's lamplights as it laid untouched on the wooden surface. Jack's hand tingled, his fingers starting to twitch, as if imagining holding the hilt of the blade within them. The spoon he hadn't realized he had still been holding slipped from his grasp and clattered on the floor.
As he continued to stare at the carving knife, the hairs on his neck suddenly stood on end. Then he heard something. He wasn't sure what. Depending on how he listened, it either sounded like ringing, or high pitched laughter.
And as swiftly as it had started, it stopped. He blinked and his vision returned to normal so quickly his head spinned.
"What the-" Jack whispered. An uneasy feeling rose in his stomach as he looked around the room. He felt like he was being watched. His eyes scanned his surroundings quickly as he retrieved the spoon from the floor and gathered the knives from the table, scurrying out of the room as fast and noiselessly as possible.
11:03 PM
Right after he finished setting up the table and supplies for the video, Jack's phone rang. His obnoxious ringtone scared the crap out of him in his heightened state of anxiety, his heart racing as he fumbled for his cellphone.
Signe's smiling face from her contact photo peered back at him, the nickname "Woosher" popping up at the top of the screen. Jack slid his thumb across the screen to answer the call and put the phone to his ear.
"Hey, Signe! How's the train ride going?" He asked, forcing any nervousness he had out of his voice.
"Not good, Seán," she replied, speaking loudly over the loud noise of conversation in the background. "My train's really late. They're saying it's not gonna be here for another several hours at least."
"Wait, you're still at the station?" Jack asked, glancing at the clock. It's been hours since her train was supposed to have left.
"Yeah," Signe replied. "The people at the help station said that there was a crash somewhere along the track and it's holding practically every train up."
She was silent for a moment. Jack imagined her pacing back and forth in front of her suitcases, a hand on the back of her head as she was deep in thought. After a couple seconds of listening to the chatter of passersby, she said, "I'm thinking of just saying 'Fuck it' and coming home."
The idea of Signe coming home made Jack's heart flutter with relief. There was no mirror in the room, but he was sure it showed on his face, too.
"Would your friend be okay with that?"
He imagined her shrugging as she said, "I think she'll be okay if I don't want to hang out in a crowded train station for hours waiting for a train that may or may not even come." Signe's never been very good with being patient, so there's no way her friend would hold this against her.
"So you're coming home?"
"Looks like it," Signe replied. "I just gotta go cancel my ticket and I'll catch a taxi back. I'll probably be home in about an hour or so, maybe a little less."
Jack smiled. "Sounds good," he said. "I'm just making a video. I should be done by the time you get here. Maybe we could watch a movie or something?"
"I like the way you think," Signe replied. He could hear the smile in her voice. "See you soon!"
"Bye," Jack whispered as she hung up. He locked his phone and leaned against the table, inexplicable relief filling him. Something about having her home alleviated some of his nerves about whatever happened a little while ago.
He stood there for a couple minutes, just lost in thought. After finally shaking his head, Jack started moving to do last checks for making the video. When the clock on the wall read 11:24, he was finally ready to press record.
With the red light blinking on the camera, Jack plopped himself down in the chair behind the table. Taking a deep breath, he tried to shake off some of his inexplicable anxiety-He had to be happy and energetic for the video. Besides, there was nothing wrong; whatever was happening earlier, as well as the social media stuff was probably not a big deal. He wouldn't let it interfere with his Jacksepticeye personality.
Jack high-fived the air, making the 'woosh' sound effect and screamed his intro.
11:29 PM
Jack let himself relax as he rambled about the carving a pumpkin plan for the camera. As he drew a silly face on the front side of the pumpkin, he pretended like he had planned the pumpkin carving video, rather than it being a last minute thing.
He had his hand on the side of the fruit as he drew the eyes, the white board marker squeaking slightly on its bumpy surface. The pumpkin was still cold from being outside, and now it was damp, because he had to wipe off his original face design.
