Welcome to Shocktober!

With Halloween just around the corner, I've written a short story to get you all in the mood! Be sure to read it when darkness has fallen, and if you're lucky enough, maybe a violent storm will hit your area while you're reading! Enjoy! And don't blame me for your nightmares!

        The smell hit Emmaline before she even saw the place.

        She was driving the cracked county road that ran past the woods known as Specters Hollow, her car’s headlights sweeping across dead trees and sagging fence posts, when the wind shifted. It slithered through the open window, thick and fetid, the smell of rotting flesh clinging to the air.

        She gagged, pressing her sleeve to her nose, and that was when she saw it.

        Blackthorn Hall.

        Even after years away, she knew it instantly. The sagging gables rose black against the swollen moon, the windows yawning open like sockets in a skull. Shutters hung loose, creaking in the wind. Something white fluttered from the porch rail, a cloth, or maybe even a strip of ancient dried flesh. The house crouched at the tree line, as if the woods themselves had spat it out.

        A sick curiosity got to her. Slowly, with great trepidation, she pulled into the overgrown driveway, her mouth as dry as a cotton ball. She hadn’t meant to stop. It was as if some supernatural force was drawing her in. She was supposed to head straight into town to see her Aunt Ophelia, but here she was, and the road had funneled her here, like a hand pushing her spine.

        Her chest tightened. A memory clawed up, as she remembered her childhood friend, Eddie, from English class, running toward the house with a flashlight. A dare, back then, but he’d never come out of the place. All they’d found was the flashlight on the porch, its beam shining on a single bloody handprint smeared across the door.

        The town sheriff had called it a runaway. Sure, Eddie had had problems at home, but Emmaline had seen the print. She’d had nightmares for years of that dripping, red hand.

        Now, as she sat there with her headlights glaring against the rotted siding, she saw it again. Not old and faded, but as fresh as it had been years ago. A wet, glistening palm mark streaked down the front door.

        Her car stalled. The engine coughed once and died.

        “Oh no…please, not this…”

        She twisted the key, but the starter only whined. The headlights dimmed, flickered, then went black. Darkness swallowed the road, the woods, the house. Only the moon remained, swollen and yellow like an infected eye, staring down at her. Her mouth went dry. She swallowed, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t move.

        Her phone buzzed in the cup holder. A single notification. Startled, she leapt in her seat, gasping, her heart slamming against her ribs…..

        DO NOT GO IN.

        Her heart lurched, her pulse racing. No number. No contact. Just the ominous words.

        Something caught her eye, and for a moment, she thought she saw movement on the porch.

Emmaline froze, squinting through the windshield. It was a figure, standing there, too tall, too thin, its dangling arms too long. Its head cocked slowly, unnaturally far, until she was sure the neck had snapped. The dim porch light above it sputtered and blinked, throwing shadows across its ghostly face. Except it wasn’t a face at all, just a wet smear, like skin had been peeled away, leaving raw muscle glistening.

        The figure lifted a hand. The fingers were blackened stumps, but they spread in a beckoning wave.

Emmaline’s body moved before her brain did. She grabbed her cell phone and a small flashlight, then shoved the car door open, stumbling into the lonely country road, her breath fogging in frantic bursts. She didn’t remember choosing to move toward the woods, but her feet carried her, gravel crunching under her shoes.

        Behind her, the porch boards groaned. Something was coming down the steps!

        The woods swallowed her. Thorny briars clawed her arms, drawing blood and snagging her jacket. She ran blind, tears welling in her eyes, the smell of rot thickening until she was choking on it.

A scream tore through the trees. High, ragged, and wet. Not human.

        Emmaline stopped, clutching her chest, her breath ragged. She couldn’t run another step. Silence fell, and then she heard it…whispering. Dozens of voices, low, slithering through the dark. They were all around her, circling her.

         Her phone buzzed again. With trembling hands, she lifted it. A new message blinked on the cracked screen:

        Welcome back, Emmaline.

        Something brushed against her neck. Cold. Slimy. She spun, but nothing was there, just trees, black and endless.

