Horror Hangout

TW: Violence and gore!

October 10, 2016

9:33 p.m.

The five gamers didn't know how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity. They sat there, stupefied, as uniformed police officers moved around in Boss's home, knocking the camera lens about in the process. Boots tramped and radios squawked. Steve somehow caught the code "1-8-7" and immediately knew what it was—a homicide.

Boss was just—gone.

And no one had a clue who did it.

"Boss? Boss! Get up! For God's sake, get up!" screamed Blayd. "We may have had our differences, but I'd never wish this upon you! Please, open your eyes!"

"Yeah, man! I'm sorry I said those things to you!" joined in Isai. "Just say something! Anything! I'll make it up to you, I promise!"

"Hey! Officers! Can you hear us?" bellowed Mr. C. "We're kinda dealing with a little problem ourselves—an Internet stalker! Hello! Officers?"

"What's the use?" huffed Abate. "They can't hear us."

More wailing sirens and more trampling of boots. The sound of a stretcher being wheeled in. The rustling of tarp. A flash of uniform as a broad shoulder brushed the camera lens. Loudly, the camera clattered to the floor, giving the five men one last glimpse at Boss's mangled remains.

Everyone screamed. They screamed at the blood. They screamed at the horror and terror frozen on Boss's face. They screamed at his pale skin. They screamed at the various organs and guts peeking from the wounds on his stomach.

"Oh, man," croaked Isai. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"He is, poor fellow," sighed Blayd.

"Darn it! Now I'll never get a chance to apologize for our quarrel!" wept Isai.

"He was a prankster, but he was one of us," intoned Eddy. "May he forever rest in peace."

As he uttered those words, Boss's camera cut out, leaving only the five men and LisRl2015.

Hey, guys! LisRl2015 typed cheerfully. Enjoying the show? It's only the warm-up act, you know.

"What is he talking about?" hissed Mr. C.

And save your tears for Boss—he was no saint, contrary to your beliefs. Check this out, gentlemen—you'll see what I'm talking about! And then the mystery person sent them all a link.

"No," gasped Blayd as he opened it.

"This can't be real," murmured Isai.

The link was a lengthy direct message from Boss to Luigi—in which the former told the latter to kill himself!

"This is insane!" shouted Abate. "Boss loved Luigi to death—didn't he?"

"Maybe—maybe he was just having a bad day," offered Mr. C.

"That's no excuse!" snapped Abate. "This is the most despicable thing I've ever seen!"

"And he's calling him all of these names, too! Why would he want to throw this man under the bus?" Eddy heatedly demanded. "Is it really him?"

"Yep. It was under his account. Posted October 1, 2015," reported Blayd. "I can't believe he's kept this from us for over a year."

"Do you think—do you think he was the one who posted the video?" asked Eddy.

"Well—he wasn't there when we were all comforting him," shrugged Blayd. "I'm sorry to say that there's a possibility of him being the culprit."

"My God," gasped Abate.

"He was such a nice, if annoying, guy…" Isai muttered in disbelief.

The five were silenced by an incoming post from LisRl2015.

All of you have dirty little secrets.

It's time for me to expose them.

Here's one of yours…

"Who are you?" asked Abate.

"What did he send you guys?" Isai asked fearfully.

"Why can't we shut this off?" huffed Blayd.

"We—we have to get him out," said Abate.

"Who cares about him? We need to find out what happened with Boss?" Mr. C shot back.

"The police are at his home," protested Abate.

"Well, this is something they can't handle," snapped Mr. C.

"Guys…" began Isai.

As the mystery user sent them another message, Eddy exploded. "That's it! We're not doing this anymore! We're all just gonna put away our phones and mute the computers!"

"Well, I have no idea where my phone is!" balked Isai. "We can't do this!"

"Hold on a sec," said Abate as he hit the "mute" command. The five instantly began rummaging and shuffling about, shutting down any piece of technology in their sights.

Isai picked up his laptop and scurried into another room. "Guys…" he moaned softly.

Nice try, folks, LisRl2015 typed mockingly. Let me turn those mics back on for you.

The sound clicked back on. "Guys!" Isai called out, more urgently.

"Look, whatever this guy is doing, just ignore him," Mr. C was saying.

"I can hear you!" shouted Isai. "He turned our mikes back on! He can hear us!"

"Can you all just trust me?" asked Blayd. "I've got this program. I'll install it, and I'll find out who this psycho is, all right?"

