As Alyssa Hale was leaving the train station, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong. She looked all around her, but nothing seemed unusual. "That's... strange..." she muttered to herself. "I'd better get to Uncle Philip's. It's getting late." The sky was beginning its transition from light blue to orange, and it wouldn't be long before it faded to pink and then finally a deep violet before becoming a vast blackness littered with stars. Shouldering her small bag of clothes she began weaving through the crowds to get to her destination, not knowing that it was the last place she should go to.
Allen Hale quietly opened the door and peeked inside. No one. Perfect. Stepping into the empty lab he began sorting through whatever he could find, looking for anything that might belong to Maxwell. Although it harshly reminded him of all those years ago it still had to be done. This time, however, he was taking anything he found with him. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
"AHHHH!"
BANG!
Allen froze, hands still buried in a drawer. The gunshot sounded like it came from the room across the hall. Slowly he turned and watched the door as if someone or something would come charging in. And something did. A guard swung the door open and looked at Allen with soulless eyes. The scientist was numb with shock and horror at the sight. "He actually did it..." He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Why hadn't Philip told him that Maxwell had succeeded?
The zombie guard suddenly rushed at Allen, who barely reacted in time. He shoved the stack of papers he'd gotten from the drawer into the satchel he brought and ran out of the room. Charging into the next he was faced with another zombie, only this one was a scientist. It grabbed his arm but he managed to shake it off before shoving it back roughly. The creature lost its balance and fell, giving Allen enough time to spot the handgun on the ground. The scientist had likely been taken by surprise and missed when he fired at the guard, who in return infected him. Not wasting any time he scooped it up just as the guard entered the room. He faltered for only a second before shooting directly at the zombie's head. It dropped and that was that. Allen then turned and shot the other one while it was still getting up. Once it was clear that neither was ever going to move again, he sighed and leaned back on the closest table.
Then he saw his surroundings. There were two other tables in the room, side by side. On them were mutilated corpses. Various tools and equipment that were not meant for medical use were scattered about the room, some covered in red. Allen swallowed hard to keep himself from puking. This had to be the work of Maxwell. Who else would do such disturbing things, especially to people?
He forced himself to turn away. He couldn't be bothered by this. Not now. He had to stay focused. Steal all of Maxwell's research and then get out of there. That was his plan. Only now there were a few wrenches thrown in. He looked at his new weapon. It was only a small handgun, it wouldn't hold much. Three shots were already taken, so there were likely only three to five bullets left. He didn't know, he wasn't an expert and he didn't care. There'd be spare bullets and guns around, that was obvious if a scientist had been packing heat. Not to mention that Maxwell's sick research would've called for it.
Taking a deep breath he stepped outside the lab and saw that the hall was empty. For now, at least. There were likely to be more zombies lurking in the shadows, waiting for their next meal. Well, they'd be sorely disappointed. Allen headed to the next lab.
Philip and Katherine Tate had been quietly discussing their concerns when a noise caught their attention.
"That might be Ashley," Philip said.
"I'll go and see." Katherine got up and left while Philip just sighed and rubbed his head.
"Allen Hale, that Maxwell Curse is-"
"AHHH!" He was interrupted by his wife's sudden scream. Not wasting any time, he jolted up from the table and ran to the front door. What he saw chilled him to his very core. It was indeed Ashley, but not the Ashley who had left for school that morning. This one was wearing the same clothes but had green skin and empty white eyes. His stomach twisted in sickened horror. This had to be wrong. That couldn't be his daughter, it just couldn't be.
"A... Ashley? What...?" As she was backing away, Katherine spotted her husband standing dumbly by the door. "Philip, what's going on? Please tell me this is some kind of sick joke." She was hysterical and too distracted to see what used to be their daughter getting ready to lunge.
"Katherine!" Philip finally snapped out of his daze and pointed just in time for Katherine to look and dodge. "Go hide somewhere! Now!" Before she could object he pushed her through the door and slammed it shut. Then he faced Ashley, who was steadily approaching him. "Ashley... Please tell me you're still there. Please tell me that monster didn't really take you away like this." He could feel his eyes beginning to water at both his oldest daughter's fate and his own ignorance. Despite that, he managed to lead Ashley to the bathroom where he was going to keep her locked until he could figure out how to save her. Once he got there, however, he realized that she was blocking the only way out and that he'd have to be fast if he wanted to escape and trap her.
