Chương 7: The Visitors

We stood in the dark foyer, knives held out like we knew how to fight with them. My hand wouldn't stop shaking, and the blade kept wavering in the darkness. Beside me, Tre's tiny arm swept back and forth in nervous arcs. For a moment, nothing happened. A sound at the front door. Someone drummed their fingers in succession, a delicate tap-tap-tap-tap, rolling from index to pinky. The sound came across as more taunting than playful. With our backs to the staircase, the front door was directly ahead of us.

Dining room to my left, living room to my right. And something was waiting outside. Tre pointed at the door with the paring knife.

"Ask who it is."

"You ask," I hissed back at him. Tre shook his head, and we turned back to the door silently. I had no idea who, or what, was outside. The text said to escape the house, not expect guests. And I absolutely did not want to speak to whatever was rapping on my front door. The finger-drumming stopped. My Fear meter spiked into the mid-30s. I gripped the butcher knife, muscles in my arms straining. Its weight was reassuring in a way I wasn't fully comfortable with yet.

Straining to hear what was happening on the other side of the door felt like it amplified every tiny sound around me. The house settled, or maybe it was footsteps receding—it was hard to hear over the noise of my labored breathing. Had they gone? Were they still standing right there? Are they walking around to another door? Tre searched the shadows for movement, his head jerking at every play of light. It couldn't be over, but— SLAM! The door shuddered in its frame, wood splintering around the deadbolt.

Tre and I stumbled back without thinking.

"Miss Price," a genteel voice called from outside.

"Please let us in. We've come such a long way." The voice didn't fit the ferocious slam that preceded it; it was serrated by time but dripped with sticky sweetness. There was also a faint Southern lilt that made me picture a grandmother in her immaculate Sunday dress with a big, dimpled smile. It was the kind of voice that lured you to open a door even as every instinct screamed no.

"No fuckin' way." Tre's knife wobbled in his hand.

"Do not invite them inside."

"Yeah. I've seen horror movies, Tre," I hissed back. A tapping noise drew our attention to the dark window on my right. I couldn't see outside, but I knew someone was standing there, tapping at the living room window. Fast. Deliberate. Not hard enough to break the glass. Yet. Panic surged through me; my legs trembled. FEAR: 38% (Nervous) No shit, I thought as Tre and I edged back toward the stairs. NEW OBJECTIVE ELIMINATE THE TRESPASSERS" Try to be proactive for once in your life." I looked down at Tre.

"Are they the tresp—" The sliding glass door at the back of the house exploded inward, frame splintering with a crack like breaking bone. Glass shattered, the sound so loud and sudden we both jumped. I spun toward the noise, staring past the foyer into the dark family room. A hulking figure filled the shattered doorway, silhouetted by the backyard light. The giant man, tuxedo stretched across his frame, took three lumbering steps through the wreckage, his heavy boots crunching over broken glass.

He wore a mask modeled after the face of an old-time carnival strongman. Slick hair, pink cheeks frozen in smug confidence, and a ridiculous curled mustache were all captured in glossy plastic. The eyes beneath the mask were just black pits. He stopped in the living room, watching us, crowbar dangling from one hand. FEAR: 61% (Panicked) My body screamed at me to run, but my feet refused to budge. The stairs were five feet to my right. So goddamn close.

Inhaling slowly, I took a beat, and as I exhaled, it hit me: the game was trying to weaken me and strengthen the things sent to terrorize us. It was how it worked. Movement in the shadows behind the Strongman caught my eye. A second figure stepped through the shattered doorway, and a cold, prickly sensation needled up my spine. It was hunched over, shoulders rolling with each jerky step, like something caught between man and animal. Light caught its simian features, revealing them to be part of an elaborate mask.

Unlike Strongman's cartoonish appearance, this one was a chillingly lifelike chimpanzee head, mouth frozen in an unsettling rictus, every fanglike tooth glistening. The mask explained the movement but also made it worse; whoever was underneath was choosing to move like that. The Chimp joined Strongman, standing a few feet back. He was all shoulders and hard angles in an AC/DC tee, pale legs sticking out from black cargo shorts. In his very human hand, it gripped a white bone sharpened to a dangerous point.

But neither of them moved. They just watched. For three unbearable seconds, nothing. Then the Chimp spewed forth a high-pitched sound no human could make, loaded with hungry rage.