"Can't you just get him out? We need to stop him before he does something else!" shouted Abate.

Isai was in a panic by now, pleading with both Blayd and Abate to do something. He was rambling and on the verge of tears, his breathing jerky.

"Isai, calm down," commanded Abate. "We're gonna play a game, okay? We're gonna play the game."

"Yeah, LisRl2015, I'm ready to play," murmured Blayd as he opened the installation wizard.

"Okay," said Isai. "Okay, let's all play a game."

"Yes, it's just a game, and we're all gonna download it and play it, yes?" said Blayd.

Blayd, what on Earth are you doing? LisRl2015 typed.

"Oh, nothing at all," Blayd said coolly. "I just wanted to play this awesome game. You like games—you seem to enjoy games—so I thought we were gonna play. This is the perfect game for you, buddy!"

He sent the download link to his four friends. "Everybody has it?" he asked.

"Yes, we do," said Eddy. "Let's get this baby on the bus!"

The five men clicked on the link at the same time.

"I have surprise for you, LisRl2015," sang out Mr. C as the program began scanning the files on his and his friends' computers.

"Is it searching?" asked Blayd. "Did everybody download it?"

"Mine has something!" exclaimed Abate.

"Good, good," said Blayd. "Let's wait until we all have something. Is it flagging? Do we all have flags? There should be more than one flag."

"I have flags," said Abate.

"I have flags," said Eddy.

"So do I," Isai gasped in relief.

"Me, too," said Mr. C.

"Cool," said Blayd.

U have one minute to stop this, warned LisRl2015 as he started a timer, which began to count down from 60.

Blayd ignored him. "Now, throw it all in the trash and then empty your recycle bins. As soon as everything's flagged, empty the bins. Do not save them. Posthaste, people!"

"It probably won't delete these," protested Eddy.

"C'mon, trust me on this," beseeched Blayd.

"Is it deleted? I need some updates here, everyone!" said Mr. C. "What's going on?"

"All right, it looks like Mr. C is done," said Blayd. "Eddy?"

"Mine's the same," said Eddy.

"All right, Isai?" asked Blayd.

"Mine's done!" reported Isai.

"Okay, Steve? Steve! Steve!"

"My recycling bin is nearly full!" said Abate. "I can't do this any quicker!"

"All right, all right. It's gonna be cool," Blayd assured him. "It's gonna be okay, I promise."

The small timer began to flash red as it showed ten seconds remaining.

"He's counting down! Why is he counting down?!" screamed Abate.

"It's cool! It's cool, Steve!" said Blayd.

Just as the timer hit zero, Abate's scan finished. "I'm done!" he announced.

The mysterious caller disappeared.

"Aaaaand—he's gone," announced Abate, to generous, grateful applause.

"Freedom!" Isai cried out dramatically.

"Ha! Take that LisRl2015!" gloated Mr. C.

"Thank you, Blayd," smiled Abate. "You're our hero."

"Anytime," said Blayd as his chest puffed out.

"Mr. C—did you pull out a replica of Fox's Blaster?" asked Eddy.

"Indeed I did," Mr. C said smoothly as he twirled said replica in his fingers.

All of the guys laughed.

"Why was I the last to know that you have that thing?" asked Blayd.

"You were waving it around all over the place!" scolded Abate.

"I thought it was real," Isai joined in.

"It squirts out water, not lasers," explained Mr. C.

"Well, now that the drama is over, let's all figure out what happened to Boss," said Blayd.

"Was someone out to get him?" proposed Abate. "I mean, he was fantastic as Luigi. Surely, he made quite a few players salty. I was talking with someone online about it, and he said he aroused jealousy among the likes of Nairo and Larry Lurr."

He returned to his IM with Eddy. For a sec I thought this was real.

How do u know it's not?

Dude, stop trying to freak me out.

Or what? Eddy shot back.

Or—we'll 1v1 on Final Destination, m8.

No items?

No items.

Too bad Fox isn't available right now.

How do u know that?

He's trying to steal away your object of desire.

Abate then received a link which took him to—Luigi's memorial page.

?

He's more popular now. Perhaps he moved up the tier list again…

As it slowly dawned on Abate who the true identity of the messenger was, Mr. C was on the phone with a police dispatcher.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"Oh, thank goodness! Someone—someone's threatening me and my buddies online, and they also threatened our other friend; he goes by Boss. Some officers were at his residence earlier tonight, but they didn't see what we saw. And there's more to the story…"

"What's your friend's address, sir?"

