Don't Go in the House

“Oi! Jack! Get your head outta the clouds!”
I was snapped from my musings by the voice of my friend. Alex laughed at the expression on my face, shaking his head. “Oh man, you should see the look on your face.”
I scowled, shoving his shoulder. Of course, he protested it. He was the driver this time after all. But he was good behind the wheel. A little rough housing never caused him a car crash. “Just thinking about the assignment. Both of them.” I hummed.
All I got for my concern was a laugh, “dude, we’re just heading to a house in the suburbs. What, you scared or something?” Alex teased. “And besides, I’ll handle myself just fine. I’ve been on the force longer than you, I can manage the solo mission myself.”
My head shook but I had already retreated into my mind. It was a weird call the unit had received. Being sent to the suburbs was odd, but the weirder thing was the briefing. The only substantial thing they received were the quotes from civilians nearby and the reported ‘emanating feeling of dread’ the target held. I nervously opened the file infront of my, gaze traveling over the one common thread between all the interviews.
“Don’t go in the house.”
“We’re here!” Alex called once more. The doors swung open and I stepped out, leaving the folder on my seat. Immediately I was assaulted by the atmosphere. I understood intimately what the feeling of dread was. The house in question didn’t look like much. Its walls and roof were in dark grays and blacks, accented by white windows and a gleaming white door. The white picket fence was pristine, the garden well maintained. On the surface, the house was like a perfect suburban dream.
If it wasn’t for the lack of life. Throughout everything there was a certain air of soullessness. A startling negative that created a feeling of unease. Everything about the property felt uncanny. Unnatural.
“Wow, this place gives me the heebie jeebies.” Alex whistled, walking up beside me. The rest of our squad had just pulled up, but Alex and I were the first ones there.
“Let’s get this over with.” I muttered, forcing my feet to move. We walked up the cobbled path, stepping onto the porch of the house. The closer we got, the worse the feeling was. I would’ve been calmer walking towards a death sentence than this house. The first thing I tried was the door handle. It barely moved, locked. Likely from the outside since nothing gave the indication anyone was home. I knocked anyway, just in case.
“Excuse me sirs!” Both Alex and I jumped in fright, spinning around to face the civilian. It was the neighbor, leaning against the picket fence and looking at us with a smile. “You wouldn’t happen to be trying to get in there, would you?”
I’m so glad that we were in civilian wear for this, or our cover would have been blown immediately. “We heard rumors about this place. Just wanted to take a look around.”
The neighbor’s friendly smile stayed frozen on his face as he spoke, “Don’t go in the house.”
My blood froze. Suddenly the man’s family walked out of his house, standing at his side with the same friendly smile. Alex looked over his shoulder, grabbing my attention. The neighbors on the other side were doing the same. 
"What the fuck?” One of the guys called from the cars. “What’s with this creepy street?” The entire street was staring now. I took a step back, thoroughly unnerved now. 
“No worries, man,” Alex, ever the reliable, was quick to defuse the weird situation. “We’re all just leaving. Wanted to see if the rumors were true after all.”
Both of us walked back down the path, keeping our eyes on our observers. With a quick hand gesture, I signaled everyone to pack up and leave. There was no point in staying, not if it looked like civilians were going to get involved. The whole situation was sketchy, sending a bad feeling down my spine. We all quickly hopped into our cars and drove off.
After about ten minutes of silence, Alex finally spoke. “What are you going to do while I’m gone?”
I grimaced, glaring down at the sheet of paper with those haunting words, ‘Don’t go in the house.’
“Research.”
-----<>-----
It had already been a week since Alex had left for his mission when the team had finally gotten a bit more information about what they were dealing with. The house in question was old. Really old. Owned by the same family, it had been passed down for generations. The current owner of the house was-
“You can’t be serious.” I muttered, staring at the name in bewilderment. Charlie, our resident nerd, laughed at my incredulity.
