You were guided back into the party by your best friend who had a look of sympathy on her face, but it wasn't the comforting kind, it was more like 'I think you're totally insane but I don't want to make you feel worse about the situation' kind of look. It didn't make you feel any better. Though, it wasn't like you could blame her. She didn't see him. She didn't hear him. She couldn't see the blood on your body. It all felt like a cruel, sick joke. You wished it was just a dream because then at least your friends wouldn't have seen you acting like a crazy person. It was Halloween. You were supposed to be having fun.
Your hands were shaking rapidly, and you knew you were on the verge of a mental breakdown. You could still feel the blood, you could still smell how foul it was. You wanted to rip the ugly dress off and never see it again.
Hanna caressed your back lovingly in an attempt to comfort you until you two came back into the bustling party. She was strangely quiet.
Maybe what happened in the woods was just some twisted prank. Maybe it was just a clown that happened to look like the one in your dreams, maybe it wasn't really him. Maybe it was just some asshole thinking he was funny, maybe–
"Do you want to go back home?" Hanna asked suddenly after being silent for far too long, a frown stuck on her face. "You look too freaked out to be here. I can take you back if you want," she offered somewhat reluctantly, because you knew that she didn't want to leave the party. "I think you need to get some rest."
"No, I'm fine," you told her, and your tone did little to convince her that you were telling the truth. "I don't really want to be by myself tonight. We're supposed to have a good time, remember?" you smiled weakly.
You decided it was better to stay. He couldn't get you here, not when you were surrounded by walls and people. You just had to remind yourself not to chase any more stray balloons.
"I know but you don't have to stay, I don't want you to feel like you have to," she explained.
"I'm seriously fine. Don't be such a worrywart. I just want to forget about what happened, okay? Can we drop it?" you asked, hoping that she would just let it go.
"Okay, but just let me know if you change your mind," she reminded you.
"Thanks," you replied with a small smile. "I'm just gonna use the bathroom real quick, I'll be back," you told her and she simply nodded her head in response. You made your way through the crowd and once you were out of her peripheral vision you rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind you.
You grabbed a towel and turned on the sink faucet to damp it quickly. You patted your dress down with the towel, trying to rid of as much blood as you could without smearing it too much. You couldn't stand the smell. Once you were finished you threw the towel aside and washed your hands quickly, feeling sick to your stomach as you watched hues of red mix with the water.
You stood before the mirror when you heard a soft noise behind you, almost like the rustling of fabric, but when you turned around no one was there. You froze and watched the mirror carefully, and there was movement behind you. With a slight shrug, you reached into the bathroom cabinet to fix your hair. It wasn't looking as put together as it was when you were arrived here, and just as you reached your hand out to grab a hair brush, you heard an eerie whisper of your name in your ears.
A chill shivered its way down your spine and the hair brush falls from your hand as your grip goes slack. You turned, slowly backing up against the wall as you peered around the room. You noticed the chandelier above you was swinging ever so sightly, flickering every now and then. "Who's there?" you called, looking about your surroundings.
The room was empty and you scrubbed at your eyes, then shook your head slightly. You hadn't gotten any sleep for the past few weeks. You were just tired. You had to convince yourself that's all it was.
You were bending down to rummage through the cabinet when there was a creak above you. There was something like a hard tug against the straps of your dress and you tripped back over your feet as you lost your balance, just as the chandelier crashed to the ground a mere hair's breadth from where you were standing. The room was very dim now. Your whole body flinched.
Why was this happening? You were sure that had been hung up for years and now suddenly it drops?
You stared at the fallen object, breath suddenly hard to catch, and scrabbled back as best as you could on quivering legs. A hand drifted up to rub your neck, and you breathed out shakily when it doesn't seem to have left a mark.
Your gaze drifted over the room again, almost completing a scan when a darkness catches your attention from the far corner of the ceiling. There was some sort of shadow suspended there, and it drifted slowly towards you where you were standing by the mirror. It was dark, so maybe you were just seeing things but you could tell there was a darkness that didn't belong.
You closed your eyes, took a deep breath, and moved away quickly, cautiously avoiding looking towards the corner. You calmly and surely made your way back out of the bathroom before closing the door quietly behind yourself. You were going to be okay. You just had to get back to the party now. Everything was going to be okay.
You wandered down the dark narrow hall. The house was overwhelmingly filled with gloom. You didn't hear the loud music anymore. You didn't hear people chattering. You didn't see the disco lights bouncing off the walls. It was deadly silent. There was only a faint light coming from the end of the corridor but even then it was hardly anything.
Oh no, were you dreaming again?
You sprinted over to one of the rooms, you needed to find someone; anyone. You opened the door to Hanna's room and found someone was sleeping on her bed with rustled sheets over their body. You walked over with careful footsteps, and discovered that it was a young man. There was a pillow covering his face. As you had stepped closer, your heart plummeted, body icing over. His chest wasn't raising and falling. He wasn't breathing. You rushed over, ripping the pillow away from him. You gripped his wrist, checking for a pulse. There was none to be found. Your eyes filled with tears when you looked at his young face and dead eyes. Who could have done this?
