Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
I HATE THIS
COLE
I hate this.
I hate this.
I hate this.
The words chant through my skull like a bad mantra as I crouch through the basement doors. My phone flashlight cuts a weak cone through the dark, catching cobwebs sagging from the ceiling like abandoned traps. The air is damp and sour, thick enough to taste.
Every sound feels amplified. My boots crunch too loud on the steps. Gasoline sloshes in the can, sharp and chemical. I swear I can hear the beats from my heart echoing off the walls.
I take the stairs down to the basement, easing my weight down, praying the wood doesn’t scream. The door silently swings open and my foot hovers inches above the basement floor.
The walls aren’t walls anymore.
They’re alive.
Vines burst through the dirt-packed foundation, swollen and black, bulging like veins straining under skin. Roots sprawl across the floor, thick as wrists, slick with moisture. They pulse. Like something breathing in its sleep.
Why? Why me?
The beam of my phone shakes as I sweep it across the room. The vines twitch in response, subtle but undeniable. One curls in on itself. Another slides an inch closer, leaving a smear on the concrete.
My stomach roils.
“Okay,” I whisper, my voice barely there. “Just don’t touch them. Don’t touch anything. You’ve made it this far without dying. Let’s keep that streak alive.”
I edge sideways, pressing myself flat against the wall. The gas can bumps my leg as a vine brushes my sleeve.
Cold.
Wet.
Meaty.
It tightens for a second, then relaxes.
I choke back a sound and fumble the can, barely catching it before it hits the floor.
“Stop fumbling, dumbass,” I hiss.
The stairs to the upper floor come into view, warped and sagging, a clear invitation to die.
Vines coil around the railing and choke the steps, thick as ropes, glossy with moisture.
I take them two at a time anyway, placing my feet where the wood looks least rotten, phone light jerking wildly with every breath I try to keep quiet.
The stairs groan.
I freeze.
They hold.
I reach the landing and push the door open.
The house is infected.
Vines blanket everything. Walls. Ceiling. Furniture. They crawl in layers, weaving over each other. The air is heavy with mildew and rot, but underneath it is something sweeter. Overripe. Nauseating.
Then I see them.
Pumpkins.
Dozens of them sprout straight from the vines, round and glossy, their skins stretched tight. Some are the size of softballs. Others are bigger.
“I really fucking hate this,” I whisper, stepping into the kitchen, my shoes sticking to the linoleum. The floor is coated in a thin layer of slime. Roots snake across it in looping patterns that almost look intentional. Almost like writing.
Nope. Do not dwell on the fact you are standing in a demonic headquarters.
I pick up the pace.
I pull the gas can up and splash gasoline across the walls. It runs in shiny rivers over vines and cabinets. The aroma punches my sinuses hard enough to make tears streak down my cheeks. I soak the counter. The fridge. The table. Gas drips onto the floor and spreads into dark, shimmering puddles.
One of the smaller pumpkins twitches when the fuel hits it.
I jump back, heart in my throat.
“Stay still,” I bark at it. “I swear to god.”
It settles. For now.
I grab the stove and wrench it forward. Metal shrieks. The gas line pops loose with a sharp hiss.
Val’s voice cuts through my head, calm and maddeningly practical.
A gas can helps. The fumes do the real work.
“If I live through this,” I mutter, dragging the can toward the living room, “I’m memorizing every random survival fact you’ve ever said. I will become a damn survivalist expert.”
The vines squirm under my feet as I go. One curls around the leg of a chair. Another creeps toward my ankle, curious.
I kick it away and keep pouring.
By the time I reach the living room, the can is half empty. My good arm aches. My hand shakes. Gasoline slicks the floor, the walls, the furniture, soaking into cloth that darkens with each pass.
The vines here are thicker, denser, like the house is being slowly strangled. One root is as wide as my thigh, buried into the wall, pulsing in time with something deeper.
I dump the rest of the gas in wide arcs, soaking the couch, the rug, the exposed beams. The fumes bloom instantly, sharp and eye watering, crawling down my throat.
I toss the empty container into the center of the room and straighten, chest heaving, my broken arm rising and falling in quick beats across it.
I back toward the front door.
Or try to.
Vines have sealed it shut.
They’ve grown thick and layered, braided together across the frame like living rebar. One pulses as I step closer. Another twitches, ready to pounce if I get closer. They aren’t blocking the door by accident. They’re guarding it.
“Of course you are,” I mutter.
I pivot toward the nearest window, but no luck. All are reinforced with vine and root, like the house itself decided nothing was getting out that way.
Okay, I’ll just go out the way I came.
I retreat back to the kitchen, but the basement door is now a thick wall of vines. They vibrate as though they are wagging invisible fingers at me. Nah nah nah nah nah.
Motherfuckers.
They knew.
They knew exactly what I was about to do. They let me pour the gas. Let me think I was clever.
They didn’t need to stop me.
They just needed to wait.
Because I’m not the kind of idiot who lights himself on fire.
Right?
My throat tightens.
I step back and the kitchen suddenly feels small. Too small. Walls pressing in. Windows blacked out with vine and shadow. No exit. No fresh air. Just me and five gallons of gasoline soaking into the floorboards.
I’m trapped.
Actually trapped.