“I can’t make this shit up Jack. His name is literally John Doe. The Doe family have owned that place for ages.” Charlie’s glee at my bewilderment was not as amusing for me as it was for him.
“Find more stuff on him. Any arrests. Police threats. Calls. And the neighbors as well, investigate them. Whatever’s happening, they’re in on it.” I ordered, sliding the file back across the board room table.
Charlie took it, sliding it back into his satchel. “You think it’s a cult? I really want it to be a cult.” His enthusiasm for it made me quirk a small smile.
“I dunno Charlie. Could be.”
He leapt from his seat, chasing his new ideas out the door with a hasty goodbye. I sat there in silence, staring heavily at the table before me. Normally, I would have Alex here by my side for cases like this. Right now, it wasn’t the strangest case we’ve shared together. That time with that one scientist who convinced himself he could summon demons was… something. A cult was nothing compared to the wild goose chase that was.
But it was the first time I’d have to do it alone. 
My phone buzzed, making me hurry to check it. Messenger opened and I smiled.
Hey Jack! It’s me, Alex!
This stuff over here is probably nothing compared to what you’ve got going on, but don’t you worry! Since I’ll be having an easier time, I’ll be able to help you quicker once I get back. Don’t worry about a thing buddy. I told you I’d keep an eye out for anything that could relate to your case, and I’ll keep you updated. Gotta go now, just text me the usual to make sure you got the message.
- Alex
PS: I’ve been practicing my smash bros game and you are going down when I’m back!
I laughed to myself, texting back a hasty reply.
I’ll make you eat those words!
-----<>-----
It was a normal day like any other when the call came. It was late, all of us staying up to continue our research into this god damned house. So far we hadn’t gotten very far. The records were clean. People moved in and out of the neighborhood at a regular rate, and nobody who had moved from the neighborhood seemed suspicious. We were all tired, and rather fed up with the frustrating week.
The phone rang. The blue one. It was only to be used when someone in the field was in trouble, and all of us had the number. 
I was the one to answer it, stomach already sinking. Alex’s texts had told me that he’d finished his mission. He was on his way back now, and was just following a short lead that might relate to the current house mystery. The chances of it being him was small.
Not zero.
“Fuck!” Alex screamed into the phone, shocking me into silence. I couldn’t breathe. “Fucking hell! What the fuck is this shit!”
I grabbed the phone tighter, yelling into the receiver, “Alex! Where are you! We’ll send the nearest police unit out there to you!”
My heart stopped, “Jack! Fuck, you shouldn’t be hearing this! I- Holy shit!” There was a sound, a bone chilling and alien noise. Like a fork scraping against glass. A sound that immediately sent chills down my spine. I heard gunshots, from a rifle. “I only have one magazine left.” Alex’s voice was quiet now, a whisper. 
“Where are you Alex?” I whispered back, “Please.”
“27th, courterin crescent, Kilacrew.”
Immediately, everyone raced into action. Phone calls were made and people ran around like headless chickens. “Alright we have people on their way! Hang in there Alex!” I was cut off by more gunshots. Alex was in active fire.
“Jack, you need to drop the case!” Alex yelled into the phone. I almost dropped it in shock. Never once in a million years had Alex ever suggested to drop a case before. “This goes so much fucking deeper than we thought! You’ll fucking die if you chase this!”
“I can’t drop the case, Alex!” I shouted, “We’ll solve it together! Just hang in there!”
Another shriek and my heart leapt to his throat. Alex shrieked in pain, his assailant having caught up. “What the fuck is in that house!”
The line died.
I yelled, kicking things into gear. Charlie tossed me a set of keys and I was out the door in a heartbeat. I broke so many road laws trying to get to Kilacrew, the thirty-minute drive making my heart race. The warehouse was already bathed in red and blue when I jumped from the car, the vehicle still running behind me.
“Where is he!” I roared, startling the police officers on scene. “Alexander Evendale, where is he!”
