Facade

Marvin awoke, a blistering pain soaring through the back of his head as he opened his dreary eyes and awaited for his vision to clear. Initially, he couldn’t recall any of the events that took place beforehand, however, after much thought, it all came racing back to him. That day didn’t start off on a good note. 
He, Rose, and Jeffry had gotten into a fight, and a pretty bad one at that. Of course, they had their disagreements before, what family unit hasn’t? Difference between those and their current one however was that they left no scars, this one did. After much deliberation, Marvin and Rose disbanded, with Marvin storming off to the left side of the house while Rose and Jeffry stuck to the right.
Marvin figured some sleep could cure him of his frustration, so he opted to take a nap on the couch. He woke back up a few hours later, with the sun past the horizon and the clock approaching midnight. He went to the bedroom to make amends for the fight, however, Rose and Jeffry were nowhere to be seen. Puzzled, he checked Jeffry's room, they weren’t there either. He went room to room and wound up empty handed with each corner he turned.
“Okay, not a big deal…” Marvin told himself, “they probably just drove somewhere to cool off, yeah, that’s probably it!” As he raced to the garage to fact check that theory though, his heart sank. Both of their cars were still there, untouched. The longer he went without finding his family, the further his mind leaned into progressively worse outcomes. Maybe they had left the house, maybe they called a friend to pick them up and take them far away from him?
Still concerned, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and first called Rose. He rang her number up three times, each call went to voicemail, the same for Jeffry. If his prior assumption was correct, why wouldn’t they have blocked his number? “Who knows” he thought, “maybe they forgot, not like that would be their top priority”.
Still, Marvin couldn’t shake the feeling that their disappearance was his own fault, that he drove them away from him thanks to the fight. As his thoughts of self blame slowly yet surely snowballed and he frantically searched the house, he eventually reached a consensus, any theory he had at that point was wrong. If they had ditched him and gotten a ride from an acquaintance, why was none of their stuff missing?
Marvin checked both his and Jeffry’s room again, and none of Rose nor Jeffry’s belongings were missing, everything was as they left it. Even more damning, Jeffry’s medication was still in the kitchen. Rose never went anywhere without his medication, now was no different. Panic began to set in, Marvin scrambled around the house again, trying to search for some answer, any answer that would give him a clear consensus, only to draw a blank.
No matter what direction he turned this in, it didn’t make sense, and even if there was some other explanation that simply didn’t come to him, it didn’t matter. Nothing was adding up, that was clear to him, his gut told him something horrible had happened, and he wasn’t going to ignore it. As he was about to dial 911 however, a noise rang from upstairs. Startled yet hopeful, he frantically ran upstairs and into the side room where he heard the noise from, only to be met with nothing, just like his previous room sweeps. As disappointment washed over him and he was about to step out of the side room though, he saw something in the corner of his eye, or at least thought he did. On further inspection, he was just staring at a wall, feeling like an idiot. As he looked on though, something appeared, then vanished, a door.
Same black color and design as all the rest in the house, but of course, not only had it never been there before, but also, from the brief glimpse Marvin got of it, it had a padlock on it. The door would phase in and out in a random pattern, one minute being there, and the next just leaving behind an empty wall. As Marvin got a better look at it, he noticed several long, metal rods that surrounded it, connecting from the ceiling to the floor. Smack dab in the center of the rods was a door, the kind you’d find on a tall fence.
“I think I’m losing it…” he muttered to himself, frozen in disbelief at the sight of the reality bending door, blinking in and out of existence before his very eyes. “Maybe I’m dreaming, maybe that’s what this all is!” He pinched himself in the arm, and when that didn’t work, he slapped himself across the face, nothing. “What am I’m thinking…” he face palmed, “I can feel things, of course this isn’t a dream!” As he sighed in frustration over his stupidity, his eyes centered back on the laws of physics breaking door.
“Still doesn’t explain that thing…” He muttered to himself, still not fully grasping what he was seeing. As he stared at the door though, he noticed something, his vision. At first it was barely noticeable, but after a while it grew hard to ignore. His vision began to… Glitch? Like a malfunctioning screen on a computer, random colors and pixels flashed across his eyes in random intervals. When he took his eyes off the door though, it ceased immediately, and so did the door’s phasing in and out.
