The hallway was thick with smoke and the sweet, metallic scent of burnt flesh. Trent held Matt tight against his side, both boys gasping, their eyes locked on the pale boy’s remains as the body smoldered on the warped floorboards. The flames didn’t spread. They simply sank into the wood, disappearing as though the house were drinking them in.

            Then, soft footsteps, a voice out of the shadows.

            “Trent? Matty?”

            Both brothers jerked toward the sound.

            Logan stumbled into view, his shirt torn open across the back, his face streaked with grime and something darker—blood, maybe his, maybe not. His eyes were too wide, darting from wall to wall, tracking movements that might not have been there a moment earlier.

            “Logan!” Matt cried, breaking free from Trent’s grip and limping forward. “We thought—”

            “I’m fine,” Logan blurted, though his voice shook. “I—I found something. You guys… the house—it’s alive.”

            Trent frowned, still catching uneven breaths. “What are you talking about?”

            Logan lifted a trembling hand and pointed down the corridor, as if the hallway itself might snap at his fingers. “There’s a room… full of stuff. People’s stuff. Backpacks, coats, things kids left behind. Adults too. And the walls were covered in clippings—news articles. Missing people. All from around here.”

            Matt’s eyes widened, his voice small. “You mean—”

            Logan nodded. “It goes back decades. And one of them… one of them was a kid about our age. He vanished on Halloween night, 1983.”
            Logan’s gaze slid from the scorched corpse to Trent and back again. His voice dropped to a whisper.
            “That’s him. The one you just—”

            Trent’s stomach twisted. Even now, he could still smell the burnt hair, the sickly-sweet smoke clinging to the air like a stain that wouldn’t wash away. The boy’s empty eyes, glassy, blistered, seemed to follow them even in death.

            “He said the house wouldn’t let anyone leave,” Trent murmured, his voice barely more than a rasp.

            “It won’t,” Logan replied. His tone wasn’t panicked anymore, just hollow, frayed. “I saw it. The walls were shifting, doors slamming shut behind me. It changes when you’re not looking… but just now, it started changing even while I was staring at it. It wants us here.”

            Matt’s lower lip trembled. He clutched his arms tight around himself, trying to stop his shoulders from shaking. “Then… then how do we get out?”

            Logan swallowed, his throat bobbing visibly. “When we came in, I looked up. The attic window was open.”
            He hesitated, then met Trent’s eyes.
            “It was the only thing that looked… different. I think that’s where it’s weakest. I think that’s our way out.”

            Trent jerked his head toward him. “The attic?”

            Logan nodded. “Yeah. If there’s any place the house can’t twist completely, it’s up there. Everything else keeps changing, but that window—” His voice faltered. “ that window stayed the same.”

            Matt hugged himself tighter, his gaze drawn unwillingly back to the pale, scorched boy on the floor. “Chris… he said something like that before he—before he…”
His voice collapsed; the word lost.

            Trent’s jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “Chris didn’t make it,” he said quietly. “Something was wearing his body. It attacked us.”

            Logan’s face crumpled, not in tears, but in a grief so stunned it barely had shape. He didn’t ask how. He didn’t want to.

            Instead, his eyes flicked upward.

            Somewhere above them, a deep creak rolled through the ceiling. Not the groan of settling wood—something weightier, slower. Like the house had shifted its full attention to the boys below and was leaning down to listen.

            Trent slipped an arm around Matty, drawing him in close. “We need to move,” he said quietly but firmly. “If that thing was one of the house’s… whatever they are, then there are more. Maybe a lot more.”

            “There is,” Logan said quietly. His gaze flicked back toward the hallway he’d crawled out of. “Since we split up, I ran into the vampire… a werewolf… and this mannequin doll thing…”

            Matt whimpered softly, the sound small and raw.

            The house seemed to exhale in response—long, low, hungry.
            The air around them thickened, growing heavy and warm, like they were walking inside the lungs of something vast and ancient. The floorboards swelled beneath their feet, sighing under their weight. The wallpaper trembled with each footstep, bulging subtly, as though veins pulsed beneath the surface.

            Trent pulled Matt closer and moved quickly, Logan tight at their heels. The jittering flashlight beam cut erratically through the dust-choked dark.

            “Keep moving,” Trent muttered, voice tight. “We have to find a way out before—”

            A sound behind them cut him off.

            Thud.            Scrape.
            A dragging sound, slow and wet.

            Matt turned, face bleached pale. “Trent… that sounds like—”

            A wet, choking cough echoed down the corridor.