“Sir, you can’t be here!” I ignored the protests, shouldering men out of my way as I entered the warehouse. Immediately I was assaulted by a smell that could only be described as rot. The interior was in shambles. Shelves were knocked over and destroyed, bullet holes covering every inch of the place. Magazines were all discarded on the ground, and I knew without having to check that each one was empty.
Thirty minutes. So much can happen in thirty minutes.
-----<>-----
I poured over the documents laid out on the boardroom table, Charlie by my side as I analyzed everything. The attack on Alex had something to do with this case, and now I’m going to solve it or die trying. 
“… Do you think they’ll ever find Alex?” Charlie murmured in the silence.
“It’s been a week, Charlie. If he was alive, he would’ve returned by now. And even then, chances of it being a kidnapping is astronomically low.” I muttered absently. What was John Doe’s connection to the warehouse of all things? “How was audio analysis?”
I looked up and watched as Charlie winced, downcast. “The only match I could get was Alex’s voice. Everything else was unidentifiable. I ran it past every single sound, human and otherwise. Whatever that was, it wasn’t in our audio bank.”
I nodded, “I expected as much. Whatever it was that Alex discovered, it was a lot bigger than a cult.”
Charlie fell silent again, and we worked with a dedication unheard of in the force. Until we were interrupted by Emily. The secretary ran inside, looking horrified. I immediately went to her side, abandoning the paperwork in favor of comforting the crying woman.
“What’s wrong Emily? What happened?” I hushed her, offering a spare handkerchief to dry her tears.
“It’s Alex, Jack.” She sobbed, shaking in my arms. “He’s at the front desk right now.”
She must’ve known what I’d do, because she hastily stepped away from me. It only took a second to register what she said when I was bolting down the corridor like my life depended on it. Stopping at the landing, the one that overlooked the lobby, I gaped down at my friend. His brown and grey hair was messy, covered with soot and grime. His face wasn’t much better. Dried blood remained crusted above his brown eyes. His clothes were all torn and in an even worse state than the man himself.
“Alex!” I shouted down to him, practically jumping down the rest of the stairs as I ran to my best friend. Alex startled, the dazed expression remaining on his face as I pulled him into a bear hug. “Oh god I thought we lost you.” Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, the closest I’ve ever come to crying. It felt like everything was hitting me all at once. The house, the phone call, the crime scene. Now that he was back, I felt like I could finally breathe again. Step away from being a spec ops figurehead and start being Jackson again. I felt him lift his hands, hugging me back gently. Finally, after a week of the end of the world everything was ok again.
-----<>-----
“Nothing is ok about this.” I hissed under my breath, stuffed into the supply closet alongside Charlie. Our precious documents surrounding what was quickly dubbed as That House were now plastered along the walls in here instead of cluttering the boardroom. “There is something wrong about Alex.”
“You said it.” Charlie muttered, “I mean, this is getting ridiculous.”
The first thing Alex had done when he was settled, after the police interrogations and forced leave, was to terminate the House case. The others were relieved to never have to go back there again but Charlie and I were determined. Especially after what is now called, The Phone Call. Alex had ordered that the two of us stopped our investigation completely, and simply burn every document relating to the case.
Ordered.
Alex never ordered. He asked, he requested. He never ordered.
It was a part of a growing list called ‘Things that are wrong about Alex.’
He ordered. He lost the little micro expression he does when he’s thinking about the people he cares about, where his lips curl in a barely suppressed smile. His leg no longer bounced when he was focused on work. Alex completely stopped drinking his 1 sugar tea and started drinking coffee, which I knew for a fact he had sworn off after a nasty experience in our middle school years. Worst of all were the video games.
My phone pinged, and I was filled with a distant dread. I checked the messages, staring at the new one from Alex.
Jack, where are the files for the Helifrow murders? I need to review them for the upcoming presentation.
They’re propping up my desk since SOMEONE didn’t bother to order a replacement.