Marvin found that the door phasing and glitching would only occur if he looked at a very specific part of the wall, which he eventually rediscovered. He didn’t know what to think, what to believe; this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. He had snapped, surely, no sane person would see this, unless they had taken one hell of a drug. And yet, at the same time, Marvin was intrigued, albeit nervous. That gut feeling was back, and while he couldn’t get a read on what it was telling him, it had to do with that door, with his family. After all, why was the door so locked down, and in his own home no less?
He was gonna find what was in that room, whether he liked it or not. “Okay, fine you win, lets see what’s behind door number… Forget it.” As he approached, the door stopped appearing and disappearing, staying ingrained on the wall. First thing Marvin needed to take care of was the door on the bars, no easy order. Regardless, Marvin was determined, he had practiced lock picking for a good while, and hopefully he could crack this one. After a few attempts though, he realized this was beyond his specialty. “Ugh, what am I doing, I do basic stuff, not this.” As he looked through the bars at the padlock on the door though, lightbulb. “I’m overcomplicating this, why don’t I just smash this thing open?”
Marvin sprinted out of the room and down the stairs, there was the sledgehammer in the garage Brandon gave him that would do the trick, no doubt. As he entered and grabbed ahold of the hammer, pulling it upwards, his arms stung in pain. “Ow! Since when was this so heavy, I’ve used it a million times!” He pulled with all the force he could, only merely being able to drag it. He groaned in annoyance, opting to just pull it upstairs which was anything but easy.
After an extended few minutes though, he thankfully managed to get the hammer back to the side room, and without pulling something in his back too miraculously. “Finally! Now, down she goes…” Marvin put all his strength into lifting the hammer up and swinging it at the gate door. As it made impact, Marvin fell backwards, losing grip of the hammer. “Dammit…” Marvin got to his feet, holding his head in pain as he looked at the door.
Good news was that he made a dent in it, bad news was it would take a few more swings and a lot more pain to knock it down. “Of course, today of all days, my strength decides it’s a good time to shake my hand and walk out the door…” After a few more swings, some stronger than others, the door was finally knocked off its hinges. “YES!” Marvin shouted out, “now for the part that doesn’t break my balls.” Marvin fetched his lock picking set from downstairs, using the instruments inside to crack the padlock on the door, finally clearing any obstacle in his path.
He was nervous, who wouldn’t be? Not even just because of the bending of the laws of physics he witnessed earlier but because… Who would lock down a door like this, unless there was something terrible inside. Marvin took a deep breath and held it, “There has to be something behind this, something…” He wrapped his hand around the door knob, holding it firmly, before turning. As the door creaked open, he was met with only blackness. Any light in the room had been killed, not helping ease Marvin’s anxiety. He felt his hand around the wall in the room, looking for a light switch, before eventually finding one, flipping it on and illuminating the room.
Marvin’s eyes laid upon what he didn’t expect, nor wanted to see. It was revolting, a mixture of fresh and dried blood lined the room from the ceiling to its tarp covered floors, with the bodies it bled from being littered throughout, some lying lifeless on the ground while others were savagely nailed to the wall on the left side of the room.
Each carcass was mangled in a different way, like whatever monster who was behind this preferred killing and torturing his victims in a unique way. In the center of the room on the back most wall lied a window with a metal shutter hoisted over it to prevent any prying eyes outside from seeing the carnage beyond it. Of course, the window wasn’t visible outside of the house, this room shouldn’t exist after all, but considering the door that Marvin had taken to enter this hellhole, that was hardly a surprise to him.
Next to the window on the right sat a filthy mattress, caked in blood like the rest of the room. Judging by the large, dried pools of blood that stained it, the killer most likely had killed a decent amount of people while they were lied atop, perhaps shackled down as well, like a scene straight out of one of those movies centered around the fictional red rooms.
On both the left and right side of the room were metal, industrial style tables, both sat in opposite corners. The one on the right had a body bag sat atop it, with viscus and blood leaking out. Notably though, whatever corpse that was in the bag was not only bigger than any other in the room, but also, why was it in a body bag to begin with? Had the killer done something so gruesome to it that even he couldn’t look at it without losing his lunch?