"Run!" I screamed, spinning toward the front door, ready to bolt outside. But it swung open before we reached it. I skidded to a stop a few feet away from the third trespasser. This one wore the most realistic mask yet: an old woman's face. Every wrinkle and liver spot sculpted with obsessive detail. But the bright blue eyes of a much younger woman stared out from behind the mask's eyeholes. The porcelain skin beneath the mask was smooth and unlined.

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"Don't run," she growled, voice ancient and gnarled. It didn't match the lithe body in the sheer silk nightgown that reeked of pea soup, or the smooth arms clutching a blood-crusted garden sickle. Something about the mask nagged at me— No time to think. I grabbed Tre's tiny, vinyl arm and bolted left, dragging him into the dining room. As I sprinted past the dining table, my left hip smashed into a chair, toppling it over.

"There's nowhere to go, Miss Price." I glanced back as we burst into the kitchen. The Old Woman kept coming, unhurried, like she had all the time in the world. But Strongman and the Chimp were nowhere to be seen. Where the fuck were the other two? Couldn't worry about that now. We sprinted through the kitchen. A few more feet to the back hallway, and then we could— The Chimp was waiting for us in the nook just off the kitchen, blocking our path forward.

Crazed human eyes flashed wildly behind the mask, as he made animalistic grunting noises—"Ooh, Ooh, Oohh!" —mimicking an ape, sending a cold chill over my entire body. We were trapped with the Old Woman behind us, Chimp straight ahead. His head tilted, sniffing the air, studying us. Then he moved with blinding speed. He led with the pointy bone, lunging at me. I threw myself back, the pointed tip of his weapon missing me by inches. My hip slammed into the corner of the kitchen table.

The impact knocked Mom's white vase on its side, stale water spilling out, soaking into the navy tablecloth. Tre yelled something and ran at the Chimp, his paring knife held aloft. The blade slashed down but missed its target. The Chimp responded by kicking Tre across the room, sending his little body crashing into the baseboard. Seeing Tre's knife reminded me that I was holding a weapon too. I started to raise it. A hand wrapped around my throat, squeezing with an iron grip.

The Chimp's slim, bony fingers a vice around my neck. The weight of his body forced me backward, bending me over the table's edge. The corner dug into my lower back, my spine arching at a sickening angle. He pressed his entire body against me, leaning close enough for me to see the whites of his demented eyes. FEAR: 72% (Panicked)"Can I wear your pretty hair?" The Chimp breathed, reeking of peanut butter and rotten banana. Well, I'm never eating a banana again. I stabbed him.

The knife slid easily between his ribs, warm liquid spilling down my hand. It was the first time I'd ever stabbed someone, and it felt fucked up. The Chimp let out a furious bray, tearing free of the blade. Tre charged forward again, stabbing his paring knife down into the Chimp's boot over and over. The Chimp yelped and staggered back, his weight lifting off me. I was still arched backward over the table, the corner edge grinding into my spine. I straightened up with a gasp, my back screaming in protest.

The Chimp had already recovered. He reached down and palmed Tre's head, lifting him off the ground like he weighed nothing. Tre's little legs kicked uselessly at the air, arms flailing. The Chimp's other hand closed firmly around Tre's doll body. He's trying to rip his head off.

"NO!" I dropped to one knee and snatched the broken femur off the floor. Drove it straight up; the edge skewered the underside of his chin, anchoring itself in the roof of his mouth. HOSTILE NEUTRALIZED: CHIMP The Chimp folded over and fell. I tore the gore-slicked bone from his jaw. Blood pumped in short bursts through the quarter-sized hole. Tre crashed to the floor with an "Ooof." I waited for my stomach to rebel again. Nothing. The horror or nausea should have hit me, but instead, I was an island.

I'd spent over ten years at Mom's bedside, cleaning up things most people never see. Maybe that was it. A glance over my shoulder revealed the Old Woman wasn't lingering in the kitchen anymore. If she's not there… Where the fuck did she go?

"Dude," Tre blurted out, "that was brutal!"

"You okay?" I asked. Tre felt his head and neck, then nodded.

"He was gonna tear my head off!" Swapping out the smallest knife for the bone gave me better reach, but I kept the butcher knife in hand. Walking around brandishing someone's femur as a weapon was a bridge too far.