I’ll ask for a replacement in my next report to the higher ups.
I swallowed, shaking my head. I’ve had that desk for years now, and it was always a running gag between us. If I had closed a difficult case, we’d use it to prop up the desk so it would feel the pain we felt having to solve it.
It’s fine, take the papers. I’ll find something else that will work.
Anyway, do you want to come over tonight? We still haven’t had that super smash bros rematch you know.
The reply came slow, and I almost hoped he’d accept. Almost.
No thank you, as I said I need to prepare the presentation. I will talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight.
The groan I released alerted Charlie to my newest failed attempt. He smiled sympathetically. “No luck?”
I shook my head at him, tossing the phone across the shelf we currently used as a desk. “He’s obsessed with this presentation. Normally we do it together but this year he told me he’d take over the whole thing. Including presenting the thing. I’m not going to be in the room this time.”
“You know, at least he talks to you.” Charlie bemoaned. “Ever since he came back, he’s given me the cold shoulder. Doesn’t speak to me at all. You’re the only one that’s inviting me out now.”
That wasn’t normal for Alex. When Charlie joined the force Alex was the first to start inviting him places. The unit joked that Alex and I had practically adopted the young genius, that we were married together with a son. The perfect happy, crime kicking family.
It looked like the happy family was going through a divorce, and I got the kid.
“We’ll figure this out Charlie.” I reassured. If I was trying to calm myself as well, that was only between myself and god. “We have to.”
-----<>-----
I laughed at my sister’s story, quickly tucking a pork cube into my mouth. The dinner was divine, and after the horrible month I needed the break of a family dinner.
“What did he do next, Kira?” I asked through my food.
“Manners, Jack. We didn’t raise a ruffian did we?” Dad chuffed, a smile in his voice as he spoke. I rolled my eyes, placing more pork into my mouth.
“I dunno Dad, did you?”
The table laughed, and I couldn’t help but beam through my food. It felt nice to have a laugh now. God knows I need it.
“Hey, did you hear about the new neighbors down the street?” Mom started the conversation, and as I continued shoving food into my mouth the rest of the table continued.
“I went over with you guys, remember?” Andrew huffed, pushing his food around.
“The Doe family are such a nice bunch.” Kira sighed.
My brain suddenly started shouting alarm at me. I jolted in surprise. Doe, it sounded familiar. Sounded wrong.
“John Doe?”
Suddenly it was silent. Like a forest when the king, the apex predator, enters the undergrowth. When the beasts in the shadows prowl. When the monsters clutch their stomachs with a growl. In that moment, I was the rabbit. The mouse.
The prey.
As one my family turned to me, frozen smiles on their faces. I startled out of my seat, suddenly finding myself dressed in my full combat kit. I pointed my handgun forward, watching with dawning horror as the cast shadows on the walls grew longer. They opened their mouths.
“Don’t go in the house.”
I screamed, launching from my bed in a cold sweat. Immediately, I found myself hunched over the toilet, two rooms over. Dinner ended up floating in the water as I gagged and dry heaved, trying to get rid of the horrifying words echoing in my mind.
“What are you doing?”
I raised my head miserably, staring at Alex with a wretched look. I had stayed at his house tonight, after basically begging the man to let me. It felt dirty, to hang around this imposter, but it was the only thing I could do to be around him. “Nightmare.” I hummed.
An odd look crossed Alex’s gaze, and to my surprise he walked forward from the doorway. His knees hit the ground and he raised a hand, placing it on my shoulder. I looked into his chocolate eyes, searching for the reason behind this sudden kindness.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex whispered with an uncharacteristic care. If I closed my eyes and forgot the past week, I could almost pretend that my Alex was the one who said it.
So I did.
I closed my eyes and leaned into him. He understood my intention, arms quickly pulling me into a hug. Unlike the hug in the lobby of the office, this was firmer. A layer of protectiveness that I hadn’t felt in a while. I broke, sobbing and wailing into his chest as we sat in the dark. I couldn’t tell anyone how long I sat there, whimpering. Everything had just been too much. The House, Alex, now that nightmare that haunted my waking moments.
