October 10th

Arnold opened the door to the house. Everything was dark. He reached over to turn on the light switch, but there was no response. He knew it couldn't be a neighborhood outage. The outside streetlights shone brightly beneath the night sky, and the neighbor's porch light illuminated the patio.

"Connie," he shouted. His teenage sister should have been home. Her car was in the driveway, and he knew she planned on having her friend August over tonight as well. He tried other switches in the next few rooms, but the darkness prevailed. Finally he pulled out his phone and used the flashlight app to give himself some visual assistance. He shone the light onto the table in the living room, and the first thing he saw was the cage. The wire bars were torn open, bent into a mangled mess as though something had exploded out of it.

"What the hell?" he said quietly to himself. He heard the patter of feet rapidly running across the hard floor behind him. The noise sounded almost like tapping. When he had been at a friend's house once, he remembered a similar sound when their Chihuahua ran across the laminate, her claws tapping with every step.

He heard a squeaking, like a rat, but there was a hint of malevolence beneath it. It came from one direction, then another, jumping back and forth, the tapping sound zipping past him, almost teasing him.

"Connie," Arnold called out. He rushed towards her bedroom and opened the door slowly. He saw his sister standing on her bed, sobbing and quivering.

"Benjamin and Peter got out," she whispered to him.

"What?"

"They… got… out."

"So?"

"They broke out."

"Put them back, then."

"They got... they got August."

Arnold thought of the cage in the other room in confusion. He stepped forward and slipped in something dark. His feet flew out from beneath him and he found himself on his back, staring next to him into the dead eyes of his sister's friend. All he could see was her head — that, and the stump of her neck.

"Holy sh—"

Connie screamed as the creatures silenced her brother. She burst from the bedroom and ran for the front door.

#

"I'm home," called Connie's mother as she walked into the house. "Who carved the bunny on the jack-o'-lantern outside?" She tried the light by the front door. "How long has the power been out?"

Inside the closet next to the front door sat a flashlight with new batteries. She pressed the switch up and revealed her daughter on the floor. Connie's arms, head, and chest were intact, but everything from her mid-torso and below was bone dripping with blood and strings of muscle not yet picked off. She screamed, then fell backwards as sharp teeth tore through her Achilles Tendons. She never saw what attacked before they ripped out her throat.

Go to October 9th                           Go to October 11th