Alongside the body bag, there were also other items, such as recording equipment on the table, tripods, cameras, wires and other bits and bobs. There was also a black laptop case and an equally black, large duffle bag with god knows what inside, and underneath the table was a metal box and a safe, both locked. Marvin turned his attention to the left table that held far more interesting contents. Scattered across were a large variety of torture tools: knives, a hammer, a hack saw, pliers, a blow torch, a metal rod, hatchet, power drill, even what looked like a container of hydrochloric acid, all caked in an equal amount of blood and gore. 
That wasn’t what caught his eye however. Sat atop the table, on her knees, was his unconscious wife, bound in chains that wrapped around her arm and torso, and also with handcuffs, alongside some duct tape plastered over her mouth. Thankfully, she was mostly unscathed, only having endured a few scratches to her face and arms.
Relieved yet horrified, Marvin walked over. Jeffry was nowhere in sight and Marvin could only pray that he was in a state like Rose and was merely hidden away, but regardless, he would find him after freeing his wife. Marvin only took a few steps inside the room however before a sharp pain soared through the back of his head, causing him to fall to the ground. As his vision blurred and the glitching from earlier returned, a man walked by him, although he didn’t get a good look at him before everything went black.
And now he was awake, inside the room, lying atop that dirty, blood soaked mattress, and fully aware of the danger he and his family were in. As he attempted to move however, he found that he was bound in a similar fashion to his wife, with chains wrapped around him, his hands cuffed, and his mouth taped shut. While he struggled, attempting to break free, his blurry, glitchy vision focused and the ringing in his ears ceased, allowing him to catch notice of the man at the left table.
His back was turned and he was humming a merry tune to himself as he rummaged through what sounded like a tool bag; not good. He wore a black hoodie with its hood up, covering the back of his head, blue jeans, and brown boots. He didn’t look, nor sound like anyone he knew, not that Marvin was expecting, nor wanting that anyway. On the floor next to him was Rose, still thankfully unconscious, Marvin could only hope that she hadn’t seen any hint of the carnage that surrounded her before she got knocked out.
Regardless, the man was distracted, and Marvin took his chance to escape and possibly ambush him. Of course, he first needed to free himself of his restraints. As he scanned the room for a tool that could help him though, he noticed a few things. First was that all the recording equipment was set up now, with each camera stand sitting in different parts of the room. His first immediate thought was that this sick fuck was running in some kind of red room, and that all the people he slaughtered in a variety of ways was the result of whoever watching requesting it of him, maybe. How was this possible? Marvin didn’t know, nor care at the moment. 
The second thing was that all the corpses in the room had been moved into a neat pile, bunched up in a corner near the door. On top of that, any torture instrument that once sat on the table or ground had vanished, a shame for Marvin, he could’ve used one of those to help free himself or attack that maniac when he least expected it.
Thankfully though, he wasn’t quite out of luck yet, as he eventually took notice of a hole in the mattress. Inside, there was a sharp spring, perfect. After loosening his hands the best he could, he leaned back and fished his hands in the hole, getting a good grip of the spring and carefully tugging it out so as to not make noise.
With the spring in hand, he slid it into the lock on his cuffs, fiddling it around, picking it to the best of his ability while he was restrained. Even though this was no easy process, especially since the locks on handcuffs were especially hard to crack, Marvin needed to be quick and quiet, that man could only stay occupied for so long. He might’ve given up on picking the gate door lock, but he couldn’t this time, even if he kept failing, he needed to escape, he needed to save his family, he needed t-
“Eh, what’s that?” the man spoke, turning his head a bit. “Shit-” Marvin muttered to himself, tucking the spring under the mattress. “Oh good, you’re awake! That’s good, that’s good!” The man turned around, approaching Marvin before kneeling down and staring at him. He wore a black balaclava, with the only features of his face visible being his enormous grin and huge eyes that gazed down at him, tainted with a look of depraved glee.
“Have a good nap, sleeping beauty? I sure hope so, cause I’m gonna need you in tip top shape for tonight!” His voice, it was familiar… A scowl formed on Marvin’s face as he blasted obscenities at him, not that the man could hear any of them thanks to the tape. “I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can hear you, need some help with that, Marvin old pal?” Without warning, he harshly ripped the tape off of Marvin’s mouth. “YOU! Who are you, how do you know my name, what are you doing in my house, and where’s my boy!”
“Pfft, how do I know your name? What are you bli-” the man stopped before chuckling, “oh right, the mask, silly me!” He brought down his hood and took off the balaclava. As Marvin looked on, he was mortified. Orange hair, mustache, and blue eyes, he didn’t want to believe it, but it was, Brandon.