"Okay, I think that'll be a good one," Jack said, putting down the white board marker and rotating the pumpkin, "If we do this, right?"
He glanced up at the viewfinder of the camera, in which he saw himself grasping the pumpkin. He had gone with a sillier design than last year; the marker on the pumpkin showed wide eyes and a large, lopsided goofy grin. Seeing the pumpkin in a different light, Jack's face split into a smile, dissolving into giggles.
"Yeah!" He exclaimed to the camera, "I think that'll be cool. Uh… Oh, God…" He blanked for a moment on what to do next, before suddenly remembering. "Also," he announced, reaching for something on the floor next to the table, "you'll need a bag to throw all your shit into." He lifted the trash bag to demonstrate, and then looked at the camera sharply.
"No, don't throw yourself in there," Jack pointed at the camera accusingly, "I know you think you're a piece of shit, but you're not, you're beautiful."
The red light on the camera blinked on as Jack wrapped his fingers around the handles of the carving knives, which had rested on top of each other to the side of the pumpkin. Taking one in each hand, he grinned at the camera, and introduced his knives, which he had named "biggie" and "smallie." After doing a rather poor Crocodile Dundee impersonation, he placed "smallie" back on the table and bent over his pumpkin.
"God," he murmured, bouncing the knife in his hand. "This is gonna get dangerous." He suppressed a giggle. Positioning the tip of the knife over the stem of the pumpkin, Jack said, "Right, what you're gonna-"
A strange noise made the hairs on the back of his next stand on end. Jack trailed off his sentence, completely forgetting that he had been speaking as his eyes darted around the room. His chest tightened with nerves as he set "biggie" down on the table.
"What the fuck was that?" he murmured, his voice breaking the silence in the empty room. His eyes scanned every object around him, trying to find the source of the noise. But now, the room was eerily silent.
Jack nervously clenched his fist as he got to his feet. His ears were so focused on picking up every little sound that the squeaking of his door as he opened it made him flinch. He stuck his head in the hallway.
"Hello?" he whispered, trying to keep the unease out of his voice. The word creepily hung in the air, bouncing off the walls of the darkened hallway. Jack didn't remember turning out the light. A chill traveled down his spine as he slowly closed the door and walked back to his seat, nervously scratching his arm.
"That was weird," he said to the camera as he sat down. He whispered to himself, "what the fuck was that?" and picked up "biggie" once more. The sharpness of the knife caught his eye. Running his finger along the edge, Jack took some comfort in the thought that if someone was here who wasn't supposed to be, at least he'd have something to defend himself with.
Shaking it off, Jack returned to carving the pumpkin (which he'd named Gerald). He rambled to the camera as he worked, continually trying to calm his nerves. With some effort, he managed to carve around the stem and pop it out into his hand, so that his pumpkin officially had a removable top.
"And then," he announced, "we see the brains…" He slowly eased the lid of the pumpkin out of its hole, grimacing at the pulp and seeds that trailed down from it. Jack made some silly retching noises, making himself giggle. "Oh, it's so gross."
With the top off the pumpkin, it made way for a terrible odor to leak from the fruit and into Jack's room. He made a face. "Ugh! It stinks!" He paused for a moment. "I mean, of course it fucking stinks," he said to himself while reaching for the bag, "It's an open pumpkin in your room. But, shut up, that's why."
He took "biggie" and starting cutting the pulp and seeds from the lid of the pumpkin. He glanced at the fruit sitting on the table. "I'm chopping off your brains, Gerald," he informed the fruit. "Hope you don't mind. You cool with that?" He glanced at the pumpkin again. "Blink once for yes, twice for yes."
The pumpkin did not blink.
"You didn't blink at all, does that mean no? Shit," he laughed. "I didn't think that through."
Jack finished shaving the lid of the pumpkin, then laid it stem-down onto the table. Then, without warning, his stomach did a flip. He groaned and placed a hand on his abdomen. The stench of the pumpkin was becoming rancid.
