The bathroom was completely quiet.
Apart from Mike, who remained dazed and delirious in the bathtub, everyone else was lying around the room as if they had simply fallen asleep.
Even the terror Alaric Thomas had felt underground in the Appalachian cave hadn’t been this unsettling, because sometimes the unknown was far more frightening than a monster standing directly in front of you.
Alaric quickly woke everyone.
Ryan reacted the most violently, staring around the bathroom in disbelief before blurting out, “What the hell?
I was already home eating my mom’s cooking!” Jessie looked equally confused and muttered that if everything they had experienced was only a dream, it had been far too realistic.
Jennifer didn’t reveal what she had seen inside the illusion, but her flushed face and the way she kept glancing toward Alaric made the nature of her dream fairly obvious.
Jessie was more concerned about something else and asked, “Alaric, how do we know we’re really awake this time?
In that dream, the bathroom door closed after we walked out.” Alaric wasn’t worried about being trapped by the same illusion again now that he had fused with the Evil-Spirit Incarnation Crawler.
“Simple.
We open the door and leave, and I’ll stay at the back.” Jennifer immediately frowned and whispered, “Wouldn’t it be safer if Ryan took the rear instead?” Ryan stared at her.
“Seriously?” Alaric shook his head.
“Ryan needs to carry Mike.
I’ll handle the back.” After thinking for a second, he added casually, “Actually, I’m connected to the Church and trained to deal with things like this, so stop worrying.” That explanation was easier than telling them about the Ghost Cards.
Ryan lifted the barely responsive Mike onto his back while Jessie carefully opened the bathroom door.
They moved into the hallway one at a time, with Alaric deliberately remaining last.
The instant he stepped outside, the bathroom door slammed shut behind him with violent force.
Bang!
Everything happened exactly like the illusion, except Jessie managed not to scream this time.
She hurried toward the stairs and tried the front door downstairs, only to discover that it had somehow locked itself from the inside.
Even the windows refused to move no matter how hard Ryan pulled at them.
Alaric studied the room and frowned.
“Looks like something doesn’t want us leaving.” Almost as if answering him, ceramic decorations and kitchenware suddenly fell from shelves throughout the house, shattering against the floor one after another.
Jennifer, Jessie, and Ryan immediately moved behind Alaric.
He had already lost patience with the spirit’s games and walked directly toward the front entrance.
Without bothering to look for another way out, he raised one leg and kicked.
The front door exploded outward.
Wind and rain instantly poured into the house.
Ryan’s eyes widened as he stared at the ruined doorway.
He knew Alaric was strong, but kicking a solid front door completely off its frame wasn’t normal human strength.
Jennifer and Jessie exchanged stunned looks, suddenly finding Alaric’s claim of being some kind of Church exorcist much easier to believe.
“You three take Mike and go,” Alaric said calmly.
“I’ll stay and check downstairs.” None of them argued.
Ryan carried Mike outside while Jessie and Jennifer followed through the storm.
Before they reached the car, however, all three instinctively looked back at the house.
A pitch-black head slowly appeared beside the staircase inside, with two pale eyes staring directly toward them from the darkness.
That single glance nearly stopped their hearts.
They ran faster.
The moment everyone except Alaric had left, the broken front door somehow returned to its original position.
It slammed shut as if nothing had happened, sealing the house again like the lid of a coffin.
At the same time, the supernatural activity inside immediately intensified.
Violent crashes came from the second floor as furniture seemed to move or break on its own.
Harsh static filled the rooms like an old television trapped between channels, while the lights flickered erratically.
At the top of the stairs, the black head slowly appeared again.
The creature’s face was almost impossible to distinguish from the darkness surrounding it.
Its entire body seemed unnaturally black and thin, with only the whites of its eyes clearly visible inside deep sockets.
It stared down at Alaric before beginning to crawl across the ceiling toward him.
Anyone else would probably have been paralyzed by fear.
Alaric was more irritated than frightened.
He suspected Nicole, the black-haired woman who disappeared earlier, had probably been taken by this thing.
That made Jennifer incredibly lucky if the entity had been hiding around her house for some time.
Of course, there was also the possibility that one of the paranormal games had invited it inside tonight.
Either way, Alaric was done guessing.
He activated the Four of Diamonds and completely fused with the Evil-Spirit Incarnation Crawler.
His body rapidly expanded as crimson bone spurs tore through his skin, and Stage Two activated almost immediately.
Within seconds, the living room no longer contained anything that could reasonably be described as human.
Two monsters faced each other inside the house.
