Hey!
A while I ago I rewrote a one-shot I did for Team Dragon Star, a writer's collective on this site. The original ws posted on Halloween five years ago (!), so after debating whether or not to upload this I went for it, considering it is now its anniversary. If you're interested in seeing how a person's writing can change over the course of five years, please go check out Eternal Smile on TDS's profile. While I was supposed to stay anonymous I don't think anyone will mind that the cat is finally out of the bag.
Now please read, review and enjoy!
It looked like it would eat him.
The boy looked at the house in front of him, the sinking of the sun outlining its silhouette, making it resemble a set of dark, chunky teeth. The turrets by the side were almost like canines. The top windows, grimy with filth, seemed to be staring at him with voids for eyes.
And now he had to tell himself that he wasn't scared.
As if that were true.
Danny Fenton could not take his gaze away from the house. The other kids in his class had told him that it was a spooky place, but that had been putting it mildly. Everything about it was a testament to age and rot. The lawn was overgrown with vines reaching up to his shoulders, like a sea monster's tentacles, ready to constrict around him and squeeze the life out of him. The front door to the house was missing. Rickety and splintered steps lead up to it. An old porch swing creaked as it swayed back and forth in the breeze.
The question of why he was here popped into Danny's mind. The answer wasn't one that he was proud of. He had been talking to Sam and Tucker during math class about some of his parents' most recent had begun the construction of what the called a Ghost Portal, which would serve as a gateway between the real world and that of the undead. when asked his opinion, Danny had let it slip that he didn't believe in ghosts.
That had earned him a scoff from the person sitting behind him, which happened to be Dash Baxter. Danny hated him and Dash hated Danny. The air of 'I-know-better' that enveloped Dash had Danny fuming before he had even said something.
"Ghosts are totally real, you know," Dash had said, studying his fingernails as if they were more interesting than the conversation at hand. "Ask Star, she says she's been to Amity Park's Horror House."
Danny had heard of the place, but now it was his turn to scoff. "As if that place is actually haunted. If it were, my parents would have known."
"Your parents are the worst ghost hunters in the world. They couldn't find one if it kicked them in the butt."
A retort had threatened to spill over his lips, but Danny had thought the wiser of it. So he clamped down on his teeth and turned back around, when a finger poked him in the shoulder.
"You're scared, ain't ya?" Dash taunted. "That's funny, the kid of the ghost hunters is scared of ghosts. What's the word for that again? Something about an iron."
And of course push had come to shove. There wasn't a shadow of a doubt left that he had to prove Dash wrong. So he had told him, no, he wasn't scared of ghosts. And Dash would not accept that statement without any form of proof.
So here he was, standing outside what people in town had dubbed the Horror House. He hadn't known why it was called that and asking around had proven to be fruitless. Nobody wanted to tell him anything, but not because they didn't know. Danny had an inkling that the information they did possess wasn't something for a twelve-year-old to know.
Thankfully he was no dumb kid, but merely inconvenienced. His parents had records of everything paranormal in this town and it went without saying that they also had information on the Horror House, or as their intel told him, the Thomas residence. It was very easy to find, because his mother was a neat freak and wanted everything organized. Everything they had on the place had been recorded on one of those old fashioned tapes. The only downside was that they did not have a tape player, so he was still clueless as to what he might expect.
That hadn't kept him from pocketing the tape though. It resided in his back pocket and when he touched it to check if it was still there, the feel of cold plastic was oddly comforting.
His eyes fell on the house again and once more there was the resemblance to a gaping maw. The way those seemed-like-eyes tried to stare through him made his spine tingle. And the squeak and screech of the rusted swing on the porch was almost like a whisper, asking him to come inside and check it out. It's all jolly good fun over here, see for yourself!
Danny was almost inclined to do exactly that; walk into the house and know that everything would be a-okay, Houses did not whisper lies.