He was a friend of the family and also had a new job every week or so, police officer, doctor, construction worker, you name it, he once had it as a job. Never once though did he ever strike him as a killer, he was the kindest, funniest, most helpful guy he knew, and yet, here he was, kneeling before him and wearing a face he couldn’t recognize. “Brandon!? No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO! It can’t be, it can’t, why you!? WHY DID YOU DO THIS, I TRUSTED YOU!”
Brandon could only smile wider and chuckle softly, his eyes still locked on Marvin as soft tears formed in his eyes, his expression one of his rage, yet betrayal. “Oh Marvin, as much as I’d LOVE to answer your little laundry list of questions, I’m afraid that’s not the reason I dragged you in here-”
Brandon was cut off by the muffled screams of Rose filling his ears, she had finally woken back up. His ear to ear grin morphed to a frown as annoyance formed in his face. He stood back up and walked over to Rose. “I thought I told you to…” he socked her across the face, “SHUT up!” As she fell to the ground, his punch silencing her, Marvin yelled out. “GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF HER!” Brandon turned his attention back, marching over to the mattress and punched him in the head, knocking him down.
“Uggh, you two are so impatient! How hard is it to just wait your damn turn? I can see why you love each other so much....” As Marvin groaned, attempting to sit back up, Brandon walked over to the right table and grabbed the metal box from underneath, bringing it back over to the mattress. “But hey, it’s no problem, I’ve dealt with impatient people before!” He pulled a key ring out of his pocket and unlocked the box outside of Marvin’s view, grabbing something from inside before closing and relocking it. “You see, he was impatient, and look what happened to him!”
He shoved something in Marvin’s face, the upper half of someone’s head, Jeffry’s. The entirety of his lower jaw had been savagely ripped off with occasional drops of blood dripping from beneath. His eyes were bloodshot, he looked like he was crying, you could even see faint marks where his tears once were. Jeffry… His poor Jeffry, his boy, no, their boy. He was gone, not when he grew old, but, by the hands of someone they trusted, someone who knew him, who cared about him, yet he did this.
He ripped him apart, he made his death slow, and judging by Rose’s reaction from behind, she didn’t see, nor know it was happening. He died alone, with the only company that surrounded him being the exact thing that had done him in. As Rose cried, shrieking out the best she could through the tape, Marvin lunged at Brandon in a blind rage. “Woah, easy there, tiger!” He evaded him, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and slamming him back down on the mattress, keeping him in place with a foot on his back.
“I get it, you’re mad at me, I would be too! But hey, don’t sweat it, before you know it, things for you will be as sweet as cereal that rots your teeth out!” He laughed to himself, lifting his foot off Marvin’s back who had lost all the strength to fight, simply just crying to himself as he laid on his stomach. “Although, don’t blame me if I savor SOME of it! After all, if you’re getting a reward then I at least deserve a small one myself!” As Marvin shakily lifted his head up, a river of tears and snot still streaming out of his eyes and nose while his scowl returned, Brandon turned to face him with a smile.
“Ohh, but enough dilly dallying, let's get to the juicy stuff! Although first…” He went back to the right table, unzipping the body bag and looking inside. An angry grimace formed on his face, “No, no, NO! She was fine this morning, god fucking dammit!” He slammed his fists down on the table before holding his hand over his head, pacing back and forth. “What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do… I can’t just go out and leave these two here… Ah, Stupid Brandon, stupid! Why didn’t you just get a new one, she’s already a few weeks old for Christ's sa-”
Knocking rang downstairs from the front door, catching Brandon’s attention. A smile crept back on his face, “God, I love my luck sometimes…” He dumped the corpse out of the body bag and hoisted the bag over his shoulder, walking towards the door as he swung his ring of keys around his finger. “Now, you two stay put, I’ve got some business to tend to, don’t go anywhere!” He grabbed the toolbox and duffle bag off the table, throwing both inside the safe. As he walked off, laughing aloud, Marvin screamed, trying to get the attention of the poor soul knocking at their door. He could only let out one or two yelps though before being met with a kick to the face.