        Branches rattled and groaned as the wind threaded through them, each gust a ghostly sigh in the darkness. She turned back toward the road, but she couldn’t see it. It was gone. Only darkness, deeper than any night she’d ever known. And beyond it, faint and distant, she saw the house again. Its windows glowed red now, pulsing like a heartbeat.

        The whispers around here grew louder.

        And for the first time since she was a child, Emmaline felt certain—the house was alive.

        Finally, the wind settled, the voices ceased, and the road appeared. She made her way back to her car, which now started with no trouble. Her hands gripped the wheel so tight her knuckles whitened.

        When she arrived at her aunt’s, she hid in the soothing water of the bathtub, but the warm water did nothing to drown the anxiety that kept her tossing and turning until dawn.

        By morning, Emmaline tried to convince herself it had been a nightmare.

        Her aunt’s house smelled faintly of mothballs and stale bread, not rot and blood. The sun made the sidewalks out front look almost normal, the autumn leaves bright and crisp underfoot. But her hands still trembled, and when she washed her face, she swore she smelled that same sweet stench in the water.

        She sat eating breakfast alone. Her aunt was outside deadheading rose bushes. Emmaline heard the creaking of the front door open as just as she felt her heart begin to beat out of her chest, a familiar face came into the dining room.

        “Chase!” she screamed, leaping from her chair, her arms wrapping around him as if holding on could keep the world from falling apart. Chase Maddox noticed immediately that something was bothering his old friend.

        “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Em.”

        Emmaline flinched. Chase leaned against her aunt’s kitchen counter, a smirk playing at his lips, radiating a casual charm that made everything around him seem effortless. He’d been her neighbor once, the boy with the slingshot and scraped knees, and he hadn’t grown much more serious since. Now he wore a sheriff’s deputy uniform, and she thought he had grown more handsome over the years.

        “I drove past…it…last night,” Emmaline said before she could stop herself.

        His grin faded. “Blackthorn?”

        She nodded.

        “Dear God.” Chase glanced at the kitchen doorway, as if worried her aunt might overhear. “You didn’t go in, did you?”

        “No!” The word tasted like a lie. “But…Chase, something’s wrong with that place.”

        He exhaled, rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. Courtney says the same thing.”

At the sound of the name, Emmaline’s stomach tightened. Courtney, Chase’s girlfriend, a sharp-eyed, fearless, and far too curious for her own good kind of young woman. Emmaline had liked her once.

The screen door banged open. Courtney breezed in, her long blond hair pulled into a messy knot, dark eyes glittering. “Talking about Blackthorn again?”

        Emmaline stiffened. “Again?”

        “Oh, Chase didn’t tell you? We’ve been inside.” Courtney leaned against the doorframe, smirking. “More than once.”

        Emmaline’s breath caught. “You what?”

        “It’s just a house,” Courtney chided. “Rotting floors, creepy symbols, dead raccoons in the walls. Nothing supernatural.” Her grin sharpened. “But the energy… now that’s real. It’s like the walls breathe, you know? Like it’s waiting for something.”

        “Waiting for what?” asked Emmaline, fearing just about any answer.

        “You.”

        The word hit Emmaline like ice water.

        Courtney laughed at the expression on Emmaline’s face. “Relax. I’m joking. But seriously, if you saw something last night, you should come with us. See for yourself.”

        “No way.” Emmaline’s voice cracked. “I’m not going back to that place.”

        Courtney’s eyes narrowed. “Then it’ll keep owning you. You think you left it behind, but you didn’t. That house has its hooks in you.” She curled her index finger and waggled it in front of Emmaline.

Chase muttered, “Courtney…” but the damage was done. Emmaline’s pulse thundered in her ears.

        By dusk, she found herself standing at the tree line again, Chase and Courtney walking slowly toward the house. It loomed ahead, blacker than the sky, its windows faintly glowing as if lit from within. Chase’s flashlight bobbed beside her as Courtney’s boots crunched leaves on the other side. The smell of rot returned, thicker now, coating her throat.

        “Last chance,” Emmaline whispered. “We shouldn’t—”

        The porch light flickered on.

        All three froze, forming an eerie vignette.

        “It does that sometimes,” Courtney said, but her voice wavered.