Reason caught up with him as he laid his hand on the rail of the porch steps. He stood there, letting ancient splinters fill his fingers, and took a deep breath. There wasn't going to be anything at all. This was only logical. There was no way that ghosts were holed up in the walls. That was reserved for rats and asbestos. If he found anything at all, it would probably be corpses of small mammals or remnants of the lives of the homeless. Most of all there would be dust. Nothing more. Nothing at all.
Determination flooded him and he ascended the steps. He stood in the doorframe and glanced inside. Just as expected everything was rotten and dusty. The windows left little to no light in and only silhouetted what remained of the furniture. There were some sofas, a salon table and an old grandfather clock.
The clock was still ticking.
Entranced, Danny walked into the house. There was nothing that seemed out of order. It was all just an old, musty mess. He walked over to the clock and allowed his fingers to graze its body, digging trails in dust that had been untouched for decades. It was a fine piece of work, crafter by hand and polished to a slickness that had managed to withstand the test of time. It wasn't strange that it was still working.
It was like a lightbulb went off in his head. That stupid Dash wouldn't believe him if he only said that he had gone to the Horror House. What he needed was evidence. So he opened the glass door in the clock and took out the pendulum. The ticking stopped immediately, though a faint gnashing sound, that of the cogs grinding together behind the plate, remained. Danny tucked the pendulum behind his belt buckle and disregarded the clock. Now that he was here he might as well do some exploring.
With the realisation that all was well came relaxation. When he left the living room, Danny was humming a tune that he had picked up somewhere during his years in elementary school. Now that there was nothing to worry about, this was actually kind of exciting. He wondered what else he could find. Maybe something along the lines of a toy or a kitchen appliance.
His feet led him towards the kitchen. The walls around him were covered with cobwebs turned grey over the years. Breathing was hard, but that did not deter Danny. In fact, it added to the thrill of it all.
Most of the doors that he passed had been labeled to inform people of what was behind them. Finding the one labeled 'kitchen' was quick work. Danny let himself in, wincing when the door screamed in protest.
It was even more of a mess than the living room. During the time that the house had been empty, people had taken it upon themselves to enter it. The proof was right before his eyes; the kitchen table was still there, but it lay overturned with three of its legs missing. Three of the cabinets were gone and two of them hung crooked. There was a pungent smell of alcohol and urine all around and a dripping sound came from where the faucet used to be.
Danny judged that this wouldn't be the right place to forage for treasure. If there had been people in here over the years, the kitchen would be a logical place to go to. Danny, understanding this, decided to venture out even further. Perhaps the bedrooms upstairs were more interesting.
He didn't make it there, though. As soon as he left the kitchen, he noticed the hallway adjacent to it. Why he had missed at first he couldn't tell. It had only one door in it on the far end. The lettering on it said that it was the den. And it was open.
What had caught his eye hadn't been the door, nor the hallway. He had instinctively reacted to a gleam that had passed his field of vision. Something inside the den. He didn't doubt himself or his safety as he went inside, searching for what had so consumed his attention.
This particular room had an air about it that Danny couldn't place. The rest of the house had only felt old, but in here it was as if he could feel something pressing down on him, some ethereal gloom with no apparent source or direction.
Of the many windows several had been cracked, leaving the wind to whistle through the creaks and make the tattered, pale pink curtains sway. A blackened hearth had been carved out of the far wall and what remained of its last fire lay in the rusted grates. A piano with its keys smashed, twisted and torn, stood in the corner. The floor was scattered with shining beads from the overhead chandelier. And most discomforting of all, the circular rug in the middle of the room, ringed with all colours, was now an unidentifiable maroon. Like the shutters on the top floor, this also resembled a glaring eye, this one dark red and very, very angry.
But it was also this eye that had gleamed at him from down the hall. Danny stood still as a statue while he looked at it, a black square in a red circle, so alluring and strange that all thoughts vanished from his mind.
He had seen one of these things before, but not thanks to his parents. It was a tape player, a bulky one that could play records as well. It had no cables attached to it to supply it with power, yet Danny was sure that it wouldn't be a problem.
