The Cabin Is Always Hungry

HELLS GRACE

Part 17

Eliza climbed out of the cellar, and let out a strangled gasp when she saw Maxine’s bludgeoned head on the floor. When she was sure that the dead woman was truly dead, she crawled over toward Tessa and helped her to her feet.

“Where’s Danny?” She asked. “Where’d he go?”

“You mean, the boy? He…ran…to…” she weakly pointed at the open front door.

Eliza’s heart sank. “That’s not him,” she said. “Oh god, it’s controlling him again.” The voices above them brought her out of her thoughts. She dragged Tessa out of the living room, toward the hallway leading to the back door.

“We need to hide,” Eliza whispered. “Can you move?”

“I…I think I can…”

Eliza slowly opened the back door. The voices behind them were getting louder. “On your feet. Come on. On your feet!”

Ignoring the rain, Eliza struggled to drag Tessa across the slippery patio deck and helped her down the wooden steps. She kept looking at the spot where she last saw Goliath, but the hulking man was no longer standing there. Her bottom lip quivered, thinking about when Goliath grabbed her throat and pulled her out of the car like she weighed nothing.

“Where are we going?” Tessa asked.

“Just over there.” Eliza pointed at the tree line. “We’re almost there. Come on. You gotta stay awake, girl.”

“I want to get out of here,” Tessa sobbed softly.

“We are, we are. Just one more step.”

Eliza looked over the cliffs and saw the light of the boathouse below. She could see a trail leading down to the lakeshore. “I think I found a place where we can hide.”

They slipped into the shadows; the rain continuing to fall into a heavy deluge.

“Step away from the door, Mel! Get out of the way!”

I heard Hodge cast a spell and the bedroom door exploded into shards of pellets and wood. Melanie ran out, gun raised, phone used as a flashlight, and aimed the weapon and the light over the railings to the living room below.

"Shit!” Melanie spat at the carnage, looking down at Maxine’s dead body and then at the open front door. She ran down the stairs with Hodge following closely behind her. “The bitch is gone!” She pointed at the fireplace and the open cuffs hanging on the pipes.

“She couldn’t have gotten far,” Hodge said.

Melanie kicked Maxine’s legs, waiting if it would move. “She’s dead,” she said. “Did she take off her necklace?”

“She can’t,” Hodge said, but then a sliver of doubt crossed his face. “No one can. Not even me. We’ve tried that rite before. Have you seen it ever come off?

“No…”

“Then the girl still has it.”

Melanie touched the pendant for comfort. “I think Jenna went after her.”

“She was calling out for her son,” Hodge said. “I think that’s what I heard.”

“Are you sure?”

Hodge thought for a moment. “Yeah…I’m sure.”

“But we didn’t bring Danny here. How could Danny even get here?”

“She might’ve taken him.” Hodge pointed at Maxine. “And I think Jenna did that.”

“Oh, this night couldn’t have gotten any better!” Melanie slammed her fist against the mantle. “This is getting out of control. We’re only supposed to find the gem and take care of Mark!”

“Quiet down, you.”

“Should we go after Jenna? It’s raining out there. She might get lost. Oh, what about Tessa?”

“Fuck, let the others handle it. We have a job to do, remember?” Hodge said. He pulled the radio out of his belt. “Becca, Kirk. Can you hear me?”

“Copy, Hodge,” Rebecca said, though her voice was muffled and hard to hear. “What is it?”

“We found Maxine. She’s dead. Jenna killed her.”

A pause. “Well, good for her,” Rebecca said, though she didn’t sound impressed.

“But the Burton girl escaped. She might be heading your way and I want you to intercept her.”

“But we’re by the boathouse already. And I think someone’s—”

“Just do what I said and find the girl now.” Hodge clipped the radio back onto his belt.

“Why are we surrounded by idiots?” Melanie sighed. “Screw them! Let’s find the gem for ourselves and leave them out here.”

Hodge nodded. “And I think I know where it is.” He aimed the flashlight at the yawning open cellar door.

Outside, hiding behind the van, Leo watched Hodge and Melanie walking around inside the cabin. He glanced at the empty ignition switch, wondering who of the two have the van’s keys. He didn’t get a good look when he got up after I knocked him down earlier. Once he heard the voices inside the cabin (and lots of screaming), he hid behind the van and waited for the chaos to subside.

