NOVEL NEXT Arc 4 | Last Resort (Part 20)
LAST RESORT
Part 20
SCENARIO 4
09:41 PM
9 Hours Until Dawn
10 Delvers remaining…
If I were a betting man, I would have thought that the car crash I just witnessed killed Kate and Suraj. It was a head-on collision at forty-six miles per hour. The Aston Martin shredded through the sides of Vivian's vehicle, sending both rolling and crashing down the ditch. The Aston Martin was upside down. I expected the sports car to have folded its occupants into pulp. For a brief moment, I was afraid that good ol' physics had done the job for me, snapping spines, splitting skulls like brittle gourds without collecting any of their essence.
To my great surprise, Kate and Suraj survived the crash.
I watched as Vivian and Xavier ran down the ditch to rescue them, pulling a very shaken-up Kate and an unconscious Suraj out of the totaled car, his head lolling to one side. And yet—miracle of miracles—they crawled out. Bruised, scraped, rattled, but intact. It reminded me of what I've seen in the news, where drunk drivers got into a much worse head-on collision than what I just witnessed, and all they had was a busted lip or a tiny scrape on their arm or head. Meanwhile, the occupants in the other vehicle (sixty-six percent of the time) ended up seriously injured, crippled, or worse, dead.
Vivian's hands pressed at Suraj's throat, checking for a pulse. Kate hovered, wild-eyed, lips moving too fast for me to catch—apologies or prayers, maybe both. Xavier's shoulders sagged, adrenaline waning. Kate was explaining Old Growth to the boy, but it didn't look like Xavier was even listening, more concerned with the unconscious man on the ground.
Then Suraj twitched—a gasp. All three of them exhaled in a single, jagged chorus. Their minds screaming: He's Alive! Alive!
I felt the tremor run through the ground. Old Growth was still out there, slinking the perimeter, obedient to my will. I realized Oldie was waiting to let the moment breathe. A chance for the delvers to have some respite, even if brief, before the bloodbath commenced.
"There's a monster out there!" Kate told the others. "It was chasing us! That's why I didn't catch your car on the road…I mean…it was so fast…"
"Whoa, whoa, calm down. What do you mean, a monster is chasing you?" Vivian asked.
"I don't know! It was big! And fast! It's like a giant tree that can walk. And…oh my god…I think he was controlling it."
"Who's he?" Xavier asked.
"Henry! He owns a manor around here. I think he commanded that monster to come after us! Like a pet."
Xavier and Vivian shared a look. "You mean Henry Duncan? The billionaire?" Vivian asked.
Kate nodded. "We left him at the gas station. He's probably still back there. We took his car to escape before that thing chased after us." Kate gestured to the totaled Aston Martin.
Xavier shrugged. "I'm sorry, but we didn't really see anyone chasing you."
Vivian leaned close to her brother's ear. "Maybe Henry drugged her or something?"
"Must be some pretty bad trip if you ask me," Xavier said.
"But don't you forget what we just saw, too."
"Yeah. Don't remind me."
But Kate caught part of that. "I know how I fucking sound, okay? I swear. I'm not crazy. It was there. It just…I didn't know where it went. It was a monster. A real, horror-movie monster, 'kay? You! You saw it!" She pointed at Suraj.
"I don't know what we just saw, but that fucking bastard kidnapped me!" Suraj said, sitting up from the pavement. "I don't know what he was planning to do to me, but, oh, there's going to be a hell to pay! You'll see. I'll make sure I'll rip his heart out in court, and he will get that fucking death penalty!"
"That doesn't matter now. We need to get the fuck out of here before that thing comes back," Kate said. She paused, eyes widening. "Oh my god, my sister is still at the manor."
"Your sister?" Xavier asked again.
"Sheila. She's…um…" Kate hesitated. "How far are we from the old sanatorium?"
"I know Sheila," Xavier said.
"You do? How?"
"Yeah. I was just here half an hour ago. I think she's still up there. We were…" Xavier paused, not knowing if he should tell these strangers that they were stealing from someone's house.
"Are you part of Kevin's crew?" Kate asked.
"Um…" Xavier hesitated, still. Then, he tilted his head. "Wait a minute…are you Kate?"
"Yeah. Why are you here? Did something happen up there?"
Xavier sighed in relief when Vivian interrupted quickly. "Look, our cars are busted. We don't have a way out of this road. What we need to do is find the nearest place with a working phone and call the police, okay? Do you guys have working cellphones?"
"My battery's dead," Kate said.
"I think he took mine. Don't know where that thing went," Suraj said.
"Okay. Then we walk. I think there's a summer camp nearby. We can call for help from there. Maybe they have a working phone," Kate said.
"Yeah, I like that plan," Suraj said. "I don't want to run into that thing again. No way. Monster or not."
Well, good luck with that, I thought. There were no working phones at the summer camp.
Their Resolve was shedding slowly like a dripping faucet. Kate's panic was rising when she realized her sister was possibly still at the manor. Xavier's voice, low and shaky, held just a shred of calm even though he was freaking out from the inside. Suraj's half-lidded eyes flickered with gratitude toward strangers he'd only just met, yet still shaken and bruised from the crash. Vivian was suddenly reminded of what Madame Dallaire told her about the woods of North Cedar Lake, which only increased her anxiety. Little alliances sprouting like weeds in the cracks of catastrophe.
I almost pitied them.
Because I knew what was waiting for delvers in my domain.
Death Cores have low survival rates, I reminded myself. Don't get too attached. That's not your job.
Who knows? This night might end up a TPK (Total Party Kill).
"What do you give their odds of survival, my lord?" Oracle asked one of my Many-Eyes at the cabin.
"I don't know, really. We have ten delvers to manage under an updated ruleset. Think of this scenario as a baseline test."
Oracle nodded. Nanites danced around his metallic bald head and face like swarming crickets. "I see. This is the first time we are introducing the Selection Chamber for our delvers. One hunter for one group of delvers. They should be honored to be the first to choose their fate."
"I don't think they see it that way, Oracle."
"All humans share two commonalities across the planet that they experience just once, your grace. Being born and dying. They should be honored that they will spill their blood here in your domain. Not many mortals across the universe can experience such emprise."
