The door slammed shut in front of them and Garrick finally raised his head in shock. "We didn't leave the front door open."
"No, we really didn't," Samuel snapped before dragging the man up to his feet. "We need to bail."
"What? Why?" Garrick snapped before he looked over Samuel's shoulder and froze. Like he'd been frozen on the spot. He didn't even dare breath. Instead, he raised a hesitant finger up towards the stairs and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but he just couldn't find out the words.
"Garrick," Samuel snapped, grabbing his shoulder before dragging him towards the door. "Come on!"
"It's my mom," Garrick whispered as he stepped closer to the creature. "But she's…"
Something tumbled down the stairs. Plop, plop, plop and rolled past their legs. Samuel grabbed on tighter to the boy in front of him only to watch the creature at the top of the stairs change. It wasn't the same rotten fleshed woman. Instead… it was Garrick's mom. The police reports had said her head had been severed in the accident. The result of being crushed and compacted in their tiny little car. Maybe it wasn't Garrick's mom, because there was no head. The stump where the head used to sit was just a very bloodied spinal column. The thing stepped towards them with raised arms and Samuel dragged Garrick back. There were tears in his eyes and he was desperately trying to form words that made no sense. Grief that never settled.
Something that lay discarded by their feet screamed and Samuel stumbled back in shock. The object that had bounced down the stairs was Garrick's mother's head. And it's blood red eyes were wide open and its bloodied mouth was open in a harrowing scream.
"WHERE AM I?" The head screeched as it rolled across the floor. Back and forth, back and forth. The scream grated against everyone's nerves, pounding against their skulls. "Garrick! Garrick. Help me. HELP ME!"
"Mom," Garrick whispered as the body tumbled down the stairs. The head screeched as it's ruby colored eyes finally settled on Samuel.
Samuel kept backing up until his back hit the door. He tried the knob only to find that it didn't budge. He grabbed at it desperately before throwing his weight at the door. Whatever that thing was, they had to escape now. But the door just wouldn't budge.
"Windows," Samuel hissed to himself. He was a goddamn fool. He raced towards one of the three windows in the living room. What was once a nice view would be the one thing that saved them.
The second his hands grasped the window, he was blasted backwards into his mother's old recliner chair. He tumbled over the top and brought it down with him. The head lying close to Garrick's feet rolled over to its side and tsked ever so quietly. "Oh dear, he fell down."
"You won't open those windows," a child laughed and Samuel's eyes widened as he saw another figure standing at the top of the stairs.
This time, it was a young child, maybe 8 or 9. It's blood red eyes had settled on Samuel before it opened its mouth in a pitiful laugh. Except, it's mouth just kept opening long past the jaw's limit. The jawbone cracked the more the boy's mouth opened and all Samuel could see was darkness. And hunger. The kid wore a pair of black shorts and a white button up t-shirt that was impeccably clean. The jet black hair that had covered the boy's head seemed to fall off in large clumps, straight onto the carpet.
"I must be on drugs," Samuel whispered before he grabbed his mother's old, wooden chair.
She'd been awfully proud of that chair. Her prized chair that only she'd been allowed to sit in at big dinners and parties. Back when they had company, and back before even his mother had believed in the room.
He lifted the chair high over his head and swung it with all his might. The chair cracked against the windows like cement and he expected the glass to shatter. It should have, but instead, the chair in his hand broke apart into tiny little wooden fragment. It cut his palm open in a bloody, horrifying mess. They were trapped. They were actually trapped. He hissed as he grabbed a hold of Garrick's arm before dragging him over towards the living room.
In the short time he'd tried breaking out, the body had finally risen to its feet. Beneath it sat a large red pool of blood as the creature reached out for its head. It reached out blindly, no pun intended, only to fall short of what it needed desperately. It was almost comical if not for the way the creature screeched at itself.
"OVER HERE YOU IDIOT!" The head snapped, but without ears, the body couldn't find itself.
The child's mouth closed finally and it grinned at the pair before skipping down the stairs in excitement.
"Fuck," Samuel cursed, and he never cursed. Well. At least, in his mother's house he never cursed. They were going to die, just like the idiots in the many horror movies Samuel had seen as he was growing up.
He glanced down at his feet only to find another shard of the mirror. He snatched it up desperately before holding the piece up. Once more, the mirror didn't reflect what was in front of it. It reflected the door, and how the blasted thing was still opened. It almost seemed as if the thing was being held open and more and more dark creatures seemed to be crawling free. A dark fog-like object seemed to be forming just outside the door's reach, like a portal almost. A bright flash of light shot out of it and ricocheted off the cheap wallpaper before landing close to where Samuel stood.
