Chapter Ten: The Wrong Graves
341 Words
The first body was found in the church basement.
Not buried. Built into the wall.
Father Mallory had gone down to check the boiler and never came back. When the janitor found him, his skin had been peeled and pressed flat against the concrete, stitched into the mortar like wallpaper. His eyes were missing. His mouth was sewn shut. The symbol—three concentric circles—was carved into his chest.
The second body was found in the high school.
Inside a locker.
Folded.
Not stuffed. Folded. Like a suit.
The third was discovered in the woods behind the old water tower. No face. No hands. Just a torso, nailed to a tree with its own ribs.
The town panicked.
The cops scrambled.
They looked at ex-cons, drifters, old cult rumors. They questioned the homeless, the addicts, the forgotten. They never looked at Jesse. Never looked at Caleb.
Because Jesse was still posting photos of his mom’s garden.
Because Caleb was still showing up to football practice.
Because the Mercer boys were good kids.
But the house knew better.
Jesse woke that night to the sound of sirens in the distance.
Caleb was in the hallway, shirtless again, drawing symbols on the floor with something thick and dark. Jesse didn’t ask what it was. He already knew.
The walls were whispering louder now.
Names. Dates. Instructions.
“The next one goes in the library.”
“Use the spine.”
“Make it look like a warning.”
Jesse pressed his hands to his ears, but the voices were inside him now. Not just heard—felt. Like static in his bones.
He stumbled into the kitchen.
The crawlspace hatch was open again.
Inside, something was moving.
Not Caleb.
Not an animal.
Something new.
Something the house had made.
Jesse didn’t go down.
He just stood there, staring at the open hatch, listening to the floorboards scratch and the walls breathe.
Outside, the cops were searching the cemetery.
They wouldn’t find anything there.
Because the bodies weren’t buried.
They were assembled.
- Writer