I can’t get to the bulkhead doors.
I can’t get back outside.
If I light this now, I burn with it.
If I don’t, they break through and everyone dies.
My laugh comes out thin and shaky.
“Well,” I crack a bitter smile, staring at the writhing wall of vines. “Guess this is the part where I live up to my potential.”
Principal Parker would be thrilled.
“All right,” I mutter, trembling, but I pull one of the flares from my belt anyway.
I do the math anyway. Or at least try to.
The fumes are thick in the kitchen. Too thick. One spark and the whole place goes up at once. If I start in the living room, I might stand a chance. If not. At least I tried.
This isn’t about getting out clean.
It’s about making sure it burns even if I burn in the process. It’s about giving Val and Shaun a chance.
“Time to start the show.” I strike the flare.
Red light explodes to life, bathing the room in a hellish glow. The vines recoil like they recognize danger. Then they move. Stretching. Reaching. One vine pounds the floor in a steady rhythm, thump . . . thump . . . thump, like it’s sending a message through the roots.
My skin prickles.
I step forward and hold the flare over the slick floor, already turning my body toward the basement stairs.
One shot.
One chance.
The vapors burn my eyes, sting my lungs. My hands shake, but I grin anyway, teeth bared and feral.
“Enjoy this, pumpkin pricks,” I whisper.
I drop the flare and jump back.
Fire races across the floor in a heartbeat. Flames crawl up the walls, hungry and fast, devouring vines in snapping waves. Small pumpkins split open, spilling seeds that sizzle and burst.
Then the vines lose their minds.
They thrash violently, tearing free from the walls. One slams into the ceiling. Dust shakes loose and I conduct a full-body sneeze. Another lashes across the floor, cracking wood. The noise fills the house, wet and shrieking, like something screaming without a mouth.
Something grabs my ankle.
I scream and kick, ripping the vine loose, but another coils around my good arm. It’s burning and still fighting, its surface blackening as it tightens. Pain sears through me. My skin screams. I smell my own flesh cooking.
“Get off me!” I yell, stumbling backward.
Blisters rise instantly under its grip. I crash into the kitchen table, dragging the vine with me, my glasses sliding off my face and clattering somewhere out of sight. The world blurs. Flames chase me now, racing along the fumes like they’ve been waiting for permission.
The vine finally slackens as the fire eats into its core.
I rip free and drop to my knees, blind and hacking, my good hand scraping across the floor as heat roars at my back. Smoke thickens fast, heavy and oily, burning my throat with every breath. The kitchen is a furnace now. The air feels sharp enough to cut.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” I rasp, pawing at the floor.
My fingers smack plastic. I almost sob. I shove my glasses onto my face and wince. The right lens is gone, the world fractured and warped. Good enough.
I squeeze one eye shut and twist toward the living room. The heat slams into me like a wall. Roots explode from the plaster, tearing through drywall, hammering the floorboards as they surge toward the door. One coils around my waist and tugs.
I slam down hard on my broken arm.
Pain detonates through me, bright and nauseating. My vision spots. I gag.
“Fuck off already!” I scream, clawing at the vine.
It tightens, crushing my ribs, stealing air. My chest screams. The house groans around us, beams popping as fire eats deeper.
I flail, desperate, fingers scraping over junk and debris until I find iron.
A skillet.
I swing it like my life depends on it. Because it does. I bring it down again and again, smashing the vine. The metal bites, tearing grooves through its blistering flesh. Black sap sprays my face. The vine shrieks, a high, burning hiss.
I drop the skillet and fumble for a flare. My hands shake so hard I nearly lose it. I flip the kitchen table over, blocking me from the stove. Screw it. If I die, at least they die with me. I bite down and strike it with my teeth and toss it over the side to the leaking stove.
The spark hits the fumes.
BOOM.
The blast throws me backward like a rag doll. My spine slams into the wall. All the air punches out of my lungs in one useless gasp. My ears scream. My skull cracks against wood and stars detonate behind my eyes. The vine around my waist snaps loose, blackened and twitching like a severed nerve.
Fire takes the house and the vine wall blocking my exit.
Hollow, furious screaming crawls through the walls and ceiling. A chorus of burning things that never had mouths but somehow found voices anyway. It sounds like crabs boiling alive.
I one-arm crawl toward my only chance.
The floor scorches my palm. Smoke claws down my throat. My lungs beg and I give them nothing useful. I drag myself forward, ribs aching as coughs shake my body, tears pouring down my face whether I want them to or not. My broken arm dragging through mutated, dead flesh.
The door swims into view through heat shimmer and smoke.
I shove it open and tumble down the basement steps, shoulder first. My vision wobbles. My stomach flips, threatening to come up and join the madness. The basement yawns below me, dark and damp and beautiful.
Escape.
The roots burst from the walls in blackened whips, charred but alive, slithering faster than anything burned has a right to move. I drop and scramble, nails ripping through dirt, breath coming out in broken wheezes.
They reach me.
Cold brushes my heel. Then pressure.
Something curls around my ankle.
“Not today,” I gasp, kicking hard, twisting, skin scraping raw as the house groans behind me. The fire roars louder now, the floor trembling as beams collapse upstairs.
The roots tighten, determined to take me with them.
The basement shakes.
And then—