The tip of a knife suddenly poked through Ashley's stomach and she began to make horrible gagging noises as it moved out and stabbed her again and again in different spots on the torso. After a stab in the side her body finally fell, landing in the tub full of water that Katherine had set for Stephanie. It quickly turned yellow and after a few moments of pitiful attempts at survival Ashely's body stopped moving altogether, legs still hanging out of the tub. Philip stared in disbelief at her and then turned to see who'd killed her. He nearly had a heart attack at seeing his youngest daughter holding a kitchen knife, smiling widely at the sight of her zombieified, stabbed, and drowned older sister. She started giggling like a lunatic and the awful inhuman sound made him go cold and his breath hitch. When she finally stopped her wicked laughter she looked at him with a mischievous glint in her eye that he did not like at all.
"S... Stephanie?" He almost couldn't speak.
"We're gonna play hide and seek," she said while enjoying the sight of light reflecting off the blade. "Alyssa isn't here yet, but we can start without her." Philip wanted to try pleading, but she was obviously just as far gone as Ashley. He instead tried to get the knife out of her hands with a swipe of his arm but she was too fast for him. "Hey! You can't do that. That's cheating. And there's always a punishment for cheating. If you try to cheat anymore, you'll lose an arm, okay Daddy?" She said the last part so sweetly that his mind almost dumped the fact that she just killed someone. Her sister, no less.
"Stephanie... Please..." The small girl just giggled again and looked over at her sister.
"Ashley can still keep playing," Stephanie muttered with a sinister grin. "I'll give you a ten minute head start. You should go for it. Just don't leave the house, that's not allowed." The last sentence was filled with an increasing amount of venom and darkness which caused Philip to heed her words and flee the room. If he was fast enough, he could grab Katherine and Michael and get to safety to call the police. This was Maxwell's doing, it had to be. No one else would ever do this, not even Allen, whom he was beginning to suspect of having some sort of vendetta against him. The only other possibility... was that dreaded curse.
"Katherine!" Philip shouted, swinging open the door to their bedroom. Growling in frustration at its emptiness he ran out to go check the rest of the house. He knew he told her to hide but not this well. He ran upstairs to try Michael's room. Maybe she'd gone in there to warn him and bring him to safety.
The teen was sitting on his bed reading a comic book and listening to music when his father came bursting into the room. "Michael!" he shouted, causing him to jolt hard enough to knock his headphones off.
"Dad? What's wr-"
"Where's your mother?"
"I don't know. Why-"
"Never mind! I want you to get out of here now. Go to the police, go to a friend's house, go anywhere that isn't here." Philip nearly choked on his next words. "Don't worry about Ashley... she's not here. And stay away from Stephanie."
"Dad, what's going on?" Michael had never seen his father so frantic and fearful before. Whatever was happening, it had to be a true disaster. And stay away from Stephanie? How could he say that? She was only seven, she'd need someone to comfort and guide her in a situation like this. Before he could even open his mouth, his father ran back the way he came, calling for Katherine.
Michael furrowed his brow and decided that he'd go see for himself what the problem was. Nothing was making sense, and what little he had gotten from his father was only confusing him more. As quietly as possible, he made his way down the hall to the stairs and listened. Nothing. Wait, he could make out light footsteps. They were too light to be his father, not to mention that he had been running before, so why would he suddenly be walking? He thought it could've been his mother until he heard little giggles. It was Stephanie. Michael gulped as the sound grew louder and his father's warning echoed in the back of his mind. Ever so slowly, he tiptoed down the stairs until he could see the doors. The adjacent one suddenly opened and he nearly jumped at the sight of Stephanie-little seven-year-old Stephanie-holding a yellow-covered knife and what he hoped was a really good replica of Ashley's head.
The child hadn't noticed her elder brother watching from the stairs as she was too busy giggling at Ashley's face, still stuck in some sort of horrified growl. It was as if an angry zombie had suddenly been surprised by something...
Michael quickly yet silently made his way back upstairs and ducked into the bathroom just as Stephanie came up with Ashley's severed head. She walked into her sister's room and Michael, despite his entire being screaming at him to run, crept after her to see what she was doing. He watched in silent horror as she placed the object in a suitcase and left it in the middle of the room in a way that suggested she wanted someone to find it. Before he could back away she turned to face him.
