Well, Bucky said to just post this shit here so Mizal can get her videogame and stop being such a greedy, unlikable bitch, so here we are. I don't really give a shit about Mizal or even writing this, but the chance for a hand-crafted Bucky compliment? Those are once in a lifetime.
Steve's Spectacular Spooky Story
There was something about internet dating that just unnerved Sam. Scrolling through pictures of girls, trying to find one that matched his preferences, Sam felt odd. What happened to the days where he’d just head into a bar, order a few drinks and see where the night took him? Then he was like a predator on the hunt, his charm his claws, his smile his fangs. That was primal. This scrolling through pictures of girls and picking out whichever ones you liked was just pathetic. It was like driving along supermarket aisles and picking out meat. He felt like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Still, that was the path people were going nowadays. Bars were empty except for toothless hags and drunken fools, and Sam would rather drill out both his eyes then waiting half an hour in the cold to get inside a club and hear booming “music” and over-pay for a “Flaming Blowjob” or whatever fucking name they had for cocktails. No wonder those places were filled with drugs. Anyone inside must badly need them.
Thus, the internet was Sam’s path forward. He scrolled down yet another page of single, desperate girls on yet another internet dating site, dismissing most with a glance. Too ugly, too fat, too old, too big a friend’s list, another fatty, a blond, a... oh, here we go.
Sam clicked on the profile of a “Carly Cameron”. Late twenties to early thirties, long wavy black hair, bright, sexy blue eyes, a gorgeous smile… yes, she was perfect. Sam quickly clicked on the PM button.
“Hey :) My name’s Kyle. How are you?”
Sam sent the message, before leaning back in his chair. It dully registered in his mind that the laptop’s clock was showing it was long past midnight. Shit, another late night. Sam closed the laptop, opening his drawer and grabbing a lighter and a packet of cigarettes in case he got the late-night cravings. He was definitely going to get the late-night cravings.
Sam stood up, making sure his laptop was plugged in, before leaving his study. He instinctively checked Julia’s room, slowly opening the door. He peeked his head in, seeing her lying in bed, her head gently sticking out of the covers. God, she was beautiful. A little angel. Sam was so thankful to have her here. He had fought so long against that fucking harpy in the court system. Battled past the accusations of cheating, of abuse, of permanently being “distant”, and all he had gotten was every second weekend and two weeks of the Summer, just because she had a vagina and hence the fucking better parent. Bullshit, Sam thought. Shit, he was getting stressed. He needed a smoke.
He found himself at the banister over-looking the main lodge of his massive house, a cigarette in his hand. He had long since disabled the house’s smoke alarms to allow him to do so, and was thankful of that fact as he inhaled another lung of the cigarette smoke. His grandfather had bought this old place as a massive, cavernous home to rattle around his old bones in his final years, where the stubborn bastard outlasted both his children, including Sam’s mother. When the old man finally hit the bucket, as one of his three grandchildren Sam got the place, while his sister got the old man’s summer house in Milan, and cousin Harold got the two houses he rented out. While taxes were a bitch, although easily covered by his newfound inheritance, the fact that he owned a mansion at thirty was certainly a plus. Big, spacious, well furnished, very isolated. What more could he ask for?
There was a sudden knocking on the door, and Sam immediately raised an eyebrow. Who the fuck could possibly be looking for him this late? Police? No, no, it couldn’t be. Vandals? The area has its fair share of dumb brats. Shit, he better not open the door to find a burning bag of shit, or a bunch of eggs or some fucked up pranks like that. He quickly made his way down the stairs, skidding to a halt along the tiles and grabbing the massive door’s handle. He heaved the door open, only to find… nothing. No giggles of spoilt kids hiding in the bushes, no police officer wanting to question him, no anything.
“Fuck!” Sam exclaimed, as he wondered if he was hearing things.