There weren't any questions in his mind about why the tape player was there or who could've put it there. It's mysterious appearance was all consuming. Danny tapped the slot where a tape would fit in. It popped open smoothly. His other hand went to his back pocket and found purchase. In the low light of the room, he could read the words Thomas Case.
Danny had already fitted the tape into the slot when all of a sudden he came to a stop. Clarity came and with that came reason. There was no way this would work. The gut feeling he had gotten was wrong, it had to be. No tape player was magical.
So he closed the slot to prove himself right. And now there was a post-it note stuck to the front.
Play me if you want to know, it read.
And boy-oh-boy, did Danny want to know.
He pressed play. Immediately the gears in the tape started turning. The sound of static erupted into the room, echoing all through the empty house. A series of clicks followed and then the buzz of static returned. Danny knew that someone was about to say something, so he sat down in front of the tape player with his legs underneath him.
A voice began to speak.
"My name is Brian McDermott and I am here with Officer Walter Johnson," it said. The voice was gruff and authoritarian. "I have asked Officer Johnson to sit with me and answer some questions about the Thomas case, which is currently still under investigation. The events that lead up to this point have taken place on January fifteenth, 1939. Today's date is January seventeenth. It is our hope that interviewing those who were present on the fifteenth will be able to help us shed light on what happened and possibly how it could transpire. But before we do there is another question that I feel obligated to ask first. Johnson, how are you doing?"
Somewhere in an interrogation room from the far past, Johnson readjusted himself in his chair. Its metal legs grated over the floor in a horrible gnashing noise. Danny clapped his hands over his ears to cancel it out, but it slipped through his fingers without stopping.
Johnson finally kept still and answered McDermott. "I'm okay, I suppose. Shaken, but okay." 'Shaken'. Johnson sounded to Danny as though he had seen everything one could see in life in the span of fifteen minutes. It was as if he were reeling from a fist to the temple.
"Good, good," said McDermott. "Did you get any sleep?"
"A little," replied Johnson. "But only a little. Everything just keeps replaying when I close my eyes."
"Which is all the more reason to talk about it.," said McDermott. "Let's just start from the beginning. What were you doing on the evening of January the fifteenth, starting from 7.30 p.m.?"
Johnson swallowed hard. "I was in the break room of the station at the time. It was a slow evening -most evenings are slow- and Isaacs and I were playing a game of craps." Johnson gave shrill titter of a laugh at this. Cops gambling, hardy har. "We were just getting our second game started when we received an emergency call. It was the Thomases' next door neighbour. She had dialed the alarm number because she had heard what she believed were gunshots coming from next door."
"So you and Isaacs abandoned craps and went over there, is that correct?"
"Yes," Johnson answered. "Peterson also joined us, as did two of the rookies. We brought them because we thought they could use the experience. When we got there Mrs. Brady, the neighbour, was already waiting for us outside."
"Peterson claims that Mrs. Brady was in hysterics. What is your opinion on the matter?"
"I don't know. I guess you could say that she was panicking, but I don't blame her. The woman thought she heard gunshots, after all. She was standing there in her fuzzy flippers, her hair in corkscrews and her bathrobe open. She was screaming before we even got out of the car. "
"Screaming of what?" McDermott asked.
Danny, not realizing that he was holding his breath, leaned over towards the tape player.
"She was screaming that he was killing them."
There was a silence in the interrogation room which broke up with the spark of a lighter. McDermott exhaled near the microphone and asked Johnson if he wanted one. Whether or not he did was not revealed.
"Please tell me about the Thomases," McDermott asked, blowing more smoke.
"I uh, well..." Johnson's voice became even more frail. "They were a family of five, you see. Parents and three daughters. Two of them look like their mother. Blonde hair and green eyes. The middle girl looks just like her father, though. Brown hair and blue eyes. Mrs. Brady told me that they are sweet children, no trouble at all and always polite. She says that their mother Rose has raised them well."
And Jacob Thomas?"
