Prologue
With bills piling up and rent overdue, Deshaun had to act fast.
While scrolling through job listings, he came across a strange posting from a construction company looking to hire a security guard.
- No experience needed
- No references needed
- No résumé needed
- Must not ask questions
- Must follow instructions exactly
He was about to scroll past it… until one line caught his eye:
Five Hundred Dollar Sign-On Bonus In Cash.
Deshaun didn’t see much harm in making the call.
They picked up instantly.
The interview, if you could even call it that, was brief.
They only gave him one instruction. Or at least, the only one he remembered:
“Do not open the door. No matter what you hear.”
It was strange.
But then again, not asking questions was part of the job.
That same afternoon, he got in his car and drove across town toward the site.
As he got closer, he couldn’t help but wonder what the contractor meant…
…and how badly he really wanted that bonus.
~Chapter 1~
Deshaun thumbed the flier on his phone which read “HELP WANTED”. His finger tightened around the rusted key ring. Not his. The one they had given him. In front of him was a building that stubbornly stood upright. Deshaun’s eyes lingered on it. Steel beams and pipes and cement and blocks were still strewn about. A tall fence was erected around the perimeter. The entrance was a simple gate. Two padlocks. Laced between two large chains. The cherry on top for Deshaun was the flimsy and bent barbed wire that circled the fence. At the time, he did find it odd. The site was empty. No tools, no equipment. What exactly were they trying to protect?
Brrzt… Brrzt…
A notification interrupted his thoughts. And naively, he abandoned his train of thought. He glanced at his phone. An Amber Alert. That was the third one he’d received on the drive over here. He wasn’t surprised. Even I could tell. Faulty street lights and empty roads by 6 pm? This was a bad neighborhood. The building was creepy enough with its jagged edges and eerie lighting. But the moment he turned the key in the second padlock a feeling crept up his spine he could not describe. As the chains crashed to the floor, something dragged itself closer to him. Heavy. Slowly. In the long shadows without light. And without sound. Every unpleasant thought seeped into his mind along with something else. It knotted his knees. Not fear. Something heavier. However, despite the lack of everything. No birds. Dogs. Cats. Bugs. Cars. People. He never felt truly alone. That unsettled him the most. Still It was too late to complain now. He didn’t have enough gas to drive home. Not that it was a home to go to if he didn’t get paid anyways. He opened his car door and stepped out. He was going to start his rounds early. Before it got any darker. Before he started working here, a few teenagers snuck through a hole in the fence. There wasn’t any sign of them except for chicken bones that littered the site and a putrid smell by the afternoon. His boss, the head contractor, couldn't afford for them to damage… Deshaun looked around. Damage what exactly?
The place was a crumbling OSHA violation. The only reason he was here was because they didn’t want to trigger an investigation by calling the police or hiring a professional firm. They needed someone naive. That didn’t ask too many questions. That was desperate enough for the money. Finally, he stepped past the gate inside. His stomach twisted as his pocket buzzed. His phone switched to powersaving mode as he glanced at it.
30%.
He took one final look at the flier. Five Hundred Dollar Sign-On Bonus In Cash!
**“**It had better be.” Deshaun mumbled underneath his breath.
Unaware of what was listening.
~Chapter 2~
It didn’t take long for Deshaun to make himself comfortable. As comfortable as he could be in a building that shouldn’t be able to pass any safety inspections anyway. “Shouldn’t” being the operative word. The air had a certain rank of nepotism and corruption that mirrored the building's questionable integrity. Regardless, he was able to make do. Jotting down words ever so often in a document on his phone. A short story he was working on. I believe it was a thriller.
Low Battery
Now, he let out a low sigh. He would charge it if he could. But that would involve going to his car and he didn’t feel like it was a good idea to ignore the only instruction the contractor gave him.
“Do not open the door. No matter what you hear.”
And it was obvious as to the reason why. It was a bad neighborhood, remember? Probably littered with gang violence and all things nocturnal. After 6 pm, the block was empty. No stray animals, not even the odd kid coming home late from school. Hell, he didn’t even hear crickets. Deshaun chuckled to himself. The contractor left other instructions like no bright lights, no loud noises, no-
*Bam, Bam Bam.
Knocking. Deshaun froze. Even his breath held a moment.
*Bam, Bam, Bam
He was on the second floor. From the room he locked himself in, he could see all the major entrances and exits. Yes, the power had gone out earlier but still, he should’ve seen something or someone climbing up those stairs. He would have. If it were not for that phone I-
*Bam, Bam…
There was no third knock.