Brandon sneered at him before leaving, locking the door behind him. With him gone, Marvin’s attention steered towards the corpse he had dumped on the floor. When he looked at it, the glitching from earlier had returned, more importantly though, the corpse itself. He couldn’t, well, comprehend it. It was just a glitching pile of white mass, as if he couldn’t even understand what he was looking at. Was that why she was in the bag, could Brandon even tell what she was? What did it matter anymore, he had bigger fish to fry.
Even after all that, Marvin wasn’t going to give up. Even though Jeffry’s death was stewing in their minds, even if their lives would never be the same, he needed to get himself and Rose out of there, it’s what their son would’ve wanted. Marvin pulled the spring out from underneath the mattress, continuing his efforts to pick the lock on his cuffs while silently praying that whoever was on Brandon’s plate could escape him.
Thankfully, his efforts did not go to waste, as thanks to his prior fiddling with the lock, the handcuffs finally came off his sore wrists. When he unwrapped the chains that previously pinned his arms to his torso, he ran over to his devasted wife, picking the lock on her cuffs as well, all the while they stared at each other, mortified yet confused out of their minds. Why would he do this? How could someone like him cross a line like this? Had he snapped, was he always crazy and just did a good job at hiding it? Those were questions for later, they needed to get the hell out, and when they did, Brandon was a dead man.
The closer Marvin got to cracking the lock on Rose’s cuffs however, realization hit him like a brick. The door, not only was it locked from the other side, but also, chances were that Brandon had fixed the gate door by that point. Marvin stopped and groaned, with Rose giving a confused look. Marvin gently ripped the tape off her mouth, responding, “Baby, we’re not gonna be able to get out of here, not like this. He has the door locked down from the other side, I should know, I went through it all getting in here.”
“Don’t say that, we have to at least try!” Rose shouted, as Marvin shouted back, “I know, I know, but you need to listen to me. We’ve both gone through hell, we’re too weak to escape the normal way, but I have a plan. When he comes back, I’ll ambush the bastard and steal the keys off him.” Rose shook her head in disbelief, “No, no, no, Marvin, you can’t risk it, he’ll kill you! Let me help, we can do it together!” Marvin shouted, “I’M NOT LOSING YOU TOO!”
Silence befell the room, the two looked down at the ground, unable to form a response, before Marvin let out a sigh, and spoke, “I can’t Rose, I can’t… I can’t let him take you from me, I can’t risk that, I won’t risk that!... P-Please, I-I, let me do this alone…” He began to cry, holding his head in his hand as he wept. Rose locked him into a hug, or at least tried to with her restraints on. The two embraced, with Rose softly responding, “I-I understand, believe me I do, honey, but… I can’t lose you either… And even if we can’t kill him, well… At least we’ll die together, right?” Marvin looked back up, tears still flowing down his cheeks, yet having a slight smile form on his face, “Y-You’re right… I-I don’t want to put you in danger, but… If he’s gonna kill us either way, let’s do it swinging…”
The two smiled at each other before deeply kissing. It was time, time to take that bastard down. Marvin finished unlocking Rose’s cuffs and freed her. The two then wandered around the room, looking for something that could assist them in taking Brandon down, only to come up empty handed. “No dice, he must’ve locked up his tools somewhere in case we tried anything…” As Marvin looked around, thinking of what to do, his eyes darted to the safe under the right table. “And I think I know exactly where he locked them up…”
“Where do we find the code though?” Marvin, still pondering, responded with, “well, he’s bound to have it written down somewhere in here, right?” Rose looked at the laptop case on the table, pointing it out saying, “what about on there?” Marvin too looked up at the case, “yeah, you’re right! Although, we’ll probably need a code for that too…”
Marvin said, “Alright, how about this? You get the laptop running, and I’ll try to find a code.” Rose nodded her head, “sounds like a plan, I’ll get to it.” Marvin began scouring the room while Rose opened the laptop and booted it up. As she awaited for the password screen to show however, she briefly got distracted by Jeffry’s head, lying on the floor in a puddle of its own blood. She still was in disbelief, she didn’t want to accept that he was gone, but… She needed to focus. Marvin ran around the room, searching every nook and cranny for something that had the code scrawled on it, before his attention eventually drew to the metal box.
Marvin started picking at the lock on it, and pretty easily cracked it too. As he opened it however, he accidentally tipped it over, leading to three corpses being piled atop him. The first was the headless body of Jeffry, immediately distracting him, but after ungluing his eyes from it, he looked at the other two. The second was a man, close to his age in appearance. He had brown hair and a mustache, wore a red newsboy cap and shirt, white gloves, blue overalls and brown boots. Most notably though was the M sewn onto his cap, the first letter of this man’s name maybe?
