Monster

Bloodthirsty and filled with rage, it pounces to maim, to bite, to never relent until I’m dead.

Feast your eyes

My friends and I enter the old house looking for a weekend away to party and enjoy ourselves.

“Man, this place is nice, bro,” Jose says.

“Bro, this was only 75 a night? Sweet,” Sam says looking up the giant staircase and the beautiful chandelier.

“Alright, OK,” Ryan says amused, smiling happily as he looks around the hallway. “It’s totally G!” Ryan laughs and then opens a beer.

“Ah, come on. A beer already, bro?” I say holding my heavy bags.

“Yeah, dude.” Ryan downs one and crashes onto the nice couch.

“Dude, sick! They got a jacuzzi,” Sam remarks, glaring out into the night. “This place is perfect. Can we have alcohol yet?”

“Yeah dude, come on!” Ryan hands him the bottle opener.

“Dude, sweet.” Sam opens one and hollers out, rowdy. Joe struggles in with his giant bags going up the creaky stairs without a word.

“Man, this place is the shit!” Jose laughs uproariously. He bro-hugs me then Ryan and Sam as they drink merrily and become boisterous.

I look around on the second floor climbing and taking my belongings. I claim a room as Jose comes up after me with his bags and many books entering a spare. Then suddenly he backs up out of his room and notices, a little white door with a sign on it.

“Mmmm… Under no circumstances, is this door to be opened,” Jose says. “I wonder…”

“Don’t think about it,” I say sternly. “Don’t open it. They were very clear about that.”

“What could be so bad, Mike? Come on, live a little.”

“Nah, man. The host said not to open that door. It’s very important. I gotta tell the guys once we get settled.”

“If you have a door and don’t use it, what’s the point?” Jose says his big brown eyes trying to debate me.

All of a sudden the smoke alarms chime, laughter fills my ears, and I hear Sam and Ryan doing something mischievously. I run downstairs and see the oven on fire.

My two friends, already five beers deep, chug them like milkshakes. Astonished, I scold them as the flames roar out of the oven emitting heat.

“Come on guys! What’re you doin’? We’re barely, here five minutes and you guys set the house on fire!”

“Not the house just the oven,” Ryan says not caring and downing another beer.

“What the-”

“It’s fine,” Sam says turning the oven off finally as the flames die. “OK, man. I just put it out.”

The fire ceases and the alarms stop. Then I hear a loud bang sound upstairs.

“What the hell.” I shake my head as I ascend the stairs and reach my room seeing the door open.

The forbidden door, the white small hidden portal where I left Jose is now wide open. But he’s not there, no one is in sight.

Silence.