In the morning I woke up in my bed, a glass of water on the bedside. Alex was gone.
-----<>-----
Charlie and I sat across from each other in the break room, pondering the weird change surrounding Alex. He was still cold to everyone else, still distant. The others in the unit were noticing it now, not just Charlie. However, when it came to me…
“Jack.” We both startled, looking as one to where the ashy brunette stood by the doorway. “Will you come with me to dinner tonight?”
Charlie looked at me meaningfully, nudging my leg with his foot. I sighed, turning to my friend. “Sorry Alex, I’ve got plans with Charlie for the new few nights. I’ll be free on Saturday though.”
Alex’s expression changed slightly, sending a quick glare at Charlie before he brightened up. “Alright, I’ll see you on Saturday night then!” The man left, leaving us to stare in confusion.
“… I don’t know what you did Jack. But whatever it was, it’s now got the… whatever is possessing Alex into you.” Charlie muttered.
“Not for much longer.” I hissed, staring back at Charlie with a look.
Not for much longer.
-----<>-----
I stood, silent in the street facing The House. I tried to speak, but my voice caught in my throat and my mouth wouldn’t open. 
The door was open. The white door of The House was swung wide, an inky void filling the inside. No matter how many times I blinked or focused, I couldn’t make anything out. It was just empty. Suddenly there was a boy. He had to be only 17, as he stood in front of me with his back turned. The red cap and shirt he wore made me think of a pizza worker. I worked that job with Alex in my teenage years.
The boy began to walk forward, towards the house. Against my invisible bonds I struggled to warn him. Tell him to leave this place and never come back. The boy stepped foot inside The House and I watched the scene as it took place.
The first thing the void did was grab his arms and ripped them off. I expected the boy to scream, but he didn’t. I thought I would hear bones snapping or flesh ripping, but I didn’t. Suffocating silence pressed against me on all sides as I watched the macabre scene. His legs were next, then his head. I watched as his organs were pulled out of his innards and floated around the air like demented party streamers. I watched in horror as a blue eye floated out of the house, held by a claw of inky void. It stared at me, and I could almost see fear in the eye.
The eye was yanked back by the void, the rest of the body following suit. I watched as the body was pieced together again, each part glued together by the same inky void that tore it apart. When the boy turned around, I knew he couldn’t be the same boy that walked in. His mouth was too wide, his eyes a darker void than the one in the house. He walked towards me, and as I futilely tried to struggle away, he caught my chin in his hand.
Raven hair fell out from his hat, and I knew that if the boy wasn’t possessed his blue eyes would be staring into my soul. I know that piercing stare anywhere, because it was mine. My own face, younger but still my own, smirked in a way that split his cheeks open wide. He opened his mouth and I flinched. I knew what was coming.
“Don’t go in the house!” The monster howled in a thousand voices. Some of them I knew. Some of them were foreign to me.
I woke up once again, finding myself by my toilet with a worried Alex consoling me. 
I had to go into that house.
-----<>-----
It was Saturday night, and I had stayed the Friday at Charlie’s in preparation for our agenda. Sunday would be when everything went down. Today was for some answers. A hint. 
As I sat across the dinner booth from Alex, I breathed out. Time for an interrogation of sorts.
“Who are you?” I asked him, cutting a slice off my steak.
“What are you talking about? I’m Alex-“ I cut him off quickly.
“No, you’re not.” The steak was good. “You aren’t Alex. We’ve established that already. Do you have a name to be called?”
The creature wearing Alex’s face stared at me with a complicated expression. His expressions were different to Alex’s as well. “… No. I don’t.”
“Alright then. Lex, what are you?” I wouldn’t call him Alex, but Lex was close enough that he’d be used to it quickly and far enough that I don’t feel like throwing up.
