𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐞𝐬 ── eddie munson

014

March 3rd, 1986.

Lola had woken up on a cold, damp floor. The sound of toy trains whirred around her. She went to rub her head, but it was then when she realized her hands were no longer her own, but that of a young child. Her knees throbbed in agony and they were covered in what looked like scabs. This wasn't her - she was someone else - this wasn't her.

She was surrounded by darkness and her mind began to convince itself monsters were lurking in the shadows. She recognized this room well as her father's basement study. Suddenly, a desperate urge to get out washed over her. So she scrambled to her feet and made a dash for the stairs. The rickety steps made the whole room shake as her small feet collided with the wood. However, she never made it to the sixth step, as her ankles were shackled by cold flesh. Hands grabbed at her legs through the slats between the steps and dragged her down. No matter how hard she tried break free to reach the top it always seemed so far away.

Lola screamed when she felt the skin on her ankles break from the nails of the malevolent creatures that were swarmed underneath the stairs. Blood trickled down her legs and pooled at the bottom of the staircase. But all of a sudden, the frigid hands stopped. She started climbing again, this time, with higher hopes for reaching the top. But just as her foot landed on the flat floor, one big, warm hand grabbed her ankle and threw her all the way down, where she landed on a pile of toy train tracks and figurines. They were sharp, immediately penetrating her back and slicing the skin through her frilly dress.

She was met face to face with her own father, who leaned over her, a sinister grin on his face. He was clad in a stained wife beater and a dark blue flannel shirt handing loosely off his shoulders. He went to do something, but then the lights flickered on, and the dingy office was unveiled. Her eyes darted from corner to corner, taking in the differences. His study at their house in California was always a mess, but this one... it was covered in blood... stained with the organs of her whole family. She locked her eyes with two empty holes, her mother, once full of life, now had her eyes missing, leaking with blood. Lola screamed and scrambled to her feet, but a harsh hand collided sharply with her cheek, sending her spinning to the ground.

She awoke on the floor of her bedroom. Her new bedroom, in Susan's trailer. Her face stung red and her back felt sticky with blood. Her whole body ached and throbbed all over and the pace her heart was racing probably broke a world record. Her eyes immediately darted to the alarm clock on her bedside table, it read 2:37am. A haunting sight appeared in her peripheral, the same mangled bodies from her nightmare. On her floor, strapped to her closet door, sprawled over her bed. Her mother, her brother, her aunt Leah and uncle Corbyn. All completely eyeless, snapped at the joints and organ matter pooling out from their skulls.

Lola cried out, jumping to her feet that were struggling to be supported by her numb ankles. She swung open her bedroom door, a string of ear piercing shrieks spilling from her lips as she ran. Susan was out at a bar somewhere and Max liked to go on late night walks around the trailer park, so neither of them were in. Stood in her living room was the dark, shadowy figure. It held its hand out and called her name.

"You cannot run from me, Lola." It bellowed, but she ignored it completely, rubbing out the front door and into the street, still screaming.

He was there again, this time moving quicker, "you can't escape now. It's too late."

She backed away, hobbling on her bare, bruised feet. The figure approached quickly, but right before it reached the warm light streaming from the streetlamp, she backed into someone's bare chest.

Eddie Munson had been sat out on his porch smoking a cigarette at 2:37am that night when he saw Lola Hargrove run from her trailer. He was scantily clad in black pyjama bottoms covered in white bats and a shaggy brown blanket wrapped around his naked torso. He watched vigilantly as she began to scream and limp helplessly in the middle of the path out front of his trailer. He had sprung to his feet immediately, dropped his cigarette and ran to the girl whom he had never properly spoken to, but had sat in front of him in math class for the longest time.