Wiping the rain off his face, he crawled to the van’s edge, holding tightly on the bat. He eyed the gun on Melanie’s hand, wanting it for himself. Once he have it, he’ll force the two to give him the keys. If they didn’t, he might have to shoot them. He saw Hodge talking to someone on the radio, confirming that there were more of them out there, so even the woods wasn’t safe to hide. This group might not be as innocent as he initially thought. Maybe Eliza was right. Maybe they were part of it.

No matter. Leo was determined to escape. He crept closer to the cabin and watched as Hodge and Melanie descended into the cellar.

Taking a deep breath, Leo entered the cabin and followed them back into the cellar, bat at the ready.

The demon’s shadow hovered above the van, watching Leo intently, but it must have judged he wasn’t a worthy prey to possess as Leo’s Resolve was a dull yellow. Not yet anyway. It turned around to face the woods instead.

Toward the voice crying out against the loud patter of rain.

“Danny! Danny! Come out! It’s not safe out here!” Jenna cried out from the distance.

The demon moved at lightning speed.

Past branches and fallen logs, whipping around its form.

Past the thick foliage and a narrow murky creek.

It found Jenna in seconds, wading into the darkness with only her phone’s light to guide her. Then, the shadow transformed itself into an exact copy of her son, standing not far from where she struggled.

“Danny? Danny! Stop! Stay right there!”

The demon, activating its [ Mocking Torment ] ability, induced a hallucination on Jenna. It let out a soft giggled from Danny’s illusionary form as it whirled around and ran deeper into the woods.

“Stop!” Jenna cried after him. “Danny, you have to stop! It’s mommy!”

The demon let out another giggle. This was a game it liked to play, delving into people’s emotions and roasting it over the coals. Jenna cared about her son deeply, and the demon was going to use it.

“I got the necklace!” Fake Danny said.

“Danny! Come back!”

Jenna crossed the creek, never caring that she got her shoes and pants soaked. She passed a large uprooted tree while following the demon’s giggles, unaware that her real son was inside the hollowed trunk, sleeping soundly and out of sight.

The demon’s giggles faltered to silence, fading away in the distance. Jenna couldn’t keep up.

“Wait…” she muttered between breaths. “Wait…wait…”

She stopped running. Her heaving breaths echoed across the darkness as rain fell from the canopy. A gentle realization crept in when she looked around the woods, with the cabin no longer within reach. I could tell by her face that she made a terrible mistake. Oracle made her phone’s flashlight flicker dramatically, and then plunged her into darkness.

“Shit, shit, shit!” She spat, struggling to turn back her phone. “What the fuck. What the fuck!”

The flashlight came back on, and relief washed over her. But only for a split second. The phone’s flashlight hit Fake Danny right in the face. Only this was no longer Danny. This was a bastardized version of him, standing with his arms outstretch for his mother, pale eyes and skin as if he was dead for weeks, mouth and jaw unnaturally wide open as a swarm of cockroaches crawled out of it.

Jenna shrieked and staggered back. She tripped over and into the thorny brambles, slicing some of her skin open.

“You found me, mommy,” Fake Danny said in a disembodied voice. “You found me!”

“Get away from me!” Jenna screamed.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The brambles shuddered and moved. Vines slithered around her wrists, up her arms, and down her legs. From the light of her phone, she saw one thin vine entered through the cut on her arm, and wiggled beneath her skin, protruding like her own veins. It must be painful, because she let out a maddening scream. More vines entered through her cuts, making new ones and burrowing into her body.

“Stop! Stop!” Jenna tried to get out of the bramble, but a thick vine shot out, latched around her throat, and brought her back to the ground.

“What’s wrong, mommy? You don’t want to play with me anymore?” Fake Danny said.

More vines crept around Jenna’s head, entering through her ears, her nose, her mouth, and the sides of her eyes until it turned bloodshot.

“That’s what you get, mommy, for following me blindly into the dark,” the demon said. “Now, I get to play with you, and you will have no choice.”

“Get them off! Get them off me! Danny, stop this!

Jenna pulled out a steak knife she grabbed from the cabin’s kitchen and sliced through a protruding vine. She caught a slithering form underneath her skin, stuck her fingers in, and pulled the vine out. The vine latched onto her flesh, refusing to let go. She yanked it out of her body and threw it away into the dark. She desperately tried to pull the ones entering her ears and eyes, grabbing a fistful of the ends and yanked them out. Her right eye popped out with the vines, blood pouring out, and now her eye dangled over her cheeks. The optic nerve and muscle still attached to her eye socket.