He looked surprised at the name change, but answered regardless. “We were here before you were, but you couldn’t pronounce our name if you practiced a thousand times. Your kind has lots of different names for mine. The boogeyman, the void, wendigo, Dracula. My favourite ghost story about us is The Midnight Game.”
“So you’re basically the things that go bump in the night.” Lex shrugged and I pondered it. “What’s in the house?”
“Don’t go in the house.” It was almost an automatic response for Lex, and I groaned.
“You can’t stop me.”
“I could. I defeated your friend, subduing you wouldn’t be hard.” Lex countered. I ground my teeth at the reminder.
“How did he…”
Lex’s eyes softened and he reached a slow hand out to touch my arm. “I can’t tell you if it was painless, but he’s dead. He’s not painfully alive in my conscious like what happens with some humans, since I find that too cruel. That’s the only mercy I could give him.”
I swallowed thickly, nodding at the confirmation. Alex really was gone, and all that was left was Lex. “I’m going in that house.”
Lex shook his head again, grabbing my hands in his and giving me a look so pitiful it didn’t fit on Alex’s face. “Please, don’t go in the house.”
He wasn’t demanding, like how it usually was with that damned phrase. I took me a second, but when his hands started trembling, I figured it out.
He was begging.
“Please Jack. You can’t go in that house. You’ll die, she’ll kill you and then you’ll come into work the next week, but you won’t be you. You won’t be you and I can’t let that happen so please. Please Jack, don’t go in the house.” Lex rambled, tears in his eyes as he pleaded with me. But all I could hear was SHE.
“I’m sorry.” I whispered. I pulled my hands from his, standing up and placing my credit card down on the table. “Dinner is on me. Have a nice night.”
I was gone before he could stand up and chase me. I had a monster to kill.
-----<>-----
“You left him your credit card?” Charlie asked me, staring at me incredulously. I rolled my eyes, keeping them fairly firmly on the road. The silver moon above us cast plenty of light as we drove down the suburban street.
“What are the chances I make it out of here alive Charlie?” I questioned back, “If we somehow survive this, I’ll take my card back myself.”
“We’ll survive this.” Charlie stated, a determination shining in his eyes. I sighed.
“I hope so Charlie.”
We turned our lights off as we pulled up to The House, not wasting a second as we pulled in. The two of us became silent ghosts as we raced up to the white door. Charlie was fast at the lock, expert lock picking skills coming in handy while I kept watch.
“We’re in.” He hissed, slipping inside. I followed him, prepared for the void that haunted my nightmares. Instead it was a normal house.
The interior was all in a monochrome black and white. White furniture, gray walls, black floors and ceiling. We split up, our rifles held at the ready as the two of us cleared room after room. Then the second floor was investigated and searched. Then the attic. We reconvened in the main hall, standing on the hideous rug as we pondered where SHE could be.
Charlie’s eyes brightened and he bounced on his toes with an excitement that made me smile. He shooed me off the rug and I watched him curiously as he ripped the rug away. We both beamed. Hidden basement time. Charlie looked me in the eyes and mouthed ‘cult’ at me.
The stupid theory made me smile even more. Down there was the source of all of this. Most likely, the queen. Charlie was sure it was a queen anyway. I agreed.
They descended the steps, the rifles held ready. The Ak-47s should work against this threat. 
Hopefully.
As soon as my feet hit the floor, the room we were just seeing went dark. As dark as the void from my nightmare.
“Who dares disturb me?” A thousand voices hissed in the void. Neither of us were brave enough to speak, so it decided to look at us instead.
Two acidic green eyes opened. No iris. No pupil. Just a green sclera staring down at us. We raised our weapons as another set opened. Then another. And another.
Eight eyes peered at us with thinly veiled boredom, whatever was on the other side circling around us. “Two humans? Rather pathetic, isn’t it? Surely your armies knew to send their best, not two sniveling little boys?” Her voice, though it was made up of thousands of voices, sounded more feminine than masculine.
