Stories in the dark

Chapter 21: The Carnival of the Forgotten

The family walked down the road in silence, each of them clutching onto the other, hoping that the farther they got from that cursed park, the safer they'd feel. But as night settled over them, a creeping unease lingered, pressing down on their shoulders like a weight they couldn't shake.

They finally reached their car, parked along the desolate road where they'd left it hours ago. They all climbed in, exhausted, and Dad started the engine. The car's headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the path home. They drove in silence, no one daring to speak of what they'd seen. The memory of those decaying faces, those hollow eyes, haunted them, replaying in their minds like a gruesome slideshow they couldn't turn off.

As they drove, Jack, the eldest, noticed something strange. The headlights seemed to catch a flicker of movement on the side of the road. He squinted, peering out into the darkness. For a moment, he thought he saw a small, familiar shape—a puppy, with those same hollow eyes, watching them from the shadows.

"Did... did you guys see that?" he whispered, but no one responded. They were all staring straight ahead, eyes glazed, lost in their own haunted thoughts.

After a long, tense drive, they finally reached their house. The family stumbled out of the car, eager to put the nightmare behind them. They hurried into their home, locking the doors and shutting the curtains, trying to block out any reminder of the horrors they'd left behind.

But the silence inside the house was unnerving. The ticking of the clock seemed too loud, the creaks in the floorboards too sharp. The family tried to go about their evening, trying to shake the feeling that they hadn't left the horrors of the park entirely behind.

That night, as the house settled into a restless silence, Jack lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw those grotesque figures, those twisted faces grinning at him with hunger. He turned over, trying to push the thoughts away, when he heard it—a faint scratching at his window.

Jack's breath hitched. He told himself it was just a branch or the wind, but the scratching grew louder, more insistent. Heart pounding, he sat up and looked toward the window. There, in the dim light of the streetlamp outside, he saw it—a small, dark shape, sitting on the windowsill, staring in with hollow, empty eyes.

It was one of the puppies.

Jack's mouth went dry. The puppy didn't move, didn't blink. It just stared, its head cocked at an unnatural angle, as if waiting for something. Slowly, Jack backed away from the window, not daring to look away.

Then, he heard another sound—a soft, muffled scratching... from the other side of his room.

He turned, barely breathing, and his blood ran cold. There, by his door, was another one of those decaying figures. It was the man with the missing eye, grinning at him with rotting teeth, one skeletal hand raised in a grotesque wave.

Jack stumbled back, gasping, as the man took a step forward. And then, from down the hall, he heard his sister Ava's voice—a piercing scream, followed by frantic footsteps and the sound of doors slamming open.

Jack's parents and cousin Sarah burst into the hallway, their faces pale and drawn as they rushed to Ava's room. Jack scrambled out of bed and ran to join them. They opened the door to find Ava huddled on her bed, pointing to the window, her face frozen in terror.

Outside her window, more figures had gathered, pressing their decayed faces against the glass, grinning with hollow eyes. Some were the twisted, mangled men they'd seen at the park. Others were... familiar. There was a man who looked disturbingly like her father, but with missing fingers and bloodied clothes. Another figure resembled her mother, but her face was contorted, half rotted away, her mouth stretched into an unnatural grin.

All at once, the family realized the truth: these figures weren't just twisted souls from that cursed park. They were echoes of themselves—versions of them that had never left.

"Why... why are they here?" Ava whimpered, clinging to her mother.

The father's face went pale. "It's... it's a warning," he stammered. "We weren't supposed to leave."

Suddenly, the front door banged open. Shadows spilled into the house, bringing with them a cold, suffocating darkness. The air grew thick with the smell of decay and earth. Slowly, the figures from outside began to drift into the house, their hollow eyes locked onto the terrified family.

One by one, they entered, filling the hallway, surrounding the family. The grinning, decayed echoes of their own faces stared back at them, trapping them in a circle of horror. The father tried to move, but his feet were frozen to the ground, as if an invisible force held him in place. The mother began to sob, clutching her children as the figures closed in.

The last thing they heard was a voice—a raspy, hollow whisper that echoed through the darkness, coming from all directions at once.

"You belong to the carnival now."

And then, in a single, horrifying instant, the lights in the house went out.

The next morning, the house was quiet. The family was nowhere to be found. Neighbors assumed they'd simply left, taking off in the middle of the night. But, if you look carefully, on some dark nights, you can see shapes through the windows—hollow-eyed figures staring out, waiting. Just waiting... for the next unlucky visitors to take their place.