"That's the father. Has worked in the town's steel mill for twenty years. He married Rose and they moved in next to the Bradies. Two years later their first daughter was born, Julie. Two years after that came Grace and then Jade. Jacob's friends told Isaacs that he seemed like a perfectly normal man, hard working and protective of his children."
McDermott gave a grunt of disgust. "So he was a real Father of the Year."
Johnson gave that tittering laugh again. It made Danny's hair stand on end; McDermott did not seem like a nice man to him, not even moderately. And Danny could feel that Johnson could feel it too. Whatever had scared him, McDermott was equally frightening.
McDermott added a little fuel to the fire. "I don't think Rose would agree."
Johnson sighed. "Rose and Jacob weren't married on the best terms. Or maybe they were at first, but it wasn't meant to last. Over their fifteen years of marriage, Rose has called us four times. Jacob was a drinker and a violent one at that. On the third call Rose was brought the hospital for treatment of a fractured cheekbone. She had to stay there for a week and during that time she kept asking how her girls were, if they were with Jacob."
"But why did she not leave him?"
"We believe that she did, actually. On the night of the fifteenth."
"And how did that end?"
"N-Not well, sir."
"After you found Mrs. Brady on the curb, what did you do then?"
"Isaacs took one of the newbies around the Thomas residence to go in through the back door. Peterson, the other rookie and myself tried the front door. It was locked and the house looked dark inside. When nobody answered we kicked the door in and went searching. The hall and the living room were empty, which is where we met up with Isaacs again. We were about to fan out -Peterson and I were going to look upstairs- when one of the rookies slipped and fell down. He uh-"
Johnson was at a loss for words. Danny, both terribly afraid and incredibly curious, leaned over as close to the tape player as he could, as if there were some miniscule detail that he might miss. The wind outside squealed through the cracks in the windows like a wailing banshee.
The tape was disturbed by a click, than a crackle. McDermott had turned off the tape for some time, maybe for Johnson to get a grip on himself.
"Have one, Johnson. And one of these too, it will help you calm those nerves."
Somewhere in the room Johnson gave a hard swallow. Then came the sparking sound again.
Johnson broke out into a coughing fit. "Sorry sir, I'm not much of a drinker. Nor a smoker, really."
"Well maybe you should learn it then. So let's continue. You, Isaacs, Peterson and the rookies were in the living room, when one of the rookies slipped and fell. How did that happen?"
Johnson hadn't been able to keep his voice from shaking after all. "The floor was slippery and wet. It was blood. And god, so much of it."
"Try to describe it to me."
"S-Sure. Almost the entire floor in the living room was dark red. There was so much blood that it couldn't have been from just one person. We couldn't move a foot without contaminating evidence. Some of had gotten on the walls. the walls had holes in them."
"Holes from what?"
"S-Shotgun shells, sir."
"Shells?"
"Yes sir, double barrels. They had gone into the wall at different heights. There were two holes at about three feet up. There were three more a foot and a half higher. These ones had most of the blood centered around them."
"And what did that tell you, Johnson?"
It was as if Johnson had picked the words right out of Danny's brain.
"That the mother and one of the children had been shot there. That they had been killed."
"But there weren't any bodies in the living room?"
"No, but it didn't take long to find them. There was a trail of blood leaving the living room and going down the hall. We followed it into the den."
Danny felt his stomach fell right out the bottom of him. This is where they had found the bodies. That was why the tape player was here. The maroon circle he was currently kneeling in was decades old blood. He sucked in his breath scampered away from the carpet. He rubbed his hands on his jeans harshly, as though the flakes had been crusted to his palms. But still he had to hear the rest of the tape.
"We found them there, lying on the carpet. All three of the kids and their mother too. They had been stacked on top of each other with their faces turned to the ceiling. They all looked terrified even in death. Their mouths were open and blood was pouring out into their noses and eyes. It was... I have no words for how awful it was."
"How could they have been bleeding from the mouth? Did you not say they were shot? were they shot in the head?"
