Night -2011- - Fright

Charley picked up his phone. It was fully charged now. 6:02 AM. He scrolled to a contact he’d never thought he’d use again.

The shared wall was gone. Not broken— gone . As if erased. Beyond it stretched not the neighbor’s living room but a vast, circular chamber of black marble veined with red. Torches flickered along curved walls. And in the center, on a throne made of shattered headstones, sat a woman.

Charley slid out of bed and grabbed the baseball bat—the one with the nail through the barrel, Peter Vincent’s idea. The one he’d laughed at. He didn’t laugh now.

Jerry’s apartment.

“You said if I ever needed you, text the bat emoji.”

The woman tilted her head. A smile cracked her face like dry earth. “Yes. He was. But he was mine . And in this life—this long, dull, mortal-spanned life—that means you owe me a debt.”

Outside, a crow landed on the railing of Jerry’s old balcony. It had mirror-bright eyes. fright night -2011-

She looked nothing like Jerry. Where he had been sharp and modern, she was ancient and worn smooth as river stone. Her skin was the color of old ivory. Her eyes had no pupils—just twin mirrors reflecting Charley’s own terrified face back at him.

“Jerry was an artist of appetite,” she continued, rising. She wore no shoes. Her feet left wet prints on the marble. “I am an artist of consequence . You will not die tonight, Charles. You will watch. For one year, you will watch everyone you save fall, one by one. And on the last night, you will thank me for it.”

“No,” he said.

Beside it, a note in perfect handwriting:

Charley tightened his grip on the bat. His heart hammered so loud he was sure she could hear it.

And it was smiling.