"You're not hiding," she said, seemingly disappointed.
"Hiding... from what? Stephanie, what is that?" He already knew the answers, he just wanted to stall until he could come up with something.
"It's hide and seek. But since you aren't hiding, I guess you wanna seek, right?" She took a step toward him and he began backing away. "Come see what I found," she said cheerfully, all the darkness in her voice suddenly gone. She skipped away to her room, knowing that he'd follow now that she hid the malice in her voice.
"Stephanie," Michael said in a wary voice. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what you're up to." There was no way he was going to follow her. He'd seen more than enough horror movies to know that you never follow someone suspicious in a dark and empty house. Especially when you were quite sure they just killed someone.
Stephanie ignored Michael's protest and kept walking. She didn't need him to follow. All she had to do was get the statue to him. Once she retrieved the item she headed back into the hall, watching with amusement as he took a step back.
"What is that?" he asked, unable to contain all the fear in his voice. There was something very wrong about that statue and the way Stephanie's disturbed grin was beginning to match it.
"It's something very special, Michael, and you're about to understand why." The boy wasted no time in running. Younger sister or not, there was no way he was gonna stick around any longer. The way she spoke to him made it blaringly obvious that this was not the same little girl who used to always want to hang out with him and his friends or play Uno or tag. This Stephanie was something else entirely and if the fact hadn't been clear before, then it very much was now.
Stephanie's demented laughter echoed after him as he made his way down the stairs. Before he could reach the bottom, however, a painful sting hit him square in the back and he tumbled down the remaining steps before unceremoniously landing where he kept his shoes. He was only a few feet away from the front door but couldn't move. The pain had traveled up his spine and into his skull, paralyzing him. He couldn't even think straight, as though something were blocking his thoughts.
"It would've been a lot less painful if you had just come along." He could barely hear the girl's taunt over the storm in his head. The last thing he caught a glimpse of before blacking out was that freakish statue, and it seemed as though its grin had somehow gotten wider.
Michael suddenly rose to his feet and looked over at Stephanie with blank, mindless eyes. She smiled.
"There. Now where's a good place for you to hide...?" Her eyes traveled up the stairs, remembering the samurai armor that stayed in the landing. Her giggles could be heard throughout the entire house.
Katherine folded in on herself even more at the sound of Stephanie's sick laughter. "Just what is going on...?" she whimpered. First Ashley, then Philip, and now Stephanie. What was happening to them? Was her son going to charge into the room next wearing that old samurai armor Philip kept in the landing and make a dive for her throat? Why was her entire household falling to pieces all of a sudden? Everything was just fine until Philip announced that Alyssa would be-
Katherine's heart skipped a beat as she remembered something. She'd caught Philip muttering to himself in the basement once and decided that eavesdropping for a minute or two wouldn't hurt. He'd been acting very strange at the time and wouldn't speak to her about any of it. She wasn't sure what to make of most of it, but she'd caught 'curse' and 'Alyssa' and the names Allen and Maxwell, two men Philip had close ties with. He was wandering around down there moving items about and mumbling quietly to himself so it was difficult for her to make out a single complete sentence, but she was positive that this apparent curse had something to do with her 'niece' and her husband's co-workers. And, of course, her husband.
"Oh, Philip," she sobbed quietly. "Why didn't you talk to me about any of this? Why did you leave me in the dark for so long? We could have stopped all of this if only you'd-" She froze as soon as she heard the distant slam of a door.
"Uncle Philip? Aunt Katherine? I'm here." It was Alyssa. She could just barely hear her from where she was hidden but it was obvious the girl was concerned over the total silence in the house. Katherine fought back a twinge of guilt as she huddled herself further into a corner. No matter how much she said she did not trust Allen's adopted daughter-or Allen himself, for that matter-she still did not like to leave a defenseless child alone in a dangerous situation, murderous alter egos aside. The girl was still human, after all, and nothing tugged at her maternal instincts more than the thought of her alone with a zombie and a deranged child. Her zombie and deranged child.
"Why is this happening?" she whined again, burying her face into her arms. She wanted nothing more than to wake up from this nightmare.