"No, no, nothing like that," Johnson spewed out a cloud of smoke. "It's actually much worse. Only Grace was hit in the face. The poor thing was missing the entire left side of it. The others were all shot in the spine. Rose and Grace were in the living room. The other two children had been upstairs; there was a steady trickle of blood flooding down the stairs.
"The reason they were bleeding from their mouths was because the killer had cut open the corners. Had curled it up towards the cheekbones. It looked like they were smiling. Screaming but smiling at the same time. I... I can only call it a Death Smile. There was so much blood coming out that it was hard to tell, but when Peterson tried to lift Jade off the pile, her head fell to the side and her right cheek ripped open. H-Her tongue fell out through the hole."
"Have another stiff one, Johnson." said McDermott. "You're doing great. You're almost at the end of the story, aren't you?"
"Y-yes sir. After we all had gotten a chance to process what we were seeing, we realized we still had to search the upstairs. It was almost as if he had been waiting for it, because when we reached the landing, we heard a shower turn on. Isaacs and one of the rookies broke the bathroom door open. Jacob was sitting in the tub.
"He had turned the shower on, but it wasn't enough water to wash away the blood of his children and wife. He was soaked from his forehead to his toes. He still had the shotgun in his hands, but now he had it aimed at his throat. We tried to get him to put it down, but all he did was laugh at us. So I did the last thing I could think of doing. I asked him why he had done it."
"And what did he say?"
"That he had always loved to see them smile."
The tape clicked again and remained silent.
Danny sat still for some time, his hands on his knees and his mouth hanging open. His stomach was clenched in an iron fist. He wished he hadn't listened to it. Now every time he closed his eyes he saw children heaped onto each other, their lips parted to let out a flow of blood.
And the tape player was laughing at him.
At first he thought that he was imagining things, but then the laughing swelled to fill the entire room. The tape player began to shake and rattle. The slot opened up and barfed out its contents before slamming open and shut again and again.
Danny tried to scream but couldn't; before his throat could form the sound, the tape player fell silent again. Still he scampered back several feet, slamming his back into one of the piano's legs. Pain raced up his back and he bit down a curse.
The wind howled again and all at once Danny was closed off from the world. A booming noise as loud as a grenade made the house shake on its foundations. Danny shrank into a ball as it set his hairs on end. His eyes pinched shut when a rain of dust dropped from the piano.
He lay there for a while in the silent gloom. This wasn't supposed to happen. And he wasn't supposed to be so enthralled by it all. The laughing tape player had scared him as much as it had blown his mind. Even with a palpable taste of danger on his tongue, he was still curious. Much, much too curious.
He tried to regain his breath and almost vomited up his dinner. He wiped the tears of strain from his eyes and forced his palms onto the floor, then his knees. His feet were unsteady when he got to them. But he had to start walking.
Danny left the den and ignored the kitchen as he passed it. Bright moonlight was pouring into the living room; not a trace of dust or grime on the windows. And the front door was closed. It had been shut so hard that the frame had cracked in places.
The front door which hadn't been there when he had gone inside.
Autopilot took over. Danny walked to the door and stood on his toes, peering out the square windowpane. He saw that the yard was now neat and trim with no weeds to be found anywhere. A red mailbox stood at the curb with its flag turned upward. A bug light hung from the porch and buzzed and crackled as it caught the summer's mosquitos.
He was at a loss for thought, let alone words. He turned, clapped his hands over his eyes and sank through his knees. The insides of his palms didn't make him see this crazy stuff, so it brought comfort. But the sounds came and wrapped cold tentacles around his heart. Children were laughing right by his ears.
And then one of the voices spoke to him.
"Mr. Danny?"
He ripped his hands away from his face as if they were on fire. Before him was a fully furnished living room with a chandelier on the ceiling and every surface polished to a gleam. And right in front of him was stood a little girl no older than six.
"Mr. Danny?" she said again. She was hard to hear because of the teddy bear she kept pressed to her face. She wore a pink princess dress and even had the tiara to match it, but not the snappy attitude.