"His—his address? Hey, guys, do you know his address?"

"Mr. C, I have it right here," said Isai, and he told him the address, which Blayd repeated to the dispatcher.

"This guy continues to threaten us, and he won't leave us alone," he added.

"Sir, where are you right now?"

"At home. Online. With my—friends…"

"And are they safe?"

"Yes, they are."

"All of them?"

"Yes, everybody's fine."

"Even Isai?"

Mr. C swore his teeth stood on edge. "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't hang up." The voice on the other end had turned ominous.

"Excuse me?!"

"Wh-what just happened?!" Isai wanted to know.

Mr. C quickly shushed him.

"Don't. Hang. Up," repeated the "dispatcher".

"Who did you call?" asked Abate.

Mr. C cursed, banging his desktop in frustration. "It's that creep!" he yelled.

As he spoke, the LisRl2015 account rejoined the conversation. There was a mysterious hissing sound. And then the camera displayed a grated image.

"Hey, wiseacre! We can see you!" said Blayd.

"What's that? A lattice—or a crate?" Isai wanted to know.

Blayd mumbled something and stood up.

Isai gasped. "Blayd!"

"What?" asked Blayd.

"Back up a few paces!"

"Why?"

"Just do it," said Mr. C.

Blayd stepped back a bit and began to wave his left arm. The mysterious user's camera was filming him from behind!

The gamer marched over, shoved aside some boxes and lifted the crate. The others watched as he stared into the camera, dumbfounded, for a few moments.

"Blayd, what's going on?" Mr. C asked impatiently.

Blayd's chest was heaving. He continued to glare into the shot with that wide-eyed expression, sweat beading on his brow—before the camera went black.

Abate frowned. His call had been disconnected! Immediately, he worked to re-establish the connection.

The first image he saw was of Blayd's shirt. The feed was frozen, buffering. Abate was about to chalk this up to a faulty Internet connection when suddenly—

…the feed came to life.

Blayd was wild-eyed, screaming, thrashing wildly against the screen, his body twitching and spasming. Objects began clattering to the floor. Blayd flung his headset off and continued to jerk against the camera and his desk, his fingers clawing, fighting against something—someone—

And then the screen went blank again.

"Blayd? Blayd?!" shouted Abate. "Is he okay?!"

Silence.

"BLAYD?!" roared Abate.

The screen flickered on again—this time showing Blayd screaming blue murder with his hand and part of his arm buried inside his garbage disposal. His cries did nothing to drown out the nauseating sounds of grinding flesh, muscle and bone. Dark, thick blood jetted out of the unit and spattered like a Rorschach test all over his stainless steel sink. It also splashed onto his faucet, his clothes, his face, and even on the camera lens. Then, it went black again.

Panic erupted at once.

Flash. Blayd struggling to pull his hand away from the bloody garbage disposal.

Flash. Blayd now bent over the sink, his face inside the thing!

Screaming. Isai was hysterical. Eddy and Mr. C were cursing.

"What just happened? What just happened?! Blayd!" screamed Isai.

"This isn't funny anymore!" snapped Abate.

"Forget this! I'm out of here!" snapped Mr. C, jumping up from his chair and taking his laptop with him. As he began to move through his house, he heard a strange noise—as if someone was bumping around in his house.

"Hello?" he called. "HELLO?!"

"Mr. C, is someone in there?" asked Eddy.

"I don't know," Mr. C said breathily. "I'm gonna go check it out."

The other three heard the sounds of a door opening, of tiptoeing footsteps…

"Is the door locked?" asked Abate.

"It's always locked at this hour," hissed Mr. C.

Mr. C trekked through the corridors of his house, brandishing his toy Blaster. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Who's there?! I'm armed, do you hear me?! You'd better not try anything!"

Click. Mr. C jumped out of his skin as his power cut out.

"Oh, God," he said hoarsely, sagging against a wall. "Oh, God, help me. Help me."

Abate, Eddy and Isai watched in terrified awe as Mr. C slowly composed himself. "What do you want?" he asked shakily. "What—do—you—want?"

I want to show you something, responded LisRl2015. It's a video.

"What video?" Abate wanted to know.

What the quartet saw next nearly took their breaths away.

What did they see? Find out next chapter!