"Ugh." Jack looked at the camera. "The smell of this isn't making me feel well."
As fast as it had started, his stomach ache went away. However, Jack didn't get a chance to register this before a warm, wet liquid started running into his mouth over the top of his lip. His hand instinctively went up to his lip, and his fingers came back covered in red.
Blood.
"Oh my god." Jack cursed, scrambling out of his chair. Tilting his head forward to stop the blood from leaking into his throat, he quickly stumbled out of his recording room and down the dark hallway to the bathroom. The nosebleed quickly became worse, his hand soon covered in a thin layer of blood.
"Shit," he cursed, flipping the lightswitch on with his clean hand. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw that his whole face from his nose to his chin was now covered in red. He reached for a face cloth in the bathroom drawer.
"What the hell?"
The nosebleed did not stop for several minutes, and in that time, he'd managed to turn the white face cloth a shade of dark red. Jack took a deep breath, trying to slow his racing heart as he started washing his face. The ruined towel lay discarded in the trash bin near the toilet; he wasn't even going to attempt to wash it, it was so badly stained.
As the red started to disappear from his face, Jack tried to calm himself down with great difficulty. He never got nosebleeds. Ever. In fact, he couldn't remember a time in his life had one, let alone one this bad.
He looked at himself in the mirror and examined the damage. Most of the blood had gone from his face, yet some of his mustache was stained red. Jack had a feeling the discoloration wouldn't go away for a while. Nevertheless, he decided it was good enough. Still trying to calm himself, he left the bathroom, grabbing a tissue from the shelf on the way out.
He dabbed at his mustache as he walked into the recording room. He closed the door and, remembering the strange noises he had heard earlier, locked it. Just in case.
Stuffing the tissue into his pocket, Jack started rambling to the camera, brushing off the nosebleed as a coincidence, even though he knew he would just edit the incident out later. Glancing at the clock on the other side of the room, Jack barely registered that it was about fifteen minutes to midnight.
"Okay," Jack said, collecting his thoughts. "Where's that spoon I threw on the ground?"
He spent a couple minutes rambling as he emptied Gerald of the pulp and seed. He hid behind a mask of jokes and laughter to hide his unease, and his hands were quickly drenched in the sticky pumpkin juice as he worked, as was the spoon he was using.
He finished his work with the spoon and placed it back on the table, reaching for the trash bag.
Suddenly, his eyes started filling with water, and he started blinking rapidly. One of his eyes started twitching uncomfortably and he winced.
"Oh, god," Jack mumbled, trying to focus on the task at hand. "Now my eye is twitching." He rubbed it with the back of his wrist as he tried to get a good grip on the trash bag. "What the fuck…"
Luckily, it went away.
He awkwardly emptied out Gerald's head into the trash bag on his lap. He made a few jokes about pumpkin-fucking and almost dumped all of Gerald's brain onto the carpet. Jack laughed at himself and felt some of the anxiety from the nosebleed incident leave him as he finished relieving Gerald of his insides.
"So there," Jack said as he finished the work. "The pumpkin is all…"
Suddenly, his neck spasmed, making Jack completely lose his train of thought. His head jerked to the side uncontrollably, as if someone had seized him and was dragging him away by his throat. Jack cried out in surprise, and his heart raced. He started to scream when…
It stopped.
Jack placed a hand to his throat as his muscles twitched slightly before relaxing completely. It was suddenly as if nothing ever happened.
"Ow…" He groaned, rubbing his neck. What the fuck was going on?
He could come up with no logical explanation. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to dismiss that as a random muscle spasm and tried to continue with the video, his chest once again tight with anxiety.
It's just a weird night, he told himself. Relax, it's just a weird night…
"The pumpkin's all cleaned out," he told the camera, once again ducking behind his Jacksepticeye persona. He did his best to appear calm, but he knew that his laughs were beginning to sound more nervous than cheerful.