“Hello?” Deshaun questioned turning off his cellphone. Probably drawing too many parallels to his story.
There was no reply. There was no knock. He was unnerved.
“Hello.” Deshaun repeated. Angrier this time. More upset. It made sense now. Those damn teenagers. They were playing pranks on him. They must be
“Hello?” a voice behind the door replied. Soft. Quaint. Annoying. Convincing.
“Where are your parents?” Deshaun said. His footsteps towards the door became more thunderous.
“It had better be.” The voice replied. Then a laugh. Childish. ”There’s nothing to worry about bro. What? Are you chicken?” Another laugh.
Deshaun brow furrowed. A vein on his forehead popped. They were now mocking him. They must be.
“I’m not so sure about these guys. I feel like we're being watched.” the voice spoke, before chuckling once more.
“When I get my hands on you little…” Deshaun’s eye twitched and his hand hovered over the door. However, he froze just as his hand was going to unlatch the handle.
“C’mon Deshaun this will be fun. You trust me right? Trust me.”
His jaw tensed. Muscles contracted. He should not have heard that.
“Deshaun? Deshaun, you trust me right?” Deshaun’s hand hovered over the doorknob.
“Who are you?” Deshaun murmured with a frozen spine.
“Open the door Deshaun, stop playing these silly games. You Trust me remember? Trust me.”
He swallowed and took a step back. “Why do you sound like Abby?”
“Open the door Deshaun.”
He shook his head. Thumbing his palm. “ Why do you sound like Abby? You aren’t Abby. She’s dead.”
The voice paused. Realizing. Thinking. It had used the wrong one.
Bam, Bam, Bam.
It started to knock again
“Where’s Clyde? Where’s Clyde?” the voice spoke again. Knocking again.
Deshaun took two steps back. “Clyde? Who the hell?”
Bam, Bam, Bam!
“Hungry…So, very Hungry Deshaun.” It spoke again. This time with an insulting mixture of Abby’s voice and what Deshaun assumed to be the friend of Clyde.
“Open the door, and trust me. I’m so hungry.”
Deshaun backed up even more, stepping from behind to the door.
Boom, Boom, Boom!
It no longer knocked. Instead, throwing a grotesque weight against the door. Its frame buckled the hinges. Deshaun knew he had mere moments until whatever was behind it would open the door.
Boom
“I”
Boom
“Am”
Boom
“Hungry” The door buckled and flexed. Becoming ajar for a fraction of a second. Long enough to confirm what Deshaun had suspected. It.
Long knife-like, twisted nails. Hair slick with a rotten black ooze. Crusted pale skin surrounded sunken eyes. Too wide for its face. And a nose too flat to smell. And most unsettling was grin too toothed, to smile correctly. Though this did not stop it from trying.This thing was not his dead wife. This thing was not Abbigale.
“Open the door, please Deshaun.” The creature smiled, still pressing against the hinges.
Deshaun's stomach twisted, and he fell to the ground, his phone falling out of his hands.
“What the hell are you!”
He screamed.
“I”m hungry Deshaun.
Please.
Bam!
Open
Bam!
The
Crash!
The hinges flew off as the creature crashed unelegantly into the room. Deshaun scampered as fast as he could away from the only exit. The creature tried to get its bearings. Its unholy snout, angled towards him.
“See! You can trust me. I’m here… I’m hungry.”
The gooseflesh on Deshaun’s neck stood up as the creature spoke those words. Still using her voice. He wasn’t a religious man, but at this moment, his hands instinctively clasped together. Maybe it was to a higher power. Maybe it was just a reflex. Maybe it was to the creature, towering in front of him with way too many teeth for its maw.
It took a step forward, and he took three back. Until his back hit the wall. Deshaun felt it could budge if he pressed hard enough. It probably would. Now, time had slowed down. The creature had an unnatural speed. Too fast for its size. Too fast for the human eye. Its hulk seemed to lag behind as it closed the gap, lunging at the young security guard for hire. Deshaun felt himself choke on his saliva as it transpired. He lifted up his hands. A futile attempt to stop what would not be stopped. He had hoped it would crush him with its momentum so he wouldn’t know what would happen next.
The room felt silent. He could hear his pulse, eyes, clenched shut.
Then a wail! A deathly scream. One not of this world. I still wince at this part. Deshaun covered his ears as the creature thrashed about a few meters in front of him. The light stung. No burns. No, seared it’s fleshed. Claws as dense as steel sliced through concrete and rebar with ease as it recoiled in agony. A second later, just as chaotically as it entered, it crashed out of the room.