"Demons, angels, werewolves, and vampires exist. Do you think there's an underworld these delvers go to after they die?"
Oracle tilted his head to the side. "The Lands of the Dead are real, my lord. You were there once, remember? Before they pulled you out?"
Of course. The darkness that kept me company from the beginning. I could distinctly recall the way it stirred around me, silent, unbroken…an infinite horizon.
And then a voice…
Headlights suddenly carved through the dark road like a beacon.
The four delvers froze, their battered little cluster in the ditch suddenly illuminated in a solid white glare. For a second, none of them moved. They looked like cornered animals caught on the side of the road, unsure if the lights meant salvation or something else.
Something worse.
It was a familiar Ford F-150. The truck slowed, then stopped a few yards past the wreckage. The beams clicked off, and the driver's door creaked open loudly, scaring a few birds nesting in the trees nearby.
Alan Sawyer climbed out of the truck.
Big frame, working man's bulk beneath denim and flannel, the kind of man who'd been swinging an axe or carrying feed sacks his whole life. His gait had that unhurried roll to it, solid and easy as though nothing about finding four road-scarred strangers in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night could rattle him.
"Jesus Christ on a kebab stick," he said with a drawl, staring at the wreckage. "You all alright?"
Like moths to a flame, they scrambled toward him. Vivian led, half-dragging Suraj, who was still pale and shaking, as if any wrong movement might send him crumpling to the pavement again. Kate followed, but slower, something tight pulling at her face, like the idea of help was somehow more terrifying than the alternative. Xavier wanted to cry, jittery from the lingering adrenaline.
"Please—we need a phone, my friend—" Suraj's words came broken, tripping over themselves.
Alan put his hand on his shoulder. "Slow down, slow down."
"We need a phone to call for help," Vivian said. "Ours aren't working. Better yet, drive us out of here!"
Alan nodded while trying to calm everyone down. "Listen, I'll get you all taken care of. Don't you worry. I'll give you guys a ride, okay?" He looked at all of their relieved faces as if relishing it like a true predator that he was. "Unfortunately, I don't have my cellphone with me, but my farm's just up the road. It won't take more than four minutes to get there. You can call the police from there. I have internet. Wi-Fi. Some first aid kit. You folks can charge your phones, too."
"That really sounds good to hear," Vivian said.
"Are you sure y'all are alright to move? No broken bones or nothin'?"
They nodded and then shook their heads in unison.
"Okay, good. I'll call the chief of police from there. I know him personally." That was a lie. Alan Sawyer had only conversed with Chief Dilworth five times since he arrived in town.
Suraj latched onto the word chief of police like a drowning man. His nod was desperate, hungry. "Yes, yes—we have to. You don't understand. There's something in the woods."
"Like what? Bears? A mountain lion?"
"Something much bigger."
"Alright, I hear you, sir. We'll call the police, okay? Why don't you all get yourselves in the truck?"
Kate stiffened. The word police had the opposite effect on her. Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. She looked at the ground, at Vivian's sneakers, the back of Xavier's head, anywhere but at Alan. She was doing the math in her head: Sheila, the manor, the robbery. This night was turning worse and worse so quickly. And why was one of Kevin's crew parked at the side of the road in the dark anyway? Did something happen back at the manor? Police meant exposure. Police meant arrests and prison.
Kate didn't want her and Sheila to go to prison, even if there's a creature stalking them out there. But she was relieved that she would no longer have to stay close to the woods, wondering when the monster would strike next.
Alan watched her, just for a beat too long. He didn't push. He only smiled that slow, neighborly, reassuring smile that said: I'm the good guy! You can definitely trust me, sweetie pie.
Eventually, the group folded into agreement, the way scared people always do when someone bigger, calmer, and more certain than they are offers a way out. They piled into the back of Alan's truck, one after another. Vivian and Xavier flanking Suraj, Kate climbing last, her eyes flicking back toward the shadows of the treeline as if she half-expected the monster to step out again and get her. Once the mental image shoved its way inside her brain, she quickly climbed inside the truck.
Alan shut the driver's side door, and then the engine roared to life.
The truck pulled onto the road, heading toward the Sawyer Farm.
The manor seemed to exhale once Vivian and Xavier's taillights vanished down the drive. Sheila paced on the porch, her heels making angry little clicks, every step aimed at Kevin's back as they entered the foyer. Daryl closed the door behind them, shutting out the outside world.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind, babe?" she hissed. "You let your nephew go?! You let him walk out of here—he's gonna call the cops, Kev. We're so fucked."
Lope chimed in, nervy, tugging his jacket's sleeve over his palm like he was trying to rub himself out of existence. "She's right. That kid just grew a spine. What if he grew some balls next and drove to the police? You think he won't talk?"
"Enough! I said I don't want to hear another word of it," Kevin said, glaring at all of them. "I don't fucking care what my fucking nephew and niece do. Look, we managed to open the vault, okay? In less than an hour, we're coming out of here rich. We're not going back to town, baby."
Sheila shook her head. "But Kate's still with him…"
"Do I have to remind you all what we came here to do? What's at stake?"
They didn't answer.
"Point Hope doesn't give a rat's ass about us. So, move your asses and help me drag all that stuff into Daryl's truck. It ain't gonna move itself!"
Kevin pivoted his heels and turned for the stairs.
Suddenly, there was a violent, echoing BOOM that reverberated across the cavernous spaces of the manor, down to its maze-like tributaries and crevices.
Everyone froze.
Everyone heard it loud and clear.
"What in the—?" Daryl started, but he didn't get to finish it when a blood-curdling scream split through the air.
It came from above.
A sudden blur from the bannister and then Ray's scream, torn straight from the gut, was cut short as he plummeted to the foyer like a sack of meat. His body hit the marble floor with a loud thud, right in the dead center of the group, a wet crack, splaying blood everywhere.
The room erupted into fervent chaos.
Nina, the closest to Ray, shrieked and fell to the floor. Daryl cursed so loud it turned him into a blubbering mess. Sheila's scream lanced the high ceiling, her hands clutching her hair as her face was splattered with Ray's blood. Even Kevin reeled back in pure terror, lost his balance, and fell on his ass like Nina. Only Lope stayed somewhat calm. He hovered at the edge, face pale as a ghost, frozen from fear. His lips parted slightly open in shock, but his eyes fixed not on Ray's crumpled body but on the shadows above, scanning for the culprit.