Jenna screamed.

The demon exploded into mist and triggered [ Possession ]. The mist enveloped her, congregating around her head, and entered her body through her empty eye socket.

Jenna’s other intact eye turned golden red.

Rebecca and Kirk walked across the lake’s shore, approaching the quiet boathouse a hundred feet ahead, toward the only light on the second-floor window. The lake lay silent beside them with oily shadows reflected from what little light the dark skies could give.

“You think anyone’s home?” Rebecca asked.

“Hodge wants us to find Tessa. I think we should do that, no?” Kirk urged her.

“You heard what Hodge said. Maxine’s dead. We have nothing to worry about now except finding that gem.” Rebecca turned around to meet him in the eye. “Do you want to be promoted?”

“Promoted?”

“Yeah, like have more say in the sect. We’d get what we asked for if the higher-ups want this gem so badly. Maybe I can finally ask them if they’ll make me Sheriff, and they’ll do it. Just like that.” Rebecca snapped her fingers. “Hodge and Melanie are bit…too much sometimes.”

Kirk was slightly embarrassed. “I’m not really thinking about promotions.”

I knew instantly he was lying. These fucks were out for themselves. They were not a family, they were colleagues, and rivals at best.

Rebecca could see it, too. “Bullshit. How about learning magic? Because Hodge and Melanie are eating that up for themselves, and left nothing for the rest of us.”

“But we can’t do magic.”

“Anything can be learned, Kirk, including magic. Maybe Hodge being born with it is just a fat lie. Have you ever think of that?”

Kirk paused for a moment and shook his head. “Maybe we should do what the coach said, and find Tessa—”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, you are such a pussy, you know that?”

Kirk glowered at her. “Watch your words, Becca.”

“And you’re not the one holding the gun.” Rebecca made sure that Kirk got a good look at the gun in her hand. “You may think you’re being slick preying around with young high school girls, Kirk, but believe me, I see through your creepy ass. And your god-almighty Hodge sees it, too. The only reason I didn’t lock you in jail right now is because you and I are part of something bigger than your bullshit.”

Kirk scoffed as if he was playing it off, but deep inside, the man was seething. “You know what? Do what you want, woman. I ain’t give a fuck if Hodge screams your head off for not following his orders. You know his temper.”

“You’re not listening to me.” Rebecca stepped closer to him. “When they find the gem, they’re gonna leave us to rust. I reckon when they went out of town to talk to…whoever the fuck they talked to…they were asking for something in return. I bet my money it’s something big. Something that we’re no longer useful for. Our sect is already cracking at the seams. Half of our members are dead! We’re cooked if we don’t do anything about it.”

“You don’t know that. Hodge recruited us. He wants us to be part of this.”

Rebecca shrugged and continued walking toward the boathouse. “Fine, do your thing. Nothing lasts forever.”

“But what about Mark Castle?”

Rebecca stopped in her tracks. “If the boy’s really alive, we’ll just kill him again. Easy peasy.”

“As a ghost?”

“Correction: A three-day-old ghost. They’re weak as shit that even a ten-year-old could banish them. I know a couple of wards that Hodge taught us, and my diction and pronunciation are better than yours.”

“Hey! I’m good at incantations, too.”

Rebecca snickered. “No, you’re not. Stick with me and maybe we’ll find the gem for ourselves—”

A man’s scream cut out across the lake’s shore. It came from the boathouse, crying for help.

“You hear that? Is that…Alvin?” Kirk asked.

“No, it sounds like—” Another scream, and Rebecca gasped. “Chris!”

“Rebecca, wait—!”

Kirk reached for her arm to stop her, but Rebecca was already running toward the boathouse, following Chris’s screams. As Kirk was about to run after her, he noticed someone bolt out of the bushes behind them and head toward the canoe racks. Kirk recognized instantly who it was.

“Tessa!” He shouted. “Becca, I found her! We have to get her! now! She’ll escape!”

But Rebecca wasn’t listening. She was about to reach the boathouse’s door, leaving Kirk alone on the shore. He looked back and forth, trying to figure out who he should go after.

“Becca!”