It was only now that Deshaun had noticed it. His phone. His flashlight. He reached over to it. 8%. He glanced up. The creature lingered. At the threshold of the doorframe. Waiting. Watching. He was spared. For now. Only a little while longer. He aimed the light at the doorway, and the creature's claws, spitefully dragged out of the doorway, bringing the hinge and concrete with it. Soon the battery would die. And likely, he along with it.
~Chapter 3~
Deshaun’s head tilted forward. Only for a second, before he jolted it back up. He was sleepy. As he should be. This job was supposed to be easy. This job was supposed to get him back on his feet. A fresh start. Not…
“Deshaun. Come through the door.” The creature said, now barely out of the room. Its heavy footsteps crept ever closer.
Deshaun had turned down the brightness. It saved the battery but gave the creature more leeway. He didn’t fully understand it. Hell, he didn’t fully understand anything about this.
Still, he didn’t need to put two and two together. He had a pretty good idea what had happened to those kids. What had happened to Craig. Or Was it Calvin?
“Deshaun? You trust me right?”
And had a pretty good idea that whatever that thing was calling his name. It was not his Abby.
“You can stop that already.” Deshaun replied.
“You can trust me. Aren’t you hungry too? Sleepy? Come here, Deshaun.” The creature inched its hulk into the room, before a quick flash of light made it retreat back outside.
“Abby. The voice you’re… Copying. She’s dead. So you can knock it off.” Deshaun replied. His grip tightened on the phone. He wasn’t sure if he should be pissed or scared for his life.
Then, the percentage dropped to 5%. He didn’t have long to figure out which.
“No. She doesn’t have to be Deshaun. Come here. She’s alive in us.”
“No!” Deshaun shouted. “She’s dead. She’s been dead for years, and no man-eating monster is going to change that.”
It paused. Considering. Then blinked. Loudly. The hairs on Deshaun’s body stood up once more.
“Sorry.” It spoke. Still with her voice.
“Sorry?” Deshaun’s posture shifted. For a moment, he almost lowered the phone. Almost.
“How?” the creature replied.
Deshaun's mouth fell ajar. He didn’t know how to answer. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
“She…uh… childbirth. She died during childbirth.” He swallowed. Deshaun hadn’t talked about her death since the funeral. It was bringing back memories. Emotions. Guilt. Things he had worked on meticulously to suppress.
“You’re crying.”
Deshaun didn’t answer. He simply shook his head. He didn’t wanna hear how he sounded right now.
“I can smell your tears, Deshaun. I know it still hurts. Turn off the night, and I will dry them for you.”
The creature's reply made him laugh even now. Even as he was opening up. Even as he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. It was still trying to kill him.
“And if I do?” He said. Part of him was sarcastic. The other part wanted to pretend he was talking to the real thing. The real Abby
“I would tell you I forgive you.”
“Abbigale?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I did this to you…”
“No, Deshaun. We did this. We did this because we were happy. We were in love.”
Deshaun sniffled at the words.
“You’re still in love. I’m still in love.”
“Abby?” Deshaun said. The tears slowly saturated his words.
“Yes, Deshaun.”
He glanced at his phone. 2%. Whatever Deshaun was going to do, he had to do now.
"What's going to happen if I come out of this room?”
“Love.”
“Love?” The words left Deshaun’s lips but it wasn’t him. Something deeper inside him was asking. Hoping. Pretending. Not Love. Something deceptively similar.
Real Love. Real Forgiveness, Deshaun.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me, to my face, Deshaun.”
“I will. I’m coming.”
There was silence. Then the light in the room dimmed.
“I’m coming Abby.”
“Please hurry Deshaun.”
Suddenly the room went dark. There was a slow wet clop, as the creature lumbered into the room. Making its way to the figure huddled in the corner. The phone showed an empty battery icon.
“I love you, Desha-”
*BAM!
A chair tore into the side of the creature.
I should have seen that coming.
It screamed and thrashed. Trying its best to reach blind into Deshaun. Its claws slicing into something soft, wet and warm. Deshaun began screaming as well, shoving the chair deeper into the creature. His momentum threw it off balance.