The way he was killed wasn’t clear to Marvin, as his corpse had been rotting in that box for a while, with a good chunk of his bones showing through his moldy flesh, the same went for the third corpse. She had long, platinum blonde hair, wore star earrings, a silver crown with red and blue jewels adorning it, a long, blue princess gown with stars sewn on the bottom of it, and blue high heels.
Not only were the outfit choices on both of them interesting to say the very least, but they also looked, well, like him and Rose. Marvin could simply wave that off as a coincidence, although he was still confused why they had been there for so long. It didn’t seem like the decay was from just a few months, but rather, years. 
These were probably Brandon’s first victims, a scary thought, and one that fueled Marvin’s suspicions that Brandon was always like this, and that he played him and his family like a fiddle for so long. The thought infuriated him, though, he quickly regained his composure. He couldn't find anything else inside the box, not even any more answers, so he continued his search. As he walked off though, he tripped over one of the corpses, knocking over a trash can near the left table by accident.
“Marvin, are you okay?” Rose shouted. “Yeah… I’m fine, just had a tumble…” As he got to his feet, he noticed a plethora of crumpled up papers inside. It was a long shot, but maybe the passcode could’ve been on one of them. So, he began looking through each one carefully. The first paper he found was some kind of email print out from a construction company, the one Brandon worked at.
“Attention all employees. It’s come to our recent attention that vital equipment has been continuously stolen from the worksite. Initially, it was just scrap metal and spare parts, but as of late, it’s been power saws, pistons, drills, welding torches, etcetera. This equipment is both very important and very expensive, which is why we are taking this situation very seriously, as a majority of these items are required for you to do your jobs properly. We believe this theft is the work of an employee, although we are unable to confirm this for the time being. 
We have searched CCTV footage thoroughly, however we have not found any trace of the thief due to some recordings being deleted. We believe this too is potentially the work of the thief as a sabotage. If you have any information or see any suspicious activity, please tell the foreman or a security guard. Thank you, we apologize for the inconvenience.”
Marvin was puzzled. When Brandon still worked there, he always said that things were going perfectly and that the reason he got let go was because there were too many employees. Of course, this letter and the kind of person Brandon really was proved otherwise. Considering how much equipment he had, there was a chance that he was the thief, that he fed him a load of bullshit, and that he was actually fired because of this.
It disgusted him, even if he didn’t know all this beforehand, the red flags were there, and he ignored them. Now he, Rose, and more severely his son were paying the price for it. All he could think of was that it was his fault. Marvin quickly regained focus though and pushed his thoughts of self loathing in the back of his mind as he continued sorting through the papers. The second thing of interest he found were the torn pieces of a missing persons poster for one Myra Clementine. "Yep, definitely one of his victims." Marvin shuttered.
The rest of the papers were just bills, magazines and junk mail, although he did find it odd that the addresses on some of them went to their house. Strange, considering they never had any missing mail, but it wasn’t of much concern, not compared to everything else at least. Yet another mystery they would solve later, hopefully. The final paper Marvin uncrumpled was a print out of some message that informed of password of some kind being changed to: TGuy6925.
This was it, the laptop password, Marvin raised it up in the air and called out to Rose, “I found it!” Rose turned around, “Good job, Honey!” As Marvin approached Rose however, the couple heard footsteps creeping up the stairs. “Shit, we need to get back in place-” Marvin rearranged all the items in the room to their original state, afterwards putting their restraints back on and returning to their initial positions. 
They looked different than before, so they’d just have to hope that he wouldn’t notice. Brandon swung the door open, “I’m back, lovebirds! Did you two behave now?” His eyes darted from Rose to Marvin, Rose was looking at the ground, sobbing, while Marvin stared at him with pure hatred. “Good! Now we can finally get this party started!”
He slammed the now filled body bag on the table as it dripped out blood, looked like Brandon had caught his prey. He then picked up the glitching corpse of the prior person in the body bag, wrapping it up in a spare tarp before throwing it on the pile of other corpses. He then pulled the duffle bag out of the safe and opened it, fishing a box of black gloves and a “kiss the cook” apron out. As he pulled out a pair of gloves, putting them on, he took off his hoodie, revealing a black collared shirt underneath which he draped his apron over.