Jack retired "biggie" to the table and began to use it's sibling to work on carving the pumpkin. He did his best to follow the lines he drew, carefully easing the blade in and out of the fruit.
"Ack!" He cried out, as a sudden pain erupted on his arm. Clutching his elbow, he thought for a moment that something else weird was happening, but started as soon as he saw the logical explanation. "I drifted my arm over the candle!" He started laughing again. "I'm so stupid!"
He continued laughing for a moment, not only because he burned himself, but because he put himself so on edge that he had nearly panicked. He collected himself and gripped the handle of the blade.
He needed to calm down. Whatever weirdness was going on before, with the nosebleed and the muscle spasms was all coincidental. Hell, they may have been symptoms of the stress from someone hacking his account and videos. There was nothing wrong with him. No one was in his house, Signe was coming home soon. He needed to relax.
He glanced at the clock as he worked and noticed that it was about nine minutes to midnight. It was getting late. He should finish up soon if he wanted to watch that movie with Signe when she got home.
His nerves started to leave him, as he successfully carved out one of Gerald's eyes. The piece of pumpkin popped right out, startling him slightly, and Jack happily picked it up from the table. "His eye popped out!" He laughed, examining it in his hands. "That was cool!"
"Um," he murmured, gathering his thoughts. He picked up "smallie" from the table. "I'm gonna shave the ends of you off," he said, getting to work on the eye. "Not too much, though… if we shave too much off, then it's not gonna fit back in the hole." He reached over the pumpkin. "Are you gonna fit back in?" He asked as it slipped back into the hole where it came from.
Then he realized his silly mistake. He looked at the camera, unable to believe how stupid he is.
"You don't need to fit back into the hole," he said, popping it out again. "I'm cleaning this for no fucking reason, and now my table is all messy! Goddamn it!" He dumped the remains of Gerald's eye into the bag. "You just leave this one empty! Ugh, if I use my brain… See, I have about as much brain as Gerald does right now…"
Jack carved along the lines and popped the second eye out, stifling a sneeze as he did so. He laughed at himself as he gathered the remains of Gerald's other eye and dumped it in the bag. "Two eyes out!" He announced.
Several thumping noises made Jack's laughter die in his throat. The intense feeling of unease began to return once more.
Was someone in the apartment? He sat in his chair, frozen, as the thumping continued. He nervously looked at the camera.
"I swear to god I'm hearing something."
The thumping continued, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. What the fuck was going on? The thought that Signe was home flashed through his mind, but he couldn't imagine why she would be making all that noise.
"That is fucking freaking me out," he said, getting to his feet and walking to the door again. He stuck his head out the door and into the darkened hallway.
"Signe?" He called, despite thinking it probably wasn't her. His questioned echoed slightly in the hall without an answer. The thumping seems to have stopped, Jack noticed as he shut the door and locked it once more. Nevertheless, he was once again tense as he returned to his seat at the table.
"Maybe it's just the neighbors I'm hearing," Jack wondered aloud. "Sounds like something," he explained to the camera, "like, walking around or something,like… stomping or banging. Christ…" He tried to shake it off as he reached for the spoon he left on the floor. "Maybe I'm just paranoid because it's halloween…"
Five minutes to midnight.
Jack began carving out Gerald's teeth. He followed the lines with some difficulty, since the knife's blade was too wide to fit in between the teeth. However, within a couple minutes, he successfully popped out Gerald's mouth, leaving goofy grinning teeth in its place
Two minutes to midnight.
"Yay!" Jack exclaimed, grinning at the sight of his pumpkin. He looked around him and grabbed some paper towel he left on the floor. "Now I have to wipe all the marker off," he explained to the camera. "Because when you can see the outline, and then you see where I didn't follow, it looks stupid! You gotta see the pumpkin for what it is…"
One minute to midnight.
"Ta da!" Jack exclaimed, holding up the pumpkin to the camera. "It came out pretty well!" He placed it back on the table and picked up the pumpkin top. "Does your head still fit on?" He asked Gerald. "I hope so."