“My husband’s in trouble, Kirk!” Rebecca shouted.

“Fuck!” He ran his fingers over his hair, turned on his heels, and went after Tessa instead. “Tessa! Wait! We can—We can talk about this!”

I smiled. They shouldn't have split up if they wanted to survive the night. But I was happy that they did.

Kirk looked back and saw Rebecca already entered the boathouse. “Fine, I'll do it myself,” he muttered under his breath, angry and tired. “Tessa! Stop! I won’t hurt you! Please, stop!” If only he had Becca’s gun, he would have shot her legs right there.

Tessa reached the canoe racks, but Kirk was getting closer, and she wouldn’t have enough time to grab a canoe and paddle across the lake. No, she would have to swim. Kirk stopped in his tracks when he saw Tessa just bolted to the edge of the shore and dove into the waters.

“Shit, shit. Stop! Hey! You’ll freeze to death!” Of course, Tessa wasn’t listening.

And unbeknownst to Kirk, Tessa sprouted a fish’s tail underneath the water. The Siren’s mimicry of human physiology using [ Merefolk Physiology ] was fading out. Fortunately, it was dark out in the lake, the light rain summoning a mist that shrouded the Siren in a haze. Kirk couldn’t get a good look at her. He didn’t even realize that “Tessa” was swimming a little too fast, getting further and further away from shore. Kirk pulled down the canoe from the bottom rack and pushed it toward the water. He grabbed a paddle from the rack and hopped in, following the Siren’s trail.

“The water is cold!” Kirk shouted, growing impatient as he paddled faster and faster toward Tessa. “Stop! I said stop swimming, you stupid bitch! Listen to me!”

The Siren delved below the surface and disappeared.

Kirk stopped paddling. In the darkness, he could barely make out where he was. He grabbed his phone off his jacket’s pocket and turned on the flash, shielding the screen from the rain. He aimed the light onto the water’s surface, looking for her. All he saw was pitch darkness. He had no idea how deep this part of the lake was.

The canoe wobbled as if someone had jumped on top of it. Kirk quickly aimed the flashlight toward the bow, and Kirk’s heart leapt. A pair of a woman’s hands gripped around the pointed bow, their face hidden behind the deck. Kirk leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse, but she looked away from him.

“Tessa? Is that you?” He sounded unsure, and Kirk gulped down his rising fear.

The Siren looked up with flirtatious poise. Blue ocean eyes staring right at Kirk’s, and all the man could do was drop his jaw and stare back at her longingly. A strangled gasp escaped his lips, muscles tensing with need, and shoulders relaxed for an embrace. The Siren began to hum a beautiful song that I have never heard of, sweetly strange and yet an exotic ballad with its running melody. Her voice traveled across the lake, freezing the rain for just a moment to hold this enchantress in the mist’s haze, encapsulating its uncanny beauty. Kirk leaned forward as the Siren grasped the edge of the canoe, and swam closer to him.

With the song building into a sweet crescendo, Kirk ignored how sharp the Siren’s nails were, almost like talons. He ignored the scales running along her back, and peeking over her shoulders like a cloak. He ignored her sharp teeth as he reached his hand out to touch the woman’s porcelain and glassy face.

“You’re…so…beautiful…” Kirk mumbled. "Who are you...?"

“Do what you will with me, my gentle heart,” the Siren sang, leaning closer to him. “It will be all a pleasure. Come closer. Yes, closer. Touch me. Touch me.”

“…Anything I want?” Kirk's eyes wandered down her bare shoulders, and the Siren pushed her dark hair back to reveal her breasts peeking out of the water's surface. Kirk gulped as if he couldn't breathe no longer, and felt the blood surging under his belt. "Oh god..."

The Siren gave him a sensual smile. “Anything…I can be anything.”

With a blink of an eye, the Siren opened her jaws wide and chomped onto Kirk’s outstretched hand, biting off his thumb and forefinger before slipping back into the water in a loud splash.

Kirk stared at his bloodied, stumpy fingers for a second. It didn't seem to register to him what just happened until the sharp pain shot up his arm and he let out a blood-curdling shriek.

The Siren whipped her tail and slammed the canoe upward into the air, spinning wildly. The powerful blow sent Kirk soaring twenty feet into the air, and he plunged back into the dark water, cutting off his screams. Reaching toward the surface, he saw the canoe flipped over and sank.