Ray lay in a grotesque sprawl. His upper chest shredded like raw beef, strips of skin peeled back where claws had gouged deep furrows into his flesh, blood pulsing dark and thick. His left leg was slightly mangled, slick muscle glistening through ripped flesh. He was twitching, half-conscious, his mouth bubbling with red froth.
"Fuck, fuck, oh Jesus Christ, fuck!" Daryl shouted, backing against the wall, smearing blood across his shirt where the impact sprayed him.
Nina crawled and covered her mouth, eyes wide and wet, whispering no no no no, but too afraid to scream, unlike Sheila.
Lope dropped to one knee, trying to hold Ray down, pressing his hands to the wounds. His voice trembled despite himself: "Don't you fucking die on me, man. Not tonight."
"Shit hurts!" Ray managed to scream. "Don't let me die, man. I don't want to die."
"You're not fucking dying. Nina! Kevin! help me get him up—NOW!" Lope barked.
"Where…where are we going?!" Nina asked frantically.
"The truck!"
They half-carried, half-dragged Ray through the foyer, his shoes leaving streaks of blood behind them. His breath came in short, wet bursts, each one hitching like it hurt him to stay alive.
Daryl scrambled for the keys in his pocket, but they got stuck in there when the keychain got snagged by his jeans. "American Eagle, you piece of shit!"
"The truck—just get him to the truck," Lope kept repeating, as if he said it enough times, it would hold death's door at bay.
That it will hold me off, I thought.
Daryl shouldered the front door open. Cold air rushed in, snapping against the hot copper stink of Ray's blood. For a second, hope broke through the fog: the driveway stretched pale and empty beneath the swollen moon, gravel glinting like broken glass. On it, just several steps out of reach, their truck sat like a lifeline.
Then Lope froze. His grip on Ray's shoulder went stiff. The others also realized he stopped in his tracks.
"Wait," he whispered.
Something stood in the middle of the long driveway, blocking the gate.
At first, Lope thought it was a man—tall, shoulders hunched. But the shape was wrong. The arms were too long, hanging almost next to its knees. The head turned toward them with a sickening, deliberate slowness. The longer they looked, the less human it seemed. The body shimmered in and out of shadow, as if even the moonlight wanted nothing to do with it.
But the moonlight caught its eyes. Golden yellow, animal-bright, unblinking.
Predatory.
Then it stepped forward.
Its legs bent like a dog's, claws clicking on the gravel. Its skin—no, its fur—looked matted and wet, glistening in patches. The mouth opened, a slow peel of black lips and rows of sharp teeth, and the sound that came out wasn't a growl so much as a rending. A tearing noise, wet and raw, like meat being pulled from bone. And then the creature let out a rattling howl.
"Holy fuck," Daryl whispered. "Is that—!"
Luke Sawyer—now a werewolf—bolted for the delvers.
He was a blur across the driveway, claws scrabbling against stone, its body a dark streak hurtling straight for them, hungry for the reaping.
"CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT!" Kevin roared, his voice cracking as panic shattered his authority.
They stumbled backward, dragging Ray like deadweight, and slammed the doors shut. The impact came a heartbeat later; a bone-shaking thud that made the hinges whine and the chandeliers above tremble. Wood groaned, and dust sifted down from the beams. Then came the scrape. Claws dragging across the door's surface, leaving long, splintering gouges.
Sheila shrieked, shoving herself against the door as if her small frame could keep the nightmare out. Nina and Daryl joined to bar the doors shut. Lope's jaw was set tight, eyes wide but sharp, the only one not unraveling completely. Kevin stayed rooted against the wall, ready to bolt deeper into the manor just in case the beast managed to get through the door.
And then—silence.
"Did it leave?" Sheila whispered after a few seconds of waiting.
They listened for another beat.
Nothing.
"I don't think so, sweetie," Nina said.
"What the fuck was that?" Daryl asked, quivering. "It's like a wolf or something."
Nina made a face. "That was not a wolf, Daryl."
Ray let out another painful groan, clutching his chest, and breaking the others out of their daze. Lope leaned down. "Help me bring him in there!"
They dragged Ray into the sitting room, hauling him to the nearest couch. The upholstery drank his blood in greedy blotches, colors of dark red wine spreading across the fabric.
"He needs to go to the hospital," Sheila started.
"Shut up," Kevin snapped, pacing like a trapped animal.
But Sheila didn't take that well. "Don't tell me to shut up, Kevin! We are no longer in control here, okay? Everything's going to shit. So, fuck your vault and let's get the hell out of here!"
"No, we've got this far. The vault is already open! Just let me think."
"What is there to think? You guys saw what I saw out there, right? We're all there!"
"It wasn't—" Nina stammered, her face white as chalk. "It wasn't… what we saw… it wasn't—"
"Like Daryl said. It was just a wolf," Kevin said, though his voice trembled. "Just a big wolf. That's all."
"Some big fucking wolf that was, Kev," Lope said. "I've never seen that kind of wolf in my entire life."
"What? You're some animal expert now? A PhD in wolf-enomics?"
"Can someone please shut the fuck up and get me to the hospital? I'm bleeding here!" Ray shouted.
Lope ripped off his shirt, his hands shaking as he pressed it against Ray's chest. Nina yanked the lace runner off the coffee table and twisted it into a makeshift tourniquet around his leg. The blood kept coming anyway—thick, hot, relentless.
"Oh my god," Nina gasped, her knuckles white as she pulled the cloth tighter. "It's not stopping. Shit, it won't stop, Lope."
"Hold it tighter like this," Lope barked. Sweat had broken out across his face, his bravado stripped down to something desperate.
"Wait—where's Roy?" Sheila stared at the far corner of the room. Her words sliced through the panic.
Kevin looked up, his face slick with Ray's blood. "What?"
"The butler," Sheila said, pointing. The armchair in the corner was empty. The ropes that had bound him dangled from the arms, ends frayed and limp. "We tied him right there, right? He's gone."
