Darkness falls across the land

The midnight hour is close at hand

Creatures crawl in search of blood

To terrorize y'all's neighborhood

And whomsoever shall be found

Without the soul for getting down

Must stand and face the hounds of hell

And rot inside a corpse's shell

The foulest stench is in the air

The funk of forty thousand years

And grizzly ghouls from every tomb

Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive

Your body starts to shiver

For no mere mortal can resist

The evil of the thriller

The last tunes rang out and the stylus scraped its way towards the spindle, then the cueing mechanism hummed and lifted the arm with its cartridge and swung it to the side, and with a muted click, it stopped at its resting position. The record's spinning came to a sudden stop.

On her bed, Jessie sighed and opened her eyes. This song, the last on the album, was her absolute favourite, though, truthfully, every song on the record was great. But, she thought as she sighed again, this song was, like, made for her. Tonight she was about to do something life-changing, and she had no doubt she would remember this song for the rest of her life.

Jessie got up and walked the few steps from her bed to the turntable. She picked up the record and flipped it over between her hands and put it down on the platter. Carefully she lowered the tonearm until the stylus connected to the vinyl. With a crackle, the music started playing from the beginning again.

The record, Thriller by Michael Jackson, had been playing nonstop in her room since she got it yesterday evening. Her older brother Robby had gone all the way to Music Millennium in Portland to get it for her yesterday, on its release day, even though it was a five-hour drive from Arcadia Bay to there, at least in his banged-up Oldsmobile, and that was just one way! She had no driver's license (not yet) and no car, but what she had was a very persuasive way, and she had persuaded him very effectively by promising to take all his night shifts at Burger Chef for the next two weeks. But that would never happen as she would be long gone by then. Jessie smiled one of her signature cutesy-shrewd smiles at herself in her mirror-wall.

Sorry about that, Robby. I'll make it up to you someday, I promise.

The thought of finally leaving this crappy little backwater town brought back the butterflies in her tummy, and she had to turn over and bury her face in her pillow to not burst out in laugher by the ticklish feeling they provoked. She couldn't afford to act suspiciously this last day in her old home. If her parents should find out, she would be grounded for months, if not years.

Jessie scooted over to the edge and leaned over, looking down under her bed, her long dark locks brushed the floor. Her suitcase, packed and ready, was hidden behind some shoes and dolls and stuffed animals, but she could still see it in there, waiting for tonight.

The door opened brusquely and it made Jessie almost fall off the bed when she flinched back up again.

With a scowl on his face, her father stomped in, and with a long sinewy arm, he flipped the switch on the record player, turning it off.

"Knock first!" Jessie yelled, "Can't you read? What if I was undressing?"

"This music, if that's what you call it, it's driving me nuts! And why aren't you in bed already? It's long past nine."

With her father came a faint smell of fish. It would never really leave him.

Oh, how she hated fish. She would never eat fish again if she could choose. Soon she could.

Her father sagged his long back and sat down on the side of her bed, and Jessie noticed the strained lines on his face. There were problems with the fishing, she knew. Something about fees or fishing rights or whatever. Lately, she had heard her mother and father argue late in the evenings almost every night. Fishing had been in the family for generations, but If it continued like this, he would probably have to sell the boat. It didn't make her dad any happier that Robby rather worked as a burger flipper than at sea, and Jessie herself would have nothing to do with it either. Nuh-uh. Jessie guessed the family honor's last hope now lay heavily on her little brother Pen's frail shoulders. Poor, sweet Pen, only eight years old and already under so much pressure to grow up a man. She winced. If there was something she worried about, it was how Pen would take it. They had always had a strong bond, and it felt a tiny bit like a betrayal to run away from him.

Her father put a large, callused fist on her shoulder. It was warm and smelled of halibut fins and steelhead guts.

"Look, Jay-Jay, I'm sorry for busting in like that, but you've played this record nonstop for the last twenty-four hours. I know it's not easy being a youngster. Heck, I would know, but If you want me to respect you… you have to respect me too."

Jessie sat up and leaned against him. He was older now, thinner and with gray streaks in both his hair and beard, but he was still her dad, fish-smell and all. Now that she was about to run away, feelings bubbled up inside her that she hadn't been able to feel in a long time. She wrapped her arms around his gaunt body and hugged him like she meant it. And she actually did.

"Okay, I understand. Love you, Dad."

He gave her a weary smile and brushed away a wisp of a dark hair from her brow,

"Love you too, honey"

He rose up and gave her a stern look, only partially in jest.

"But you better get ready for bed pronto, young lady. Work tomorrow, you know."