        The front door groaned open, slow, deliberate, like the house itself was inviting them. Chase swallowed. “Well. That’s not ominous at all.”

        They stepped inside, fear and trepidation tagging along.

        The air was colder inside, wetter, like a cellar. The floor bowed and creaked under their weight. Garish wallpaper peeled in strips, revealing wood carved with symbols—spirals, eyes, crooked mouths gaping open. Some appeared as if freshly cut.

        Emmaline’s stomach turned. “That wasn’t here when we came before.”

        Chase lifted the beam of his flashlight. It caught on a stain that spread across the ceiling, dark and wet, dripping steadily to the floor.

        Plink. Plink. Plink.

        Emmaline had walked away from her friends and into the adjacent room. Wet drops from the ceiling landed in a spreading puddle at Emmaline’s feet. She glanced up.

        A body hung from the rafters, upside down, skin slashed open from chest to navel. Intestines dangled like ropes, swaying slightly as if stirred by a breath. Blood dripped steadily into the pool below.

        Emmaline screamed.

        Chase and Courtney rushed into the room. The flashlight beam jolted as Chase swore, stumbling backward. Courtney only stared, wide-eyed, breathless.

        The body’s head turned toward them. Slowly. Bone cracked, sinew tore, until its face, eyeless, jaw unhinged, fixed on Emmaline.

        The puddle beneath her rippled. The body shifted slightly, and in a voice like a dry rasp, it whispered her name. Emmaline’s scream echoed through the house, swallowed quickly by the walls. Chase yanked her backward, his flashlight beam swinging wildly.

        “We have to go, we have to go—”

        The front door slammed shut, shaking the entire house.

        The echo rattled through the rotting beams like thunder. The three turned in stunned silence as the door had suddenly disappeared before their eyes. Just a stretch of wallpaper remained, curling at the edges, damp with something that looked like blood.

        “No,” Emmaline whispered hoarsely. Her breath puffed white in the cold air. “That was the front door. That was—”

        “It’s a trick,” Courtney said, though her voice had thinned. She stepped toward the hanging body. “We’ve seen illusions here before. Just shadows, just—”

        The body twitched. It jerked violently, swinging, ropes of viscera slapping wetly against the floorboards. Then it began to rise, yanked back into the rafters by invisible hands. The intestines trailed after it, slurping back into the open cavity.

        A wet pop, a crunch, and it was gone.

        Courtney staggered back, nearly tripping over her own feet, heart hammering, frozen in a mix of disbelief and sheer terror. “I thought that was…an illusion…but… that wasn’t here before. We’ve been in this room. That wasn’t—”

        A shriek tore through the house, not human, but layered, dozens of voices screaming at once. The wallpaper peeled upward, curling into spirals that resembled open mouths. From them, black ooze began to trickle.

        “Run,” Chase barked.

        They sprinted down the hall, their footsteps slamming on warped boards. Every door they passed stretched wider, opening into impossible darkness. Emmaline caught flashes as she ran: a child’s rocking chair swaying on its own, a dining table where rotting meat writhed with maggots, a mirror reflecting not her face but a flayed version of it, eyes rolling in raw sockets.

        They turned into the parlor. For a heartbeat, it looked almost normal. Dusty furniture, cobwebs thick in the corners, the stale smell of mildew. Chase slammed the door shut behind them, leaning on it, gasping.

        “Okay,” he wheezed. “Okay. We regroup. We think. There has to be a way—”

        Courtney cut him off with a strangled laugh. “Regroup? In this place? Look at it!” She jabbed a finger toward the fireplace.

        Above the mantel hung a portrait, cracked, peeling, of a family. Mother, father, daughter. But their faces had been clawed away. Only ragged gouges remained, and in their place, something had been painted in a black substance that shimmered wet: eyes. Dozens of them. All staring at Emmaline.

Her stomach lurched. “It wants me.”

        Before either of them could answer, the hearth roared to life. Flames shot up, spilling sparks. Within the fire, shapes writhed as arms, mouths, eyes, stretching, pressed against the grate as if trying to crawl out.

        “Emmaline…” they whispered seductively.

