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Author Introduction:
Before we dive into the story, I would like to provide credit to a story I found on Reddit called ‘Uncle Gerry’s family fun zone’  which provides the base plot-line for this book.
But, without further ado, let the story begin…
(Cue dramatic music)
Chapter 1: A new day
It's not my fault that we moved to this little shithole of a town. I mean it wasn't me that dropped that cigarette that ignited our house to hell. I mean sure, I arranged the party when my parents were out and sure, there was some underage drinking, but I wasn't the one that lit the cigarette and dropped it. Oh wait hold on I did show Mike where the matches were... but he dropped it! Not me! No no no....
I mean, why am I getting the blame?! What did I do that was so wrong. What did I do that caused God to punish me by sending me to this miserable town. Ever since the incident my parents haven't let me live down the supposed mistakes I made. What did I do?! Nothing!
But anyway since our house was sent into the burning depths of hell, money has been skint. For a while we had to move in with my uncle but it was obvious we needed a more long term place to live than the armpit that is my uncles house. So whilst looking for new housing, my parents found this little place out in the crack of hell. To be fair, it didn't look that bad from the pictures, but a word with my friends at school about the new town changed my perspective.
"Derrington?!" (The name of the town) whispered Squirt. He wasn't actually called Squirt of course but the name came from his minuscule height and he had been called Squirt for so long, no one knew his real name anymore.
"That place is like cursed as shit mate, come on you can't tell me you didn't hear?"
"What?" I questioned him.
"Don't you remember that whole story about that Walker guy?"
"Yeah, killed his whole family, went mad and is still serving prison time. That guy right?"
"Yeah" said Squirt, "that was in Derrington"
"No..." I whispered.
"Yeah.." whispered Squirt back, " I tell you that place is cursed as shit man, you go there, you gonna.."
 Squirt ran his finger across his neck.
"Shit..." I muttered.
"Don't worry mate" he laughed, slapping me on the back, " I'll attend your funeral!"
 
And so began the dread knotting my stomach, tightening with each minute. As if the false accusations of my 'arson' wasn't enough, now I had the dread of a twisted, cursed maniac murdering me in my sleep.
I mean, I have always wanted a bigger house to live in, but this isn't what I imagined. Thanks a lot Mike....
 
I rested my head on my shoulders, closing my eyes and napping every now and then. Though we hired a moving van, I was still cramped in the backseat with suitcases and random house stuff, rendering me unable to move. As we progressed on the journey, the landscape become more barren and desolate. Trees withered and roadkill bloomed in numbers. This place truly was in the middle of nowhere. After a couple of hours of journeying, I saw the first sign of life for God knows how many miles. A crooked, rusty and faded sign reading; 'Welcome to Derrington'. At least I could only assume that is what it said since the sign was covered in blood red spray paint reading 'WELCOME TO HELL!' In scrawled writing.
Oh joy, my first warning.
Every sign from then on had similar graffiti with most messages along the lines of 'turn back or die' or 'if you can read this, it's too late'
Derrington already sounded like a fun place. Upon reaching the outskirts of the town, I got the same vibe as driving in, dead and desolate. What a place to die...
Shop windows were smashed and boarded up. Countless graffiti, litter, garbage can fires and homeless people littered the street. It wasn't a particularly large town.
We drove past a closed down building that by the looks of it, used to be a nursery.
We continued driving slowly, getting threatening looks from old, haggard citizens. After crossing a set of traffic lights my heart began to race from seeing a sign reading: ' Derrington town police station and prison'; the very holding place of the legendary Mark Walker, the man who murdered his whole family and pleaded guilty but cursed. The very reason I would be afraid of going to sleep at night. What sort of mind lay inside that twisted monster?
Armed guards stood menacingly outside the gates. A shiver ran down my spine. Danger was near....
To be fair, as we progressed through the town, it did start to look...nicer. Well as nice as a murder town can get.
On the journey we also drove past my future high school which looked more like a warehouse
 from a SAW movie. Joy to come...
We continued to drive past dark forests, that no doubt were littered with dead murder victims. I could see no life in the forest. Emptiness. But wait, just for a second I thought I saw...something, no, someone, I don't know really but it was human shaped. About six feet tall, all in black with long spindly limbs. I couldn't make out any facial features but I knew it had seen me. Seen my soul. It hungered for... for...
And just as quick as it had come it disappeared out of view. I convinced myself in my groggy state, I must of been hallucinating and buried my head back into the brain-rot of YouTube.
Soon after, the car slowly chugged up the stone paved driveway before screeching to a halt.
"Here we are" Grunted my Dad, pulling the car into park.
I clicked open the car door and with a grunt, stepped outside. I briefly shielded my eyes from the glaring sunlight and stumbled around on the stones.
"What are you doing?!" Shouted my Mum.
"Take these things into the house!" She said gesturing to the suitcases in the car.
"Teenagers..." she muttered under her breath, rolling two cases up to the front door. I sighed in frustration.
Why is it always my fault!
I eventually seize my huffing and wheel some cases inside. The door was wooden and painted white, but with age, little curls of paint had fallen off and revealed the natural colour underneath. Inside, a cold draft caught me by surprise. My little brother looks around in wonder while the rest of us unpack.
"Alfie!"
"What?!" I shouted.
"Get out of your little world and take those clothes up to your room, honestly, wouldn't kill you to help every now and again" moaned my Mum with a sigh.
So, I begrudgingly took the pile of clothes up to my new room which was situated on the left side of the corridor that led from the top of the stairs.
Old, dusty pictures adorned the walls with the head of a deer hanging on a plaque in the stairwell.
"What's wat?" Questioned my little brother.
"Bambi's mother!" I whispered with a smile.
Almost instantly he burst into tears and ran downstairs.
Wanting to avoid the coming rage from my parents, I ran to my new room and locked the door.
I pulled open the heavy door to my new room with great effort and stared in wonder. The walls were decorated with a deep maroon wallpaper which had started to peel in corners. In the right corner of the room was a large oak wardrobe. The floor was panelled with wood and on the far wall was a double bed with the sheets spread messily. I slide off my jacket too and hung it on the back of the door. My OCD now screaming at me, I walked over to the unmade bed, straightened out the sheets and fluffed the pillows. My mind now satisfied; I went to my suitcase, set it down, unzipped it and pulled out a pile of clothes. On my way to the wardrobe I stopped in shock; the bed I previously made had been messed up again with one of the pillows on the floor.
"Huh?" I grunted in shock.
Laying down the clothes on the floor, I remade the bed and then slowly turned around before whipping my head back around to look at the bed; nothing has changed. Convincing myself I must of been going mad, I turned around and start hanging clothes up in the wardrobe again. A sudden slam made me let out a pathetic squeak. I turned around to find the heavy oak door slammed shut.
"Ha ha, very funny Mathew!" I shout to my Brother.
I paced to the door and tried to push it open.
"Okay Mathew let go of the door!" I shouted, again attempting to push open the door.
He was stronger than I thought!
"Okay! No longer funny! Open the door!"
I slammed my shoulder into it with no avail.
I jiggled the door handle before letting out a chocked cry at the unexpected, burning heat of the handle. I let go, shaking my hand in pain before the door creaked open. I ran out into the corridor to catch my brother in the act but no one was in the corridor, everyone was downstairs.
Blaming my inability to open the door on its weight, I sighed and turned around to find the bed unmade once more.
Chapter 2: Albert Lewis
After the...strange... events of the day before, I had strange, troubled dreams of demons and monsters and the dark creatures that lurk in the corners of rooms. And I also dreamt of a sign. It was faded but what I saw read: 'Un_l__ _erry's famil_ __n zo_e', and a disturbing image of a weird goat/man hybrid and it spoke; " mine"...
 
The following day was the first day of my new high school and I could only dream of what horrors lie in wake...
The day started off with a sparkle with me missing the bus and having to sprint like hell to catch it at it's next stop. After climbing on the bus I was met with what looked like a scene from the hunger games.
Nearly every seat was full with other kids standing in the aisles, leaping on the ones in seats like the goddamn wrestling championships. Some kids were using an empty bottle and a rubber to play baseball, those at the back vaped heavily, some in seats looked like they could kill someone if they were disturbed from their studies. One kid had just had his bag stolen by a curly ginger haired kid to which the victim responded with a clean punch to the jaw. "Welcome to the shithole" said a tall, brown haired kid.
He put out his hand.
"Albert. Albert Lewis" He said.
I shook his hand.
"Alfie. Alfie Smith " I replied.
At this point I received a blow to the head from an apple core.
"Shit!"
One kid near the back laughed mockingly, a bit of the apple in his mouth.
"Dickhead..." I sighed.
"What was dat?" The kid shouted, standing up.
"Nothing" I muttered.
"Nothing eh?" The kid walked up to me, his nose nearly touching mine. He suddenly lashed out and delivered a bash to my nose that made blood run. I instantly moved my hand up to block a right hook coming in, only to be caught by the following left. I stumbled backwards about to fall over, only to be pushed back up by the crowd of students gathering round. The kid came in with another punch to the jaw before planting a firm kick in my stomach sending me to the floor. He looked at me on the floor before smirking and spitting the rest of his apple at me.
“Need a hand?” Asked Albert.
“Nah, I’m fine” I said, pulling myself up off the floor.
Albert led me to the front of the bus where a double seat was vacant. He sat down nearest the window and I near the aisle.
“So...” I asked, “Is school like this always?”
“Pretty much, always watch you back around Kevin and his lot, future drug dealers and murderers the lot of  ‘em”
“Who?” I asked, rubbing my jaw.
“The lot that just beat the shit out of you” Said Albert, pointing to the kid that had just beaten me up and the lot around him that were all vaping.
“Thanks for the advice,” I said, still trying to re-align my jaw.
We sat in silence for a while.
“Where did you move from?” Albert eventually asked.
“Rosebury” I replied.
“Fair enough, I had an aunt who lived over there for a while, Emelda Lewis? Name ring a bell?” He asked.
“No, not really…” I sighed.
We sat in silence for the rest of the journey, occasionally ducking from a throw of a rubber in the makeshift baseball game. Eventually we arrived at the school and that’s where the hell started…
I was greeted by a short, nerdy looking kid with my timetable in his hand.
“Alexander Vine” He introduced himself in a squeaky voice.
“Alfie” I said sighing.
“So…” He said, obviously lost for words.
“Timetable?” I asked.
“Oh yes, here you go, and also this” he said giving me a timetable and a map of the school, “Good luck!”
And off he ran. Good luck…yeah thanks, I’m gonna need it.
The day began off with a double music, oh joy. A lovely chance to humiliate myself in-front of the entire class. I eventually arrived five minutes late due to Alexander forgetting to give me my locker key and having to chase him down. And also having difficulty navigating the school grounds with the drastically unproportioned map. When I did arrive I was greeted by an angry, bad side of middle-aged man, glaring at the clock.
“You must be the new student…” He sighed
“Yes” I stuttered
“I’m sorry what?” He replied frustrated.
“Sir?” I questioned.
“Yes fine, go sit down” He sighed.
I sighed and sat down on a bench near the back of the classroom.
“Right then” the teacher began, “our solo pieces from yesterday, I believe you were next Brittany”
A girl then stood up with a violin on her shoulder and made her way to the front of the class. She gave a music book to someone on the front row to hold up and began and oh god I wanted to die. Forget about a screeching cat, this would of killed the cat. This could kill anyone with half an ear on them. After a long and painful solo she finished with a small polite applause.
The same ceremony continued for a few more students and I think it’s fair to say that this group isn’t the most musically talented bunch there has ever been. From scratchy singing to depressing trombones, each one worse than the last. But just before I thought I had got away with it, this happened:
“What about our new student, would you like to present anything?”
“No...” I stuttered, “I haven’t prepared anything I...”
“Nonsense!” Cried the teacher gesturing me forwards, “Give something a go, sing something!”
And so off I stumbled to the front, my throat drying. What was I going to sing, what, what, what?
Night-time sharpens, heightens each sensation....
My voice came out weak and pathetic. God what was I doing! What an idiot I was...
Darkness curves, and wakes imagination
Silently the senses, abandon the defences...
Stumbling over the words, my voice lifted. How on earth...
Softly, slowly, music shall surround you
Grasp it, feel it, closing in around you
Though still stumbling on words, my voice built and soared. An unhuman force had griped me and lifted my voice to the heavens.
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
To this Darkness, which you know you cannot find!
The darkness of the Music of the Night
I was cut off by the bell ringing. I didn’t know what had happened. Since ever before I could never sing and only had lightly mumbled to music in my headphones. What godly force had lifted my voice like that. The class sat in silence before leaving in a hurry, getting odd looks every now and again. I had gone to get my bag and was about to leave when I was stopped.
“That was amazing” The man said in, well...amazement.
“It was nothing” I replied trying to leave, I was stopped.
“Nothing it may to you, but you are amazing, we’ll talk later, off you go”
What a great start!
The rest of the day  went terrible with double German with an angry, tomato faced, balding middle-aged man and finishing with maths which is a weak subject for me. It’s not I don’t get algebra, it’s algebra doesn’t get me.
Once the school day was done I was ready to leave and go home but I was stopped by Albert. I found him hid behind the wall of the Maths block on my way out to the hell of the school bus.
“Pssst” He hissed, trying not to be seen.
I looked behind me, praying it was not me he was talking to.
“Yeah you!” He hissed as I walked over, “You got an hour to spare?”
“Yeah but...”
It was already to late as I was dragged by my arm out of the school gates, over the road and into the woods on the other side of the school.
“Where are we going?!” I cried, trying to keep up.
“You’ll see!” He whispered, speeding through the undergrowth.
Soon I had lost his hand and stumbled about blindly in the thick greenery.
“Albert?!” I shouted.
“Down here!” He hissed.
“Down where....!” I cried before loosing my footing and tumbling down a hill adorned with nettles, swearing and cursing with every roll. After what seemed an eternity, I reached the bottom with a thud.
I swore loudly.
“Get up!” I heard Albert whisper as I was pulled to my feet, “Look at this!”
Adjusting my vision I was greeted with a large wooden sign with faded words on them that greenery had covered.
“Huh?” I mumbled.
“It’s real!” Whispered Albert in excitement.
“What is?”
“Uncle Gerrys family fun zone!”
Suddenly memories of the night before in my dreams hit me like a rock, the man/goat hybrid, the sign, and a creature...And also something else hit me like a rock....a rock.
“Shit!” I swore rubbing my head.
The rock had flown out of the darkness behind the sign.
“Leave” A voice whispered from behind the sign.
Scared shitless, us two ran like hell, scrambling up the hill with scraped knees and tumbling out onto the sidewalk. We ran like hell over the street and caught a bus to take us home.
Neither of us said a word, both of us frightened by the voice in the darkness. I left the bis before Albert and ran home, constantly checking over my shoulder in fear. That evening at diner, I did not speak a word, but shovelled mashed potatoes into my clacking jaws. That voice will never leave me, the…evil inside it’s sound, like a voice from hell itself. That night a lay wide awake in my bed, scanning the room for demons and monsters of sorts. I eventually fell into a restless sleep, leaving the bedside light on. My dreams were haunted that night by visions of that old sign, dark creatures that prowled in the corner of my room, waiting to feast, and the voice of which had come from the darkness. That sick, twisted, hell born voice.
Chapter 3: The incident (part 1)
The following day, still shaken, I woke with a start after my trouble dreams. Making my way downstairs, I felt cold. Not just cold, the normal chilly cold but an unnatural cold, almost a feeling like there was someone behind me, watching me, following me, closely.
After a breakfast of burnt scrambled eggs and getting dressed into an old shirt and trousers that only went down to the top of my ankles, I made my way downstairs and walked to the bus stop. On the bus I saw Albert near the back, with his head down, hood over his head. I walked over and sat down.
We sat in silence for a while before I started a conversation of sorts.
“How did you know that place?”
After a while of silence, he spoke quietly.
“It’s always been a local legend, I always thought it would be a hoax like bigfoot or some shit like that but seeing it there….”
“What legend?” I asked.
“Rumour goes that it used to be a play place for kids back in the seventies, you know slides, swings, ball pits…It was made by some guy who owned a cabin in those woods and decided to just make a playground of the area. It was popular for a while until in em ’95 I think it was when the incident happened.”
“What incident” I pressed on.
“There was a kid called erm Timothy who one day went down a slide there into a ball pit and just…poof!” He sighed, making a gesture with his hand.
“Poof?” I asked.
“Poof, he just disappeared, gone. Police emptied the ball pit and not a trace of him, just disappeared into thin air. With no other explanation, the case turned cold and was discarded…”
“Damn” I whispered.
“Yeah” He said, “damn”
After returning home from school that day I went on my phone and began to scour the internet for this Uncle Gerry’s family fun zone. Not a trace. Not on any search engine, not safari, google. I checked reddit posts, newspapers, nada. I scoured tik tok and YouTube, not a trace either. It was like the place never existed, a ghost in its existence. Resorting to last chance, I texted Squirt back home to see if he knew anything since he was an expert on this town being cursed.
That night again was a restless, unsettling sleep.
Chapter 4: The incident (part 2)
In the morning I checked my phone for an answer from Squirt. 2 notifications. One from Squirt simply read: ‘na’, but it was the other one that caught me attention. An unknown number, plain black profile pic, no groups in common. This message was more sinister reading: “Don’t ask questions”. Who was this from, how did they get my number? How did they know about that place when none other than me and Albert did. A chill ran down my spine, I didn’t feel safe. I was being watched, that much I knew. Another notification, same unknown number, a picture. A picture of…
I gasped, it was a picture  of me and Albert at the sign, just before the rock had been thrown, the picture was taken from behind the sign, right from where the rock was thrown, right where that voice had come from. Whoever this was that had texted me, was  one who told us to leave. He knew about the fun zone.
‘Who are you?’ I texted back only to be met with an instant reply, of sorts. My phone sort of vibrated and the screen just went dark. I tapped it urgently, thinking I might have run out of battery. All of a sudden, the phone switched back on, and after using face ID to get in, I checked the Person’s messages. But, they weren’t there. The number had vanished, not into archived chats, not on blocked, not on past numbers, it was gone.
That day at school, I asked around for the fun zone, wondering if anybody else knew of it, only to be met with blank faces. I even resorted to asking some teachers, since they would have been around when the incident happened, nothing from them either, it was like it never existed. It was again that a strange thing happened at lunch. After receiving a pile of lumpy mashed potatoes, and some half raw sausages, making my way over to a table, someone bumped shoulders with me and left, at the time, I hadn’t realised what had happened. So sitting down, I slowly made my way through the slop, gagging as I went. I think it is also worth mentioning that Albert was no where to be seen today, I had assumed he was just sick or something, or maybe something else had happened…
It was at this point that it happened. I coughed with my mouthful of potatoes to take a strip of paper that had been inside the mash. I took it out of my mouth and wiped the potatoes off to reveal a not written in red:
‘I told you not to ask questions if you value your life, now you pay, don’t worry, this will only be a minor warning, nothing serious, provided you stay silent.’
My blood ran cold with the message, the same person who had texted me was here, today. I quickly scanned the room, the lunch Ladys maybe, who else could of put the note in the potatoes. I checked the room again to see if anyone was looking at me, seeing if I got their note. No-one. The world began to spin, I felt dizzy, up was down and down was up. Was this their ‘minor warning’? Spinning, round and round and round and…
I woke up to a blurry view of a white ceiling. The floor was soft underneath. Silence.
“Look like you woken up then” Came the groggy voice of a nurse. Wait…a nurse. Oh God I was in the school medical bay.
“Wat ‘appened…” I asked, still with blurry vision.
“You just passed out, don’t really know why.” They replied.
The consequences…This is what the mystery person warned me of. But how, how had they a) got my number b) vanished on my phone c) put the note in my food and d) lace my food with something to make me pass out. Questions, so many questions…
Chapter 5: Finding the Suspect:
The next morning questions still buzzed in my head, who had texted me and poisoned my food. What did they have against me? I needed to find out. So after convincing my parents I was feeling fine, I made my way off to school. Still no sign of Albert. The entire bus ride I kept my head down and just listened to conversations. Nothing overly interesting came up. I was still on naught. At school I surveyed everyone during class, seeing if anyone was watching me, still not a sign. It was like I was invisible. I checked my locker for notes, signs anything. I did get hit by a particularly hard tackle in football from Kevin, but I guess that’s just a dickhead being a standard dickhead. I tried to shadow people, where they went, who they talked to. No suspicious activity in the slightest. However near the end of the day I found something, remember Brittany from music? Constantly watching me, following me! Something was definitely up. I tried to shake her off by ducking into a crowd and round a corner. By the time I had escaped the crowd, I turned back my head, she was still following. Something was definitely up. Then she called my name as I swore under my breath and expecting a death threat like the notes had given, sighed.
“I know you’re interested?”
“Interested?” I asked, was she talking about the fun zone or finding out the truth.
“Yes, so yes?”  She asked.
Yes? What on earth was she talking about?
“Yes?” I asked quizzically.
“Great! See you Friday!” She said, not at all picking up the hint that I didn't have a clue what she was going on about.
I gave a weak smile and walked off, wondering what the hell that was about. And that’s when I saw it, almost as chilling as the voice at the fun zone had been: a poster on the wall, advertising ‘The summer dance’ and underneath the caption, ‘Bring that special someone for the dance this Friday!’. Friday… Brittany didn't know shit about my stalker or the fun zone, she was asking me to a goddamn dance. I swore heavily, this was great, just absolutely, fantastically great. Shit….
I then took a trip to the next lesson which was history, boring as always before being handed a flyer to a party, a party down at the lake in the woods. This could be the chance, people would be loose and their guard would be down, there, I could find out who was stalking me.
Chapter 6: The lake
On the day of the party it was boiling hot like a fucking sauna. Once arriving at the lake there were a number of questionable things that caught my eye. First of all, kegs of beer and cans lying scattered on the floor. Well underage drinking was a start, loosen peoples lips to get them to blurt out the truth. The other thing was a peculiar smell that drifted around the air. Weed, they really outdid theirselves in illegal activity for the party. For a while I just stayed on the land, watching and listening for conversations of interest. Nothing apart from things like ‘so and so is doing so and so behind so and so’s back and also doing so and so on the back’. Teenage shit like that. I was still no closer to finding out the culprit. On multiple occasions I was offered a drink or a joint. I turned them down of course. Didn't want to get in deeper shot with my parents after the fire. After a while of staring at the people leaping into the lake like madmen or jumping from trees on the river bank into dangerously shallow water, I swore as I saw Brittany coming out of the water. She had seen me. I tried to hide and blend in but it was too late.
“Come in the water!” She shouted, waving at me.
Fuck.
“Maybe in a minute!” I shouted back, nervously.
“No come on!”
She came over and literally dragged me into the water.
“Nice and warm right?” She asked.
“Yeah…” I said, “I’ll be back”
“Oh okay” She sighed as I swam off. I mingled in and out of groups, trying to pick up any relevant gossip. Nothing. A couple of people had brought inflatable animals and were either floating on them or crawling on them, trying to capsize them and take the boat for their own. At one point, I was nearly drowned when a large, bulky kid came flying off an inflatable like a fucking rocket and landed on my head giving me a sore headache after. I swore and tried to swim back to the shore before I was cornered by Brittany again. I swore under my breath again, why wouldn’t she leave me alone?!
“Hey,” She sighed flicked her hair back.
Every urge told me just to swim away but I was cornered.
“Hi…” I said awkwardly.
“I have something for you…”
Oh shit… She closed her eyes and began to move her lips forward, I tried to swim backwards but there was no where to go. Then suddenly, as if God had intervened or Satan maybe, a blood chilling scream echoed from near the shore. Brittany recoiled as we all turned our heads. Even the warm water seemed to turn cold for a second. On the shore, was a body lying face down in the sand. Lifeless and completely dead. We all quickly swam back to the shore and crowded around it.
“Shit” I muttered.
“What do we do?” Asked one kid.
“Call the police?” Suggested another.
“With all this alcohol and weed around, na man” Came another shaky voice.
“Look, Mikey brought all that shit. Mickey, go take this back. When it’s gone we’ll call the cops”
And so some older kid called Mickey started collecting up the weed and the beer and the rest of them started burying empty beer cans in the mud. Meanwhile, I stood against a tree, surveying the scene, not wanting to get anymore involved than I already was. I still listened in on conversations, still not getting anything useful. My mind was racing at the same time as well. A stalker sends me death threats if I try to find them and when I do, a dead body washes up on the shore of the lake. It had to be connected, meaning the stalker, was at the party. Making sure no-one was looking, I made my way to the body and knelt down by it’s side as I began to search their pockets for something like a note or a sign of warning from the stalker. Nothing. I was about to stand up and go back to the tree when something grabbed my shirt. A cold, wet hand. I turned to the body as it tightened it’s grip on my shirt before sitting up and putting its mouth to my ear.
“I told you not to attempt to find me, look at what you have done” It whispered in my ear before falling back to the floor in a heap.
I suddenly leapt up in a panic like a madman as everyone turned their heads.
“He, he spoke! He – he….” I cried, pointing to the body.
Everyone sighed and went back to their work, ignoring me completely. I knew I wasn’t going mad, the corpse had spoken to me. I turned back to look at it again, it was lifeless.
After about an hour, all signs of the beer and weed were gone and we called the police.
“Look” Said an older kid, “We keep our stories the same, we were all here having a little cool off in the lake when we found the body on the shore. What the police don’t know about the Alcohol and Weed won’t hurt them”
 The police arrived rapidly and cornered off the body, taking pictures of the scene, as we were broken off into little groups for questioning. I rigidly stuck to the same story we were told to tell. No inconsistency if we all said the same thing. After about a couple of hours we were all allowed to go home and leave the rest of the work to the cops.
Upon getting home, my parents were naturally relieved I was alright and questioned what we were doing there. I stuck to the story and before long I was upstairs and asleep.
Chapter 7: The dance
And so the days went on as the local news raved over the dead kid. It had eventually been ruled out that he had got his foot trapped in a bunch of algae and had drowned, but I knew different. This was the stalker’s work. And I needed to find out who they were before they could strike again. So, the days went by and Friday dragged closer. I felt nervous and also exited at the same time. The culprit had to be from the school and would no doubtably be at the dance, watching me. This was my chance. And so finally, Friday arrived, and not wanting my parents to get the wrong idea with Brittany and all that, I snuck out in a pair of jeans and an old polo shirt. Not exactly the most impressive costume for prom but girls were the lowest of my priority chart at the moment. And so I made my way to the school in my nike trainers and odd socks. Upon arriving, I was given odd looks from all directions as I casually got a cup of punch from the bowl. I sipped it slowly first, tasting for it being spiked, who knew how far this stalker would go. I eventually drank it, satisfied it was alright and began to scout the gym. When I couldn’t see them I tried to bait them by asking people about the fun zone, seeing if the stalker would intervene.
“Ever heard of a place called Uncle Gerrys…” I was interrupted by a cough.
I turned around to find Brittany behind me. Oh fuck.
“Hi,” She said oddly, looking at my odd apparel.
I tried to look around for an excuse to leave. It was obvious the stalker wasn’t taking the bait. Then, at the worst possible time, the music changed to a slow dance. Fuck…
“Wanna dance?” She asked.
My whole body was screaming just to run away but how could I just drop her like that. And before I could say no, I was already swaying side to side like a stiff wooden board. I tried to think of some excuse to run but my mind was blank. Maybe some other time she could have been attractive but now I could hardly notice it with everything else that was taking place. I needed to go. And then, as if by godsend, something happened. It was for only a brief second that I saw him. A tall kid with curly brown hair staring at me from the punch bowl table. Even though it was less  than a second and I had never heard him speak or had any sensible evidence against him, I somehow knew that was him, that was the stalker. It was like some sixth sense in me that knew that was my murderous follower. And in that brief second I saw him, I also somehow knew that he had seen me. I quickly broke away from Brittany and tore through the crowd with a lot of unhappy shouts as I went. It took him longer to react than I as he suddenly realised and made for a sprint. And I was close, so close I could practically feel his shirt when he turned his head back, swung his arm out to the side and toppled the punch bowl over. It came crashing into the floor, shattering and spilling everywhere and just before I could grab him. My feet slipped from under me as I went flying to the floor. I tried to pick myself up as quick as possible and looked around. But it was already too late, he was gone from sight.
“Hey sorry man!” Said a short kid by the punch bowl.
“For what?” I muttered angrily.
“For knocking over the punch bowl…” He said, confused why I was asking.
“No but it was him, that kid with the curly brown hair, he stuck his hand out and knocked it over not you!” I explained.
“Did you hit your head or something?” He asked, concerned.
“No, why?” I asked.
“There was no-one else but me at the punch bowl. I never saw a curly haired kid.”
My mind started racing. Who was this person who could move unseen in plain sight. Who the hell was this person, if he was a person at all…
Chapter 8: Fatherly advice.
After the disastrous night at the dance, it was Saturday and I was prepared just to slump on the sofa and binge watch some random shit on Netflix. That was before my father caught me. His real name was James and he was 38. He was about an average height with wavy brown hair. That is one good thing I did get from him. He’d dropped out of school as a kid and decided the army was pretty much his only option. He’d dropped out after I was born and started a career with the police and still is, now a Sergeant.
“Got any plans today?” He asked.
“No…” I said slowly.
“Wanna go fishing?” He asked.
And there it was. My father hated fishing, always had. At that point I would of bet my entire savings that my dear sweet mother had put him up to this. Obviously over concerned about my mental health or some shit like that after the incident at the lake.
“Did Mom put you up to this?” I asked.
“Yes” he sighed, “She wanted us to…bond…”
I couldn’t help but let out a laugh that came out more like a snort.
“Wanna do something else instead?” I asked.
“Like what?” He replied.
“I dunno, I did a little research and there’s an archery range couple of miles out in the outskirts of town?” I said, knowing my Dad didn’t like archery either.
“Fine” he said.
“But, you don’t like archery…”
“Anything to stop your mother shouting at me for not spending enough time with you”
I laughed. She could be scary sometimes.
“I dunno, anything on at the cinema? Where even is the cinema here?” I asked.
“I think it’s down Cross street in the town centre. Buy tickets for what ever looks good when we get there?” He suggested.
I mean I was planning to watch TV anyway, so this was just that without incurring the wrath of the mother.
And so we went down, got tickets to Avatar 3, which to be fair I had already seen with Squirt back in Rosebury, but I didn’t mention that. It was on the way back, things got interesting.
“So, in all seriousness” my Dad sighed, “How are you doing, I mean I’ve been so busy lately, I’ve hardly had any time to talk to you.”
“About what?” I asked.
“I dunno, fatherly…stuff. Like erm…How’s school going? Got any friends, girl… friends?”
I looked at him like he had suggested that I eat my own hand or something.
“Okay fine,” he said, “Any normal friends?”
“I dunno I have Squirt..”
“Come on” He said, “You know I’m talking about friends here”
I sighed.
“I dunno, I guess I’m kinda friends with Albert…Albert Lewis. But he’s been absent for like days now so I don’t know exactly what happened to him”
My dad nodded and after a while longer of driving, he spoke again.
“Look, I know your mother is making what is probably a big deal out of nothing but I just want to make sure you’re alright, you know with… everything. Moving places and now this whole drowned student, "
"Yeah I'm fine,” I muttered.
“Listen” He said, “You ever need to talk about anything, anything at all, I’m right here okay?”
I just nodded in reply as we sped home.
Chapter 9: That Night
That night, I went to sleep as I normally would, nothing strange about it. I heaved the wooden door shut, drew the curtains and being so tired fell into bed with my clothes on. I thought about changing but couldn’t be bothered and soon enough, I was asleep, my mind dissolving into it’s own darkness. I started off the night with strange dreams of the fun zone and swirling images of the stalker at the dance and the body on the lake. I tried to wake from the dream but all to strong was sleep’s grasp as it pulled me in deeper into the darkness. The second this phase of the dream started, I knew something was strange, more odd about this dream than every other dream I had had before. For starters, I felt awake, like I was actually there. When I bit my lip, I felt pain, I felt my steps underneath me, I could feel the air in this place. All around was a barren, rocky desert with a rolling landscape of small mountains. Cracks ran through the rock like vines growing over an abandoned building. In the sky, were large floating rocks, like mountains. If you’ve ever watched Avatar, you will know what I mean. But there was no greenery, only barren rock. The sky was blood red with black clouds gathering across the sky. Thunder rumbled and echoed strangely between the floating rocks like in a tunnel. There were other strange things in the sky, floating around with the mountains. Memories. The Uncle Gerry’s sign, my new house, the fiberglass animals from the fun zone, and the dead body from the lake. All memories floating around in the sky. And then came the last strange thing for now, like it had been at the fun zone, the weird black goo covered everything; the ground, the mountains and the memories. All covered in the weird, living, breathing black goo. I looked around, trying to take in all the surroundings. Nothing other than what I had seen before. And so I began to trek through the land, trying to pass time until I woke up. Nothing changed as I walked, the landscape remained moderately the same, flatland rock with only small hills. After a while, I sat down on a small hill. Finding a small section that was not covered by the black goo. It breathed around me, moving up and down, as air came in and blew out of it. It was like an infection almost. I suddenly cried out as I fell backwards, as the black goo rose up and wrapped around my limbs before pulling me to the ground and restraining me there. After thudding on the floor I let out a choked cry as the black goo also took a tight grip around my neck. Cutting off my air. And I felt it, I felt the thud as I fell to the flood and I felt my aid supply dwindle and fade like a dying candle. I tried to move but the goo kept me in place. And suddenly, from the end of my feet, more black goo rose up forming what looked like a vine. And then it sprung. It leaped forwards and began flooding into my face, into my mind. Infecting it and destroying it. I now could not move anything, I was stuck. It was at that moment that I saw myself, the image came from my bedroom door as I saw myself lying on my back, deep in sleep.
“Wake up!” I thought, since I could not speak.
And yet my body did not, could not obey. The power of that goo was too strong. My vision started to blur as the corner of my eyes turned dark. Death was closing in.And that was when it came. As if by a Godsend, the goo retreated back to the floor like a carpet. The light flashed blue for a moment before changing it’s natural red, too a sickly green. Not wanting to waste a second of this miracle, I sprinted off, not knowing where I would run. And then I stopped as fear entered my bloodstream, a feeling I was becoming all too familiar with. The body found at the lake suddenly dropped from the sky and landed at my feet, face down. I halted in shock as I stared at the body with curiosity. Then it rose. The body rose from the ground and stood up, bones cracking as it did. But the most horrifying part was it’s face; there was no face. What face there could have been was covered by a mask of skin. I stumbled back in fear before falling into the bed of black goo as it ran over my face and pulled me down into the darkness.
I woke with a start in my house, I expected to be in my bed and the whole thing over, but all too soon I realised I was still in that twisted dream. I was in a basement, the new house’s basement, but rather than looking abandoned and derelict like it should do, it looked…different. All around were lab tables and glasses of chemicals with countless tubes and bunsen burners on the tables. I tried to look around but could not. The body was not my own. The body moved only when it wanted too. It was…experimenting with things. Burning and stirring when all of a sudden I could smell something…smoke.
“What have they done?!” I thought, but those thoughts weren’t my own, they were this body’s which I was inhabiting.
I sprinted upstairs, pulled open the door only to be met with the house burning fiercely and a burning wooden plank falling at my feet. I tried to run back down to the basement but my shirt was caught on something. I tried to move but it was too late and the ceiling came crashing down as all went black.
But I was not free yet. I saw the house being rebuilt, then a pool of blood and a..a…body. I saw the house again and then…I walked in the door. I was currently under the staircase watching as my past self rolled into the house, and I saw myself go upstairs, and then I was in my room. I was pulling the covers off the bed every-time past me made them. I was barring the door shut and then I went in. I can’t describe it beyond that. I just went into past me. Into my mind. And I made past me see things, the fun zone, and…and… And before I knew it, another vision came. This one however was not past, like the basement or present like the fun zone, this was future. I saw the ground breaking and black smoke rising into the sky, a blanket of darkness. And the last vision came. A narrow corridor with flashing lights above. Blood stained walls. I knew at that moment I was back in my own body, but the other one was still there, and he was trying to scare me. That time I had been in his body, I knew he was trying to scare me, to loosen my mind, but why, I could not say. And there came the scare. Another one of those faceless people at the end of the corridor but with small eyes and a smile carved into the face, dripping with blood. And then came the goo, one last time. Dragging me down as I awoke in my bed, dripping with sweat. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t the stalker. Maybe the stalker wasn’t an enemy, maybe it was trying to protect me from the thing that is inside me.
 
Chapter 10: A voice in the TV
Come Wednesday,, I was tired over thinking about the stalker and the dream day and night and had managed to wiggle myself out of a day of school faking a cold. My parents both had to work, my Mum moved into a job at a hospital and my dad had to go for a few days for a business thing, and my brother was at daycare, so I was home alone. I still had a smaller appetite than usual so just got a banana for breakfast. I would of texted Albert but realised I never got his number.
I was about to turn off my phone when another text came through. I was thinking it would be some new threatening message from the stalker, but no. It simply read this.
‘Hey, this is Brittany, hope you’re okay after the dance?’
I sighed and sent her straight to archived chats. I really couldn’t be bothered today.
After a few hours of mindlessly scrolling through Tv channels something odd happened. All of a sudden, during an episode of the Simpsons , the TV went to static. I fiddled around with the remote and when I tried turning it off and on again, it didn't turn off. Suddenly, A sound other than the static came out of the TV, like...breathing. It was panting, like someone who had just finished cross country running. I leapt back in my chair in shock when amongst the static, two black handprints emerged at the screen, slamming on the screen as if trying to escape the TV.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to un-see the vision of the screen.
“Help!” It cried in a deep, distorted voice.
“It’s coming!”
I leapt out of my chair and knelt by the TV trying to fiddle with the remote and bang on the TV. None of the remote buttons worked, the TV wouldn’t even switch off.
“Alfie, I’m scared help! Oh God, it’s here! Run Alfie RUN!”
Oh God, suddenly I recognised the voice; it was Albert. How he had got there I did not know. Neither did I know where he was. What had happened? Was this the work of the stalker.
“How do I find you, where are you? Albert talk to me! ALBERT!” I cried.
No reply came from behind the screen, and then a roar. Like a beast of nightmares rising from the grave. It hissed and shrieked, and though I could not see it I knew that it hungered, hungered for blood. My blood ran cold as the whole room seemed to go dark and descend into shadow before suddenly, there was light. Every single light in the house began rapidly flickering before their glass bulbs exploded, shattering glass everywhere like rain.
“ALBERT!” I shouted, banging on the screen, fear rising like water in a flooding room.
The only reply was a sound that would forever haunt me. A scream so primal that I could taste the fear in my blood. That scream so shrill and scared, so haunting and disturbing, a sound that could only be made by someone in absolute fear that they are about to die. At that point, any light that hadn't already exploded burst as the small chandelier in the lounge swayed side to side before dropping to the floor, nearly hitting Alfie on the head.
Fear pounding through my veins, causing my minds primal instincts to unleash. He was behind the screen. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a heavy wooden rolling pin and proceeded to smash the glass of the TV, he was there behind it, he had to be. The scream continued as I demolished the screen.
Silence. The screaming had stopped. The glass fell to the floor as all calmed. All was quiet. The TV was empty, there was no-one there, just an empty box of wires and other electronics.
But all to soon it was back. The dreadful, animalistic screech of fear. The drawers in the kitchen began to open and close, the sound of rapid knocking began to echo from the door, the ground shook and a hand began to reach out from behind the wall of the living room behind the smashed TV, stretching the wallpaper like a fly trying to break free from a spider’s web.
“ALBERT!” I cried, trying to grab his hand and pull him from the wall. But something was odd. The hand was huge with long, spindly fingers and nails more like claws than nails. It was also cold and clammy as it gripped my hand back, trying to pull me into the confines of the wall.
“No...” Came the reply, raspy and raw.
This wasn’t Albert, not anymore, something else was behind the wall. I tried to pull my hand back but the creature’s grasp held strong, it’s claws piercing my skin. I let out a chocked cry before, with my other hand hitting the creature behind the wall with the rolling pin. It recoiled it’s grasp quickly before disappearing back into the wall. I continued to beat the wall with the pin, but it was to no use, the creature had gone, and Albert with it.
I fell to the floor in a weeping mess. He was gone, it had found him. Squirt was right, this town was cursed, but now I realised that their was a bigger picture to all of this. The stalker, the fun zone in the woods and the creature in the walls, something was happening that was beyond comprehension of the normal. Strange forces were at work. And I also could feel the creature, not fully but little parts, and I knew that it was coming, not just for me, but for everyone, no-one was safe.
Only one thing remained, the knocking at the door. My parents were home, what was I going to tell them?
Chapter 10: Diaries and days
Thursday 1st of June, 2026          
Dear diary,
I don’t get why they are keeping me here. Is it to ‘fix’ me or something like that, I don’t know. Or am I just a lab rat for them to look at and observe. “Look at that folks, a broken child with troubled fantasies of monsters in the walls, make notes and watch closely people...”. They treat me like a goddamn lunatic, kept here in this white room with padded walls, food passed through on plastic trays through a hatch in the door like some zoo animal. Just they wait, they’ll see I’m not insane when it comes for them and their families.
Goodbye diary.
I studied the place. It was more like a prison than a hospital. Cameras in all four corners of the room, watching monitoring. I was fed three times a day but unfortunately that was one thing that made it like a hospital, all the food was a slimy grey mush. The door suddenly swung open as a man in a blue suit stepped in closing the door quickly behind like I would try to escape, what was I? A rabid animal or something? At first, he said nothing and just walked in silently before taking a seat on the floor and gesturing for me to do the same. I hesitantly did so.
“Why are you here?” He asked.
I shrugged.
“I’m a certifiable lunatic!” I said sarcastically before making a bunch of over the top groaning sounds waving my head around.
“Your mind, it is broken Alfie”
“Yeah exactly!” I cried, acting crazier.
“This is serious Alfie, listen!”  Shouted the doctor as I held still.
“You are sick Alfie, your mind is telling you things are real when they are not, your mind is…broken. But we are here to fix that, but in order to do that, I need your cooperation as much as you need my help.”
I sat in silence.
Saturday 3rd June, 2026
Dear diary,
Saw my parents today. Well, from behind a plastic board using a phone to talk like a prison. My mother, weak as always started sobbing halfway through and had to leave. They tried to convince me it’s all to make me ‘better again’ and to be ‘normal like before’. I eventually left early, causing them to burst into tears after I told them I hated them and shouted at them that the creature would come for them. They will see, soon enough they will see. It will come for them all soon enough.
Goodbye diary.
Sunday 4th June, 2026
Dear diary,
Happy Birthday to me. What a great birthday it is, first day of extensive testing. Hours of mind numbing therapy. What do you see, two people or an hourglass, how the fuck should I know bitch! How is this meant to fix me? I’ve had some bad birthdays over the years but this is by far the worst. They gave me a shit load of needles too, withdrawing blood or putting some chemical shit in, about four needles the day so far. Apart from tests, I just sit and stare at the blank wall, though solitary can get lonely, it certainly gives a man time to think. Solitary unlocks the imagination.
Monday 5th June, 2026
Dear diary,
I hear it, swirling like a storm in my head. What was that quote from Macbeth? Ah, ‘my mind is full of scorpions’. I have heard the creature, it has called me, beckoning me, warning me, inviting me. It is trying to control me. I can’t let it, I must fight and stay strong. I have been haunted by memories too, the screaming from the TV, the voice in the darkness at the fun zone. Memories, swirling round and round. My mind is indeed scorpions my dears, and they like to sting.
Sunday 11th  June, 2026
Dear diary,
I am out of solidarity now after it came back. It’s best if I describe the events from Tuesday night onwards. I was about to sit down and write to you diary when it came. Like before it reached it’s claws out of the walls, reaching for me. Voices came from the speakers, the staff. They could see I was distressed.
“You’re seeing that creature aren’t you Alfie, it’s not real, just ignore it and it will go away, it’s not real, it’s all in your head”
And I tried, I really did, but it wouldn’t go, it reached further out of the wall and stepped into the room. It’s figures disproportionate and shadowy black, no facial features other than an oval shaped head, like a walking shadow. It came and I tried to get rid of it from my mind, but it still came. Was it real, or was it my sick, twisted mind, was the creature going to tear my flesh or was it just my mind. Because if you can’t determine what is real and what isn’t, how can you know if anything is real?
Seeing it advancing towards me and unsure of my minds possible deception I put my hands to by eyes and tried to dig out my eyes with my nails, if my eyes were gone then so would it. I tried to leave my distorted vision behind but they stopped me. The last thing I saw was the creature looking at me, a smile somehow on it’s featureless face as I was thrown to the ground as all turned black. For days I was confined to a straitjacket, my mind slowly becoming madder and more sick. The creature visited me often, never doing anything, only watching. It just stood there as I fell to the floor and prayed for God to either take it away or take…me away. Eventually, I came out of solitary, but the vision is not gone, as I write this, it watches me from the corner of the room. It does not seek to harm me yet, but it will, it’s studying me almost, eyeing me up like a predator to its prey. The doctors say there is an 'experimental’ treatment to heal my broken mind, but will it end, will it heal my broken mind and end the vision or will it fail and reveal I was right all along and it was really real, the answers lie in tomorrow.
Chapter 11: Experimental procedure
James and Susan watched the security camera for Alfie’s room. Watching as he jotted down scribbly diary entries, and every now and again looked up to the corner of the room, as if he was actually seeing something there.
“What is wrong with him?” Sobbed Susan.
“His mind is broken, he is seeing and believing things that are not real” stated the doctor.
“Then how do we fix his mind?” Asked Susan.
“We don’t know…” started the doctor.
“You don’t know? Bitch, my son is broken, he is gone! I want my boy back so don’t you give me that shit of ‘there is nothing to do’ because you and I both know there is” Susan cried.
They stood in silence for a minute.
“There is something… But it’s new, experimental. It probably won’t…”
“Tell. Me” Demanded Susan.
“There is something we can do that can piece back together his mind. But the side effects could be deadly, they could…”
“Will it fix him?” Questioned Susan.
“Most likely but the side effects could have disastrous consequences for his physical and mental…”
“Then do it!” Interrupted Susan.
“But it could…”
“No. I want my boy back, do it!” Demanded Susan.
The doctor turned to the screen as his eyes widened in shock. In the screen was Alfie falling to his knees and trying to scrape his eyes out with his nails. The doctor pulled a radio out of his jacket pocket.
“Code 7 in room 646!” He shouted rushing out into the corridor and pulling open Alfie’s room door. He ran to him and grabbed his hands and placed them behind his back as Alfie roared in pain.
           *** 
Alfie’s unconscious body lay limp on the white operating table as four masked doctors surrounded him with sharp, intimidating operating tools. Susan, James and the doctor watched from behind the glass on the other side of the wall.
“Are you sure?” Asked the doctor cautiously.
Susan nodded silently. The doctor sighed an presses down on an intercom button.
“Commence operation” He sighed.
The doctors on the other side nodded before starting a loud buzzing drill. James and Susan left the room soon after.
Chapter 13: Much Better
 
Monday 12th June, 2026
Dear diary,
The treatment is over now and I am feeling much better, much much better. I can hardly remember why I was here in the first place. I hope to return to school soon and go back to live in that wonderful town. I hope to make some friends at school since I forgot to find friends before. I also met my parents after, they said something about a smashed TV, no idea what they are talking about, anyway, tomorrow I’ll be home.
Tuesday 13th June, 2026
Dear diary,
After returning home I was allowed to return to school, I am so thankful for the doctor’s help. On the bus I joined in with a peculiar game of baseball with a bottle and a rubber and at school I met a girl called Brittany in music class who’s violin playing is delightful. She is much more talented at music than I. Though she does talk of strange things about a dance and a party at a lake. Today was delightful but another peculiar thing did happen after school today, my parents asked me to invite a friend of mine round for dinner, apparently I had talked about him before the incident, someone called Albert, it’s strange, I don’t remember knowing anyone called Albert, they must be losing their minds or something, early dementia maybe…
Wednesday 14th June, 2026
Dear diary,
 Things are getting weird, everyone keeps saying we’re in a place called Derrington and not Rosebury, it’s like everyone is losing their minds but me! I also saw something too, it might have been a dream but I can swear that for a couple of seconds, I suddenly saw the house burning, before changing back to normal. And the strangest thing, the memory seems almost familiar…
Thursday 15th June, 2026
Dear diary,
I’m scared, the people at school have all changed , there is not Squirt or anyone! They have all changed. It’s like this dimension is bleeding in with another and only I can remember what used to be. God, please guide me and put everything back to the way it used to be! My home has changed. The lab in the basement is gone, if the locals have done anything too it then once again thanking Macbeth for a quote; “Stars, hide your fires, let light not see my black and deep desires!”
Friday 16th June, 2026
Dear diary,
Please don’t let them find me. I came home today to find two random people in my house claiming to be my parents. They aren’t like my parents at all, I don’t know what their game is, whether to kidnap me or what but things are changing…
Diary! I remember, the creature! The monster and Albert! Is this all one of the creature’s games?! Changing my parents, changing the town, changing my school friends, changing the home I live in.
I have to escape and run away where it can never find me I have to hide!
 
Chapter 14: A brief interlude
I will now briefly interrupt this tale with a bit of insight. Previously I have given you adapted diary entries from Alfie and some diary entries that were necessary to be kept in their original form. However, from this point onwards, Alfie’s diary ends. There are no further entries that can be salvaged from the ruins. The rest of this tale will therefore have to be told from my point of view and not from Alfie’s. Following information may be distorted due to it coming from secondary sources that were not always present at certain points in this tale. Deepest apologies…
 
Chapter 15: Why?
Alfie leapt from his window landing awkwardly on his garage roof before leaping down to the driveway and best trying to disguise the sound of his footsteps on the crunching gravel, made his way out and into the woods on the opposite side of the road. He raced through, not knowing which way was which, heart pounding as darkness settled on the forest like a blanket. Mist snaked through the moss covered trees, closing and enveloping all life. Though he could not see anything, he had this sinking feeling in his stomach that someone, something was following him, he did not look back to find out. After tripping over multiple roots and scraping his exposed skin on thorns and nettles he saw a light. Only a dim light but a light none the less He raced towards it and came out in a small clearing in the woods. The light was coming from a small fire in the centre and three small tents were positioned around it. By the fire were three people, facing away from him.
“Please help me I…” Started Alfie.
But he stopped as his desperate expression turned to one of fear. The people turned their head around to face Alfie but the sight was all to familiar. None of them had any faces, like the one in Alfie’s dream earlier on.
Alfie cried out in fear and with a natural fighting instinct kicking in, he drew a sharp pole in the ground holding up the tent out and charged at the three creatures. He stabbed one straight up through the chest. Another came at him with a tackle almost, throwing him to the floor, luckily he got up quickly and stabbed that one in the face. He raced towards the last one before stopping. Suddenly he could see their faces, the one he got in the face was a large middle aged man, the first one was a girl around his age. He collapsed to the floor in tears as he realised who it was; it was Brittany. He had a sudden remembrance of times he had forgotten with her. Though he didn’t really like her, she still had done nothing to deserve to die, he had killed two innocent people, a girl and presumably her father. He dropped the tent pole from his shaking hand as he looked to the last one, presumably Brittany’s mother.
“Forget my face” He whispered shakily before running back off further into the forest, where he could not be found.
 
Chapter 16:  Back to the fun zone
Alfie raced through the undergrowth, heart pounding like it would leap out of his chest. He had just killed two people, what had he done?. His mind was cracked, pieces flying in complete disorder. He couldn’t tell up from down, left from right, everywhere was darkness. The only sense he could rely on was touch, though he felt no pain as the anger at himself and sadness rushed through his bloodstream.  Without warning, the ground suddenly gave way under his feet as he went tumbling down to a hard landing.
“There you are!” Came a voice.
He looked around and there above him was none other than Albert.
“What? How?! You were taken by that…that…?!” Alfie stuttered, startled by his friend’s appearance.
“No time to explain! Lets move! It’s coming!” Cried Albert before tearing off into darkness.
Everything faded to black as fear entered Alfie’s blood. The Uncle Gerry’s sign towered over above his head like a looming shadow.
“Quick!” Shouted Albert, running into the abandoned play area.
Alfie picked himself up and sprinted into the darkness only to be met by a pair of glowing eyes. He stumbled backwards in shock and fear.. He sighed, realising it was a weird fibreglass sheep. He looked around to the the whole place littered with animals like it too, standing frozen, as if stuck. A strange black goo covered their bodies. It almost looked like it was breathing, it squelching up and down, little air bubbles forming in some gaps. He moved his finger towards it, about to feel it when a deafening roar echoed from the forest behind him.. Not wanting to get distracted and caught,  he ran on further into the darkening fun zone. All around were slides and swings and all that sort of playground stuff, all covered in that same black goo. Abandoned food carts lying on their sides with deflated balloons laying lifelessly by their sides.
“RUN!” Cried Albert, pointing behind Alfie.
Alfie turned and standing right behind him was the walking shadow, staring at him with it’s featureless face. Alfie let out an ungodly scream, as his feet pounded the earth. The creature followed the boys at a slow walking place.
“DOWN HERE!” Shouted Albert, diving into an empty ball pit and attempting to heave open a rusted trapdoor at the bottom, “HELP ME!”
Alfie dived down, nearly rolling his ankle, and helped heave open the door. The creature stepped down into the pit.
“DOWN DOWN DOWN GO GO GO!” Cried Albert as they leaped down into the darkness and slammed the door over their heads.
A light appeared in the darkness as Albert switched on his phone light to reveal a long crawlspace. They crawled like mad down the tunnel for a , swearing when they hit their heads on the roof. The smell of sulphur reeked as it drifted through the tunnel.
“SHIT!” Cried Alfie as he slammed his hands on a cold metal wall. The crawlspace lead no where.
He fumbled around, looking for a lever or a switch or something but there was nothing. It ended here.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP!
The creatures footsteps fell heavy and echoed loudly.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP!
They drew closer until they stopped. Alfie’s throat grew dry and Albert put his head in his knees. They both jumped and hit their head on the crawlspace ceiling as the trap was heaved open. The shadow slowly moved it’s head down into the crawlspace and stared at them. Utter silence. It watched them and studied like it had done before in the hospital.
“GO AWAY!” Alfie cried.
The silence held as the creature stared. Then it breathed. Not like a normal breath but a heavy breath that sent it’s body of shadow flying down the tunnel. Alfie and Albert closed their eyes as they thought they breathed their last when the ground below them gave way and they tumbled down into darkness. They hit the ground hard and stood up quickly. Albert retrieved his phone from the floor and shone it around. They were in a cave and the only exit was a small tunnel twisting out of view. Be shone the light upwards to see where they had come from. There was nothing but a solid stone roof. Alfie stepped forwards to be met with a sickening squelch.
“What was that?” He whispered, trying to stay as quiet as possible.
Albert whipped his phone round to the floor to find a body of a child on the floor, the chest ripped open and organs scattered about the room.
“Please tell me that’s not that child that disappeared ” Alfie groaned.
“I think it might be but that was back in the nineties, the body is too well preserved, the flesh is still intact!” Albert inspected as Alfie took his foot of the child’s intestines.
Their thoughts were cut of by an inhumane roar; the shadow.
“We need to go…” Alfie started but Albert was already a step ahead of him and was steaming down the tunnel.
Alfie followed as the rock above them started to rumble as dust fell to the ground, covering his eyes. The rumbling grew louder as he stumbled round corners and tripped over rocks. Moonlight suddenly graced his eyes as he fell to the ground on the grass. The once entrance to the cave which had served as their exit, suddenly collapsed as falling rock sealed it shut forevermore. But it was not over yet, fear reigned again when the shadow appeared on top of a hill further in the woods.
“Shit, shit, shit, go, go, go!” Alfie cried as it strode towards them. They ran up a hill, eventually reaching the main road.
“Where now?” Asked Alfie.
“Just keep running” replied Albert.
Chapter 17: Doctor Doctor
A knock at the door made Susan jump. She ran to it with her husband, James close behind.
“Thank God you’ve arrived” sighed Susan, opening the door.
At the door stood a man in a black suit with slicked back, receding brown hair.
“We came as quick as we could, now calm down and tell us what happened” He instructed.
“He came home and seemed scared, he looked at us like he didn’t know who we were. He nearly ran back out the door. He asked who we were and what we were doing here, he asked for his parents back! He didn’t know who we were, do you know what that’s like Doctor do you?! He didn’t know who his own mother was”
“Mrs Smith I know this is hard for you…” the Doctor calmed.
“No! You don’t know shit! My son has ran away and it’s your fault!” Susan weeped.
“Why do you think it’s my fault Mrs Smith”
“You and your little experimental test! You knew Jackshit about what it would do to my son and know look”
“We told you it was new and potentially dangerous but you insisted we went ahead, now he is out there lost and scared, not knowing his left from right because you insisted! Do you know what it did to him? It fractured his mind! When trying to eradicate his hallucinations it affected the rest of his brain too, it made him lose his memory of other things yes including who his parents were. Soon his mind will lose everything and he will die because he doesn’t know how to breath and there’s another problem too! Soon his mind will need something to hold him up and that’s when his hallucinations will return because when he is lost, he needs something to guide him and that is that sick twisted creature inside of his mind. Without control he will become dangerous to the public when his hallucinations turn dangerous, so will he and all because you insisted we flick that switch. Now god knows what you’ve done!”
Susan weeped in her arms.
“I just wanted my boy back” She sobbed.
“What do we do know?” Questioned James.
“We find him before it is too late, bring him back to the lab and put him in a coma, that will freeze the deterioration process until we know how to fix his broken mind”
“So you don’t know how to fix him?” Asked James.
“I told you that procedure was new, well so are the cures!” The doctors cried, “Do you have any idea where he might be?”
Susan shook her head in tears.
“Well that’s great, how long ago did he leave?” Asked the doctor.
“About an hour ago I think…” Said Susan.
“So he can’t of covered much ground. He’ll be in the woods most likely”
“But where? We can’t search the entire woods! How do we find him?” Asked James.
“We look as best we can” replied the Doctor.
Chapter 18:  It’s here
Alfie and Albert sprinted down the road, not a car in sight. Though they could not see it, they knew the monster was following closely from the protection of the woods.
“There!” Shouted Alfie, pointing to an SOS telephone. They sprinted into the lay-by and picked up the receiver dialling for the police.
“Why are you running?” Came a sinister voice.
“SHIT!” Alfie cried, slamming down the receiver.
“What?!” Asked Albert.
“JUST RUN!” Shouted Alfie steaming off again down the road.
His head buzzed with fear. The shadow was coming. Surroundings blurred as darkness was all that remained visible.
A heavenly light graced his eyes. A gas station. They sprinted over and ran inside. Fluorescent lights buzzed over head as the refrigerated aisles gave off a cooling breeze. An elderly cashier stood behind the counter, thick glasses on his eyes. He leaned over the counter, adjusting his glasses and stared at Alfie.
“Looking for help? None here” Came an unnatural voice out of the mans mouth. Lights over head began flickering as the ground shook, knocking packs of produce to the floor. The mans eyes slowly began to roll back into his head and turned milky white.
“Shit!” They cried.
“Where are you going?”
They ran down the aisles, eyes scanning the shelves for something, anything. The man came out from behind the counter and started following them down the aisles.
“Oh boys, why are you running?” It asked with a grin on it’s face. The man slowly began to morph into the shadow. The flickering lights suddenly began to burst, showering glass.
At last the boys found something, so armed with a pair of scissors and a hammer they charged at the beast as Alfie drove the scissors through it’s chest. It fell down to the ground and began to morph back into the old man.
“Is it dead?” Asked Albert.
“I don’t think so, we need to keep moving” Albert muttered
“Okay, let’s go”.
And off they ran back down the road.
 
                                     ***
The doctor stepped inside the grimy gas station, broken glass crunching under his boots. No cashier was behind the counter. The doctor turned down an aisle and gagged at the old man’s body lying on the floor, a pair of scissors driven through his chest.
“Oh God!” Chocked James.
“Remember what I said about the hallucinations becoming a threat?” The doctor pointed to the body, “Most likely he mistook the man for a threat, to him he could of looked like the creature in his mind and he killed him”
He suddenly whipped his head around to the door and crunched over the glass to the sliding doors. He got down on one knee and inspected the floor.
“Does your son have any friends here at the gas station?” The Doctor questioned.
“Not that I know of…why?” Asked James, confused.
“Because there is one set of muddy footprints coming in, and two coming out…”
 
Chapter 19: Reality disfunction
The Doctor’s van sped down the highway, looking for any sign of the boys.
The doctor sat in the back while one of his assistants drove.
“It can’t be, it simply can’t!” The doctor mumbled, head in hands.
“Mind sharing your thoughts with the rest of the class?” Asked James, agitated.
“No it can’t!”
“Eh?!”  Shouted James grabbing the Doctor by his collar.
“Never mind I…”
“Tell us” Fumed James, “If you know something about what is happening to our son I think we would both like to know!”
The doctor sighed.
“For years there been debates on the minds power, many say that humans are only capable of using about 10% of what they could with their mind. People say that if we could harness the rest we would be capable of extraordinary things…”
“This is starting sound less like science and more like magic doctor…” James started
“Just listen, you wanted to know…I believe that there is a small possibility here that this experimental conversion of his mind has unlocked some of that potential by shattering the wall of his memories that was holding it back. What if, he isn’t as crazy as we thought. What if he’s right?”
“What, we’re not his parents?” Asked Susan.
“No, that part was his memories which are gone. Before the procedure he was seeing things that weren’t real, he was glimpsing behind his memories into the unknown part of his mind but couldn’t access it. What if after the procedure he could and those hallucinations started to shift into reality? What if your so has found a way to change the reality of the world around him? You mentioned he was friends with someone called Albert Lewis over the phone. On the way to yours I did some research. There is no Albert Lewis at his school and never was. What if your sons friend was once but a hallucination but started to come into reality. What if he walked into that gas station with Alfie as a hallucination and walked out real?”
“Holy shit” Muttered James.
“Exactly, I think I might know where to find them. The mind can often fill things that are gone. When you moved house he lost all his friends so he invented this imaginary friend in his mind. It was all from the school, that’s where he would have gone. We need to get to the school”
“Wait, you said reality can alter through Alfie, what about that creature in his mind?” Susan trembled.
“I think we have to face a very real possibility that it is also either coming into reality, or already has…”
After a little bit longer of traveling they pulled into the school and ran out in search for the now two kids. They forced open the doors and switched on all the lights in the school and ran around like headless chickens screaming for Alfie and sometimes for Albert. After entering the woodwork classroom, the Doctor was stopped by Alfie with a rusty nail acting as a dagger in his hand. Both stared at each-other intensely.
“Back away!” Alfie shouted, waving the nail wildly.
“Alfie, I need you to try really hard to remember me. Think back to the lab think of…”
“Get back you bitch!” He shouted.
Suddenly out came Albert from behind a desk at the far end..
“By God…” He whispered, “Are you Albert?”
“How do you know who I am?”
“ I know you don’t trust me boys but I’m here to help.”
“How do I know you won’t kill us?” Alfie threatened, waving the nail around recklessly.
“You’re just going to have to trust me…”
Eventually, with some hesitation, the boys followed him out,  still wary, weapons in hand. They reached the van where Susan and James were waiting in the empty parking lot.
“Wait, those are the one’s who took my parents! Let me go! Let me go!” Cried Alfie as the Doctor reached and grabbed him. James also grabbed Albert as he tried to run.
“Get them in the car!” Shouted the doctor over their screaming before prising the weapons from their hands.
With struggle, they managed to throw them in the back and get inside themselves. The van driver sped off. The children tried to fight the Doctor and Alfie’s parents to little avail when they were grabbed and restrained by the Doctor. 
A thud echoed on the roof, as the children stopped screaming and looked up, eyes widening with fear.
“What was that?” Asked Susan, breathing heavily.
“I don’t…”
Another thud then a slam on the van doors. The van increased speed.  Another thud followed by the van doors flying open as the cold wind blew in.
“SHIT!” They all screamed or some variation of. The shadow, slowly moved it’s head down from on top of the roof and stared at them all. The lights in the back of the van began flickering, like every time the creature had appeared.  The doctor quickly reached under his seat and pulled open a hidden hatch.
The creature moved it’s arm down and began to reach for Alfie. The lights suddenly began to burst, scattering glass over the terrified group.
The Doctor pulled out a loaded syringe, and while guarding his face from showering glass,  stabbed Alfie in the arm with it. The shadow roared, a pained cry  and disappeared from sight as Alfie collapsed in the Doctor’s arms, body limp and unconscious.
“What did you do?!” Asked Susan looking at Alfie desperately.
“I turned off his mind, knocked him out temporarily. Since that creature originated from his mind, it still has a connection to it so therefore if I turn off his mind, the creature dies and disappears until he wakes again which also means that…”
He turned to look at where Albert once stood. He was gone as if he had never been there.
“Therefore proving my theory. However when this wears off, it will be back, and Albert too mind you.”
“How long does that thing last for?”
“On a normal person, a good couple of hours” He looked at Alfie, “Him, I’d give it half hour at most, at least until his mind starts working again. Based of normal observations, his body will stay shut down to preserve energy being used by his mind. Only his mind will be working”
“Is there any way to turns off his mind for longer?” Asked James, worried.
“No, once this wears off, his mind will put up defences against it or anything like it. There will be no way to stop him…”
“Then what do we do when his monster comes for us?!” Asked Susan.
“Do I look like an expert on this?! Everything I have told you so far is based off guesses and estimates, I am certain of nothing. I didn’t even believe this was possible until today so, I don’t know, I honestly don’t know… I say we head for the lab, security can call lockdown until we find a solution, until then, let’s hope the monsters still gone…”
“Hang on, will the monster harm Alfie because surely since it comes from his mind, it won’t kill him.” Asked James.
“No, if it kills Alfie, Alfie becomes part of it. His mind will be a part of that creature so it will still live, it will kill anyone…”
“But if this creature has come from his mind, why is it trying to kill us? Alfie would never do that!”
“You are right, he wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean he can’t. Everyone has the power to be the next Hannibal but they choose to resist the urge, breaking his mind will of released that part to that creature. So it will kill”
“Half an hour you say?” Susan questioned.
“At most” replied the doctor.
  Chapter 20: Lockdown
The van sped down the highway, rubber wheels squealing at every turn. Alfie still lay unconscious in the doctor’s arms as Susan and James looked at him worryingly. The doctor pulled out a radio from an inside pocket of his jacket.
“Base 1 come in over…” He sighed.
Static was the only reply.
“Base 1 come in over…” He asked, a little agitated.
Static again.
“Base 1 come in over… BASE 1 WHERE ARE YOU BASE 1 COME IN!” The doctor cried.
Still just static.
“Maybe they’re out for dinner?” Asked Susan.
“No, there’s always someone on radio control. I think… I think we’ve lost Base 1…” the doctor groaned.
“What? How?!” Asked James.
“I told you half hour was an estimate, it seems I was about twenty minutes out. His brain could here us, meaning the shadow knew where we were going so he destroyed it before we even had a chance to arrive!”
“Then where do we go?!” Asked Susan.
“There is a place but I can’t say it’s location because of…” He pointed to Alfie.
He rapped on the wall behind the driver.
“Base 1 is compromised, take us to Base 2” He hissed.
“Base 2?” Asked Susan.
“A secret lab owned by the government, like the area 51 of Derrington. Mostly all shit on searching for other life, well those chair jockeys are gonna be knocked off their asses when they see this other life!” The doctor chuckled.
He then reached back under his seat where the needle was and pulled out some duct tape which he placed over Alfies eyes.
“Just in case his eyes can function too” He explained.
“Approaching path!” Shouted the driver back.
“Hold on” the doctor warned, “ We couldn’t make a path to a secret lab, so we used what mother nature provided”
Suddenly the van began leaping up and down like a rodeo bull, rocking from side to side, up and down. At one point, James could swear he felt it roll upside down. Eventually, they hit hard dirt with a thump, and the van rolled off swerving dangerously through the trees.
After another five minutes the van screeched to a halt. They all climbed out only to be met by the woods stretching off into no where in every direction. Darkness enveloped them.
“I’m sorry where is this magical secret lab of yours?” Asked Susan, looking around.
“What you think it was gonna be some high and mighty building? It’s secret remember?” Replied the doctor.
He scouted the woods for a short while before tapping a tree. It sounded hollow.
“What the…” Started James.
The doctor interrupted him by pushing the tree forcefully. James and Susan stared in wonder as a rectangular section of the tree opened up like a door.
“Watch yourself on the way down!” Advised the doctor, already beginning to make his way down a ladder which ran down to the centre of the earth. With Alfie on his back too. Susan and James sighed and made their way down too, the door closing automatically behind them as they descended, down into the depths of the darkness's embrace.
Upon reaching the bottom of the ladder and popping out into a blank white room, they were greeted by blinding lights and rifles pressed up against their noses with a click. What a greeting…
“Welcome doctor” the  man pointing the gun at him said before removing the rifle from his face, as the doctor adjusted his grip on holding Alfie.
“These are with me” The doctor said, gesturing to Susan and James, who had their arms held up in the air as the cold metal of the gun pressed up against their faces.
So the guards slowly lowered the points of the guns down.
“Listen we have a situation here and I need to speak with Connor” The doctor explained.
“I’m afraid he’s busy…” stated a guard.
“Well he’s not going to be busy when he hears us…” the doctor said.
The guards nodded, sighed  and called for Connor on their radios to which he appeared a minute later.
“Jim, how are you? Listen  I’m afraid…” Asked Connor. He was quite old and large with what little hair was left on his head sprouting out in grey curls.
“No time for formalities I’m afraid, we have a situation” replied the doctor.
“What is it?”
“There isn’t time to explain but we are all in danger and you need to lockdown the lab”
“What you’re not making sense slow…”
“Listen, we are all going to die if you don’t engage lockdown attack protocol” the doctor shouted.
“This better be good” Connor muttered.
Connor sighed and hit what looked like a fire alarm on the wall. Speakers suddenly started blaring out of the walls announcing the start of the lockdown whilst red lights flashed.
“Listen!” The doctor shouted over the blaring alarms, “This kid is our top priority, we need somewhere secure to put him”
“The bunker, floor ten!” Shouted Connor, “I’ll come too”
As they ran they saw disturbed doctors rushing into safe rooms while armed guards rushed to the entrance and all weak points to prepare for attack. They sprinted down the stairs as the lights flashed above their heads. Eventually they reached floor ten which was a series of dark corridors and abandoned empty rooms. They sprinted around the maze of walls until they reached a large metal door to which Connor punched in a long combination of numbers on a control pad by the side. There was a loud buzzing sound followed by a green light as the door slowly opened. They all rushed inside and hit a button on a wall inside of the vault which slammed the door shut. All of a sudden, the lights above switched off along with all the alarms and announcements.
“Was that meant to happen?” Asked James fumbling around in the darkness.
“Yes, it’s part of the lockdown, all power is shut off, including this door meaning no-one can get inside, the only way to turn the power back on is this room”
A light suddenly came on from Connor’s phone.
“The only power now is the security cameras which we can see here on these screens.”
Everyone looked around the room to see a large control panel with a good twenty small screens on the wall above. The doctor rested Alfie on the floor as they all sat there too apart from Connor who stayed standing, monitoring the cameras.
Chapter 21:  Attack
The doctor got up off the floor and looked at the entrance camera. Nothing had happened yet as the guards still stood crouched behind a flipped over desk, waiting in readiness. Would bullets even work on that thing? The doctor didn’t know.
“Listen Jim I think you know an explanation, what are we dealing with?” Asked Connor.
The doctor started to speak before he looked at the screen and swore. In the short time they had looked away, all the guards at the entrance were lying on the floor with their chests sliced open, some with their skulls crushed in too.
“Shit” the doctor swore and pointed to the screen of the main corridor, “That is what we are dealing with”
On the screen was the walking shadow was tearing it’s way through screaming scientists, pulling their chests apart like ripping paper. It pulled doors off their hinges and massacred the people hiding behind them. Some unlucky people were consumed by the shadow. It’s hard to describe really, they were thrown too the floor as the shadow bent it’s head over the top of theirs and it’s shadow sort of moved and enclosed the victims face as the victim lay choking on the floor in a heap. After a couple of seconds, the victim would stop moving and the shadow would return to the creature to reveal the victims face brutally mutilated, skull crushed and brains slopped over the floor. Some where flung against the walls by shadowy arms too.
“Holy mother Mary…” stuttered Connor, “What is that thing?”
Before the doctor could answer they were met with a gruesome and disturbing sight. As the creature met a tightly shut door it couldn’t break the hinges of, it stopped a second and walked through the door, yes, it’s entire being defied the laws of physics and walked through the door. The vault was no longer safe.
“We are in deep shit” muttered Connor.
“What do we do?” Asked the doctor.
“Look!” Said Connor pointing to the screens, “It’s skipping floors!”
And it was. It stride down the staircase, missing each floor as it walked down with it’s long spindly legs.
“It know’s where we are, it wants the boy” muttered the Doctor.
“Shit, what do we do?” Asked James.
Connor looked up a second and quickly started scrambling in a filing cabinet in the corner of the room before pulling out a large blue print map of the lab. He spread it out on the floor and pointed to a point there on the tenth floor.
“There is a hidden staircase there to take you up to the third floor, from there you can make it to the main staircase, get to the top level and take the ladder out, it is the inly exit.” Connor explained.
“But that monster is faster than us or at least has bigger strides, it would catch us almost instantly” Susan explained looking to the screen, it was passing the fifth floor now.
“Not if you get a head start, I’ll stay down here and try to hold of that creature for as long as possible, I’ll give you as much time as I can, just promise me you won’t look back and keep on running!”
“But it will kill you, you’ll die” James said.
“That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make” Connor sighed.
“I’ll help too” the doctor said to Connor, “I’m the one that started it and now I will do everything I can to make it right, just get the boy out, okay?”
Susan nodded tearfully.
“It’s the only way” the doctor explained.
Connor picked himself up off the floor and stood on the control panel before hitting a part of the wall to open up a secret panel. Inside, were two large rifles. He threw one to the doctor and took one himself.
“I don’t know if they’ll do much but it’s worth a try.”
He then made his way to the far end of the control panel.
“When that door opens you follow the route and get out, understand?”
James and Susan nodded as James picked up Alfie. Connor sighed and pulled up a plastic protector over a large green button.
“Good luck…” He said.
A loud buzzer sounded as the lights flickered back on. The door buzzed as-well and the door slowly swung open. James and Susan looked at the doctor and Connor one last time before sprinting out the door and disappearing into the concrete maze.
“One last time” Connor sighed.
The doctor smiled weakly and they moved out into the hallway. The creature made a shadow on the wall before turning around and staring at the two men. They stood in silence for a second before they flicked off the safety of their guns and open fired on the beast. It roared but acted no pain to the bullets. Then it charged. Light above began to flicker aggressively before starting to burst, glass flying in all directions.
Connor swore and dropped his gun and started to run into the concrete maze. The doctor followed close behind. The creature roared again but headed a different way into the maze of abandoned offices.  Connor and the doctor sprinted as fast as their legs could carry them, not daring to look back. Connor cried out in fear as when he turned a corner, the creature stood right there, staring him in the face. He tried to turn around and run but it was too late. The shadow grabbed his leg and flung him against a wall, he tried to crawl away but the creature came down again and engulfed him with the shadow of it’s face. The doctor was better off as he twisted on the ball of his foot and sprinted in the opposite direction, not daring to look back as his friend’s life slowly drained away. He swore as he turned corners, smashing his shoulders into walls. His surroundings blurred as his heart raced. He cried out in anguish and desperation. He was at a dead end. He turned around to see if he could run back but it was already too late, the shadow was blocking to exit. His eyes darted around for something, anything since he had earlier dropped his gun. Nothing, no fire extinguisher or an axe or even something like a chair leg, nothing, a complete dead end. All hope draining from his body, he collapsed to the floor and rolled into a ball like a child and closed his eyes. He heard the footsteps getting closer until they stopped right next to his ear. The creature made a guttural growl before the shadow moved. The doctor writhed on the floor in pain as the shadow engulfed and attacked his face. He cried out in pain as he bit into his tong, biting it clean off in the pain. A few seconds later, it was over, and all that remained was his bloody body lying in a heap on the floor.
Chapter 22:  The escape
Susan and James sprinted out the door as gunshots fired like thunder above their heads. They heard the creatures deafening roar and the sound of the mens cry’s behind them. They didn’t look back as they had promised. They followed the route among the maze until they found a small metal stairwell tucked into a corner. They stopped for a second as their hearts dropped, hearing the sound of Connor’s anguished screams. They didn’t have long. They began to sprint up the stairwell, feet pounding on the metal floor. James stumbled and nearly dropped Alfie before Susan supported him. And then it was, the sound of the final screams coming from the doctor. It was coming. A new sense of urgency and fear arose as they raced up the stairs, panting heavily before coming to a metal door. Susan went in-front of James and tried to barge the door open. It was jammed and stuck. James swore and gave Alfie to Susan before ramming his shoulder into the door again. Still nothing. They heard the creature advancing the stairwell, it was gaining on them. James swore again and rammed into the door again. Still nothing. He hit it again and again to little avail. The shadows claws appeared on the rails of the stairwell, it was right behind them now. James swore again and rammed into the door one last time with all his energy, as if God had intervened and saw them in their need, the door swung open. They shouted and barged through in a panicked frenzy.  They had come out in a small storage room with about four lifeless bodies lying face down on the floor. While James hurdled over crates and dead bodies, Susan ran back to the door and slammed it shut before running back after James. They didn’t look back but heard the metal door flying off it’s hinges as the creature pursued them closely. James barged through the storage room door and into a long corridor. They stopped for a second, a disastrous wasted second that gave the creature a chance to get closer to them. But what they had seen was equally as horrific. All the dead bodies on the floor had no faces. Not just their heads were ripped of or faces clawed beyond comparison. Nothing like that, they just had no faces, like that creature. It was like their skin had grown over their eyes, nose and mouth and their entire face was just a blank mask of skin. Their fingers had webbed together to like a ducks feet almost but just with skin. Then, they moved. The dead faceless bodies rose up from the floor and all turned to face Susan and James, forming a tight circle, and they began to move in, the circle got tighter and tighter, the faceless corpses closing in. James tried to protect Alfie as much as possible, trying to move back the corpses with kicks. The circle closed in tighter and tighter until it was miraculously broken by a strong kick from James. They rushed through the gap and sprinted for the staircase only at the last second, they were met by another corpse coming down the staircase. This one was still faceless but had a smile and small eyes cut into the skin mask presumably by some sharp object. Susan and James tried to flee but the other group had returned. The one with the bloody eyes and smile looked at them for a second before they all fell back as the world turned black.
They woke up on their backs, their heads spinning. They stood up painfully as the spinning slowed.
“You were all wrong” A voice suddenly came, echoing as if in a large cave.
All around was darkness, not a thing to be seen.
“That doctor thought he had me all figured out, a little fantasy in a little boys brain, how wrong he was how much more I am…”
Susan and James ran around in the darkness, looking for the voice, not a thing to be found. Suddenly the surroundings changed. A house, their house.
“I hated them from the beginning, the townsfolk cursed and ridiculed me, said I was summoning the devil with science. Those poor people knew nothing of the glories I was creating, I had nearly finished my work when they took the law into their own hands.”
The surroundings suddenly changed into the house burning and a young man trapped inside, trying to escape, before a burning wooden plank came down on his head.
“The house was left abandoned for years, the townsfolk all in fear of it being haunted, at least they got something right. The years went by and the story died and so the house was rebuilt. I waited, after all, I did like that house, then the builders had to go”
The surroundings changed to four dead builders lying on the grass outside the front of the house.
“That had given me the strength I needed. I sought revenge for the wrongs this town had done to me. All I needed was a body to inhabit, a troubled mind I could use to free me from the confines of that house. Free enough to move all around the town. And that’s where your Alfie came in. Blamed for wrongs he never did, uncontrolled anger. He was perfect. At first he tried to destroy me, deny me, and that doctor tried to fix me, little he knew that procedure just powered me. I came out of his mind, something I had dreamed of. At first I had just sought to use his body to kill, but now, I could do it myself. There was only one downside, which the doctor had figured out; I was tied to the boy and he was right as well about the other thing, if I took him, then I had no weakness. So I tried to get him before you came, targeted hallucinations in his mind I had used to scare him before and made them into reality thanks to the help that little procedure gave me!”
A vision of The fun zone appeared.
“When you tried to shut me out, his body shut down because my power was growing and I was using his energy. And now, thanks to your stupidity, he is mine, and you will die, along with the rest of this pathetic town. You have lost because you doubted your enemy, that’s a mistake you should never make”
The scenery shifted to the town burning, all things dying. People being killed by the shadow as it walked the streets. A massacre with no mercy, children were butchered without thought. All gone. The scenery shifted once more to the present. Susan and James saw their bodies lying in a heap on the floor and the shadow standing over Alfie’s body. Slowly his body began to rise into the air like a rag-doll lifted by a child.
“You have lost, and soon you will die”
Susan looked at her son helplessly. Slowly the shadow of the creature began to consume Alfie’s entire being, swirling around like a storm.  Susan fell to the floor and uttered powerful words:
“Not my son you bitch”
As if some divine power hd just swept in the vision broke and she awoke on the lab floor with James waking up soon after. The creature roared and dropped Alfie, the consumption incomplete. It turned it’s head towards the two before striding towards them. Susan let out an equally deadly cry before shoving her way through the faceless corpses that surrounded her and ducking under the shadow’s legs. James followed. She ran to the unconscious Alfie on the floor, scooped him up and ran like a fucking bullet back for the stairs. James meanwhile distracted the creature by cracking the faceless one’s necks. Susan barged back through them and the distracted creature, she looked back at James and knew with one look. He was willing. So she ran up the staircase as James’ dying roars echoed out as he tried to hold off the creature for as long as possible. Tears fell from her eyes but her feet didn't stop, she fled round the stairs in a flurry before reaching the first floor. She rammed her way through faceless men blocking her way before reaching the ladder. She crawled all the way to the top, slammed at the false door on the tree and sprinted out into the darkness of the woods.
Chapter 23: A mothers heart
Thorns and nettles meant nothing to Susan as she tore through the undergrowth. Her mind raced, where to go, what to do. Wherever she would go the creature would find her, it was tied to Alfie’s mind. Mud splashed up her heels as she tore through the undergrowth. There was no light that night, no stars nor moon, just complete darkness. She heard the creature behind her, following her closely. Up was down down was up, nothing was right. She tore out of the forest and onto the main road. Not a car inside. Behind her the trees shook as the shadow drew closer. She wasn’t far from the house now as she sprinted down the road. Eventually she reached the looming gates and jumped over them and ran down the stone driveway, stones crunching under her feet. She frantically took out her keys and with shaking hand, pulled open the door. However, she stayed outside.
“Shadow, burn in hell!”
She took out a box of matches from her pocket, put one foot inside the house, lit a match and threw it at the curtains. They almost instantly shot up in a flurry of flames and the fire started to spread around the house. By the time the creature had crossed the gates the whole ground floor was alight and was spreading further upwards. Any hope that this would have repercussions to the monster from it’s terrible past failed as it kept on walking.
“Weak and pathetic” Growled the shadow, drawing closer, “I am unstoppable, there is no way to stop his mind, hand the boy over to me and I’ll make sure you don’t suffer”
Susan breathed heavily as thoughts raced through her head. There was one way. Time seemed to freeze all of a sudden as the ceiling of the ground floor began to give way. Memories flashed through Susan’s head as she thought. She say a little Alfie playing on the sand when he was a small child, him learning to ride a bike, first day of school. All memories running through her head of the good times. Before they moved here. She was wrong to blame him in the fire she realised. He was scared and felt alone. She had attacked him and not seen him, now she saw where it had led. Where it had come to. But it was the only way, she looked to the ceiling falling in slow motion and saw them, all those the creature had killed. The lab scientists at the back and the old man from the gas station, in-front of them, Connor and the Doctor and at the front; James. At the side of all of them stood Alfie’s ‘real’ friend. They all said the same thing without saying a word, she knew what she had to do. Looking at Alfie for the last time she shed a single tear before throwing his body into the fire. The creature let out an anguished roar as the burning ceiling fell down, crushing Alfie’s body. Susan stood and watched in anger for the souls of the dead as the creature dissolved into the darkness of the night. The fire roared behind her, crackling and snapping. There was only one thing left for her to do. She turned around and stared at the burning house. She knew that creature was not dead, it had just gone back to the grounds of the house which it haunted. She could of killed herself, joined her husband and son in the place beyond, but then, what would their sacrifices of meant? The creature would just find someone else to possess, the dead would grow in number. She wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t. So she waited for the house to burn. The story she gave was her husband was out for a walk and Alfie had knocked a candle over and had tragically died. Only she had escaped. They never found the lab in the woods, so they assumed James was dead too, lost while walking, attack by wild animal or something like that. People thought that Susan had really killed them all but there was never enough evidence to convict here. So she built a small house, just outside of the house’s grounds and vowed to never let the space be stepped in again, to never allow the past to live once again. And when the time came she would join the souls of the dead, and hope people had listened to her message and forever left the old grounds empty and abandoned. For if we forget the past, the our future is already lost.
 
Chapter 24: Epilogue
Now-days, all that is left of the house are rubble and ruins. Susan has long since passed after she had told me the rest of the story. Now I stand as the keeper of these grounds, ensuring the safety of the town, and that the creature is left undisturbed. Sometimes I stare out of the small cabin window and wonder about the events of those many years ago. The house lays undisturbed and I can see quite clearly where the tragic death of Alfie took place as the ceiling fell. It’s strange knowing that just over that fence is an unstoppable force that could kill every one of us, just waiting, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
I would just like to clear a few things up that may be confusing to the reader;
The stalker Alfie had was a figment of his imagination, he never had the number on his phone and passed out when the shadow fully took over his mind as his mind went into a short state of shock. There was no note in the potatoes nor poison.
When the body washed up on the shore of the lake, in contradiction to Alfie’s belief that the Stalker had done it, the student had actually just drowned when he got stuck and tangled in the algae. The body never spoke to him, it was just his imagination.
Alfie never saw the stalker in the dance and that is why everyone looked at him strangely. A normal kid accidentally knocked over the punch bowl and not the stalker.
When taking over his mind, the creature showed him the vision of the TV and the creature in the wall, but the energy it was using is what burst the lights and shook the ground.
In the lab, the creature was still a vision until when Alfie went to the fun zone for a second time.
The fun zone never existed, which is why the internet showed nothing on the subject, it only became real when the creature targeted his mind after the experiment.
 But now I am old and soon will be gone from this earth. I now write this book as a testament to what I have devoted the greater part of my life to and also as a warning for anyone who reads this. Although some will choose not to believe, I hope those who do will continue the groundskeeper’s legacy in the protection of this house, or God help us all. So now you have heard my story go and spread rumours tall tales anything, just anything to keep these grounds empty forever more, you are the future to ensure all that died before, have not died for naught, but for the lives you live today. I leave you with these verses by Brian Bilston:
How soon we try to leave the past,
To think what’s done is done
And all that happened years ago
Was sad but now it’s gone.
 
Look forward and not back, we say,
The future’s coming fast.
We cannot change what came before,
The time to mourn has passed.
 
While unseen, the shadows gather
Until the now resembles then,
And remembrance comes to late to help,
And it happens once again.