You wanted to scream, scream for help but you found that you couldn't even speak, and somehow you knew that even if you did, no help would come. You couldn't stay here. You had to find everyone else. You had to find your friends.
You figured someone had to be scrounging around in the kitchen. You were half right. You found a young girl sprawled out on the table, head turned to you with wide opened eyes. You didn't have to enter the kitchen very far to notice the dark bruises circling her throat. You fled from the kitchen and headed down the hallway the opposite direction of the way you had come, swallowing back against the nausea creeping into your throat.
They were all dead. They were all dead and now you were next. He was going to get you. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening, not now.
The werewolf costumed DJ had been next, face down in the hallway with a knife in his back. Blood spread from the wound outward, soaking the back of his costume. You had to cover your mouth to keep yourself from crying out. You choked back on your sobs and hoped with everything you had that you would find somebody alive.
Then suddenly, you heard somebody screaming. It was a shrill, desperate sort of noise. It sounded like a woman. The sound scratched at the thin air around you, and it kept going, louder like the person was stumbling, crawling towards you.
You moved frantically in search of another living soul roaming the building.
You had tore down the hallway, checking inside rooms as you went. The hallway opened up into the living room. The entire place was trashed, tables knocked over, bodies littering the floor, blood splattered and covered the walls, there wasn't a little thing that wasn't broken or ruined in one way or another. There was so many dead bodies. It was a massacre. Amy had been the only occupant of the room. She was sitting on the couch, facing away from you, only the back of her head visible.
"Amy?" you had called out as you slowly moved further into the room, afraid of what you would find once you rounded the couch.
No reply. Your heart sank. The room was filled with the scent of iron. Blood. Your eyes drifted shut and you took a much needed breath as you reached the moment of truth. Opening your eyes, you let out a loud gasp and jumped a step back. Amy's chin was resting on her chest. Blood soaked the entire front of her body and her flashy Angel costume was completely ruined. Her throat had been slit. Tears streamed down your face as you let out a strangled sob, hope of finding anyone alive slowly slipping through your fingers.
You found another body in the closet. The young man was dressed in a police uniform and he had been stabbed in the chest, blood drenching the entirety of his costume, his eyes wide with horror. You stayed in the room long enough to count the wounds before leaving. There had been eight.
Jessica was discovered in the room next door to Hanna's. It was a bedroom. She was slumped over a desk on a chair, her eyes completely lifeless and face blood-stained. The back of her head had been bashed in.
That brought you to now, fighting your hysteria. Who would you find next? How brutal would it be? Who was doing this?
You tripped over a rug as you continued down the hall, still checking rooms along your way. You didn't call out in case the killer was near you. You didn't want to draw attention to your location.
You knew your way around because this was your friend's place, you had been here a million times. You knew which rooms you had checked and what areas had yet to be searched. There was still places to look. There had to be someone.
Glancing over the balcony, you saw two bodies strewn out at the foot of the stairs. Wasting no time, you sprinted to the top of the stairs and scrambled down to them. You were moving urgently in hopes of finding them still alive. Their hands were bound behind them and they were gagged. It was a couple dressed as Bonnie and Clyde. They had been pushed down the stairs. No way they could have survived that. You were sure their legs and necks were broken once you spotted the crooked angles of their bodies.
Hope was fading fast. You didn't think you were going to make it out alive. He did this. The clown. This was his doing. He was going to get away with it. This was your worst nightmare. You were alone. Surrounded by death.
You glanced at the front door. Rain splattered against the windows, thunder rumbled in the distance. You could easily leave now. Just run out the front door and possibly get out alive while you were still breathing. Maybe others took the opportunity and were saved. You couldn't have been the only survivor.
No. You couldn't just leave them. You couldn't leave your friends.
You didn't want to assume everyone else was dead but the chances seemed bleak. You crept down the next hallway you came to, the fear of running into the clown building in the very core of your being.
Standing outside of the last door of the hall, you were overcome with a feeling of dread. You just knew in your bones you wouldn't like what you would find waiting for you on the other side. Your palms were sweating and your heart raced as you reached for the doorknob. It was the bathroom. What if something had happened after you left? You had to check.
You managed to assess the room before your nose picked up on a slight burning scent hanging in the air. A light humming filled the room. Then your eyes landed on the scene before you. Your eyes widened in horror and you gasped. You only took comfort in the fact that they had been together when it happened.
Twin sisters dressed as witches were in the large tub facing one another. The porcelain tub was filled to the brim with water. Your eyes followed the black electrical cord that ran from the outlet of the sink to connect to the hair dryer floating between the two occupants of the bathtub. You grimaced at the thought and sight. It couldn't have been a quick death. They must have suffered. Your heart was broken. You couldn't imagine how you would feel if something had happened to your little sister.