Sam closed the door and locked it with the key, before feeling a slight rush of nerves at the thought of a burglar waiting out there, knocking to see if there’s anyone there before breaking in a window. Sam quickly dismissed his childish fears, but that dismissal didn’t stop him from sliding the bolt and chain closed to lock the door. Sam quickly decided he was buying a gun the next day. It’d be useful, especially for his hobbies, but also for dealing with home security. If needs be, he’d be able to stop an intruder. If not, he’d peg the first little shit he saw on his property with a carton of eggs and a role of toilet paper.
Sam turned from the door to head upstairs, before freezing. He saw a woman, standing in his stairwell. He took a step back, letting out a scared yelp in fright, before regaining his composure and standing up straight in some hope of intimidating her.
The girl looked like a common street whore. She wore a cheap, low cut and very revealing floral-pattern dress, as well as lots of big sparkly, shining gold hanging from her ears, wrists and neck. Her skin was orange from whatever cheap spray tan she had picked out in a pathetic attempt to make herself presentable. The unnerving part was that over her head was a black burlap sack, tightened around her neck with an old rope.
“What the fuck?! How did you get in here? Who… who the fuck… who the fuck are you?” Sam said, trying to act tough and failing miserably.
The girl simply started back at Sam, tilting her head curiously.
“Look… you’re no doubt here to rob me blind, huh? That’s the point of the mask. Well look, if you get the fuck out of her and give me back whatever you took, I’ll let you get out of here. I won’t even call the cops. Deal?”
The girl began descending the stairs, not saying a word but breathing heavily. It struck Sam that he had left his phone charging on the bedside table, something Sam immediately lamented. The figure kept approaching, step by step, breathing harder and harder as she neared Sam.
“Stay the fuck away from me!” Sam shouted, backing up until he was against the heavy door.
Sam grabbed the key and twisted it in an attempt to unlock the door, but it doesn’t budge. Sam kept twisting the key, but the door lock seemed stubborn to stay unopened. He felt a burst of anger at himself for instinctively trying to flee when his fucking daughter was upstairs. Sam turned back to the girl.
“I said stay the fuck back!” Sam yelled. “Out of my way!”
The girl kept approaching, her breathing now incredibly loud and nerve-wracking.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sam thought to himself.
Sam was a big guy,with the height and bulk of a serious threat. Why was he letting some strung up, crazy bitch wander around his house while taking his things? Why was he letting his daughter be unsafe out of fear of her? Sam stepped forward, raising his fists.
“Stop! I’ll seriously hurt you, you dumb bitch! Stay back!”
The girl continued marching forward, and Sam struck. He stepped forward, swinging his fist with all his might. The girl didn’t dodge of even react, but just as his fist was about to connect with her chin, she disappeared. The weight of his punch thew Sam off balance and sent him sprawling forward. He caught the banister to steady himself, standing back up straight.
“What the fuck…?” he asked, looking around his cavernous, empty house.
This wasn’t real. Sam wasn’t drunk or high. This had to be some fever dream, some horrible nightmare, something awful that had happened but wouldn’t happen again. There was just no way. Sam had binge watched all the horror films on Netflix to keep himself entertained on the more lonely nights when Julia wasn’t here. This was just the result of his horror-fueled imagination taking advantage of the lack of stimuli of a massive empty house. He licked his dry lips. He needed a drink.
He turned, and walked towards the kitchen. He noticed the kitchen door was slightly ajar, and the light was on. Sam really needed to start turning off the lights. In a house this big, he could leave lights on for hours without noticing, and the electricity bill was through the roof. He pushed the door in, before pausing. The kitchen tiles were covered with muddy water and clumps of dirt. He had spent the day indoors, so there was no way he could’ve caused it. Maybe a neighborhood dog got in through the dog door Sam had forgotten to nail down. He walked towards the sink, opening it and grabbing a roll of paper towels. After grabbing them, he jumped and let out a scream.
Another girl, this one barely out of her tens, stood there. A tattered and mud-covered blue dress hung from her thin frame like wet paper, tight against her skin and dripping water onto the ground. Her skin was pale and looked frozen, and her black, soaking hair hung low, blocking her face. Sam quickly grabbed for the drawer, pulling it the biggest, longest kitchen knife he had.