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"I swear he was there a few minutes ago," Daryl said. "He escaped!"
"One problem at a time, people," Kevin said.
"We need to get to the truck, Kev," Lope said.
"And I don't suppose you're volunteering to go out there? There's a freaking animal loose out there if you hadn't noticed. It might have rabies."
"We still need it. Shiela's right. Ray needs to go to a hospital."
"How about we find a first-aid kit first, eh?"
Ray snapped at Kevin. "A first-aid kit ain't gonna do shit to me, man."
"Wait a minute, if something attacked Ray upstairs…then…does that mean it's inside the house?" Nina said.
Everyone paused. The room suddenly felt smaller. Kevin blinked hard, as if that could erase the possibility.
And then it happened.
A heavy clunk. Then another. From the far windows, steel shutters dropped with a guttural slam. One after another, cascading like the house was swallowing itself shut. Living room, dining room, hallway. The front door's lock snapped, bolts shrieking into place with mechanical finality.
Daryl ran to the shutters and tried to pry them loose. "What the hell's happening?"
"Roy. He must have activated the manor's security."
"From where?"
"There must be a hidden panic room somewhere in this manor. Something that's not in the blueprints."
"Do you have any idea where that might be?" Lope asked.
Nina rushed to her backpack near the end table and took out her backup laptop. She scrolled across the manor's blueprints. "I…It doesn't say? But my best guess could be in one of these rooms in the east wing on the second floor. There are some rooms here that are unlabeled."
"Show me."
Nina turned the laptop over to Lope.
"Can you hack the manor's security system from this laptop? Make it open the doors and the windows?" Lope asked.
"I can, but it's going to take a while. This is not my main rig. I left it out there in Daryl's truck."
"And one of those things might be inside," Sheila reminded everyone.
"Or it could be the same one that attacked Ray," Daryl said. "Maybe after it got Ray, it jumped out of the window or something to block our way out."
"Let's just say there are two of them, okay?" Kevin interjected. "How do we kill it? The only people carrying out here are me and Lope." Kevin's hand slipped to his waistband, and when it came up, there was a pistol gleaming black in the low light. A Glock 19.
The others shook their heads.
"I'm going to find Roy and the safe room," Lope said.
Kevin scoffed. "Up there? Where one of those things might be?"
"I shoot fast. Even a hail of bullets can stop a charging grizzly." Lope took out his own gun and turned to Ray. "I'm getting you out of here, man. I promise."
Sheila let out a nervous chuckle. "Oh, you're not joking. One of them is up there! Are we even safe to be down here?"
Lope turned and walked to the foyer, ignoring Sheila. "Anyone coming with?"
No one answered. Not Kevin, whose jaw twitched as if chewing on the idea. Not Nina, clutching Ray's hand. Not Sheila, hugging herself as if she could fold into her own bones. Not Daryl, who quickly looked away when Lope's gaze reached him.
"Wait!" Kevin said.
Lope's hope swelled that he wouldn't be alone up there, but suddenly, Kevin turned to Sheila. "You're coming up there with me. We also need to check the vault and the secretary."
Lope lips curled into a sharp, humorless smile, and muttered, "I hate all of you."
SCENARIO 4
10:03 PM
9 Hours Until Dawn
10 Delvers remaining…
The drive to the Sawyer farm felt endless, even though only five minutes had passed. A winding road of gravel unspooling into the black woods that seemed to lean in closer the deeper they went. The headlights picked up flashes of the forest—the crooked spines of birch trees, the blur of brush whipping past—but mostly it was the darkness. Miles of it. When the farmhouse finally came into view, Kate thought it was a mirage at first, some old ruin pulled out of the earth by the moonlight.
It wasn't a farmhouse. Not really. Sure, it had the bones of one: a wraparound porch, a peaked roof, a barn listing in the back. But everything about it was too big. The place had grown obese over the decades, bloated with extra wings and sagging eaves, additions tacked on like tumors. Some of the wood siding was swollen and gray. The windows were narrow and mean-looking, catching the truck's headlights and flashing them back like the reflective eyes of raccoons. And the yard was a graveyard of rusted machinery, an old beaten-up car here and there, and snapped fencing, a tractor tilted on its side like a bloated whale carcass picked clean by the weeds.
The entire structure almost looked abandoned, yet there were signs of life in parts, such as the weak, yellow lights burning in a few windows, a guttural hum of a generator coming from somewhere out back, and the faint scent of livestock carried on the wind. It was clear that the farmhouse—perhaps even the whole property—had been lived in for more than a century, at least that's what I liked the delvers to believe.
Alan drove slowly up the long gravel driveway, the crunch of the stones loud in the silence. No one in the truck spoke. The house seemed to suck the words right out of them. Kate pressed her forehead against the cold window glass and thought of Sheila, of how far away she felt now. Suraj stirred in the backseat, moaning softly as he massaged his right shoulder that had been slammed on the door frame during the crash.
Xavier leaned closer to Vivian's ear. "Have you ever played Resident Evil? The one with the farm?"
"I've never even touched it. You know I don't like horror," Vivian said. "Why?"
"Oh. Well, this place is giving me those same heebie-jeebies."
"This is not a video game, Xav."
"Right. Sorry."
Ignoring my disappointment that Vivian hadn't played RE:7, I continued watching the truck slow to a stop near the base of the porch.
Alan killed the engine and turned to them with a friendly, reassuring smile. "Here we are. Home sweet home."
No one moved until Alan opened his side of the door, boots crunching on gravel. The rest followed reluctantly. The air was different here, colder, with a faint animal smell clinging to it. Vivian thought it smelled like the zoo when she was a kid.
The porch groaned under their weight as they climbed the steps. Xavier ran his fingers along the banister, and they came away gritty, sticky, as if the wood had been sweating tar. Alan pushed the front door open with a grunt. The hinges shrieked like a wounded animal.
Inside, the house swallowed them whole.