Yeah, another day of stapling tomato juice cans for Mrs. Shapiro down at AB-Groceries… Don't think so.

"Sure, dad, promise."

She didn't prepare for bed, instead, she lay in darkness under her duvet, fully dressed, listening to the wind picking up outside and watching the fluorescent hands on her alarm clock move painfully slow over the clock face, one tick and tock after another. In less than two hours her boyfriend Shrimpy would signal up at the intersection, three blinks with his headlights, and they would be out of here. But right now, two hours felt like two years.

The tranquility and gloom of her room didn't bother her, but she was afraid she would fall asleep and miss the whole thing, so when the first thunder came rolling in from the ocean she felt almost happy. A thunderstorm would definitely keep her from drowsing off. As time dragged on and the rain started smattering against her window, the house fell silent. For once, she didn't hear shouting or arguments from below. The clock ticked by, and as it neared the decided hour, rising suspense came over her that made it hard to lay still, and it also made her want to go pee. But she didn't dare to, afraid that she would wake up Pen who slept in the room next to hers. It was just excitement anyway, she told herself, and not really like she needed to go.

When her alarm clock showed twenty past eleven, she snuck up, breathing out a 'finally'. As silently as she could, she dragged out her suitcase from under the bed, then she arranged her army of stuffed animals and pillows to look like a person lay under her blanket. It wasn't perfect by any means, but maybe it would fool anyone just taking a glimpse through the door.

She glanced at the clock. It showed thirty minutes to midnight. It was time! She took out the letter to her family that she had prepared, where she explained everything, told them not to be sorry and that she would be just fine, but exactly when she put down the envelope on her desk, a mighty thunderclap boomed that made the house shake and the windows rattle in their frames.

"Yikes!"

Jessie almost jumped out of her skin! When the sound had echoed out, she stood still, listening intently, but all she could hear over the sloshing sounds from the rain and whistling wind was the loud beating of her own heart. When she felt sure everything was calm, she went over to her window and started to unfasten the latches. The view through the glass was dark and wet.

"T'was a dark and stormy night…", she whispered and winked at her reflection in the window, then her smile widened to a grin. There! She saw headlights turning on and off in the distance, three times.

Shrimpy, I love you!

She pushed the window up, carefully put her suitcase on the roof outside, and lifted a leg to climb through.

Hello world, here I come.

Then the doorknob rattled behind her.

She had to put a hand over her mouth not to yell, but it wasn't her father who stood in the door, nor her mother, but a small slender figure.

"Pen!" she whispered, "What are you doing?"

Pen looked back at her from big dark eyes. He had his spectacles on, and the big coke-bottled eyeglasses sat askew over this nose as usual.

"What are you doing?" He said, not keeping his voice down. His face was all disbelief.

"Shh," Jessie whispered and climbed back in the room. "Close the door and come here."

Pen obliged, but with a deeply skeptical face.

"Did you hear the–" he began, but Jessie silenced him with a finger over his lips.

"Quiet, Pen. Yeah, I heard it, it was close."

"Too close," Pen whispered back with a shudder. "What are you doing with your Sunday coat on and everything? It's the middle of the night. Mom and dad will be mad!"

"Then don't let mom and dad know, okay?"

Jessie grabbed his thin shoulders and kneeled to be able to look straight into his eyes. Pen was ten years her junior and hadn't been planned. 'A happy surprise,' as their mother used to say, and indeed he was. Jessie had been like a second mother to him during all of his childhood, but now it was time to think of herself for a change. Pen would understand. Eventually.

"Pen, I know this will be hard for you, but I'm going away. Tonight."

He stared at her.

"What?"

"This town has nothing for me, and it's time for me to go somewhere I can be happy."

"But–"

Jessie silenced him again.

"I must go now, and you must promise me not to tell anyone, okay? Not even mom or dad, or Robby. Can you promise me that?"

Tears filled Pen's eyes when he understood what she was about to do, but he nodded stoically. Jessie gave him a hard hug and kissed his tear-wet cheek. Then she looked back at him.

"Not to anyone, Pen. Do you swear on your death?"

He hiccuped and nodded again, his face a grimace of sadness.

"On my death."

"Good boy."

Jessie hugged him again.

"Now go back to bed and pretend this never happened, okay? And maybe someday you can come after me. Would you like that?"

He sniveled and nodded with hunched shoulders.

"I would. Very much."

To balance over the porch roof and climb down the support pillar was easy-peasy. She had been doing it for years, after all, and the wind and rain didn't add much to the difficulty. Jessie threw a last glance over her shoulder at the darkened house, her home right up till this second, as she trudged away along the street with her suitcase bouncing against her knee, to where Shrimpy's car stood parked. He got out of the driver's seat when she arrived and walked around the car to meet her, folding up a black umbrella. He seemed visibly relieved.