"Hello?" Alyssa called out despite Bates harshly commanding she shut up. She couldn't help it; total silence in a normally jovial household told her something was wrong. "Anyone home? Guys?" Nothing. All she received was an eerie silence that she didn't like one bit. Perhaps Aunt Katherine and Uncle Philip were in the dining room, having a late dinner and didn't hear her. Maybe Michael and Stephanie were in their rooms, or in the basement, or somewhere else her voice didn't carry.
Bates told her not to think like such a naïve dumbass.
Alyssa shivered a little at the strong feeling of unease. Something was definitely wrong here if even Bates sounded a little scared. That was truly terrifying. "Where is everybody?" she whispered, finally heeding his warnings. On a whim, she thought she'd try the dining room first. Part of her was still convinced that she was overreacting. Heck, they could've gone out and maybe they'd left her a note explaining as much so she wouldn't panic. Eventually, she decided that standing around by the door was unproductive and that it would best she get to the bottom of this now.
As she entered the room she was disappointed-though not surprised-to find it was empty. The table held no note, much to her dismay. Despite that, she figured she might as well have a look around. As she passed the fireplace she couldn't help but look up at the mantle. She wasn't sure what she expected to find aside from the usual family photos and things, but she was scared stiff as the poker lifted itself out of its holdings before aiming itself directly at her heart. Frozen with fear, all she could do was stare at it. Her mind was too caught up in a frenzy of questions and confusion for her to be able to respond properly. Thankfully, she had Bates.
"Move, dammit!" Before she knew it she jolted out of the way just as the poker made a stab for her. It lodged itself into the floor before ceasing its unnatural movements. She stared numbly at it. When it was clear there was no more danger she pulled the amulet out of her pocket and gripped it tightly. Staring at it, she couldn't help but wonder how Bates had managed to take over long enough to make her sidestep. She was thankful but also terrified of what it might mean.
Was he getting stronger?
Alyssa shook her head and walked over to Philip's and Katherine's bedroom, only to find the door locked tight. She headed back into the entry way. No sense hanging around the empty dining room. As the door latched behind her she thought she felt Bates stirring again. Or perhaps it was just the horrid feeling the house was giving her. She stepped into the bathroom, intent on having a good talk with the entity that was her reflection, something she hadn't done in a long time.
The room was coated in darkness, making it difficult to find the light switch. As she felt around the wall she covered her nose with her shirt. Something smelled awful; like rotten meat mixed with garbage and raw sewage. She flipped on the switch and gasped.
Pale yellow goo formed puddles along the floor, leading to the bathtub. Despite her better instincts she took careful steps towards the source, hoping that it was nothing more than one of Michael's pranks or a pack of slime gone awry. Upon reaching the shower curtain, she counted to three before yanking it back.
Alyssa let out a scream and stumbled back into the sink, eyes fixated on the human torso floating in the tub. The water had been turned the same sickly yellow that was all over the floor and it continued to seep out of the holes in the body that marked where the limbs had been, leaving dying entrails of darker yellow to slowly mix with the bath water.
"What... What happened?" she asked, horrified. This couldn't have been a prank. Michael was not the type of person to go this far and her aunt and uncle would never do this to her. She jolted as shrill laughter echoed throughout the house. "Stephanie?" No. She was just a child. Surely she wouldn't...
"The girl!" Bates shouted, momentarily shattering her thoughts.
"No," she said softly as she forced the wave back. "Stephanie would never do this. There has to be an explanation." She took a few steadying breaths to calm herself down before making her legs carry her to the door and away from the body. She didn't have it in her to talk to Bates anymore.
Right now, she had to figure out what in the world was happening here.
A/N: No amount of apology in the world will make up for the years I've left this thing untouched. It's not that I don't want to finish it, I just hit a brick wall of writer's block once I got to the canon events and ended up taking way too long of a break. I hope to see this thing through though, and I sincerely apologize to all of you who've been reading and leaving reviews. I'm really happy you like it and (assuming anybody even remembers this thing at this point) I'm hoping to work on a few chapters when I get a few days off. I'll have to go over the game again and I'll probably take a few 'artistic liberties' along the way, but thankfully, I don't intend this to be too much longer. Thank you again for your support and peace!
