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495 Words
Chapter 4: The Blood Banquet
William's knuckles rapped against the dining room door, producing a hollow echo. The scent seeping through the cracks made Jackie's stomach twist—not the musty odor of decay, but the cloying sweetness of fresh meat mingled with burnt butter.
"Impossible," she whispered, her amethyst bracelet growing warm against her wrist. "This place has been abandoned for a century."
William pushed the door open with the barrel of his shotgun.
The Dining Room: 3:12 AM
The chandelier blazed unnaturally bright. Seven silver place settings adorned the long table, the candle flames perfectly still. At the center of each plate lay a pink-tinged cut of meat, the edges glistening with what looked like fresh blood.
But the forks were the worst.
Each silver utensil had been driven deep into the oak table, its tines pinning down human remains—a fingernail here, a lock of hair there, a severed knuckle... The seventh fork impaled a chunk of muscle that still twitched faintly.
"Cardiac tissue," William said, his Adam's apple bobbing. "No more than three hours old."
Jackie's bracelet snapped. The beads rolled across the table, turning black the instant they touched the meat. Above them, something heavy dragged across the ceiling.
The Basement: 3:47 AM
The iron door was sealed with a viscous black substance. When William sl*t it open with his knife, the ooze retracted like a living thing.
"Someone's been here recently," he said, studying the fresh mud prints on the floor. "Wearing modern hiking boots."
His flashlight beam traced over the basement walls—no longer scribbled with child's drawings, but covered in disturbingly precise anatomical sketches, every vein and artery meticulously labeled. In the corner crouched a life-sized doll, its body not woven from straw but...
"Human hair," Jackie whispered, stopping just short of touching it. "Preserved in corpse wax."
The doll's head snapped up.
Its button eyes fell out, revealing real eyeballs beneath. As its jaw unhinged, a brass key slid forward on a rotting tongue.
The Struggle: 4:03 AM
William tore the doll's head off before it could react. A swarm of pill bugs erupted from the neck cavity as the key clattered to the floor, ringing with an eerie metallic chime.
From the attic came the sound of the hatch slamming shut. Then the entire house lurched, tilting at an impossible angle. They slid toward the windows, where the oak tree outside was growing at visible speed, its branches battering the glass. Black fluid oozed from every new crack.
The gramophone started playing on its own. A man's voice rasped out a distorted lullaby: "Sleep now, child, in endless night..."
William's scar split open. Blood ran down the bridge of his nose—then curved unnaturally midair, arcing toward the circle of dolls. Where each drop landed, new words formed:
THE SACRIFICE CONTINUES
Chains snapped somewhere below. Jackie grabbed William's wrist. "Listen—"
A scream echoed through the house. Undeniably human. Undeniably alive.
- Writer