"COME!" The voice hissed and this time, Samuel listened.
He yanked Garrick with him, only the boy seemed to still be in shock. Samuel slapped him hard right upside the head and it was enough to wake the boy up. He gasped in shock before he settled his gaze on the monster that was just starting to near him and then on Samuel. The second he took his attention away from the thing in his mother's skin, it started to change back to its original form. The woman that walked on all fours.
She picked up the head finally and rammed it onto the spinal cord with a sickening clud before she twisted her head towards them. That ugly, rotten mouth opened up once more with a horrifying screech.
"What is that?" Garrick screeched. "Is this a dream, because I don't remember watching a horror movie with you!"
"Not a dream, come on!" Samuel replied before they chased after the small beam of light. It led them through the living room before diving towards the very last room at the hall.
The kitchen's lights flickered as they passed and the washer started up beside them with a clud. They could hear tiny little ticks against the tiled floors and could only hope that the monsters weren't actually chasing after them. They chased after the ball of light desperately before slamming the door behind them. The lock clicked and suddenly a second lock, a dead bolt even, slammed into place. Garrick grabbed the nearest object, a sturdy dresser, to push past the door. Who knew how long it would actually hold before they were had.
Samuel tried to catch his breath right before the beating against the door started. He could hear them screeching outside, desperately, demanding to be let in. The child cackled and stuck its tiny fingers underneath the door. The dresser just barely hid the ghostly pale digits before they were gone.
"What's going on?" Garrick snapped, but his face seemed ghastly pale. His hands trembled so he tightened them into a fist and sat down on the old bed in the far corner.
Samuel finally took a look around and realized just where he was. The bed that Garrick had sat on was old and dusty with slightly discolored pillows all propped up into one corner. A blue and green patchwork quilt lay over the bed's surface with a singular stuffed animal tucked into the bottom corner of the bed. It's tiny elephant face had been faded by the constant sunlight that streamed in through the window that sat just inches away from the foot of the bed. Samuel stepped over to the window and pulled the blinds up.
Dust rained in through the window and sunlight filtered in.
"Wait… it's supposed to be dark. Those things… they don't walk through the house in the day light."
"They can, if the door is opened." The orb of light stated before it turned blindly white. A singular form materialized right before them.
She was a middle aged woman with greying hair all tied up into a bun. She wore a simple black dressed that kissed her ankles gently and covered her arms all the way to the wrists. The cut on the chest was modest and not over the top. It was the same dress his mother had been buried in.
This was his mother's room. The one room he'd never been allowed into. There were pictures on the mantle and some of the pictures that had sat on the dresser had dropped off to the floor and lay shattered at their feet. He squatted down beside it and picked up the tiny little photo amongst the rest of the shatter glass. It was of him, when he was 12 and he'd won a spelling bee despite being in special classes most of his life. No one else had believed in him, but his mom… she'd always rooted for him back then.
Samuel set the photo on the dresser before looking back towards Garrick. All along the walls were multitudes of mirrors of all sizes. They weren't cracked like the mirrors in the box, but Samuel eyed them warily regardless. They seemed positioned to avoid contact with sunlight, but the more he looked into them, the more he could see the other mirrors in the reflections. He glanced towards the ghost before pointing at the mirrors.
"I suppose you want explanations," She sighed before sitting on the bed. Garrick got up quickly and stood beside Samuel without a second thought.
"I want an explanation for everything, because you were dead. D-E-A-D with the double D. People don't come back from the dead."
Garrick's mouth opened in shock. "It's your mom?"
Samuel nodded before glaring at the woman. "Explain, or I swear to god I'll wake up or walk out or something. I don't care. What the fuck is going on in this house?"
His mother cringed before she folded her hands in her lap. If Samuel looked at her directly, she almost seemed solid. It almost seemed like if he reached out and grabbed the sleeve of her dress, he'd feel real, actual material. But he'd also seen them close the casket with her very dead and very embalmed body before lowering her into the ground. She was buried out on Pilot Hill, right underneath the oldest pine tree in the graveyard. Her grave marker had been one of the cheaper granite plagues that had cost him close to $1500. She was dead.
But here she was, sat on the bed in the one room that Samuel was never allowed in. Save for the Room. And what had been inside the Room was just outside their door now. He could hear them cackling and knocking. Sometimes polite, and then sometimes they pounded their fists against the wood. Eventually, despite the door being sturdy and locked with two separate locks. Despite the dresser being in front of the door, it would eventually give and all those creatures and monsters would bleed into the bedroom and grab them.
He feared what they wanted him for.