            All three boys froze.

            From the darkness came the uneven shuffle of footsteps, dragging, sticky, almost inquisitive. The flashlight flickered once, twice… then caught a shape.

            Chris.

            Or what little was left of him.

            His clothes were soaked through with blood and a black, tar-like fluid. The kitchen knife Matt had driven deep into the back of his skull still jutted out at an angle, the handle bobbing grotesquely with every staggered step. The blade had split his skull nearly to the jaw. And yet… the flesh pulsed faintly around it, opening and closing like something breathing through the wound.

            Matt’s breath hitched. “No… no, I—I killed you…”

            Chris lurched forward, bones grinding loudly in his neck. His jaw worked, twitching, as if trying to relearn the shape of words.

            “Trrr—ennnnt…”

            It was his voice.
            But drowned—gurgling, broken, wrong.

            Trent felt his throat go dry. “Run.”

            Chris’s steps quickened, dragging faster now, the wet slap of blood on the boards marking each stride. His jaw opened with a faint clicking deep in his throat. When he spoke again, it barely resembled language—wet syllables forced through ruined vocal cords.

            “Trrr—ennnnt…”

            “You’re not him,” Trent said, shaking his head. “You’re not.”

            Chris tilted his head at an impossible angle; the embedded knife twisted with a sickening creak. Then, slowly, impossibly, the torn skin around his mouth peeled back into a wide, slashed smile.

            “Wanna… play… again?”

            “Run,” Trent hissed.

            They bolted.

            The hallway seemed to collapse behind them as they ran. Doorways slammed shut in their faces. Wallpaper bubbled like boiling skin. The ceiling sagged and pulsed overhead, as though the house were trying to inhale them whole.

            Chris thundered after them—fast, uneven, relentless.

            They crashed through an open doorway into another room. then skidded to a stop.

            The room was cluttered with discarded items. At first glance, it looked like trash.

            But as the dust settled… it wasn’t trash at all.

            Clothes. Shoes. Backpacks. Phones. Old Halloween buckets. Wallets. Stuffed animals.
All heaped together in a sprawling mound, a mountain of lost lives swallowed by the house.

            “Jesus Christ…” Logan breathed. He nudged a pile of dusty sneakers with his foot, each pair facing a different direction, like frozen footsteps. “These were… all people. Everyone who ever— I mean… it’s just like that other room, but this—” His voice broke. “There’s so much more of it.”

            He turned toward the far wall — and went still.

            Every inch was plastered with yellowed newspaper clippings, layered so thickly the original wallpaper was gone. Headlines overlapped in chaotic, desperate fragments:

            LOCAL FAMILY MISSING AFTER HALLOWEEN PARTY.
            TEENAGER VANISHES ON TARAMACK DRIVE.
            NO SURVIVORS IN WINCHESTER HOUSE FIRE — CAUSE UNKNOWN.

            Logan stepped closer, hand trembling as he reached for one clipping near his face. It crumbled slightly beneath his fingers.

            His breath hitched.
            The article was about him.

            Two photographs sat side-by-side — one of him in his Jeff the Killer costume taken that very morning by his dad, and another from his fourteenth birthday, smiling awkwardly at the camera. Beneath them were pictures of Chris… Trent… Matt… and the headline:

            LOCAL BOYS MISSING AFTER TRICK-OR-TREATING.

            “What…” Logan whispered. “What is all this?”

            Matt stepped beside him, voice cracking. “I don’t understand… my mom took that picture of me before school. This morning. How—how is it here?”

            The flashlight flickered.

            A voice drifted from behind them, weak and ragged:

            “Help… me…”

            They spun.

            Chris stood in the doorway, head hanging forward by torn muscle, blood coursing down his neck in rivulets. His fingers twitched like puppet strings, and the knife handle protruding from his skull rotated slightly, as if something underneath was turning it.

            Trent’s voice splintered. “You’re not him.”

            Chris’s head twitched violently, jerking upright. His mouth opened and closed with strange, stuttering spasms — like something inside was testing the mechanics of speech.

            “It… hurts…”
            The words dripped out in a wet gargle. “Help… me…”

            Then he lunged.

            Trent slammed into Matt, shoving him out of the way just as Chris crashed into the mound of belongings. He tore through it like an animal, ripping at clothing and old bedding, fingernails snapping off as he clawed through a rusted bed frame.

            Then — SNAP.

            His neck snapped back into place with a sickening whip, and his voice warped into something no longer remotely human.