“Deshaun!” It screamed louder this time. Angrier. Hungrier. He had a moment to dash out of the room. Ignoring the hot sting he felt down his side. Running. Sprinting to what he hoped to be a stairwell. The creature gave chase. Clutching the area the chair had slammed into. Deshaun weaved through the darkness surgically. Dodging pillars at the last minute. The creature's torso squelched and flexed and crashed through them each time. Its stride unbroken. Unholy. Insatiable. His headstart was slowly waning. He couldn’t die here. He hadn’t come this far after Abbigale's death to be supper for some lovecraftian creature.
“Deshaun! I trusted you! I trusted you!” The creature screamed. Only a few feet behind him. It had negated his head start in just a few ungodly long strides. Its bloated husk, ungracefully crashing through walls.
As the pain seared through his body stronger, he only had one thought on his mind. This creature had to go. Tonight. For it had committed the ultimate sin. It had pretended to be Abbigale.
“Deshaun!!!”
~Chapter 4~
The night was thick with black, like the monster's hair. Deshaun raced up flight after flight of stairs. Even after his ankle started to swell. Even as his knees buckled. Even as what little light entered his eyes started to fade, he continued running. Matching the cumbersome strides shaking the building around him. It was a miracle the whole thing hadn’t collapsed. Each tremor reminded him, the creature was not far behind.
Just as his eyes laid on the door for roof access, he collapsed. The headstart had by now, fully dissolved. The bleeding had caught up to him. Along with it, that rank, putrid predatory odor. The creature now loomed over him. The stairwell had never felt so small.
“Deshaun, I’m hungry. So very hungry.”
He tried to reach out to the door handle, but his body refused to move. His fingers did not even clench. He wanted to pinch himself. Badly. To force his body awake. To end this nightmare.
Suddenly, a sharp pain flooded his body, as the creature's many, many teeth sunk deep into his flesh. This was real. It was real. And he could not scream.
He could hardly breathe.
Why?
Why him?
Why did he make it this far to fail here?
Why did he have to endure this hell?
Why did Abbigale have to die?
There was a slow pop, and a quick squelch. Deshaun forced air through his windpipe in the form of a scream. He would have puked at the sound alone if not for the pain. His right knee, severed clean off. There would be no more running. No escape. His pain nearly made him go unconscious. Just then the roof access door opened. Deshaun laughed. Two figures emerged. Children. Not like him however. Not human. Like the creature. Two more man eating monsters. The irony of how these things, these monsters, sheepishly crept closer, to devour him was not lost on him. Deshaun winced and he screamed as one of the smaller creatures started to bite down hard on his spine. Blood began to fill his lungs. Still, between curses and blood curdling screams. He laughed. That was what unsettled me.
I can’t wait to see you all. In hell.
Just as one of the creatures was about to bite down on the back of his neck, there was a crack. They froze. Deshaun laughed. Long gnarled claws, held his head in place. Though it was not as if, he could move in his paralyzed state. But when there was a second loud crack, he smiled. It was all he could do. The creatures looked at each other. Confused. Before turning their attention back on the dying man. Then.
BAM!
The entire stairwell collapsed. Deshaun’s dying corpse and the creature were in free fall from nearly 5 stories up. Concrete gave way to their weight, and rebar folded under the pressure. During the chase, Deshaun had led the creature straight into the main structural pillars. He had hoped the building would collapse on them before he was caught. Still, as the building folded in on itself, he couldn’t help but smile. Now they were the ones screaming. Now they were the ones scared. The irony was not lost on me.
“It better be!” One of them shouted before being impaled on rebar.
“Do not open the door! No matter what you hear.” Another said, before being cut off by a misplaced footstep on what was the second floor. In an instant. The entire building had come down on all of them. And by morning. Nothing but rubble, blood, and rebar was left to witness it.
He had killed them. He had punished the creature for its transgression. At the time, whilst breathing his last breath, Deshaun wasn’t sure of who he’d saved. From the creatures or the building. Only that he had saved someone. He had done the one thing he never thought he could. Especially after Abigail's death.
~Chapter 5~
The firefighters had worked tirelessly the next morning. Clearing rubble and broken brick alike. The irony was lost on them. The manipulation. The fear. The pain. The hunger. His heroic sacrifice. A blood stain on rebar was the only witness. The only one who was able to understand the gravity of last night was me. And I would not forget. Shortly after, the construction site was closed indefinitely. A lawsuit here and there but after a month it was never spoken about again. As for Deshaun. They never found him. As a matter of fact, they never found any of the bodies. I mean. How could they? After all, I did say that I was hungry. So very, very hungry.
-M.R. Sevven
~At 50 upvotes I'll release part two~