"Y-yes?" Danny said. And then with more composure "What's the matter?"
Jade giggled into her teddy bear. "I was wondering something. Would you play a game with me?"
Danny's eyebrows lowered into a contemplative frown. He didn't even question the girl's appearance; it only seemed like a logical outcome to the progression of events. But he hadn't expected to have to play a game.
And he would have to. Denial would spell trouble. This he knew from his gut.
He gave a shaky nod and rose to his feet. "Yeah, sure, what do you want to play?"
Jade squealed with joy and dropped her teddy. "Let's play hide and seek with the claps!"
Danny nodded that yes, he would play. And then his stomach did a flip. Jade, looking at him with her mother's green eyes, smiled at him, but it went past her lips and over her cheeks. She was leering at him, the corners of her sliced open cheeks healed over to show white scar tissue.
Still he managed to keep his insides from becoming his outsides. He swallowed back the bile in his throat. "Okay, how do I play it? With the claps, I mean?"
"Oh, it's real easy!" Jade chimed. "I go hide and you look for me, but you can't open your eyes! If you can't find me and want to know where I am, you can ask me to clap and I will. But you can only ask three times. Not that hard right?"
"Uh-huh..."
"Well I'll go hide now. You count to twenty and try to find me. Aaaaand go!" Jade left him no time to argue as she turned, running away to go and hide. And that was when Danny found himself looking at the red circle on the back of her dress. As he watched it, it began to run, piddling out of Jade's clothing and leaving a streaming trail on the floorboards. The circle began to grow as pieces of flesh and strings of sinew wilted away from her back, exposing a splendidly white spinal cord. Danny retched, but kept it down.
Just go with the flow, Danny-boy, just go with the flow.
So he did as he was bid and closed his eyes. As he stood there, counting to twenty, he found himself grateful for having to keep his eyes closed; he wasn't going to like what the house had to show him anyway. When his countdown came to an end he shuffled forward, holding his hands out in front of him to keep from walking into objects. He had used his ears to try and hear where Jade had gone off to and he thought her to be in the kitchen, so that was where he headed.
He kept his eyes pinched shut as he entered and used his nose to confirm that he had found the kitchen; the odor of booze and urine was overwhelming. The kitchen might look as pristine as the living room now, but the stench of death wasn't going anywhere. Danny tried to remember where the kitchen table was, yet rammed his thighs into it anyway. He yelped and bounced around, but stopped when he heard Jade giggle somewhere at the end of the room.
"First clap," Danny said and pricked up his ears. Just as expected, Jade clapped from a few yards away. Danny walked around the kitchen table and stuck his arms out again. his fingers touched a wooden surface and he knew he had found the door to the basement. He felt for the knob, but it wasn't supposed to go so easily.
"Who are you?"
Danny completely forgot the rules of the game as he whirled around on his heels. Another girl stood in front of him, this one just as blonde as Jade, though twice as old. Like Jade, Grace had inherited her mother's green eyes. And just like her sister, Grace had a permanent grin cut into her cheeks.
"I'm Danny," he said. "I'm playing hide and seek with your sister. Wanna help?"
"That wouldn't be fair now, would it?" Grace put a hand on her hip and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. She radiated sass. "But, I'm playing hide and seek as well. I'm playing with Julie, so we could look for them together."
"Yeah, let's," Danny said. He nudged his head towards what he assumed would lead to the basement, but Grace grabbed his hand before he could speak. It was like cupping a slice of chicken breast; cold and slick and unfeeling. Danny shuddered, but all Grace did was turn around and smile at him. Only it wasn't Grace anymore. The girl holding his hand had little to nothing of her face left. Chunks of meat jiggled and jived by their sinewy strands, the slightest movement away from tearing loose and falling to the floor. Her left eye had been released from its socket and dangled limply against the ruin of her cheekbone.
Grace did not seem to notice this. She dragged Danny down the stairs and waited for him to reach her side.