        Courtney staggered closer, transfixed. “Do you hear it? It knows your name.”

        “Courtney—don’t—” Chase reached for her, but she slipped from his grasp, stepping right up to the flames.

        “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, her face shimmering in the light.

        The fire surged. Arms burst outward, charred black but moving like flesh, quickly wrapping around Courtney’s waist. She screamed, thrashing as the fire dragged her in. Her skin began blistering, her long hair igniting, her voice ripping raw until it cut off in a wet choke.

        The flames snapped shut.

        The hearth went dark. Only a curl of smoke remained.

        Emmaline’s knees buckled. She collapsed to the floor, shaking, bile burning the back of her throat.

        “God, oh, dear God,” Chase muttered, gripping his hair, eyes wide.

        The house groaned, the sound deep and hungry.

        Emmaline lifted her head and stared at Chase. “We’re next.”

        The silence after Courtney’s frightening death was unbearable.

        Emmaline pressed her hands to her ears, as if she could block out the memory of her scream, the smell of burning flesh. But the house breathed around them, the wallpaper swelling and deflating, the floorboards ticking like a heartbeat.

        “We have to move,” Chase rasped. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, his face chalky. “If we stay in one place, it’ll… it’ll eat us alive.”

        Emmaline rose unsteadily. “Where? The door’s gone.”

        He swung his flashlight toward the far end of the parlor. A hallway stretched out, one she swore hadn’t been there before.

        “Only way out is through,” Chase muttered.

        They crept forward. The beam of light wavered across warped portraits, claw marks, walls pulsing like veins under skin. The air thickened with the stink of copper and rot.

        Halfway down the hall, Emmaline stopped. She heard whispering. Not from the walls this time, but close. Behind her ear.

        Emmaline. You were promised.

        She jerked away, heart hammering. Chase grabbed her arm. “What?”

        “Didn’t you hear—”

        The floor buckled under him. With a splintering crack, the boards gave way. Chase dropped waist-deep before Emmaline could even scream, jagged wood scraping his sides.

        “Help!” He thrashed, clawing at the floor. The flashlight rolled, beam spinning wildly, catching flashes of movement below of slick flesh, writhing limbs, a mouth opening far too wide.

        Emmaline grabbed his wrists. “Hold on!”

        Something yanked from below. Chase’s eyes bulged. He screamed, blood bubbling from his mouth. His body jerked as though hooked.

        “Don’t let go!” Emmaline sobbed, straining, her fingers slipping on his sweat and blood.

        Then, with a wet rip, Chase was gone. The boards slammed shut, leaving only a smear of blood where he’d been.

        Emmaline collapsed, gasping, her hands shaking so violently she nearly dropped the flashlight.

She was alone.

        The whispers swelled. From the walls, the ceiling, even the floor under her knees.

Emmaline.

        You are ours.

        She staggered to her feet. The hall had changed again. The wallpaper was gone, replaced by wood carved in spirals and gaping mouths. Every mouth moved, mouthing her name, chanting it.

Her breath came in shallow gasps. She pressed forward, because what else could she do? The house wasn’t letting her go.

        The hallway twisted. Doors multiplied, opening to impossible sights. She passed the nursery filled with cribs rocking themselves, each holding something swaddled and mewling, until the blankets slid back, revealing empty skulls. As she walked back around to the next room, a kitchen table had been set for dinner, plates piled high with raw hearts, still beating in a slow rhythm. Passing a bathroom, a large mirror reflected Emmaline, but her throat was slit, and her reflection mouthed:

        Join us.

        She slammed the bathroom door shut, sobbing. Then she saw it.

        At the end of the corridor, a staircase. Narrow, steep, descending into pitch black. The air pulsed with the stench of rot, stronger now, almost suffocating.

        She moved forward numbly. It felt as if her legs had a mind of their own, moving through the shadows while the rest of her remained paralyzed by panic. Each step creaked, groaned as she descended. The air was heavy, wet, like she’d walked underwater.

        The basement opened around her.

        Something resembling an altar sat in the center, not built but seemingly grown, a mass of twisted wood and flesh, writhing, pulsing. Faces bulged from it, their mouths opening and closing soundlessly. She recognized them. Courtney. Chase. And behind them, dozens, hundreds, all twisted into the living altar.