“St… stay back. I don’t… want to hurt you… miss. Just… just get out,” Sam said, as a wave of pure terror overwhelmed him.
The girl didn’t move, only looked at the ground, making a wet, gurgling sound.
“What the fuck are you?” Sam asked, as he began hyperventilating.
He pointed the knife at the girl, although he knew deep down in his heart it wouldn’t do anything to stop whatever the fuck this creature was. Sam quickly began backing away from the girl and the sink, before he gently backed into something soft. He pivoted around, and let out a scream.
Another figure, another girl, another… thing stood in front of him. The girl wore black lace lingerie, which clung tightly to her form. Her skin was pale as bone, covered in thousands of cuts and slashes, from which blood seeped out, pooling in a puddle around her feet. The cuts ranged from thin, small cuts to horrible, deep stabs going through her flesh and showing glimpses of white bone under the horrible mass of seething, bloody yet still moving flesh. Her throat had been carved open, her sternum soaked with crimson blood in fine contrast with her china white skin. Her stomach had been almost entirely shredded, the end of a bright pink intestine hanging out, causing Sam to gag at the site of it. This one was worse than all the other monsters that were plaguing Sam, as Sam could see her face, being inches away from it.
Her nose had been entirely hacked off, leaving a bloody, gaping abyss. A Glasgow Grin stretched wide across her face, her cheeks slit open to allow her awful, awful smile to stretch further than possible. That horrible, soul-crushing smile only stretched further as Sam screamed like a small child. Her eyes… her eyes, a pale, cold, soulless blue that peered into the very depths of his soul.
Sam screamed, and in one move of terror and desperation rammed the kitchen knife into her stomach, sliding past the ribs. Sam kept pushing the blade up the hilt, until he could feel cold blood spill out of her stomach onto his hand. He gave one final push, until the entire knife disappeared inside her stomach.
The monster didn’t even flinch.
“What… what are you?” Sam whispered, as the horrifying creature let out a horrible burst of laughter, a horrifying sound like concrete blocks scraping along gravel made into a wet gurgling as blood spurted out her throat.
Sam looked desperately as a rush of adrenaline hit him. The pantry door was clear, and Sam quickly charged into it, slamming it open. He shoved the door shut behind him, finding himself in the dark pantry. He heard the wet, gurgling noises of the monsters outside, and begin to cry. He looked down, feeling the warm wet patch on his pants to realize he had pissed himself in terror. He pressed his back against the pantry door to keep it shut, sliding down to a sitting position. He clasped his hands together in a desperate act, appealing to someone he didn’t believe in for a single act of mercy.
“God our Father, please, please let me get out of here. I am a sinner and for that I am sorry…”
In the dark panty, Sam heard a moan in front of him.
“…but in this hour of need I ask you heavenly Father to protect me and deliver me from evil…”
Sam heard a sound that shook him to his very core, that brought him to an even lower depth of terror that he didn’t think was possibly. In the dark, tiny pantry, directly in front of him Sam heard a baby’s giggle.
“… and place grant me your protection. I promise to go to Church, I’ll pray, I’ll serve you, I’ll do whatever I can if you just help me out of here. Amen.”
Sam finished his prayer, sitting in the dark panty. Finding what could’ve been his last reservoir of courage, his hand reached up for the light switch, and he flicked it on.
The light illuminated her. Her skin was pale and white, hanging down from her long, thin limbs. Her jaw was unhinged, hanging down from her face to allow a black, bloated tongue to hang out. Her cold, dead, lifeless blue eyes stared at Sam. Only a few strands of wispy black hair hung from her head. But… this was nothing compared to what Sam saw next. Her bloated, heavily extended stomach wa that of a mother several months into pregnancy, covered with deep stab wounds through the belly. A quiet child’s giggle came from the stomach, and Sam began to cry.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, please,” Sam cried.
The horrible creature let out a moan, extending long, claw-like hands outwards. Rather than reach for Sam as he expected, they didn’t. They went for her stomach.
“Stop! Stop!” Sam begged, as he watched the creature stick her clawed fingers into her stomach stab wounds.