"There you are, I was beginning to worry. Any trouble? Did you leave the letter?"

She huffed and put down the heavy suitcase right in front of him. She had only walked about a hundred paces, but she was already soaked from the downpour. The umbrella Shrimpy held over her head didn't help much now, but she appreciated the gesture.

"Letter's on my desk, and no trouble, just a, uh, womanly take-off distance?"

"Heh, gotcha," he said. "So, are you ready for the adventure of your life?"

"Am I?" She said and kissed him, "If I am!"

He grinned at her enthusiasm.

"Then hop in, babe."

He took her suitcase tossed it in the back, then he opened the door for her. Always the gentleman. Jessie sank down in the comfy passenger's seat. As the son of one of Arcadia Bay's more prominent men, Shrimpy of course had a very nice car, even if he was the same age as her. She would have no problems riding this all night if she had to.

Shrimpy got in behind the steering wheel and turned the ignition. The dashboard lit up and the engine turned over and started humming like a fine-tuned machinery. Not at all like Robby's coughing Oldsmobile, to be sure.

They drove away, and Jessie sighed as she looked through the streaked side window where raindrops drew lines from the roof, glittering golden and amber in the shine of the passing streetlights.

Goodbye, Arcadia. Maybe we'll meet again, but not in a long, long time.

It was incredible how her life had changed since graduating from highschool this summer. Shrimpy had been that nerdy guy in science class, and she had been prom queen. They had barely even spoken to each other before then, but now they were on their way to discover the world together. It was actually she who had named him Shrimpy once upon a time, not as a compliment but as an off-hand insult, and the name had stuck. That was before they had got to know each other, of course. Now he didn't mind. Jessie herself also had a nickname; everybody knew her as Jay-Jay ever since Jasmine had begun in her class a couple of years ago. There obviously couldn't be both a Jessie and a Jasmine in the same group of friends, and because Jessie's surname was Jefferson, she had become Jay-Jay. It sounded cool, like something from a movie, and she had loved it from the start. It would maybe come in handy too, soon. She knew she had the looks, and the rest would be hard work, but Shrimpy was sure she would make it in Hollywood, one way or another. The truth was she would be satisfied just being a secretary or something. Anything but a grocery assistant in Arcadia Bay, for Pete's sake. L.A., here I come!

She was thrown out of her thoughts by the car engine turning off. Shrimpy opened his door and damp, chill air filled the cabin and woke her up from her comfortable, dreamy drowsiness. She stretched and suppressed a yawn. It was almost midnight after all.

"Why are we stopping?"

Shrimpy was already halfway outside.

"There's something we need to do."

She peeked out the rainy window. It was hard to see, but she recognized where they were.

"Here?"

Shrimpy didn't answer, instead, he went around and opened the door for her.

"Come on, it'll be quick."

She really didn't want to, but Shrimpy looked so eager she sighed and swung out her feet from the footwell.

"Alright, but I really don't see why we have to," she complained, "We should be out of here by now."

He pulled her up to a standing position.

"We will, soon. I promise."

They walked over the neatly trimmed lawn, around the back of the large building, and up to a big wooden door. She had never been in here before, as it was off-limits and always locked, but Shrimpy produced a key ring from his coat bristling with heavy keys and started to rattle with the lock.

"You have keys?"

"I do. My dad more or less owns this place, you know."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

The door swung open, and they walked into a large hallway that seemed deserted since time memorial. The room had a funky smell and was too dark for her to notice any details, but by the echoes of their steps, Jessie guessed it must be quite some distance up to the ceiling. Shrimpy led her to yet another door in a corner. This door was much smaller and had large metal fittings. He unlocked it with a black iron key that must've been from the last century. The door clunked, and with a creak, it revealed a narrow staircase whose steps slowly turned right, and downwards. Lit torches burned a red ember in bronze sconces spaced out over the ancient arched brick wall, leaving much of the passageway in a crepuscule dimness. When Shrimpy stepped through the doorway, Jessie hesitated.

"Wait, Shrimp, this kind of spooks me out."

He turned to her and tugged lightly at her hand.

"It's alright, Jay-Jay, I've been here before. Just keep close."

She noticed a change in his tone, and it made her nervous. His normally carefree and relaxed voice now sounded subdued, almost glum. She didn't like it one bit.

"No, let's go back. Please, this place scares me."

She tried to stop him or at least get him to turn towards her, so she could look him in the eyes, but he stubbornly continued down the curving stair, pulling her with him.

