The scream from downstairs instantly shattered the silence.
Jennifer, Jessie, Ryan, Tyler, Megan, and Amanda rushed back toward the living room while Alaric Thomas remained in the bathroom and carefully examined Calvin’s body.
His organs had been violently torn out, but his head and brain were untouched, which immediately made Alaric reconsider his original assumption.
He had suspected the demon following Jennifer might finally have attacked, but Calvin’s death fit the Midnight Game far better.
Earlier, Mike and the others had tried several supposed paranormal rituals without producing a single unusual reaction, so Alaric had gradually lowered his guard.
He hadn’t expected the last game of the night to be the one that actually worked.
Alaric knew the basic legend of the Midnight Man but not much beyond the ritual itself.
According to the story, anyone who failed to protect themselves could be subjected to terrifying hallucinations while the entity slowly tore them apart.
Calvin’s mutilated body looked disturbingly consistent with that description.
Mike crouched beside the corpse with his candle still in his hand, looking frightened but strangely excited.
“The Midnight Man is actually here,” he whispered.
“The legend says it can tear someone apart piece by piece if they lose the game.” Jessie had already reached her limit.
“Mike, are you insane?
Calvin is dead!” she snapped, her voice rising as she stared at the blood covering the bathroom floor.
“There has to be some psycho inside the house.
I’m calling the police.” She immediately pulled out her phone and dialed 911, only for her expression to collapse when she saw there was no service.
“Fuck!
Not again!” Jessie shouted, remembering the same thing happening during the nightmare in West Virginia.
At that moment, she silently promised herself that if she survived tonight, she was replacing her phone whether the device was actually responsible or not.
Alaric wasn’t surprised.
Whenever supernatural activity intensified, electronics and communication systems seemed particularly unreliable, whether because of interference or something stranger.
A phone losing service during a haunting had become almost normal to him.
Jennifer hurried back upstairs and wrapped both hands around Alaric’s arm.
“Alaric, what do we do?” she asked, refusing to move away from him.
Her confidence from earlier in the evening had completely disappeared after seeing what happened to Calvin.
“First, we go downstairs and see what Nicole screamed about.” Alaric turned toward Mike before leaving and added, “Come with us.
Calvin died when he was alone, so staying here by yourself is stupid.” Mike tightened his grip on his candle and shook his head.
“As long as this stays lit, I’m safe.
You guys go.” His fear was obvious, but curiosity had apparently overwhelmed common sense.
“I want to see what the Midnight Man actually looks like.” Alaric stared at him for a moment before giving up.
A candle supposedly protected players during the ritual, but Alaric wasn’t willing to trust his life to a piece of wax and string.
“If something happens, scream or make enough noise that we can hear you.” Mike forced a grin.
“Trust me, man.” Alaric led Jennifer and Jessie back downstairs.
Tyler and Ryan were already searching the living room and nearby rooms because Nicole, the black-haired woman who had screamed, had vanished.
Less than thirty seconds had passed since everyone heard her, yet there wasn’t a trace of her anywhere.
Megan immediately demanded that they leave instead of searching.
Tyler had just finished throwing up after seeing Calvin’s corpse and agreed without hesitation, insisting that some murderer had to be hiding somewhere inside the house.
In his mind, Mike had played paranormal games dozens of times before without summoning anything, so there was no reason tonight should suddenly be different.
As if the weather itself wanted to stop them, cold wind began battering the windows while heavy rain suddenly poured over the neighborhood.
Several people hesitated, but Tyler still preferred running through a storm to spending another minute inside a house where someone had been disemboweled.
Amanda and Megan quickly agreed with him.
“Jessie, come with us,” Tyler said while reaching for the keys.
“This place isn’t safe.” Jessie shook her head immediately.
After what happened during the Wrong Turn incident, she had learned one lesson very clearly.
Whether the threat was a killer or something supernatural, staying close to Alaric felt safer than following anyone else.
Tyler didn’t waste time arguing.
He grabbed Megan and Amanda, opened the front door, and ran through the pouring rain toward the Jeep parked in the yard.
Seconds later, the vehicle disappeared down the road.
Ryan stayed behind.
He had once been one of the minor campus troublemakers who tried intimidating Alaric, only to become surprisingly loyal after Alaric beat him badly enough to change his attitude.
If Alaric was staying, Ryan apparently intended to stay too.
Alaric watched the Jeep’s taillights disappear into the storm without trying to stop them.
People who were determined to leave would only become hostile if someone forced them to remain.
Besides, he had the uncomfortable feeling that something was deliberately splitting the group apart.
Ten people had started the Midnight Game together.
Calvin was dead.
Nicole had vanished.
Tyler, Megan, and Amanda had driven away.
Only Alaric, Jennifer, Jessie, Ryan, and Mike remained inside the house.
If Alaric were still an ordinary person, he would have done everything possible to keep the whole group together.