The beast began tearing and pulling open her stomach. Sam screamed, before the stomach was pulled apart, and a horrifying creature began to claw it’s way out. Tiny, barely formed legs fell out of the stomach, followed by a stomach that looked like its been crushed and twisted into itself. wrapped in pink entrails and a black-purple umbilical cord wrapped around it’s neck, hanging the creature. Finally, the head appears. An eyeless face, a smile stretched wide to show bloody, malformed gums, a face that seems to be worse than anything Sam had seen. This looked worse than the worst human mutant ven after their face had been beaten and twisted beyond comprehension. The… the baby let out a giggle, stretching its hands out as if to embrace Sam, who could only scream in terror.
Sam couldn’t be here. He needed to find Julia, to get the fuck out of this house. He bolted, grabbing the pantry doors, and swinging it open. Dozens of the girls stood there, staring. Burned masses of barely humanoid flesh howling at him. Slashed apart corpses let out horrible gurgles. Bloated corpses waddled towards him, moaning in pain. Sam ran past them. Dozens of hands grabbed at him, scratching his face and grabbing at his arms and legs, but Sam just kept running. He found himself surrounded, and quickly headed for the stairs. He quickly began climbing the staircase,
before slipping and slamming into the staircase wit a pained yelp. He rolled over to see a girl, her face a black and blue swollen pass of bruised and heavily beaten flesh, her eyes gouged out and leaving two bloody crevasses in her face that still managed to peer into Sam’s soul.
“Get off me! Get off me!” Sam screamed, kicking the monster in the face until the grip loosens, allowing Sam to stand and dart up the stairs.
Sam burst toward his daughters room, slamming it open. As it opened, he saw then. His daughter was gone from the bed, and in it’s place was another monster, a girl only about fourteen, her face studded with nails, her eyes gouged out, her body filled with endless holes. The monster still grinned at him. Another monster, the sack girl, appeared, and began to stumble towards him. He turned, shutting the door desperately.
He found the first door he could other than the bedroom, forcing it open and quickly stumbling inside and shutting the door, finding himself in the bathroom. Thankfully, the lights were already on, and the monsters aren’t in here.
“Oh God, Julia… Julia baby,” Sam wept.
Sam sobbed into his arm for several minutes. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He knew Julia was gone. These monsters showed no mercy. Sam needed to survive, though. It’s what Julia would’ve wanted. He briefly wondered what his willingness to keep going directly after abandoning his daughter meant for him, before shrugging it off. He was a survivor.
“OK, think. You just need to think. You’ve got out of plenty of bad situations. None this bad, but fuck it, you’ll make it… somehow,” Sam said to himself.
Sam locked the bathroom door, quickly looking around. He found a pair of scissors sitting on the sink, and quickly grabbed that to use like a dagger. He walked to the window, peering out. The house, being on a slope, makes the drop too big for you to even have a slim hope of making it.
“OK, think. Front door’s locked. Windows won’t work. I need to get to the front yard. The van’s keys are in the glove box. I don’t need my phone. I don’t need my wallet. I just need to get to the front yard,” Sam said aloud.
The light flickered, just for a millisecond, and in that millisecond a figure appeared, standing in front of Sam. The light came back on, banishing the figure, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief.
“The front door’s locked. The windows are gone. The side poor is in the kitchen with those… things. The key to the backdoor is in the kitchen pantry”
Sam remembered being trapped in that kitchen pantry, seeing the monstrous mother give “birth”…
Sam leaned over, and puked up the entirety of his dinner, seeing fully formed pieces of corn coming out in the stream of half-digested food. Sam kept puking until he was left there doubled over, dry heaving as he leaned in a puddle of vomit. Once he was finished, he got back to trying to plan a way out of this hellhole.
“The basement! There’s windows in the basement. I can crawl out onto the lawn from there and get out!”
Sam felt a surge of hope, the first he had all night. He could sprint down the stairs, a short turn right brings him to the basement door, and then he was in the basement. Slam and lock that fucking door behind him, head down to the basement, fuck, he could even grab his toolbox. His toolbox. His life’s work, his passion, everything that mattered to him.