It was significantly larger inside than they had anticipated. As Alan swung open the front door, the first thing the delvers noticed was the smell—wood polish, faint tobacco, and something else underneath, like the subtle taste of a copper coin. Though the exterior looked old (Xavier thought it was rundown), the place wasn't in complete ruins at all. It was still lived-in, with a rustic coziness to it: the coat rack by the door held flannel jackets, a pair of mud-caked boots was tucked neatly under the bench, and a rug whose edges curled from years of use but had been vacuumed recently.
Alan clapped his hands once, brisk but loud. It made Suraj and Vivian jump. "You all sit tight and make yourselves comfortable. Living room's all yours while I go call the police." He pointed toward the staircase. "I remember I left my phone charging upstairs. Oh! That reminds me, I'll go grab some spare chargers, too."
Without waiting for a reply, he started up the steps. His boots thudded dully on the wood, growing quieter as he climbed.
Silence ballooned in his absence.
They walked into the living room, spread out in a broad square, ceilings lower here than they'd looked from the outside, giving the space a hushed, pocketed feel. A television sat in the corner, an older box model from the '90s with a VHS player, its black screen reflecting them faintly like a pool of still black water. A coffee table bore the rings of long-vanished beers, and on it lay a few dog-eared copies of Deer & Deer Hunting magazine and Gun Digest beside a ceramic ashtray filled to the lip.
But it was the walls that made their throats tighten.
Mounted deer heads lined the space above the wainscoting, their glass eyes catching the lamplight and throwing it back in cold, wet glints. A moose skull loomed above the mantel, its antlers sprawling like skeletal arms. Smaller trophies—foxes, raccoons, a hawk with wings outstretched mid-dive—were nailed up in strange little clusters, a menagerie frozen in death. Someone had arranged them carefully, even lovingly.
Between the trophies hung family photos. Dozens of them.
The same faces appeared again and again: three brothers, posed at various ages. Alan, heavier and muscular now but recognizable even in his teenage skinny and lean frame; Garth, awkwardly square-jawed with a buzz cut; and Luke, the youngest, long-limbed and sullen-eyed. In some pictures, they cradled rifles, in others, they stood over kills—deer, boar, once even a black bear, its tongue lolling grotesquely as the boys grinned around it to the camera.
And then there were the parents. Or should I say, the fake, coming from Adobe Photoshop, parents.
Courtesy of Oracle, a man and a woman stood stiffly in a series of portraits, both with pinched smiles and distant eyes, always dressed a little too neatly for the setting—a hunting lodge, a campsite, and a cabin porch. Kate frowned. Something about their faces seemed…off. Too smooth, too posed, like models in a catalog. Their hands always rested just so on the boys' shoulders, as if placed there for symmetry, not affection. In the oldest photo, the three Sawyer brothers were barely out of diapers, their "mother" holding Luke in her lap. Her expression was glossy, mannequin-still.
Kate hugged herself, her eyes skimming the rows of mounted trophies. The whole room felt like it was watching them. "Must be their parents," she said to no one in particular.
Suraj sat on the couch, letting out a loud exhale. "Finally. Something comfortable."
Vivian kept her eyes fixed on the staircase, listening to Alan's boots vanish into the dark above.
"Do you know who that guy is?" Suraj asked.
"Alan Sawyer," Kate said. "He's local. He doesn't go to my bar, but I've seen him in town a few times with his brothers."
"And is he like…you know?" Suraj mimicked a rifle gun and shot at one of the dead deer hanging on the wall.
"Know what?"
"Is he normal or Deliverance Banjo Hillbilly? Clearly, he's an avid hunter. Does he also…nah, I don't want to finish it."
"Go on. Say what you have to say," Kate said, demanding.
"I mean…does he also hunt people?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "Like I'm gonna know that. Look, just because we don't live near the city doesn't mean we're like cannibals or something."
"Isn't Oregon known for that kind of thing? The Oregon Trail?"
"That's the Donner Party, and no, not all of the people who walked the trail ate each other. Plus, that happened like hundreds of years ago."
Suraj leaned back against the couch and placed his hands behind his head. "Oh, well. You learn something every day."
Xavier peeked out from the front window next to Vivian. "Where are his brothers? I only see his truck out there."
Vivian shrugged. "Maybe they're in town?"
"Hm, yeah, that makes sense. It is a Friday night."
"Don't remind me. I can't believe I'm gonna miss the new episode of Invincible for this shit."
Xavier chuckled softly and elbowed his sister. "That's what you're getting out of this? That's your number one priority?"
"What? Stop laughing. I'd rather be at home than out here. Grandma must be so worried. I told her I'm only gonna be gone for an hour or two."
Xavier frowned. A part of him felt a little guilty that he was the reason why his sister was out here with him. "Sorry. I'm sure she's going to be okay. Family Feud is on."
"That's okay. You know how it goes. I'm always the one rescuing you from some kind of trouble."
Xavier's frown never faded. "Yeah…um, Viv, listen—"
"This is not creeping everyone out, right?" Suraj gestured to the animal trophies scattered around the house, interrupting Xavier and Vivian mid-conversation.
Kate scoffed. "Like I said, this is a mountain town. Lots of hunters live around here. You'd be surprised how many people have things like this in their homes. I reckon you're not from here then?"
Suraj shook his head. "I'm from Portland."
Xavier whistled. "Fancy-pants city boy over here."
But Vivian elbowed him. "Don't be rude."
"What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?" Kate asked.
"I don't mind at all. I'm a lawyer."
"That's a very broad term."
"I work for a firm that handles a lot of criminal cases. Once this all blows over, hopefully I'll become partner. Hey, I survived a car crash and a kidnapping. I might as well keep this ball rolling. My name's Suraj, by the way. I didn't get yours."
"Kate."
"Vivian. This is my brother, Xavier."
"Nice to meet you all. Hey, once we're all out of here, can I have you three as my key witnesses once I freaking get that son of a bitch's ass? What was his name again? Oh, right! Henry. I'll make it worth your while, too. I come from money, so some cash incentive ain't a problem."
Vivian shrugged. "Sure. I guess?"
"Isn't bribery against the law?" Xavier asked.
"Good, good." Suraj leaned back on the couch, ignoring Xavier's question.
Vivian had been staring at the stairs so long her eyes hurt, but when she blinked, Alan still hadn't come back down. The clock on the wall ticked, every second needling her nerves. Three minutes had passed. Maybe more.