            “You can’t leave…”

            “Run!” Logan shouted, pushing Trent and Matt toward the opposite exit.

            Chris lunged again, barely missing Logan as he dove behind an overturned dresser. His eyes scanned frantically for anything he could use. The flashlight beam jittered across the debris and caught a glint of yellow.

A plastic bottle.
Half-buried.
Lighter fluid.

            Logan yanked it free, and beside it, a torn, water-stained box of matches.

            “Logan, come on!” Trent yelled from the doorway, voice cracking with urgency.

            But Logan was already moving, already choosing.

            He grabbed a handful of discarded clothes, wrapped them around the curtain rod he’d been carrying since the doll attack, and soaked the fabric in lighter fluid. His hands trembled, but his jaw locked with grim determination.

            “Just go!” he shouted, striking a match. “I got this bitch!”

            The match flared bright in his shaking fingers —
then the makeshift torch roared to life, casting long, monstrous shadows across the room.
Chris shrieked, a sound that rattled the bones.

            Logan took a breath that burned all the way down. Smoke scratched at his lungs, but he forced his voice through it.

            “Go!” he yelled. “Get to the stairs!”

            Trent hesitated, eyes wide, torn between instinct and fear. “Logan—”

            “GO!” Logan barked, and for a moment something fierce, almost heroic, flared behind the terror in his face.

            He spun and hurled the half-empty container of lighter fluid at Chris. It struck with a dull thud, splashing his chest in a wave of chemical fumes.

            Chris’s head twitched, jaw spasming.
            “You… shouldn’t…”

            Logan didn’t hesitate.

            He lunged and drove the flaming rod straight into Chris’s chest.

            The room erupted in a violent bloom of orange light.

            Chris screamed—no, something screamed, a layered, inhuman noise that rattled the walls. Part howl. Part agony. Part the house itself wailing through him. Fire devoured his clothes, raced up his neck, split flesh apart like soaked paper. His milky eyes bubbled and burst.

            “Burn,” Logan gasped, pushing harder, even as the flames licked his arms and blistered his hands. “Burn!”

            The creature stumbled backward, thrashing wildly. Flames crawled up the walls, eating decades of newspaper clippings in a hungry storm of ash.

            Across the room, Trent dragged Matt toward the far doorway. But Trent couldn’t help looking back, just once, to see Logan shove the burning body to the floor.

            “Go!” Logan choked, coughing hard. “Get out!”

            Trent yanked Matt through the door.

            Behind them, the charred thing that had been Chris twitched once, then collapsed into stillness. Smoke spiraled from its ruined body. Logan staggered back, face streaked with soot, hair damp with sweat.

            “You’re done,” he rasped, breath trembling. “You’re—”

            A low, hungry growl rolled through the ceiling above him.

            The floorboards rattled. Dust sifted down from the rafters.

            Logan’s head snapped upward.

            “…Oh, come on…”

            The ceiling exploded.

            A massive shape crashed down in a shower of splintered beams—fur, claws, burning yellow eyes. The werewolf. Its mangled fur still smoldered from the fire that had been licking up the walls, and across the ceiling of the room. It landed between Logan and the doorway, snarling, drool hissing where it hit the flames on the floor.

            Logan backed up, raising his torch with shaking hands.
            “You want a piece of me too?” he whispered hoarsely. “Come and work for your dinner!”

            The beast lunged.

                                                                        *

            Out in the hall, Trent and Matt had just reached the stairwell when a deafening crash shook the entire house. The walls shuddered violently. Above them came a roar—a sound of tearing flesh and splintering wood, followed by a scream that wasn’t quite human.

            “LOGAN!” Matty screamed, voice cracking.

            Flames flickered down the hallway—then abruptly dimmed, swallowed by spreading darkness. A second scream echoed, mixed with a monstrous roar, then silence.
Dead, suffocating silence.

            Matt tried to run back toward it. “Logan—!”

            Trent grabbed him hard, forcing him toward the stairs. “We can’t—Matty, we can’t!”

            “He saved us—” Matt sobbed, stumbling, tears cutting clean lines through the grime on his cheeks.

            “I know,” Trent said, voice breaking as he dragged his brother upward. “I know.”

            Behind them, the firelight faded completely. Something had smothered it.

            And then came a sound, quiet at first, then growing steady.

            Thud…
            Thud…
            Thud…

            Something pacing. Something waiting.

            Something above them, leaving Trent to wonder what new horrors awaited them now.