The bathroom light flickered off.
“Oh please, merciful Jesus…” Sam said.
Another figure appeared, a tall girl with a face that’s been cut apart. She doesn’t look at you, instead standing in front of the mirror, howling as she smashes her face against it, shattering the mirror and sending shards of glass everywhere. The bathtub instantly becomes full with a black-crimson liquid, like a sick, twisted ichor that’s slowly over-filling and flowing out over the rim of the bathtub and pooling around the floor. A woman’s head sticks out of the bathtub, moaning as the black liquid oozes down her throat.
Sam scuttled to his feet, grabbing the door handle and opening it before the monsters in there could come for him. He barreled down the staircase, seeing all the monsters clustered around him. He rammed his way past the girls, shoving them back and breaking free of their horrible, grabbing hands. He grabbed the basement door, closing it on woman covered in burn marks, making her face a pair of bloodshot eyes and an indistinguishable mass of burnt flesh. He locked the door, hearing the horrible creatures scratch on the door behind him, howling and shrieking as they hands scratch against he door.
Sam reached up for the basement light switch, flicking it on. He heard the click, but… nothing. The light bulb must’ve been burned out. Fuck. He looked down the wooden stairs, at the dark, terrifying basement. Where once this had been a place of relief, where Sam could work for hours to relieve stress and feel pure, unrelenting joy as his creativity went loose, now the basement was a terrifying home for nightmares. He began walking down the stairs, one step at a time. He moved forward slowly, hoping not to draw the attention of whatever creature appeared down here. His foot stepped onto off the creaky staircase and onto the concrete floor. Sam saw a red toolbox, his toolbox, on a small wooden table. He moved forward in the cramped basement, grabbing the toolbox, and looking to the basement window where a pale beam of moonlight shun through.
Then, the hands grabbed him. Dozens of hands, coming out of the walls, the floors, everywhere. They grabbed at his arms and legs, scratching at his face in a desperate attempt to cause him pain. Sam screamed as his toolbox, his life, was grabbed from his hands. He didn’t care. He just needed to get out of here. Sam reached around for a weapon, shaking desperately in an attempt to get those fucking hands off him. Pale hands, reaching out from the drywall, from the concrete, from the fucking everywhere. His hands closed around the handle of something, and he swung it. A red, plastic gas can swung forward, it’s liquid contents sloshing around as the fuel can.
Sam suddenly remembered his lighter. He grabbed for the black plastic top of the cannister, screwing it off as he kept struggling against the hands trying to grab and pull him down and tear him apart. Sam desperately splashed the gasoline around him, splashing it at all those grasping hands, as they pulled away when the gasoline hits them. The hands backed away, and Sam saw his chance. He burst forward, tossing the can of gas away as his hands gripped around the window frame of the basement, holding on tightly, pulling himself up. The hands appear again, gripping around Sam’s legs, but Sam knows he’s going to make it, he has to make it, he can’t go down here. The hands pull him back into the basement, as he tries to use all his strength to get out of this hellhole. Sam grabbed the lighter in his pocket, as his other hand held on with all the strength someone could have, all the desperation, all the terror bubbling up to keep his grip on that doorway tight.
Sam lit the lighter, tossing it at the hands. The entire room went up as the gas began to burn. Flames licked the hands, sending them disappearing back into the walls and floor, as the flames quickly spread through the basement. Sam pulled himself out of the basement, desperately scuttling away from the house, crawling forward. Sam crawled out to the driveway, watching as the fire spread. The old, Victorian-style manor was old, made of wood, and it was the dry season. Needles to say, the house quickly set aflame.
“Oh thank you, thank you God!” Sam said in relief.
Sam looked down, saying a silent prayer for his daughter. He knew she was in God’s hands now. Nothing he could do. Sam stood, stumbling over to the old white van that stood in his driveway. He swung the door open, quickly clicking the glove box open and grabbing the keys. He stuck them in the ignition, starting the car.