"What's taking him so long? He's been gone for a long time," Vivian asked.
"Maybe he's explaining the whole thing," Xavier said. "Car crash, creepy kidnapper, the alleged plant monster—" He gave a shaky laugh. "Not exactly a thirty-second summary you'd give out to the police."
"Still," Vivian muttered. "But he could at least come down—"
As if answering her frustrations, something above them thudded. A deep, blunt impact that rattled dust from the ceiling.
Kate's head jerked up. "What the hell was that?"
Suraj got up from the couch and stared at the ceiling. "Sounds to me like he had a hard fall."
They listened. The house had gone still again. Then, another noise. Not the sharp step of boots, but something…heavier. A sharp, dragging sound, then another pause. Another thud, softer. More scrapes.
"What the hell's he doing?" Suraj whispered.
The four of them stood frozen in the living room. Even the tick of the clock seemed to fade away the longer they listened, replaced by the long, eerie silence that followed the noises above.
Finally, Xavier said what they were all thinking: "We have to go check up on him. This is getting ridiculous. We need to charge our phones."
"What if something happened to him?" Kate asked. "What if that thing followed us here and got in through the window?"
"That thing doesn't look like it can open windows," Suraj said.
"How do you know?"
Suraj said nothing.
"Well, I'm going up there." Xavier started walking toward the stairs.
"Wait, you're not going up there alone. Are you crazy?" Vivian said, following her brother.
Eventually, they all climbed the stairs together, steps creaking beneath their weight. The long hallway stretched before them, lined with more mounted animal heads and hunting photos. The hallway angled hard to the left, and the noises were clearer now. They were coming from the end of the hall. A white door half-open, leaking pale, flickering light.
Xavier gently pushed the door open.
The room was not what they expected. Dolls—hundreds of them—lined the shelves, stacked on chairs, on the bed, clustered in corners like an army waiting for orders. Porcelain faces with cracked paint, glassy eyes frozen mid-blink. The air smelled faintly of talcum powder and mildew.
A TV in the corner glowed blue, the volume muted, playing an old episode of Blue's Clues. The silent host gestured animatedly toward the unseen audience, grinning too wide with the energy of a coked-up Border Collie. The shifting colors splashed over the dolls, making them look like they were twitching and winking at the delvers as they entered the Doll Room.
Kate gasped. "Dolls? Um, this is weirding me out."
"The Sawyers don't have any kids with them, right? None of them are married?" Xavier said. "I don't remember Luke having a younger sibling in school."
Vivian also shook her head. "Nope. Not that I recall. I'm not really close with the Sawyers."
"Me neither."
But then Vivian stopped in her tracks. She froze so abruptly that Xavier bumped into her back.
"Ow! What?" Xavier hissed.
Her eyes locked on the pile of dolls stacked high against the far wall, like some macabre shrine. For a moment, she thought it was her nerves, that one of the dolls was staring directly at her. Then the shadows shifted, and she realized it wasn't porcelain at all.
A large shape hunched behind the dolls, its head slowly rising above them. Yellow eyes gleamed through the flicker of the TV light, wet and alive. The yellow eyes blinked once, heavy and lazy, but the kind of blink a cat does when it already knows it's got you pinned and cornered. The television light strobed across its features, cutting the face into quick, jerking snapshots: a snout wet with drool, teeth like railroad spikes jammed into black gums, fur matted in places with something dark that glistened under the flicker. The dolls seemed to huddle against it, an audience of dead-eyed children surrounding the monster under the bed.
Vivian's scream ripped the silence apart.
The werewolf came at them in a blur, a slab of muscle and fur crashing through the dolls with a spray of porcelain shards. The silent TV flashed a blue paw print as the thing vaulted, claws extended, and the sound it made was less of a roar and more of a tearing metal shriek that felt like it was being drilled into your ears.
Kate shoved Vivian back out to the hallway. Xavier also pulled his sister toward the hall, and Suraj was just shouting, "What the shit! What the shit! What the shit!" as they bolted for the stairs. Their shoes slapped against the wooden floorboards, the hallway stretching out like a tunnel of nightmare. The dead deer, raccoons, elk, and bears watch with amused glee as the delvers frantically try to escape.
As they round a corner, the stairs mere twenty feet away, the werewolf burst through the bedroom wall itself, wood exploding outward in splinters as its hulking body smashed into the hallway right in front of them. Drywall dust rained down, and suddenly the monster was between them and the stairs, its shoulders heaving, drool dangling in ropes from its jaws as its yellow eyes glared menacingly at them.
As if saying with its golden eyes, run, little rabbit, run.
Kate screamed, "Go, go, go!" and veered hard into the nearest open doorway.
They spilled into another bedroom—fortunately with no creepy dolls—where they dragged and rammed a heavy wooden dresser against the door. Xavier pressed his back against it, arms straining, while the werewolf's body slammed against the other side, rattling the whole frame. The dresser jumped an inch off the floor from the impact. Each slam rattled through the wood, thumped in their spines. Dust sifted from the ceiling. The frame of the door was starting to crack, screws popping loose with little metallic pings.
"The window!" Kate shouted, already clawing at the latch with trembling fingers. It shrieked open halfway and stopped, stuck at some rusted angle. "Shit. I can't get it all the way open! Let's find another way out."
"No, look! We can still crawl out!" Suraj shoved past Kate, twisted his shoulders, and forced his bulk through the gap. The window frame dug into his ribs as if the house itself didn't want to let him go. He grunted, kicked his feet like he was birthing himself out of the womb of the house.
Behind them, the werewolf hit the door again. The dresser groaned, wood splintering. A claw burst through a crack in the paneling, sweeping blindly, hooks scraping across Xavier's jacket, almost slicing through flesh.
"FUCK! FUCK! Hurry!" Xavier shrieked.
Kate grabbed Vivian's arm and shoved her to the window. "Okay, your turn, girlie." Vivian climbed over the sill, her hair catching on a nail jutting from the frame. She hissed, tugged it free, then started to squeeze through again. "It's too tight! I don't think I'll fit."
"It isn't! You're good! Trust me."
"Hey, if my hundred-ninety-pound fat ass can fit through, you can, too," Suraj said encouragingly.