Everyone could have stayed in the living room, moved nowhere alone, and even gone to the bathroom as a group if necessary.
Against an unknown killer or supernatural presence, numbers normally provided at least some security.
Alaric wasn’t an ordinary person anymore.
Whether three additional people remained nearby didn’t significantly change his own chances of survival.
If anything truly dangerous appeared, the Four of Diamonds and his contained Evil-Spirit Incarnation Crawler mattered far more than having a few frightened college students beside him.
The remaining group searched the entire house again but still couldn’t find Nicole.
Nobody openly said she was dead, yet the possibility hung over everyone.
After what had happened to Calvin, imagining a harmless explanation had become difficult.
The old house itself seemed to be deteriorating around them.
When Ryan tried turning the living-room light back on, the bulb flickered several times before going completely dark.
Everyone ended up gathering around the table with candles as their only reliable source of light.
Alaric glanced through the window and noticed that every neighboring house was dark as well.
Stranger still, his Ghost Card showed no additional Containment Target nearby.
The lack of information slowly irritated him more than the darkness itself.
Was this thing deliberately playing hide-and-seek?
Alaric finally stood up.
“We’re done waiting.
Let’s check on Mike, then we’re leaving this house.” “Whatever you say, boss,” Ryan replied immediately.
Jennifer and Jessie had no objections either.
The four returned upstairs together, moving carefully through the dark hallway until they reached the bathroom.
Fortunately, Mike was still alive.
Unfortunately, something was clearly wrong with him.
Mike was sitting fully clothed inside the bathtub, soaked in water and staring blankly at nothing.
Ryan hauled him out and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Mike, what the hell happened?
Hey, man, talk to me!” Mike slowly looked at him.
Then he grinned stupidly.
His eyes were unfocused, his expression empty, and he seemed barely aware of where he was.
Ryan turned toward Alaric with genuine fear.
“Boss, what do we do?
I think Mike’s lost his damn mind.” “Carry him.
We’re leaving.” Only a short time earlier, Mike had been completely normal, enthusiastically explaining paranormal rituals to everyone.
Now he looked like someone who had spent weeks trapped inside a psychiatric hospital.
The transformation reminded Alaric uncomfortably of the mental deterioration seen in Grave Encounters.
Ryan lifted Mike onto his back while Jessie went toward the bathroom door.
She clearly remembered that the door had been open when they entered, yet it now seemed partially closed.
Still frightened and exhausted, she didn’t think too deeply about it.
Ryan went first with Mike on his back.
Alaric and Jennifer followed behind him while Jessie remained at the rear.
The instant Jessie stepped into the hallway, the bathroom door slammed shut with enough force to shake the frame.
Bang!
Jessie screamed and nearly fell forward.
“I was the last one out!
Nobody touched that!” Jennifer buried her face against Alaric’s chest and gripped him even tighter.
At this point, she no longer questioned whether something supernatural was happening.
Whatever confidence she had shown earlier was completely gone.
Ryan stared at the closed door.
“Holy shit.
You all saw that, right?
That thing closed by itself.” “I saw it.” Alaric frowned but didn’t move toward the bathroom again.
“Forget it.
We leave first.” They hurried downstairs, crossed the living room, and got outside without another incident.
Ryan placed Mike in the back seat of the car before climbing behind the wheel, while Alaric, Jennifer, and Jessie quickly got inside.
Heavy rain continued pounding the windshield as Ryan started the engine and accelerated down the road.
Even someone as physically imposing as Ryan had no desire to confront something he couldn’t understand or see.
Nobody spoke much as the house disappeared behind them.
More importantly, nothing appeared to follow.
Eventually, everyone reached familiar streets.
Everything seemed normal again.
Alaric looked through the window into the darkness and tried to determine when the entity had actually appeared.
Even after Calvin’s death, Nicole’s disappearance, and Mike’s mental collapse, he still couldn’t identify exactly what they were dealing with.
The entire incident felt wrong in a way he couldn’t explain.
He summoned a Ghost Card.
Blank.
Alaric stared at it.
Then his expression suddenly changed.
“No.” The Ghost Card couldn’t be blank.
Earlier that same day, inside Jennifer’s house, it had clearly detected traces of a demon.
Even if the Midnight Man was something completely different, the previous demonic trace couldn’t simply vanish from the card as if it had never existed.
Cold sweat appeared across Alaric’s back.
None of this was real.
He immediately focused on the Four of Diamonds.
“Fusion—Evil-Spirit Incarnation Crawler!” Power exploded through his body.
The world in front of Alaric cracked.
The car, the rainy road, Ryan, and the dark windows distorted like broken reflections before collapsing completely.
Alaric shut his eyes instinctively, then opened them again.
He wasn’t inside a car.
He was standing in the bathroom.
They had never escaped.
In fact, from the moment they entered this room, they had already become lost inside something else’s illusion.