"It's dark in here," Danny noted, to which Grace hummed her consent. He reached into his pocket and found a zippo lighter there. He knew he wasn't supposed to have one, but it wasn't his fault that lighting stuff on fire was so much fun. He rolled his thumb down the wheel and a flame erupted from the fuse.
A circle of light about three feet in radius drove the darkness to the corners of the room. Danny squinted to make out a bicycle, another piano, some garden furniture as well as many more things unidentifiable. Maybe Jade was hiding behind the piano. He turned to Grace to smile her, let her know that they had won the game, but Grace was gone. Not a trace of her left but two bloody footprints leading to nowhere.
"Grace? Jade?"
No response. But what about the rules of the game?
"Second clap!"
He listened. Someone on top of the stairs clapped. Danny did not think. He just ran up the stairs and busted back into the kitchen. His gut had told him that there would be another ghostly girl with a white smile there and his gut had been correct. Julie was sitting on the kitchen table, a mischievous look in her eyes. No girl her age should sit on the table, after all.
Danny just asked "Where are your sisters?"
Julie pointed back to the basement.
"Really?" Danny asked, now somewhat irritated. "Well then they aren't playing fair." He ignored Julie and made for the stairs again, but he slipped in something wet and went sprawling. He tried to catch himself on his hands, but they slicked away from the floor. Danny went sailing right down the basement stairs.
He first struck the rails with his temple. His body was sent into some demented sort of corkscrew and slammed to the right, where his hip collided with several of the steps. He rolled over and slammed his forehead on the second to last step before hitting the floor and coming to a stop. His cheek did not all absorb the fall.
Danny was reeling. A groan passed his lips without his consent. He tried to get back up but at first all he managed to do was roll over. The taste of copper was on his tongue and there was a wetness on his face and hands. Blood was dripping into his eye. When he sucked in the breath that had been vaulted from his lungs, the content of his stomach finally broke free, forcing him to roll onto his side and puke his guts out.
It cleared his head a bit, though. His muscles tingled when he staggered to his feet, one eye pinched shut against the maroon trickle. He swiped his palm over his lips and he vomited again straight after; he had forgotten something was on his hands, and that something was blood. Cold, old and flakey blood. When he raised a foot he heard a squelching noise; there was more of it on the floor here.
After fumbling in his pocket he found the zippo again. The top cover was hanging by only one twisted screw, so Danny tore it off and tossed it into the darkness around, where it struck one of the piano's lower keys. It brayed a tone that was deep and out of tune, like a monster's scream. Danny exhaled and felt his chest stab him. The zippo almost slipped between his bloodied fingers twice, but when he rolled the wheel his trusted flame popped into existence. Light once more broke up the gloom.
The entire floor was covered in red. Two whole inches of it. It was running down the stairs in great amount, far more than shout fit under the slit of the door. As Danny tried to make his mind see the reason, another belch of it spouted from the kitchen like a horrific fire hydrant.
But how to stop it? By winning the game of course.
"Third clap!"
Danny waited, his gaze darting across the space around him, the reflection of an orange flame dancing in his blue eyes. The blood was coming down hard now; it sounded like a water pumping station. He didn't dare breathe.
And out of the darkness and into the light, three pairs of arms extended. They were the girls', but them Danny couldn't see. The sisters gave a clap, perfectly synchronised.
Two words spilled over Danny's lips.
"Found you."
The cascade of blood stopped immediately. Even better, it all disappeared without a trace. The only bit that remained was the flow pouring into Danny's eye. The door on top of the stairs opened with a creak and weak moonlight filtered into the basement.
The girls were gone again.
Danny wasn't surprised to find himself smiling. He had beat the game. Maybe now he could go home. And if the sisters wanted something more from him, he would just give them what they wanted so he could get out of this place.
He barreled up the stairs and ignored the rest of the kitchen when he sped through it. The sisters were in the living room, sitting around a coffee table loaded with puzzles and toys. They turned towards him at the exact same time and leered at him with their white smiles.
Danny stopped and swallowed hard. The living room was still as pristine as it had been before. The front door was still there. There was still no way out.