"We can't turn back now." He said, seemingly more to himself than to her. She tried halfheartedly to break free, but he held her wrist in a solid grip, dragging her onwards and downwards.

"What is this?" she protested, but still following his lead down the stone steps. Shrimpy didn't look back when he answered.

"It's a kind of test. A lot depends on it."

"What test? I don't want to be tested, I want to go home!"

"Don't worry, it will be me they're testing, not you."

"Oh," she said, feeling a bit calmer, but only for a moment.

"Wait a minute, who are 'they'? What are they going to–"

"You'll see."

After what must've been a hundred steps circling down, they arrived at yet another small, old-looking door, and on the other side a large round room opened up, with walls of rough masonry and a floor tiled with granite slabs in a spiraling pattern, ending in a big, flat, round stone in the exact center of the floor. The whole structure felt ancient and smelled of soot and damp earth. Torches burned in here too, barely lighting up the darkness, and around the wall, a group of men stood posted, evenly spaced as to form a kind of star or circle. Jessie relaxed. She knew who they were, all of them, if only by name. They were the most important and notable men of Arcadia Bay, and she had met them all at the prom last spring, where they had helped count the votes for Arcadia Bay's finest young man, in this case, Shrimpy, and, not to forget, finest young woman, namely her, and they had all been very nice to her when they had congratulated her win. So, this was some kind of weird club meeting? Yeah, that had to be it. The men all wore silly gowns made out of fur, and even sillier hats made out of shabby old animal heads. Real animal heads, it looked like, which was pretty gross. She saw an elk, a bear, with long yellow fangs still attached to its mouth, a deer, and a fox, or was it a coyote? Police chief Andersen looked the silliest because he wore a whole salmon over his head, with papery, glittering skin and dry, sad eyes that stared down at her. Also, it looked like he didn't wear anything under his crackling fish-skin dress. Maybe none of them did? It was hard to see, and it was also hard not to laugh at the strange scene. Everyone of them also carried some kind of long staff or spear. As the son of the most prominent of Arcadia's families, this was probably some kind of weird initiating ritual for Shrimpy, that was all too clear, but why was she here? She also wondered what this meant for their escape. Shrimpy had seemed so eager to get away earlier, she could tell he had absolutely meant it. He had been really down the last week, all jittery and brooding, but today he had been his regular calm and charming self. Until now. When he looked at her as he gently pushed her up against the wall, his face was tense and pale, but Jessie couldn't understand why. This was just some kind of old skull-and-bones fraternity game, right? As a fly on the wall, she kind of looked forward seeing how this would play out.

Shrimpy's voice was raspy when he spoke.

"Raise your hands, Jay-Jay."

"Huh? Like this?" she said and held them up in the classic 'hands-up' gesture while giving him a mischievous grin. "I yield, Mister, please don't hurt me."

Shrimpy didn't smile back.

"Higher, please."

Jessie put her arms straight up, wondering what kind of frat game this was.

"Like that?"

"Just so."

He reached up and swiftly threaded a loop of twined leather rope over her wrists and tugged, locking her hands in place over her head.

"Ouch, careful!" she squeaked, but Shrimpy just squatted by her feet, and before she could react, he had bound her ankles to the floor with another length of rope. She tried to wriggle free, but the knots were hard and the ropes taut, and the old cramp irons they were tied to were solid.

"Don't tell me," she said, trying her best to keep her voice cheerful, "you were a wolf cub as a kid, right? These knots are tight!"

She shot a worried look at the men standing around the room, but they stood absolutely still, like statues. She could see their eyes glinting in the torchlight as they watched, but no-one came to her aid, and none of them uttered a word in protest or otherwise. She grimaced as the cord cut into her arms.

"Hey, Shrimpy, this is starting to get uncomfortable, d'you think you can untie me now?"

The look Shrimpy gave her, sitting by her feet, gave her the chills. It was both sad and regretful, but also full of steely determination. He didn't answer, though, instead he removed her pumps and socks, then dug down his hand in an old weaved basket standing by the wall and fetched something, a kind of long knife? It looked like it was made of polished black stone, but its edges seemed wicked sharp. She immediately began to sweat. Cold sweat.

"Hey, hey, what are you going to do with that?" Jessie squealed and writhed in her ropes, but she only managed to chafe her wrists and ankles.

She looked up at the other men standing there like silent shadows.

"Chief Andersen? Principal Black? Doctor Garner? Mr., uh, Attorney? I'm sorry, I can't remember your name. Please?"

She stared Mr. Prescott, though she really didn't expect any help from him. He always seemed very hard and cold.