Sam had did it. Sam had won. Those fucking monsters weren’t going to get him. Sam began to drive, heading away from the burning house and towards the highway. Now, he can continue his work, continue his life, continue everything. Now, he’s made it. It’s over.
***
“It’s him.”
“Him?” Detective McGlade asked, looking up from his notepad as he stepped out of his sedan.
“Mr X,” Detective Severide replied.
McGlade stopped, staring at the burned wreckage of the house. Emergency workers went through the wreckage, searching. McGlade lit a cigarette, taking a deep inhale.
“Are you sure? What evidence is there?”
Severide held up a red, partially melted toolbox. He took out a switchblade, forcing the melted clasp open.
“One of the search team found this in the basement, right next to the cause of the fire. I think he was trying to destroy it,” Severide said.
An SUV pulled up to the scene, and a woman stepped out. She looked dressed for a business meeting, with a grey skirt and blazer, but she looked panicked. The woman had long, wavy black hair and startlingly blue eyes, from which mascara ran alongside the tears going down her face.
“Detective McGlade, can I help you?” McGlade said.
“This is my ex-husband’s house!”
“You were married to Mr X… Sam Huxley?” Detective McGlade asked, as everything clicked into place.
“Yes! My daughter’s in there! It was his weekend with Julia! You need to do something!”
Detective McGlade nodded, trying to give her the idea that he understood and was listening to her, while motioning for an EMT to usher her away. The EMT leads her off, asking a series of questions.
“Can we continue?” Detective Severide said.
“Yeah. You notice the wife’s appearance?” Detective McGlade asked.
“Black hair, blue eyes,” Detective Severide said. “If that doesn’t do it for you, look in here.”
Detective McGlade opened the toolbox, and felt his stomach squirm. Inside were several knives of varying length and sharpness, screwdrivers, nails, a hammer, a chisel, a drill, a lighter, a length of rope, duct tape… and other things. Necklaces made from human teeth, locks of hair, even blood-stained pairs of women’s underwear.
“Fuck,” Detective McGlade said. “The sick son of a bitch liked to take trophies.”
“He’s been at this a long time. Always the same type of girl, but a different MO every time. Strangulation, blood loss from stabbing, drowning, torture… it goes on. We’ve… we’ve found where he’s been keeping the bodies.”
Detective McGlade raised an eye, staring at him, wondering if he’d be able to take anymore.
“Basement. Some were in the foundation itself, concrete poured atop them, and some were stuffed into the walls.
“Jesus fuck,” McGlade said, unable to find words.
“The youngest was fourteen. The oldest forty two. And… just to warn you… one of them was pregnant. Eight months.”
McGlade leaned over, as his breakfast of scrambled egg and bacon made a reappearance over his black suede shoes.
“What happened here?” he asked.
“Mr X, or Mr Huxley, seemed to have just set this place alight in the middle of the night and headed off. He must be long gone by now.”
“He got away,” Detective McGlade says in horror.
“We have his name and picture now. We’re close to capturing him,” Detective Severide responds.
“No. He’s smart. This is the only slip up he’s ever made, and he just slipped through our fucking fing…!”
“We got a girl!” a voice cried.
Detective McGlade rushed to the rubble, as a pair of Firefighters lifted a beam up to reveal a curled up, unconscious girl in a tattered nightgown.
“Thank Christ,” Detective Severide said. "How did she get there? How did she survive?"
“It… it looks like she was dragged from her bed to here,” a firefighter says in confusion. “The only spot in this entire place that she wouldn’t have been crushed or burned to death.”
“What?” Detective McGlade asks.
This didn’t make any sense. If Mr X wanted to keep his daughter safe, he would’ve left her with her mother, or taken her with him, or dragged her outside. Why would he do this?
“Julia!” the mother cried as she rushed towards her child.
Detective McGlade wandered over to his car, leaning against it. The daughter had made it. That was something. But Mr X escaped. He was on the road again, and more women would suffer because McGlade wasn’t quick enough in catching that sick freak. As he watched the burnt rubble of the house, McGlade wondered if he’d ever get the chance to avenge the bones of the victims there.