"This way," I whispered to Tre, leading him out of the nook. The back hall was clear. No one was near us, or even up toward the foyer, where the front door was still wide open. We could make a run for it, but the back door (also open) was closer.

"Run!" I hissed and took off for the shattered sliding door in the family room. Mom's pristine white carpet was covered in glass, wood, and muddy boot prints, causing a brief pang of guilt to curl through me. I made it two steps into the family room before something massive exploded from the shadows and bodychecked me straight through the drywall. A wooden stud painfully stopped my momentum, sending a ripple through my body that made my mouth water.

As I struggled to pull air back into my lungs, massive hands hauled me free of the wall. Strongman crushed me against his pecs, his arms a closing vise that cinched around my ribs. He reeked of Old Spice and sour B. O. I couldn't get air in. Couldn't wriggle free. Strongman howled, grip loosening. I twisted free of his arms as he clawed at the paring knife sticking out of his ass cheek. His bulky body filled the shattered doorway, blocking our escape.

"Come on!" Tre screamed, taking off down the hall toward the foyer. I followed. Behind me, Strongman had given up on the knife. His boots hammered after us, stomping the floor so hard I worried it would splinter. We had a head start; Only ten feet from the open front door. We were gonna make it. The door slammed closed.

"What the fuck!" Tre yelled. The living room on our right was a dead end. We'd have to loop back through the dining room and— Shit. The Old Woman blocked the dining room archway, sickle poised to strike. I scooped Tre into my arms and bolted up the stairs. Air hissed as the sickle whipped past my back, snapping a few strands of hair. The stairs groaned under Strongman's weight as he thundered after us, his crowbar shattering part of the banister in a single, splintering blow.

I was halfway up when my scalp screamed with the sensation of skin peeling away from bone. Strongman's fist was wrapped in my hair, dragging me backward, trying to make me fall. I released Tre and the knife. My hands shot out, clasping the railing, white-knuckled as my neck bent back, stretching the skin on my throat enough to see each strained muscle. But I held on, even as the crowbar smashed into the railing inches from my hands. He was trying to break my grip.

"Go!" I yelled. Tre rushed up to the second floor, terrified. Strongman raised the crowbar for another hit, and I made a choice. I threw my body forward. My scalp burned white-hot and then gave way to a sudden, sickening relief as a chunk of hair tore free. Half-crawling, I surged up the stairs without looking back. I didn't need to see how much of myself I'd left behind. The strange part was that I didn't particularly want to. Tre was hopping up and down on the landing, screaming for me to hurry.

I pulled myself to one knee, reaching for the top when a hand clamped around my ankle and dragged me back. My chin split open on the edge of the top step, teeth snapping together, mouth filling with the coppery taste of my own blood. I frantically probed with my tongue, confirming my teeth were still there. They were. But the Strongman still had my ankle in an iron grip. I kicked wildly with my free leg. The heel of my boot connected with his face, caving in his nose with a wet crunch.

Blood sprayed through the mask's nostril holes, and he released my ankle. I backed away, using the wall to help me stand, arms trembling. Strongman rose too, head cocked; a wet wheeze whistled through the mask's mouth hole. Summoning the skateboard into my hands, I put all my weight behind a single swing. The impact rattled my bones, vibrating up my arms, but there was no resistance. The cheap plastic mask buckled with a muffled squelch as the end of the board shattered his teeth.

Strongman staggered sideways, lost his balance, and fell back. The big guy tumbled down the stairs, landing on the first floor, facedown, with a sickening thud. His head was twisted halfway around, neck bent at an unnatural angle. The mask was a caved-in ruin leaking dark, thick fluid, and a gross bulge pressed against the skin at the base of his skull.

"Eat skateboard, ya big bastard!" Tre shouted down the stairs. HOSTILE NEUTRALIZED: STRONGMAN As white text tried to force its way into my vision, I clenched my teeth and thought: Not now. The notification blinked away, but the LifeLine buzzed three times in my pocket with Achievements I didn't have time to read. Still at the bottom of the stairs, the Old Woman casually observed the body at her feet.

"I think he looks better like this." I pressed my back to the wall, looking back and forth between our choices: Mom's room or mine. We'd be trapped either way, but Mom's bathroom had the first-aid supplies.

"This way," I gasped, dragging Tre down the hall.