The girls were following him with their eyes.
"Can I leave now?" he decided to ask when his mind gave him no other options.
They all shook their head in sync.
And then dread finally filled every part of him from his throat to his toes. Danny ran for the door and jumped at hit, trying to bust through with his shoulder. The door seemed to be made of brick though and wasn't to be budged. The first rays of sunlight were seeping through the clouds and fell through the windowpane, but the inside of the house remained as dark as it had been.
Danny screamed and screamed and screamed some more. He was going to die here, he knew that now. He should've known that the second saw the damn tape player. This house was nothing more than a trap, luring him in with false promises of safety and adventure. The porch swing had whispered lies. But the desire of knowing had been far too great.
The old proverb had it right. Curiosity did kill the cat and now it was wrapping its long black fingers around his throat. Danny sank to the floor, his back against the door and started crying.
"Oh honey, don't do that."
He didn't even try to peer between his fingers. He knew right away that it was Rose who had spoken to him. He kept his hands where they were.
"Why won't you let me leave?" It wasn't a plead for his freedom. He wasn't going to get that anyway, so he might as well try to get some answers.
"Oh, don't take it personal, Danny," Rose said. "I tried to tell them no, but they wouldn't listen to me. The girls, I mean."
That puzzled Danny so much that he made to look at the woman. Rose was wearing a gown in the colour of her floral namesake. Her green eyes were looking at him with something that resembled sadness.
"Why won't the girls listen?"
"They've been cooped up here for so long, they just need someone to play with. And you've been very kind to do that for them," Rose said. "And Jacob won't want you to leave either. He's been hoping for a son since I got pregnant with Gracie."
"N-No, no!" Danny yelled at her. He got to his feet again with strength he didn't know he had in him. "You have to let me out of here, you just have to!"
Rose shook her head. "I would if I could, Danny, but they would overpower me if I tried."
And that was when a door on top of the stairs opened. All Danny could see was two feet in working boots dragging themselves over the landing. And behind that was the double barrel of a shotgun.
Danny ran. He didn't know where or how, but he was running, alright. And before he had the time to blink he was in the den. He dove under the piano and rolled up into a ball, cradling himself. Hiding would get him nothing but a second or two longer to live.
But the ghosts weren't done playing their games.
The piano above him began to play without being told, clunking down on keys in a song that resembled a calliope. Dust rained down on him and the floor beneath him shook violently. And when he found the nerve to open his eyes a crack, his mouth fell open in a silent scream.
Four bodies were lying on a rug once coloured red. All three daughters and their mother, stacked on top of each other like sacks of flour. Their faces were upturned and blood was pouring out of their torn open mouths. Johnson's description had been spot on; they were screaming and smiling all at the same time.
Then he heard the footsteps.
Jacob was making his way towards the den; the sound was getting closer and closer. And then, horrifyingly, Jade spoke to him. She was on top of the stack and turned her neck around in a way that it shouldn't. Danny could hear her vertebrae snap one by one as she made to look him in the eyes.
Her voice was thick with phlegm and blood. "Daddy's coming..."
Danny pressed his hands to his ears, but it couldn't drown out the sound. When Grace and Julie snapped their necks too and joined the chant, he vomited up bile and the last chunks of his dinner.
"Don't worry Danny, we'll be good to you." Rose broke her own neck with a rickety-tack-tack. her words all but indistinguishable from the blood down her throat. "And besides, we've always wanted a son..."
And when the working boots appeared in the doorframe, Danny accepted his demise.
Danny Fenton had been missing for two days when they finally found him. He had been holed up in Amity Park's Horror House, where he lay under the piano in a near catatonic state, malnourished and dehydrated. There was caked blood on his face and hands and when they tried to wash it off him he began screaming. The clothes he had been wearing were covered in dust mites, so they were burned. And everyone failed to notice what lay in the garbage bin when the flames had died out.
It was a tape, a brand new one, with a sticky note stuck to it.
Play me if you want to know, it read.