Kirk looked back to shore. His Resolve dropping by each second. Compared to the others, he was the weakest and easily frightened. The Siren swam from below and sliced Kirk by the side of the abdomen with her sharp nails, puncturing his liver. The water quickly turned red around him. His pain was intoxicating to hear, like listening to the sizzle of butter hitting the pan. Kirk frantically swam toward the shore, begging for any god to listen to him. To let him live.

There was only one god here tonight.

The Siren and I sensed his Resolve turned red at the same time. Without saying a word, she hurtled toward him from underneath the surface like a bullet. Kirk’s legs finally hit the bottom, the water getting shallower and shallower. He scrambled to his feet, wading toward the shore with a desperate thrash. The cold air cut through his open wounds, and he let out a pained hiss. He looked over to the boathouse. Surely Rebecca must have heard his screams by now.

“Rebecca’s busy, Mr. Gamble,” I said with menacing glee. “You’re all alone out here with me and my friend.”

Finally, the Siren reached him, her fingernails slicing through both his achilles’ heel. Kirk immediately fell to the rocky shore and frantically crawled out of the shallow waters.

“No, please! Don't kill me!” He screamed. "Rebecca! Hodge! Help me!"

But he didn’t crawl out fast enough.

The Siren emerged from the water, revealing her true form. She still had blue human eyes, but her face was grotesquely malformed. Her mouth was too large for her head, filled with rows of shark-like teeth. Gills peeked out of her neck and a slender-scaled torso etched with watery mosaic shapes. Her arms were too long for her body, and she had tangles of greenish seaweed-like hair that hid half of her face and breasts.

"What's the matter, my love?" The Siren sang hauntingly as if the air was struck by a ghostly choir. "Am I not pretty enough for you? Am I not young enough for you?!"

"Get away from me!" Kirk sobbed like a little child.

"But you'll stay down here with me, my love. Forever. Forever! FOREVER!"

Her giant claws grabbed Kirk’s ankles and dragged him slowly back into the freezing waters, kicking and screaming. There was nothing for him to hold onto. Nothing for him to use to fight against the Siren. All he could do was beg and weep.

His screams were cut short once he disappeared beneath the roiling waters, which quickly turned russet red. I took a deep breath as I relished his muffled screams beneath the surface; the Siren butchering him with her teeth and claws. She fed like a piranha, consuming his flesh down to the bone marrow.

From the slaughter, Kirk’s decapitated head broke out of the surface momentarily, eyes bulging wide, his face frozen in mid-scream. Then a giant claw grabbed his hair and pulled Kirk’s head back into the dark depths of the lake.

[ You have gained 1 essence: Kirk Gamble ]

[You have gained 150 crystals]

Mr. Gamble is dead, I thought bitterly.

He was my favorite English teacher, and I remembered going to his classes during lunch hour and just hanging out with the other students who liked him. He was a decent man until I learned the horrible truth of what he truly was. And now I felt nothing for him. He could rot in hell forever.

As the waters calmed, the Siren popped her head out, smiled, and gave me a cheeky thumbs up. It was like seeing a baby walking for the first time, or hearing them utter their first word. Though she seemed disappointed that the others didn’t get to see her first kill.

“That’s alright, Siren,” I said. “There’s plenty more in the future.”

The Siren hummed a sigh, nodded glumly, and dove underwater.

I thought to myself, maybe I should create a school of merfolks for her. A family she could have under the lake. That would be fun, and she wouldn’t get bored being out here while the others were having fun on land. I made a mental note to give Siren a merfolk friend. But I didn’t have enough monster slots to create another for North Cedar Lake. I opened the [ Dungeon ] tab in the menu just to check if the Administrators rewarded me for killing Kirk Gamble. Unfortunately, there was none.

Maybe after I am done with this scenario, I could ask for rewards of my own. I am killing the people that the Administrators wanted dead, so I hoped I could get something big out of this night. Perhaps better powers? More monsters? Elvis mentioned sponsors, so maybe I could get more of those. However, to get a reward from the Administrators, I had to destroy the Cult of Astaroth by killing all the cultists. Not just the ones delving right now.

I sighed. One night at a time, Mark. One freaking night at a time.

I closed the interface from my vision and turned my attention to the boathouse, and the screams emanating from there.

I needed to put my game-face on.

There were still a few cultists to kill.