        And there was one face she had never let herself remember.

        Eddie.

        His mouth moved, eyes rolling in terror, skin melting into the wood.

        Emmaline dropped to her knees, choking on bile. “No, please, oh God, no—”

        The altar heaved, wet and alive. From its core, a voice spoke, deep and layered with countless tongues.

        You were marked when you were a child. You belong to us.

        The faces shrieked in unison, their mouths stretching wide, vomiting blood that poured down the altar’s sides. The floor shifted under Emmaline, dragging her closer. She knew then that the house didn’t just want to kill her. It wanted to keep her. To graft her onto its heart, forever. And it was waiting for her to stop running.

        The altar shuddered, its voices rising into a cacophony. Faces peeled outward from the mass like blisters, bursting to reveal fresh mouths. Each shrieked Emmaline’s name.

        She staggered back, but the floor rippled beneath her feet, dragging her closer. The boards oozed blood, seeping between her shoes, clinging like tar.

        “Eddie!” she screamed, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry—”

        Her friend’s mouth opened wider, tearing at the cheeks, and from it came the voice of the house itself:

You were chosen. You belong.

        Something in Emmaline snapped. Maybe it was fear burning itself out into rage, maybe it was the memory of all those missing faces in town, consumed for decades. She forced herself upright, wiping tears with blood-slick hands.

        “You don’t own me,” she whispered.

        The altar bellowed, a sound like the earth tearing open. Tendrils shot out, fleshy, veined ropes, lashing toward her. She dove aside, rolling across the wet stone floor, the flashlight clattering from her hand. Its beam swung crazily, landing on a rusted length of pipe jutting from the wall. Emmaline grabbed it.

        When the next tendril whipped toward her, she swung. The pipe connected with a meaty crack. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling where it landed. The tendril recoiled, shrieking. The altar writhed in fury.

        Emmaline scrambled to her feet, gripping the pipe like a sword. “You’ve taken everyone,” she panted. “But you’re not taking me.”

        The house laughed, a low rolling thunder that rattled the walls. More tendrils surged forward, faster now, slamming into the floor, the ceiling, splintering wood. One caught her leg, burning her flesh where it touched, yanking her toward the altar’s gaping maw.

        Emmaline screamed, jabbing the pipe down. It sank into the tendril with a wet crunch. She twisted, ripping it free. The tendril snapped, spraying gore.

        The altar shrieked, the sound deafening. The walls cracked, plaster raining down. Faces bulged from the ceiling, chanting,

        Emmaline, Emmaline, Emmaline…

        She staggered toward the stairs, dragging herself free of the slick floor. The house shook violently, as if trying to throw her off her feet. The staircase twisted, stretching higher, retreating.

        “No!” she screamed. “You’re not keeping me!” With a desperate cry, she hurled the pipe into the altar’s core. It pierced deep, vanishing into the writhing mass. The reaction was instant.

        The altar convulsed, shrieking in every voice it had stolen. Blood erupted upward in a geyser, drenching Emmaline. The faces screamed until their mouths split and dissolved. The floor buckled, the ceiling caved inward, the walls twisted in agony. Emmaline ran.

        She tore up the staircase, splinters biting her hands as the steps collapsed, one by one, behind her. The hallway warped and folded, mouths snapping at her heels. She barreled through, no longer thinking, only moving, only escaping.

        At the end, the wallpaper split apart. Light spilled in. It was the dawn, weak and gray but real.

Emmaline dove forward.

        The house screamed as she tumbled onto the wet grass outside. She rolled onto her back, gasping, sobbing, coated in blood that steamed in the morning chill.

        Blackthorn Hall shuddered, its windows glowing with red light. For one awful moment, Emmaline thought it would lurch after her. But then it stilled. Silent. Watching. She lay there until her breath slowed. Birds began to chirp. The world carried on, as though nothing had happened.

        Finally, Emmaline rose on trembling legs. She staggered down the dirt road, her head reeling, not once looking back.

        But she could feel it.

        The house was still breathing. Waiting.