Alaric didn’t particularly enjoy transforming into the Evil-Spirit Incarnation, but his available Containment Targets were still limited.
Saw-Tooth might be useful against physical killers, yet Alaric doubted a cannibal mutant could even properly touch the ghost crawling toward him.
Against something supernatural, relying on his strongest fusion was safer than experimenting with his own life.
The slender ghost stopped on the ceiling.
For the first time, it seemed confused.
A moment earlier, its prey had been an ordinary-looking human.
Now a crimson monster covered in bone spurs was staring back at it.
The ghost remained motionless for several seconds as though reconsidering whether attacking Alaric was still a good idea.
Alaric didn’t give it time to decide.
The bone spurs extending from his forearms lengthened into crimson blades.
He crouched, launched himself upward, and slashed across the ceiling in a violent cross-shaped attack.
The slender ghost released a hollow shriek but didn’t retreat.
Instead, it lunged directly at him.
Alaric’s bone blades tore into its shadowy body, meeting almost no normal resistance at first.
The sensation was strangely smooth, yet actually cutting completely through the spirit felt incredibly difficult.
At the same time, the ghost’s long claws struck the bone spurs protecting Alaric’s arms.
Pain shot through him.
More bone immediately grew over the damaged areas.
The two creatures collided in midair and crashed onto the living-room floor hard enough to crack the boards beneath them.
The slender ghost opened its unnaturally dark mouth and released a hollow sound that seemed to come from everywhere in the room at once.
Then its body spread over Alaric like living darkness.
Alaric found himself pinned beneath the creature.
Even with his current form, having a featureless black ghost pressing down on him was psychologically unpleasant.
From another perspective, the scene would have looked equally horrifying: one skeletal shadow creature wrapping itself around a larger crimson monster covered in bone spurs.
The darkness slowly swallowed Alaric’s transformed body as if trying to consume him completely.
…
Outside, the storm continued hammering the neighborhood.
Ryan, Jessie, Jennifer, and the delirious Mike waited inside the car several houses away.
Even from that distance, they could occasionally hear violent crashes coming from Jennifer’s house.
None of them knew exactly what Alaric was fighting inside, but the noise made it obvious that something was happening.
Once Jennifer’s initial panic faded, guilt quickly replaced it.
Alaric hadn’t been exaggerating when he warned her about demons and spirits, and he hadn’t insisted on inspecting her house simply because he wanted an excuse to be alone with her.
He had genuinely believed something was targeting her and had come here because he wanted to help.
Jennifer had assumed his interest was physical.
Now he was still inside her haunted house while she was sitting safely in a car.
The thought bothered her more with every passing second.
Ryan glanced at Mike, who was still mumbling incoherently in the back seat, and switched on the radio.
Jessie kept checking her phone, hoping the storm had been responsible for the lack of service.
The screen continued showing nothing.
“If I survive tonight, I’m destroying this phone myself,” Jessie muttered.
Static filled the car.
Ryan slapped the radio impatiently.
The noise briefly cleared, and a male voice came through on what sounded like a local emergency frequency.
“This is the Round Clam Police emergency information channel.
Repeat, this is the Round Clam Police emergency information channel.” The officer’s voice remained calm and professional despite the interference.
Everyone inside the car stopped talking.
“Residents are advised that a homicide investigation is underway in the suburban district following an incident shortly after midnight.
The confirmed victims are one male and two females.
Residents should remain indoors, lock doors and windows, and immediately report suspicious persons or unusual activity in the area.” The transmission repeated once.
Then the static swallowed it again.
Jessie’s face went pale.
One male.
Two females.
Shortly after midnight.
The suburbs.
There was only one group that matched.
“Tyler,” Jessie whispered.
“Megan and Amanda too.” Ryan needed another second to understand.
Then his expression changed completely.
Those were the three people who had left Jennifer’s house earlier in the Jeep.
If he had gone with them when they fled, there might have been a fourth body included in that police announcement.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Ryan genuinely considered becoming religious.
A click sounded beside them.
Jennifer had opened the car door.
Rain immediately blew inside.
Jessie lowered the window and shouted, “Jennifer!
Where are you going?” Jennifer stepped out into the storm.
“Back for Alaric.” Before anyone could stop her, she started running toward the house and gradually disappeared into the rain.
Jessie watched her go but couldn’t make herself follow.
She was afraid.
That was normal.
Jennifer went back because her attachment to Alaric had already become far more intense than ordinary attraction, shaped in part by the unstable home and relationships she had grown up with.
A review helps a lot.
P1treon: