It’s cold out, like proper cold. Maybe you should have worn your winter coat, but it doesn’t matter now you’re almost at the DK house and you feel sexy. Although you’d never admit it, you’ve had this outfit picked out in your head for weeks. You don’t care for most of the people you’re about to see, but there are some friends you want to impress and some old flings you might just so happen to run into. A text from an unknown number lights up your phone.
“HEYYYY, YO! I can’t believe you came back. I saw you on VINCENT LANE and it totally brought me back. How you been?! Some of the old crew is meeting DK house at 7, you should come by!” Cool — you’re remembered!
You reach the house, pass the brothers on the front porch with swagger and enter. Being back in the DK house is making you thirsty. You spot a crowd of sweaty bodies gathered around a cooler in a room to your left. Perfect, you can step in and grab a drink. But wait, your friends. Where are they? Maybe you should go find them first.
This jacket is warm, it needs to come off and to you there’s really nothing worse than having one or more hands full for the night so you head to the library to hide it. You and your friends always hid your jackets in the library when you came here – everyone did. On most nights there were more jackets than books, not there have ever been many books in there. As you enter the empty library you look around for a good place to leave your jacket. The best places have already been taken, under the couch cushions, inside the globe, behind the desks. Still, behind a shelf of books should do. As you reach up to tuck your jacket behind a row of old yearbooks you feel the first stab. It’s quick, a rough stab between your shoulder blades. Then the second, third, fourth and so on in rapid succession. Each stab more violent and less controlled than the next. As you fall to your death you turn to get a look at your assailant. All you see is in place of a face is this emoji: 🤪
There is a slasher in the DK house tonight and you are their first victim. They’ve taken out their pre-mass murder nerves on your back and will now continue on killin’ with poise. Tough luck, but someone had to be the first ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You’re a loose cannon! You reassure yourself that this is a good idea and swallow the pill. After all, this might be a longer night than your used to and could use a little help staying out. Until now you haven’t taken notice of the music, but oh my god “Shake It” by Metro Station has just come on.
You LOVE this song. Maybe it’s the drugs or maybe it’s just the intoxicating synths of keyboardist Blake Healey. Either way, a sudden urge to dance rushes over you. You’re still sober, you think, but there is a giddy tingle of anticipation flowing through your limbs. What have I just taken? You don’t care. All you care about is getting to the dance floor in time to yell ‘Let’s drop!’
It’s close, but you make it.
“Let’s drop!”
You’re jumping up and down now. You think maybe you should shake it, but everyone knows this is a jumping song. Every thumping kick from Anthony Improgo’s drum kit commands your left arm to pump as high as it can. Enter Mason Musso’s powerful, yet airy, voice. You know every word but your favorite parts to sing are the backup vocals.
“Leave me at the front door!” … “Get inside!”
Without realizing it you’ve fist pumped your way to the middle of the dancefloor. It’s crowded in here. You’re shoulder to shoulder, it’s hot, and you love it. In fact, you’re loving everything right now. This school, these people, every member of Metro Station, you love it all and this puts a great big smile on your face.
As the song ends you realize you have been sweating, like, a lot. You run your fingers through your hair to keep it off your face. It’s so soft, you think this must be what a unicorn’s mane feels like. It’s incredible! You can’t stop feeling your hair. You make eye contact with a student next to you. You love this person.
“Oh you’re rolling for sure,” they say.
The deep bassline of an EDM song unknown to you overtakes your ears and your body before you can even comprehend what has just been said to you. You don’t even like EDM but your body is chained to the music. You can’t stop dancing. It’s utterly cathartic. Song after song you dance without inhibition, without break, and without taking off your coat. You not sure how long you’ve been dancing and now you’re not really sure where you are. You’re weak, woozy and hot all over. The jacket needs to come off but your losing your vision and can’t focus on your hands. If only you could get off this dancefloor, maybe get some water, but it’s hopeless. You can barely stand now, let alone walk. Climactically, the song drops and so do you.
You’ve just danced yourself to death. Did you learn nothing? Water is lyfe. Maybe if you drank some you wouldn’t have just collapsed in front of every socially relevant student on campus. Who wears a winter jacket to a Molly party anyway? Overheat much?
A drink it is. Probably a good idea. You haven’t seen your friends in years, let alone spoken to some of them, so you could use a little social lube for the occasion. You enter the room. It’s hot…and wet. Why is it so wet? Steaming bodies dance, violently you might add, in mass around a makeshift DJ stand, strobe lights and two tall speakers at the end of the room. Everyone is sweating. Even the walls seem to be sweating. You’re not one for dancing, sober that is, and you’ve never felt more sober than you do in this room right now. Grab a drink and get out you say to yourself. There’s a short, but slow, line at the cooler. Everyone in front of you is filling and chugging at least two or three cups at the cooler. Fill, chug, repeat. Finally, you’re up. You grab a plastic cup, reach down and fill it. The drink is clear; vodka soda maybe? Or G&T? You remember years of sugary punches, the kind that split your head the next morning and stained every white shirt you ever made the mistake of wearing out. You take a sip…this is water! Confused, you turn to a student behind you.
“This is wa-,” but before you can finish they’re at the cooler filling two cups with uncontained excitement. They chug the first and pour the second over their head.
“I love water! Water is lyfe, l-y-f-e lyfe” they say through a wide smile to no one in particular. You not even sure they heard you.
This is fucking weird. You want to get out of this room, maybe find your friends, but before you can make it out you’re stopped. A student, sophomore maybe, of an almost astonishingly nondescript appearance grabs your right arm.
“Alumni, huh” they say. Your not entirely sure if this is a question, but you can tell they have more to say so you just nod your head yes. “For you,” they say as they drop something into the palm of your hand. It’s a pill.
“What is this?” you ask.
“Welcome back! For alum – free,” and with that they disappear into a well-timed puff from the smoke machine near your feet.
You shout hopelessly into the smoke, “Hey! What is this!?”
You try to see what it is, but under the stobe’s rapid flurry it’s impossible to tell. It’s not like you know anything about pills anyways. You haven’t touched any drug other than melatonin in years. You don’t have time for drugs these days, or if you’re being honest the money. But you’re back at college, you did drugs in college a couple of times! Like that one time you did whippets with an empty can of Cheez-whiz. You can practically hear your friends chanting Do it! Do it! Do it! Hell, this is a special occasion right. Besides, it’s probably just Adderall or something similar. So what will it be?
You’re glad you picked your winter coat. It’s not the most stylish, you’ve never bothered to clip the years worth of ski club lift tickets that dangle awkwardly from the left pocket zipper, but it’s practical. You know what?! Fuck ski club, you deserved a black diamond sticker. If you went fast enough you could ride rails! You should probably stop ruminating over this, at least you got the blue square…right? Right! Still, when is the last time you went skiing you wonder? Come to think of it, when’s the last time you did anything considered extreme? For a second it seems weird to consider skiing an extreme sport anymore, but your pretty sure it’s in the X-Games and as far as you know that’s the only criteria for extremeness. A text from an unknown number lights up your phone.
“HEYYYY, YO! I can’t believe you came back. I saw you on VINCENT LANE and it totally brought me back. How you been?! Some of the old crew is meeting DK house at 7, you should come by!” Cool — you’re remembered!
You approach DK with a stubborn pride in your choice to wear the winter coat even as you see sleeveless groups of much younger, much sexier students entering the house before you. They’ve got to be drunk to bear walking through this weather. Speaking of drunk, being back in the DK house is making you thirsty. You spot a crowd of sweaty bodies gathered around a cooler in a room to your left. Perfect, you can step in and grab a drink. On second thought, maybe you should take off your jacket and find a place to hide it first. This thing is too warm to wear in here.
Whoever that is, Meredith certainly won’t be able to take it alone. You sprint off after her, screaming for her to stop.
As she approaches the campfire, she screams, the person — the creature — lunging for her.
But you’re almost there, too. You reach her at the same time, bodies crashing into one another and tumbling back towards the campfire. Without looking back, you and Meredith scramble to your feet around the fire, looking for a way out that isn’t the way you came.
But you’re stuck there, frozen in horror by the trees. Because they aren’t heavy with pine needles and snow — they’re heavy with people. Arms, legs, and torsos speared on sharpened branches, a primordial meat locker of drying human flesh.
And The Butcher, now back on its feet, has none of your hesitations. It is long and loping, fingers hooked and sharp. In the glittering fire it’s skin shimmers with blood and sweet, mangy hair covering everything except for a mouthful of bone-white teeth.
But Steven is already walking away, obscured by the storm. He turns back to tell you that he’ll send for help, and then he’s gone.
As he slips away, you a scream erupts behind you. Before you can stop her, Meredith charges right for it.
“JACKIE! We’re coming Jackie!”
You sprint to keep up with her, climbing higher and higher up the ridgeline. The branches poke and stab, your coat/jacket in tatters, until you reach a small clearing. You freeze.
In the distance, a campfire burns through the storm. It’s in a secluded area, the shadowy trees thick with pine needles that shield it from the wind. You can just make out the silhouette of the someone before the fire, warming their hands.
“JACKIE” Meredith cries, stepping forwards.
They turn their head, looking right at you, but the face is still obscured. Meredith is already running towards it as it stands, slowly. And it’s only as Merdith is just about to arrive that you realize that this isn’t Jenny. They’re much too tall to be Jenny, the limbs loo long and gangly.
“Look, we don’t have time to –” Steven’s words are cut off by a mangled scream in the distance.
“Oh god. It’s here.” Meredith is backing up, eyes brimming with tears.
The humming grows closer.
“What’s here? Is this some stupid Alphi Kai bullshit?” Look, just because people thought it was funny when you’re in school doesn’t mean it’s funny now. You didn’t come back to be messed with. “I’m not in the mood for games.”
“These aren’t games. This is… well, I don’t know what this is.” Steven sighs, and for the first time, you notice the blood trickling down his forehead.
“G-ggg-gg-guys…” You turn to Meredith, confusion and horror on her face. “Where’s Jackie?”
“We need to keep moving, now.”
“Steven! We can’t leave Jackie!”
“It’s too late to save her.
“Go if you want,” Meredith says, “Real friends hang together.”
“I’ll be right over,” you call out. As you follow the sound of the voice, your flashlight catches something shiny, just off the trail. It looks like a watch, dangling from the trees. You can’t be sure, not in the snow, but it seems like it’s still attached to a hand…
Someone grabs you by the shoulders! In your panic, you trip and fall to the ground.
“I can’t believe you made it this far!” You turn to see three people, roughly your age. They reach down and pick you up, introducing themselves as Steven, Meredith, and Jackie. Their eyes dart around the woods worriedly.
“Thank god I found you guys! Started to wonder if I was all alone out here.”
“You’re not.”
Sheesh. Warm welcome. “I think the ropes course is this way,” you say, “I feel like I have my bearings again.”
“You don’t want to go to the ropes course.”
A twig snaps behind you. In the distance, a low, grinding noise echoes through the trees.
“We need to go, now.”
Go where? You did just meet these people after all. And something about them makes you nervous — their darting eyes and shuffling feet putting you on edge.
Maybe you can get a better view from the high ground. You should always take the high ground. You start hiking, the sharpened branches closing in around the trail.
It’s steep. You’re practically climbing, scrambling up roots and rocks. By the time you make it to the top it’s nearly nightfall, and you can hardly see the forest floor. A light snow begins to fall, further obscuring your vision.
You fumble for the flashlight on your phone when you hear:
“Hey! Is that you? Come over here. Quickly!”
It’s not a voice you recognize. Still, your only other option is to backtrack into the gorge.
Homecoming of Horrors 