You pitched to the side, gagging, and nearly threw up in your mouth. Wiping your face with the back of your hand, tremors wracking your frame, you backed out of the room. You made your way down the staircase at the end of the hall that led to the garage. You didn't have to fully enter the room at the bottom of the stairs to see what had occurred within, didn't even have to be at the last step.
Cold sweat trickled down the nape of your neck. Each step echoed and created more fear to settle within your chest. The ragged breathing that escaped your lips was the only sound that rang in your ears. You gazed at the walls as you walked past, the grey walls covered in rust and blood.
There was definitely a struggle in this room. Broken glass was scattered upon the floor as well as a bloody knife. There was two brothers dressed as pirates, lying prone on the floor. The older one was on his back perpendicular to the staircase, head turned in the direction of it, though it was obvious what he had been looking at in his last moments. He had one hand on his abdomen, covering his wounds as his clothes seeped with crimson. His right hand was stretched towards the younger brother, palm up, in his futile attempt to reach him. The younger brother was a ways off of his right side, legs out behind him, like he had crawled on his stomach to his final spot. His arms were both torn off and he was bathing in a puddle of his own blood.
You allowed yourself to slump down onto the steps and let the emotions overcome you at the heart wrenching scene before you, going over all that you had witnessed so far. Their lifeless eyes were all you could think about, how they were drenched in their own blood, and the brutality of it all. You held your face in your hands as your whole body shuddered both from your sobs and from your nerves. How could you have let this happen? You could have warned them. You could have warned everyone. The clown terrorizing you was one thing, but you didn't think he had the power to do something as unspeakable as this. He was going to find you. There wasn't a doubt in your mind about that. But then this nightmare could finally be over.
You couldn't breathe. The little hope you had died. You choked on nothing, collapsing to your knees as your lungs refused to expand. You coughed, a deep, rattling sound that sent your whole body into horrible shivers. You groaned, closing your eyes against a wave of dizziness. Anxiety coiled in your stomach, heart thudding against your ribs, fast and painful. You felt like you were going to throw up again. In an effort to stop it, you curled your hands into fists at your side, but the tremors only seemed to travel through your flesh. Up your arms. Through your bones. Through your veins.
In the midst of your anguish, you managed to open your eyes and glance up. There was no ceiling, only a vast expanse of darkness and emptiness above you. Nothingness. A void. Laughter rang within the four walls surrounding you, sinister and croaky. You squinted to focus your sight as you peered up into the darkness, trying to find the source of the laughter.
"What the hell are you doing down here?"
A voice yelled from upstairs. Your head immediately turned to the sound.
It was Hanna. Her face was marred with worry. She rushed down the steps quickly until she reached your cowering body against the wall. Your tear-filled eyes met hers but you couldn't speak. She was alive. She was okay.
"Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?" she asked, her voice full of panic. She grabbed both of your quivering hands, holding onto them tightly. "What happened?" she repeated.
You didn't know if you could answer. She gave you a moment and you swallowed hard, willing your voice to speak.
"He's killing everyone. The bodies. They're everywhere. He's going to get me next," you managed to whisper.
"Who's here? Who's killing everyone?" your friend asked, her gaze unwavering and her voice soft and concerned.
"He's here, I know he is. I couldn't find you guys and I-"
"Who's trying to get you?" she asked as she watched your unfocused eyes dart around, searching for something in the room, before you looked back at her.
Your body was heaving, you sobbed and whined before you answered, your voice echoing through it was but a whisper.
"The clown. The clown that's coming for me. The one in the woods. Please, you have to help me, he's here. Please don't let him get me. He killed Amy and Jessica and-"
"What are you talking about? They're fine! Everyone's fine! We're all partying upstairs! No one is dead," Hanna said as she held onto your hands tighter. "Come on, let me bring you upstairs and you'll see for yourself."
"He killed them. They're right there-" you started, and pointed at where the dead brothers were laying. But now they were gone. Their dead bodies weren't there anymore. There was no blood. Not a trace of it. It was like it was never there in the first place. You looked back up at the ceiling. The darkness disappeared. Everything looked the way it was supposed to. Back to normal.
"There's no one there," Hanna replied sadly. She had a hopeless look on her face, like she didn't have the slightest idea on how to help you. It was so much worse than the look she gave you when you two came back to the party.
"They were dead. It was there, Hanna, you – you have to believe me. I saw it. I swear – I saw it, I did. Please believe me," you begged brokenly. In the back of your mind you wondered why she would believe you when you could hardly believe yourself.
Hanna simply listened, nodding her head in response. "You're safe. We're safe. I promise," she assured you. "Come on, let's get you out of here," she told you softly.
She helped you stand back up on your feet and walked up the steps with you, her arm wrapped securely around your shoulder.
You turned to look back, to make sure the bodies were gone. There was nothing alarming in sight. Everyone was okay. No one died. But you could still hear the clown's chilling and vile laughter echoing in your ears. You could still feel his presence.