Kate shoved her again.
The werewolf slammed once more. The whole door bent inward this time, the dresser skating six inches across the floor with a horrid screech. Dust and wallpaper flakes rained down. I knew Alan was toying with them, holding the tension by pretending like he couldn't just burst through the wall and enter the room easily. In his werewolf form, I could see Alan laughing between huffs.
"Your turn, Kate!" Suraj's voice was barely audible over the booming BANG—BANG of the beast hammering the door.
Kate shoved herself through. The windowsill ripped at her hip, the jagged edge snagging her shirt. She wriggled, heart hammering like a gun against her ribs, and then she was out, rolling onto the roof like Vivian did before.
Their barrier finally gave.
The sound was apocalyptic. Wood exploded. The door blasted open like it had been hit by a barreling ten-wheeler truck, the dresser splitting down the middle as the werewolf burst into the room.
Xavier clambered, shoving his body through the window. The beast was on him before his hips cleared the gap. It lunged, a blur of fur and claws, and caught his ankle in one massive, gnarled paw. The pull was violent enough to slam his stomach into the windowsill, knocking the wind out of the poor boy.
Xavier screamed, raw and primal. "It's got my leg. It's got my fucking LEG!"
The werewolf's other claw whipped out, raking across the back of his shoulder blades as if it were peeling fruit. The sound was wet, sticky, followed by the spray of blood across the window frame. His scream cracked high across the house.
"Xavier, NO!" Vivian shrieked, trying to grab his arm, but her fingers closed only around his jacket's sleeve.
Xavier kicked, wild and panicked, heel slamming into the monster's muzzle with a crunch. The grip loosened, not all the way, but enough. He twisted like a snake, dragging his bloody shoulder across the frame as he wrenched himself free. Vivian and Suraj dragged him far away from the window and the snarling beast.
Inside, the werewolf rammed its head through the window opening, jaws snapping, teeth clashing inches from Kate's face before it was caught by the frame. The whole house shook with its frustrated growls.
"Go! Get down!" Kate barked.
They skidded across the slanted shingles, hands scraping against rough grit, boots sliding until they hit the edge of the porch roof and found their way down. They sprinted across the gravel toward the black hulk of Alan Sawyer's pickup. They piled toward it, gravel spraying under their shoes.
Kate nearly ripped the door handle off, yanking at it. "It's open—get in, get in!"
Vivian shoved Xavier across the bench seat. Kate slid in after. Suraj was already in the driver's seat, his hand slapping at the ignition column. His face went gray when he realized, "There's no keys."
"What?" Vivian asked.
"There's no fucking keys!" Suraj pounded the wheel out of frustration. "Banjo Hillbilly got the keys!"
Kate's gaze shot toward the farmhouse. The window they'd crawled from was already wide and empty. "Oh, no. Move!" Kate shrieked, shoving the door back open. "Move! Get to the barn. We can hide in the barn!"
"Aren't we safe in the car?" Suraj asked. "It's made out of metal."
"This thing is a death trap, okay? There might be weapons in the barn we can use against whatever that thing is."
"Fuck yeah, I'm with her. I'm taking my chances there," Xavier said, but then he made a loud wince as he cradled his shoulder. "Ah! This shit hurts."
Suraj threw his hands up. "Fine! Damn it, let's go to the barn."
"Are you okay to run?" Vivian asked her brother.
"Yeah. I'm okay. I can do it. It didn't get me that bad."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. Don't worry, Viv. I'll be right behind you."
They tumbled out, sprinting again with Kate leading the group, Xavier staggering with one hand pressed to his shoulder but still remaining close to Vivian's heels. His breath came in choked bursts, each step an explosion of agony. Suraj followed close behind, still unsure whether leaving the truck was the safest bet.
The barn loomed ahead, huge and angular, its slats of wood black against the pale night sky. Its double doors were ajar, showing only a ribbon of darkness inside.
They were halfway there when, behind them, the farmhouse itself seemed to convulse.
The front door blew outward, slamming with a shotgun crack, causing chunks of wood to splinter into the air. And then it came bursting out of the house like a nightmare pulled loose from its cage. The werewolf landed on all fours on the front porch, huge enough to see its enormous shape in the darkness from far away. A guttural roar bled into the night, echoing off the trees.
The delvers' Resolve plummeted to a mixture of yellows, gold, and a hot red-orange.
Then, the beast gave chase.
The crunch of wet grass under their shoes swallowed by the thunder of claws behind them. The barn doors yawned wide, black as a mouth. They had twelve seconds—maybe less—before the beast closed the distance.
The barn's double doors hung open, one yawning wider than the other.
Kate reached it first, slamming her shoulder against the heavy wood. It groaned, then gave, swinging open just enough for them all to tumble inside. The space reeked of hay, oil, and animal musk. Kate and Vivian threw themselves at the door to close it. Together, with a shriek of old hinges, they yanked it shut. Suraj fumbled with the crossbar, dragging the thick iron bolt into place just as the werewolf's body slammed into it from the outside. The entire barn shuddered from the impact.
"It won't take long before that thing gets inside. Find and grab anything you can find. Weapons. Hurry!" Kate said.
The creature roared, claws scraping across wood with a shrill, nails-on-a-chalkboard screech. One of the bolts jumped in its housing, threatening to rip free.
They didn't have enough time to scramble and search the barn, but Kate's eyes landed on a chopping block near the corner, a rust-flecked axe sticking out of it like it had been waiting for her. She ripped it free from the wooden block, the weight heavy, but reassuring.
Not far from her, Vivian was kicking aside crates and hay bales. Something metallic caught her eye, half-buried under a tarp. She ripped the cover away, revealing a square cellar door in the packed dirt floor. Iron, scarred with rust but solid. A handle glinted in the dim light. She also caught something else. Etched on the iron cellar door was a gnarled, twisted tree with a crystal gem embedded in its trunk.
I, of course, recognized it for what it was: The Core Tree.
The symbol was scattered across my dungeon. Heck, I designed them myself.
A reminder to the delvers that all roads across my domain eventually lead to me.