"Please, Mr. Prescott, help me! Anyone! This isn't fun anymore!"

Except for her screams and the low crackling of burning torches, the room was dead silent.

She started to shake as Shrimpy took the stone dagger and started to cut through her trouser leg. It went surprisingly effortless. That thing must be as sharp as a filet knife, the way it ripped through the fabric up her leg, knee and thigh. A furious anger and helplessness and shame rose in her as she hanged there. Like a fly in a net, unable to do anything.

"You fucking perverts! You have no right to do this! No right! This is all my best clothes, and you're ruining them."

She started sobbing, and Shrimpy frowned at her.

"Keep still, Jay-Jay. I don't want to nick you by mistake, but we're in a hurry."

She tried to get her breathing under control.

"So–, so–, you're not gonna hurt me?"

He shook his head.

"No, no-one here is going to touch you, I promise."

"You promise, huh? Like how you promised we should be out of here soon? That kind of promise?"

Tears welled up in her eyes again. How stupid she had been! How the hell had she ended up like this? Here with these maniacs? She would work as a grocery assistant until he was grey and bent, if only she could be back in her bed again.

Shrimpy cut through the last thread of her coat and blouse and let them fall to the floor with the rest of her clothes. He reached out a hand and dried a tear from her cheek.

"Oh, but we will be out of here," he mumbled, "not just in the way you thought."

"I–, I don't understand," she said through her snivelings, "please, Shrimpy, let me go. Please, I don't want to do this. I want to go home."

He gave her a sad smile.

"I want everything to be as before too, babe, but it can't. I was a fool dreaming of running away, but this is my responsibility. Mine alone."

Jessie wriggled furiously but only managed to hurt herself. And she started to get cold. Glowering at him she felt anger rising again.

"Yours alone? What a load of bullshit! Then what am I doing here, huh?"

Shrimpy looked away, and when he looked back, she saw pain in his face.

"I'm so sorry, Jay-Jay, but we can't outrun fate. Yours, or mine."

A bang echoed in the enclosed room. Mr. Prescott had thrusted the end of his staff to the stone floor, hard. He suddenly looked double his age, grey-faced and strained under this bear-head hat, but his voice was solemn and stern when he spoke.

"Son, it's time."

Before Jessie's baffled eyes, Shrimpy began to undress. Soon, he was just as bare as she was. But contrary to her pearly white skin, his body was full of black markings. Latin texts swirled over his back and arms and legs, and crosses, stars, dots, swirls, lines and other strange symbols she didn't know covered every visible patch of skin below his neck.

"What the…?" Jessie breathed, but then things got even more weird. Shrimpy took an ancient-looking turtleshell rattler from the basket, and began to shake it in a slow, rhythmic beat. TCHUK-tchuk, TCHUK-tchuk, TCHUk-tchuk. As on a given signal, the men, Arcadia Bay's finest, foremost men, started to walk along the wall in short shuffling steps, almost like a dance, holding their staffs out and pointing towards the center of the room. Then they began to chant with words she had never heard before, but it made the hair on her back stand up. As each of the men passed Shrimpy, they turned into the entrance of the stone maze on the floor and started to follow it, circling closer and closer to the center of the room with its big circular stone. When all had gathered around the stone, they thrusted their staffs into the ground and with great effort, still singing, the men heaved up the heavy center stone and dragged it to the side, revealing a circular hole in the floor, inky black, like some kind of underground pit, or well. The torches flickered and dimmed, and a hot, ashy breeze rushed around the room. Strangely it made Jessie feel cold to the bones. It wasn't the temperature that made it hard to breathe, her heart icy and her muscles paralysed by fear, but the feeling of a sudden presence in the underground room. It was like they weren't alone anymore. Something bad was here too. Something really, really bad.

The men backed away from the dark pit, still chanting and making that shuffling dance, until they stood against wall again, but this time they turned their faces to the stone and their backs to the room. Only Shrimpy, or Sean, as his real name was, she refused to use his pet name anymore, faced the room, and she could see by the way he clenched shoulders that he was scared shitless. Jessie shuddered as the men and Sean sang louder and louder, their echoing song almost drowning her fear with their strange words. Then she heard another sound. Or it was more like she felt it through her bare feet standing on the cold stone floor; a low, scraping sensation of something inching itself closer and closer. She couldn't understand what could produce such a sound. Until she did. Her eyes were drawn to the black pit in the middle of the room. The sound must come from the well. Was there something down there? Then her heart stopped as her eyes caught a shadow of a movement. Oh, god, there must be something there, crawling up from the blackness. Slowly, relentlessly, an abhorrent entity of intense evil was nearing, and she knew it was coming for her.