The lid easily slid into place. "Yay!" Jack said, his face splitting into a grin. "He's a fully formed pumpkin!"
He reached for "smallie" again, and lifted the lid from the top of the pumpkin. "Okay," he said, gripping the sides of his pumpkin. "The last thing you're gonna have to do is fine-"
Midnight
Jack's voice died in his throat as a horrible feeling of unease filled his body. His breathing hitched before slowing, almost to the point where he wasn't taking in any air. Jack's hands started to tingle, and he became acutely aware of the sensation of the knife within his fingers. And then, without his command, his fingers released the pumpkin.
Tension flowed through him as his heart started to race. His hand gripped the knife handle tightly, to the point where Jack's knuckles went white.
What the hell is happening? He tried to say, but Jack discovered he no longer hand control of his voice. His body stayed dead silent as his mind raced with blind panic. He couldn't move. Why couldn't he move?
It felt like Jack's limbs had filled with lead; nevertheless, he could feel his muscles moving as his arm slowly started to lift. Even though he could no longer direct his eyes, Jack saw the blade of the knife out of the corner of his field of view before it disappeared under his chin.
His hand shaking, he felt the blade press against his throat. His mind panicked as he figured out what his hand was about to do, and immediately he fought to stop it. He tried as hard as he could to move his hand, but it was like trying to move a book with his mind; nothing happened.
Jack was thinking, he was feeling, yet somehow he could not stop it. He was a prisoner in his head, yet he still felt the knife cutting into his skin.
The nerves in his throat screamed as the blade dug into his throat. Despite the resistance from his skin, the knife seemed to cut through it as if it were butter. The skin split apart. It was pain unlike anything he'd ever felt, yet his hand moved with ease, as if it belonged to someone else who couldn't feel that pain.
Jack could feel blood pouring from the wound, trickling down his throat and under his shirt. His vision blurred. He felt blood, his own blood, oozing down his arm as it moved without his command. He tried to scream, but no noise came as his hand finished its work. With no more throat left to slit, his hand fell, no longer clutching the blade. No longer able to support it, Jack's head collapsed onto his pumpkin immediately afterward.
He was aware of the stinging on his throat where the skin had split apart, as well as the blood that spilled from the wound. He felt his breathing stop and without warning, his vision blurred and was gone.
But he wasn't dead.
He wasn't dead.
He was bleeding profusely.
He wasn't breathing.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't see.
But he wasn't dead.
He wasn't dead.
He wasn't dead.
He wasn't-
He felt himself draw a breath as his hands were placed on either side of the pumpkin. He felt his muscles moving to lift himself up. He felt the laugh building in his throat before he heard it. High and cold, the maniacal giggling filled him with dread.
His eyes opened, and his vision, though blurred at first, quickly became clear. There was blood all over the table. The pumpkin was drenched in it. As were his hands. They were soaked with blood. His blood.
He felt his fingers grasp the blade he slit his throat with as more laughter slipped out of his mouth. Jack's mind raced, filling with panic and fear, and for some reason, that made his body laugh even more.
He felt his head lift up and his eyes moving on their own. They slowly scanned up until they fell on the camera. And then in the viewfinder, Jack was able to see himself.
If all the blood on the table wasn't enough to make him go insane, seeing himself would do the trick.
His dark shirt was drenched in blood. His blue eyes were wide open, looking crazed, and he could see the inside of his throat.
And then he heard himself speak.
It was terrible. His voice, which he was so used to hearing full of laughter, was now shrill and raspy. Every syllable he spoke was filled with malice, this hatred that Jack had never felt. The feeling of his vocal cords being used without his consent was terrible; every word he spoke just sent more blood pouring out of his neck wound. Jack barely registered that whatever was using his voice was speaking to the camera.
"His body was weak."
"You all said my name."
"I am here now."
"He kept me inside."
"You… this is all your fault."