"Here! Over here! I see something!" Vivian yelled to the others. She dropped to her knees and heaved the door up with both hands. The hinges groaned, dust billowing everywhere. Through the hole was a pitch-black square, a ladder vanishing into the earth. Though Vivian could see some light down at the bottom. She calculated it must be at least fifteen feet deep.
"What the hell is that?" Xavier asked once he reached her.
"I don't know, but do you think this metal door will hold it off?"
"It might, but I don't think we should go down there."
The werewolf hit the door again, much harder. It just needed another couple of whacks before it broke.
"Well, I don't think we have much choice. Go!" Kate planted herself between the door and the barn entrance, axe ready, sweat running into her eyes.
Suraj didn't argue. He grabbed Xavier under the arm and half-shoved him toward the ladder. Xavier cursed but started down, one foot dragging uselessly. Suraj followed, his shoes clanging against the metal rungs. It was a slow process, though Alan made sure to time it right and stretch out their panic (not that the delvers noticed the details).
The werewolf hit the door again. This time, he broke a section off across the planks. A massive, hairy arm shoved through, reaching for the wooden barricade and lifting it off in one swift motion.
"Kate!" Vivian screamed from the cellar. "What are you waiting for? You should get down here now!"
Kate backed toward the chute, axe still in hand, as the barricade finally tore free. The doors buckled inward. She dropped down the ladder, barely clearing the hatch before she slammed the cellar door shut. The iron door slammed into place, sealing them in the dark.
The werewolf howled, furious, claws raking the surface. But the door held.
For now.
In the dim darkness, their ragged breaths were the only sound echoing in the chamber, until a faint drip, drip, drip of water echoed from somewhere deeper. The space was lit by a single jaundiced bulb dangling from the ceiling on a threadbare wire, swaying slightly from the chaos above. Its glow was too weak to hold back the shadows, leaving corners to wallow in the dark.
"Ew. Where are we?" Vivian whispered, seemingly afraid to draw attention to them just in case they were not alone in this cellar.
"I see something." Xavier hobbled forward toward the vague outline of a metal table. His sneakers squeaked against the stone floor.
Then the smell hit them. A putrid, sour stench that curled into their throats and made their eyes sting.
"What in the hell—?" Suraj gagged, burying half his face into the crook of his sleeve. The others followed suit, tugging shirts over mouths, pressing noses shut. The air was thick with it—fermented sweat, wet fur, and something else underneath.
Xavier's hand found a flashlight dangling from a nail on the wall. He yanked it free and flicked the switch. The beam cut through the dark, revealing what the yellow bulb refused to.
It landed on the far wall, and all of them froze.
Rust-bitten chains were bolted into the stone, heavy iron cuffs dangling, each long enough to hold something upright, something that could thrash and still not break loose. The light drifted sideways, illuminating gouges in the wall. Claw marks. Long, deliberate. Each groove etched deep, as if something had scraped and scraped until its nails bled out.
The delvers found the werewolves' den.
Or what looked like it. Frankly, the Sawyers never really had much use of this place since they had control of their lycanthropy (even during the full moon). This was merely for decoration. Think of it as a set design that told a complete story and fed the lore of the Sawyers.
And, boy, did the delvers ate it up. They knew, or at least, part of them knew what this room was for. They've seen horror movies before. Although some of them still struggle to grasp their predicament that they were now in a horror movie.
"There's three sets of chains here." Xavier swept the beam of his flashlight across the wall.
But Kate knew. Kate saw it for what it was. "Oh. For each brother."
Xavier turned around. "For what now?"
"Three sets of chains. One for each brother."
"The Sawyers?"
Kate nodded, her mouth dry. "Yes. I think the creature upstairs…" She hesitated, but the words rolled out anyway. "It's Alan Sawyer."
Vivian tilted her head to the side. "Wait, are you for real?"
Before Kate could answer, Suraj's voice snapped. "Hey, look!" He was on the far side of the cellar, prying open a narrow door set flush with the stone. Hinges screamed as it gave way. He jabbed his flashlight toward the frame, his tone half incredulous, half thrilled. "Come take a look at this."
Above the door was a sign, black letters stenciled into the metal, chipped at the edges. LAST RESORT.
Suraj cocked his head. "What the hell's the Last Resort?"
Kate jogged over. "That's the manor."
"A manor? This tunnel leads to a manor?"
Kate's chest warmed with sudden, dangerous hope. "That's where my sister is." She didn't wait for anyone to say anything. She snatched a spare flashlight hanging crooked from a hook and aimed it into the darkness yawning beyond the doorway.
Suraj tried to reach out for her arm, but she was too quick. "Hey! Where are you going? Do you even know the way?"
"The tunnel leads one way," Kate said, already moving. "We just have to follow the sign."
"Unbelievable," Suraj muttered. He rubbed his forehead, streaking dust across his skin. "Does anyone else find it, I don't know, super weird that those backwoods Deliverance extras have their own private tunnel system to a manor?"
Kate whipped her head around, eyes sharp in the weak beam of the flashlight. "My sister is up there, okay? I'm going to get her with or without you." She continued walking.
"Fine! Go get her then! We'll stay right here," Suraj said.
Vivian shifted where she stood, watching the cone of Kate's flashlight bob deeper into the tunnel. Vivian hugged herself, uneasy as she turned to face Suraj. "No offense, mister. But we can't really let her go on her own, right?"
"Can't stay here either." Xavier jerked his thumb back toward the cellar stairs, where the faint thuds of something prowling above made the wood groan. "I guess we'll have to find another way out. We need to get to Uncle Kevin and the others. Unlike us, they actually have guns and know how to use them."
Suraj scrunched up his face, confused why he was stuck with people like them. "This night just keeps getting better and better," he said sarcastically.
Vivian hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek. She hated the thought of following Kate into the black throat of that tunnel. But she hated the idea of staying behind more. "Okay," she said softly. "Let's go get that pain in the ass."
"He's still family, Viv."
"Yeah, I know, I know. Don't remind me."
Suraj exhaled loudly, exaggerated, like it might shame the two teenagers back into reason. No one budged. "Great!" He threw up his hands. "Fantastic! Might as well just carve dead meat into our foreheads now and save everyone the trouble."
But he followed them anyway.