Chapter Fourteen: The Feast Begins
290 Words
The sheriff was gone.
Officially “missing.” Unofficially “forgotten.”
But the town wasn’t blind anymore.
The bodies were piling too fast. Too precise. Too ritualistic.
The mayor called an emergency meeting. Citizens packed the church pews, clutching rosaries and rifles. The local militia reformed. Old men dusted off hunting gear. Teenagers posted TikToks about “The Mercer Curse.”
They were ready to fight.
But they didn’t know what they were fighting.
And they didn’t know it was already inside them.
That night, Jesse and Caleb snapped.
Not quietly. Not carefully.
They went feral.
Jesse walked into the gas station with a claw hammer and left with three bodies. Caleb hit the town square with a crowbar and a grin, dragging a man into the fountain and carving symbols into his chest while the water turned red.
They didn’t run.
They didn’t hide.
They performed.
The demon was watching.
And it was pleased.
By midnight, the kill count had doubled.
Fourteen.
Seventeen.
Twenty-one.
The town tried to fight back.
They formed search parties. They knocked on doors. They set traps.
But the Mercer boys were no longer boys.
They were vessels.
And the house was no longer a house.
It was awake.
Rooms shifted. Walls bled. The crawlspace opened wide, swallowing anything that got too close. The mother hadn’t moved—but her eyes were glowing now. Her hands twitched. She was waiting for her next command.
By dawn, the town was silent.
The church was empty.
The school was burning.
The mayor was found nailed to the flagpole, his mouth packed with hymn pages.
No one suspected Jesse.
No one suspected Caleb.
Because they weren’t hiding.
They were cleansing.
And the demon?
It was still hungry.
- Writer