"TOO LONG."
"You will listen to me…"
"You all made this happen."
"You could have stopped me… but you just watched… AND THIS HAPPENED."
A horrible laugh escaped from his throat, and a feeling he couldn't describe began to fill his body. It occupied is every thought, and it seemed to ingrain in his very soul. He felt a desire that wasn't his own, an intense desire to see pain and suffering; bloodlust.
And he watched in the viewfinder as eyes turned black.
And finally, right then, Jack found the willpower to speak.
Pain sparked in every nerve. It felt like his head exploded. He felt his body writhe and twist, and his vision blurred, going dark in time to hear himself give out a mangled scream.
"HELP ME!"
And then everything went black.
October 31, 2016
12:24 AM
Signe climbed up the steps to her apartment, shuddering in the cold. She heard the sound of tires screeching as the cab that dropped her off sped out into the streets.
"I can't believe I waited in a train station that long for nothing," she murmured, digging in her coat pocket for her house keys. At least Seán was waiting inside for her. His promise of a movie sounded fantastic to her.
Her fingers wrapped around the cold metal and she pulled it from her pocket, slipping it into the lock. It opened with ease. She dragged her suitcase into the apartment and closed the door behind her, ready to leave the October cold in streets outside.
However, when she pulled off her jacket, she realized it was just as cold inside as it was outside.
She rolled her eyes. Seán must of forgotten to turn the heat on. Again. Shitty timing; she was freezing.
"Seán?" she called over her shoulder as she hung up her coat and flipped the light switch. The room was illuminated, and Signe immediately saw that the coffee table was missing from the living room. She furrowed her eyebrows. Maybe Seán took it upstairs?
Abandoning her suitcase at the door, Signe walked up the stairs to the second floor of the apartment.
"Seán?" She called. "Where are you?" There was no answer. She poked her head in their bedroom, but it was empty. She called Seán's name again, once again without a reply, as she walked towards his recording room.
The door was ajar, but the lights were off. She flipped a switch and immediately covered her mouth.
The coffee table was in the middle of the recording room, covered in blood. Red trailed down the table's legs and onto the carpet. The red light of the camera that rested on the desk was still blinking; it hadn't stopped recording.
"Oh my god," she gasped, a hand to her chest. She felt sick. "Seán…"
She felt her pockets, and quickly realized she had left her cellphone in her jacket. Signe spun around and ran out of the room. She sped down the stairs, to the door and fumbled with her coat for her phone.
A high pitched laugh sent chills down her spine, and Signe immediately turned around. And there was Seán. He stood in the hallway covered in blood… and his throat was slit open.
"Oh, my god, Seán…" she gasped. How was he standing? She raced forward and put a hand on his chest. "Oh my god, Seán, are you okay? What happened to you?"
A bloodsoaked hand grabbed her wrist, and she looked him in the face for the first time. Her eyes widened as the hairs on her neck stood on end. His loving blue eyes were gone; they had turned completely black.
"Seán?" she whispered, immediately trying to pull out of his grasp. Her heart pounded in her throat. "What's the matter with you?"
A horrible smile split across Seán's face. His black eyes were transfixed on her own, not a hint of their original blue in sight. In a horrible, garbled voice that sent chills down her spine, he rasped, "Welcome home, Signe."
He raised a bloodstained knife she didn't see before.
"Oh my god-" She struggled against his grip, punching him in the chest, but he wouldn't budge. She stared into his black eyes and screamed, drowning out his demented laugh.
"S̺͍͉͔͉̞̪Ḁ̸̰̮͝Y̶̪ ̳͇̭͍̥̭͉ͅG̕҉̡̦̲O̤̫͖͎̗͜͞ͅÒ̴̬̠̺̪̥͉̳͉̥͝D̨̺̦̯͙͙͔̯͚͠B̸̬̻̝͉͍̻̀͝Y҉̫̝̖̹̝̠͠E̲̩͟͝ͅ…"