Instead of replying, we opened fire. That bone chilling shriek from The Phone Call resounded, the beast dashing around now as she realized our threat. In the flashes of gunfire, I saw her. Claws longer than my arms swiped at us, tearing through the concrete floor of the basement like it was paper. Six limbs allowed her to climb across the walls and ceiling, and as we shot my ankles kicked things along the ground. She shrieked louder and in the flashes I could see what I kept kicking.
Eggs.
It looked like there may be hundreds of eggs down here, evenly spaced in the large room beneath The House. Each of them hiding one of those body snatchers. The whole neighborhood was a nursery. 
All of a sudden, she went silent. We fired into the dark a little more, but she had vanished. Her acidic eyes were gone.
“Did we do it?” Charlie asked. As I turned to answer, I heard a voice.
“Jack!” Unlike the past months, everything was right about it. The tone, the inflections, the emotion. It was like he was back.
“Alex?!” I shouted, running into the darkness. Maybe Lex was wrong, and Alex might be down here. Being held captive as baby food. “Alex where are you?!”
“Behind you!” I was a fool.
Pain exploded in my back, causing me to scream out in pain. It hurt, worse than any mission or nightmare had before. It was so fundamentally real that it was all I could think of. Shrieks and gunshots rang out, Charlie and the Queen continuing to fight. I lay, bleeding on the ground, and all I could think of was that I wanted a little more time. Just enough to see who won.
My answer came quickly, Charlie lifting me up into his arms and hastily running up the stairs. As he ran he was talking to me, but I could barely hear him. My vision was blurring quickly. This was probably because of bleeding out.
“Charlie. Make us wait, alright?” I whispered to him. He looked down at me, saying something that I couldn’t hear. I smiled back at him, and I really hope he smiled back. I couldn’t see anymore. I couldn’t hear either.
It was just void.
-----<>-----
When Charlie got to the lawn, Lex was there. The body snatching, eldritch, whatever he was looked like he was panting. Charlie took a quick second to stare around the yard at the utter mess. The motorcycle that Jack had bought Alex two years ago, the one that Alex had begged for since the previous Christmas, was laying on its side in the yard. The obvious answer to why it was there laid within the hole in the fence and the large patch of grass and dirty torn up by a crash. Lex himself was covered in dirt and grass as a result, a cut bleeding on the side of his head. Around the two, the neighbors were gathered at the edges of the property. Each one possessed by the creatures that had killed his two closest friends.
Lex’s gaze was focused on Jack, the raven haired man lying still in Charlie’s arms. He swallowed, opening his mouth with a distant hope in his eyes. “Is he… Jack’s alright, right?”
Charlie glared at Lex, tightening his grip on the man in his arms. The tech nerd shook his head, stepping forwards to continue walking to the car. Lex ran over, hovering over the agent. A startled gasp let him know that Lex saw the state Jack was in.
“Give him to me.” Lex ordered, finally moving to block Charlie. The special ops agent shifted his hold, tucking the body of his close friend against his side and pulling out a combat knife still covered in The Queen’s blood.
“No.” Charlie hissed, glaring hatefully. Lex blinked, and for a second his eyes were a startling solid blue, absent of pupil and iris. Then, the creature sighed. 
“Can I attend the funeral?” Lex whispered. 
“I don’t care what you do.” Charlie answered, “All I care about is if your kind will bother mine again?”
Lex looked at the house with a grimace, “I think we got the message.”
Charlie got in the car, body in tow as he left Lex standing on the lawn of the now empty house. As he drove, tears pricked the corners of his eyes. Blood stained the seat beside him but he didn’t care. Ten minutes later he had to pull over, sobbing into the wheel as Jack’s lifeless blue eyes gazed sightlessly at him.
Category:Dreams/Sleep
Category:Monsters
Category:Beings
Category:Dismemberment
Category:Disappearances
Category:Places