“As easy as it would be to take the easy route with you saps, you just so happened to ring my bell on a night where I’d like to have some fun! Unlucky you, huh?” He faintly chuckled to himself, “But hey, at least you’ll look pretty on camera, I’ll make sure of it…” He then fetched his laptop and logged on. While he was distracted, Marvin and Rose whispered amongst each other. “Did you see what code he punched into the safe?” Rose shook her head, “damn… If he leaves again, we can at least get on his computer. If he doesn’t though, we might need to come up with a different plan…”
Before they could finish though, Brandon spoke, just not to them. “Welcome everyone to a special episode of Super Mario Landon! Y’all are in for a treat tonight, because I’ll be showing how I make the gore in my videos, with the help of Brooklyn and his trusty saw of course! Even better, you get to watch from any angle you want thanks to all the cameras I have set up! Enough talk though, first, I’ll be starting with-"
Brandon got cut off by his phone ringing, “you gotta be fucking kidding me…” He angrily muttered under his breath. “Apologies, I need to answer this, be right back y’all!” He closed the streaming application he had opened on his laptop and stormed out of the room, locking the door behind him. This was their chance, now or never. Marvin and Rose got out of their restraints and typed in the passcode from the paper Marvin had stuffed in his pocket. As they searched Brandon’s laptop for the safe code however, even more questions filled their mind.
First was that name, Super Mario Landon. By that point, the two assumed that Brandon was running a red room, but that name didn’t exactly fit, neither did Brandon’s introduction. He worded it in a bizarre way that they couldn’t quite figure out. More importantly though, who the hell was Landon or Brooklyn? More questions thrown on the pile of others that would have to be solved somehow later on.
Eventually, the couple found something, a folder labeled as “passcodes”. “Bingo,” Marvin muttered, clicking on the folder. This only prompted a password screen to pop up however. “Dammit, how many safeguards does this guy have?” Marvin cursed under his breath. The password asked for the name of Super Mario Landon’s very first character, whatever that meant. “Rose, what the hell does that mean?” Rose stammered “I-I don’t know, but we need an answer.”
Marvin frantically looked around, before his eyes set back on the metal box. “Wait, the corpse in the box… Is that what that means?” Rose looked at him with confusion, “What do you mean, Marvin?”
“Well, one of the corpses in the box was rotten, and the guy in overalls looked more decomposed than the girl… Maybe it’s him!”
“But how do we figure out his name?” Marvin stammered, “W-Well, he had the letter M on his cap, his name probably begins with M, right?” Rose responded, thinking, “You’re right, but there’s tons of names that begin with M, how do we-” Realization then struck her, “MARIO!” She typed in the password and it was correct, opening the folder.
“Wait, how did you figure that out-” Marvin face palmed, “right, Super Mario Landon… Where would I be without you, honey?” Rose giggled, with the couple’s attention setting back on the folder. As they scrolled through all the text documents though, they began to hear brief bits of Brandon’s conversation on the phone with presumably his mother.
“Yes… Yeah yeah, I fucking got it ma’... Look, can we not do this tonight, I’m busy… For the record, I make more money off of my “clown act” than you and dad combined… Yeah, well maybe you two should watch, maybe you can say I did something right for once, how does that sound?...”
Needless to say, it was ugly, guess the apple didn't fall too far from the tree. What was interesting though, was that Brandon didn’t really sound like Brandon, sure, he had the same voice, but, something about it was different. Eventually, they found a document labeled as “safe code”. “There it is!” Marvin clicked on it and memorized the code on the notepad. “6917, got it…” He then punched it into the safe, revealing a stash of weapons inside. 
Marvin grabbed a hammer and a knife, as he attempted to hand the hammer to Rose though she was focused on something else. “Rose, what is it?” Rose looked back with a disturbed face, “Marvin, what is this?” She raised up a book, an old looking one. It was fashioned with leather and had some kind of symbol hastily drawn on it.
Marvin examined at it, confused. “What the hell is that, and where did you get it?" 
“His duffle bag”, Rose responded, “I’m not sure what it is, but…” Rose took the hammer from Marvin, “it doesn’t matter, let's take that son of a bitch down.” The two marched to opposite sides of the door, awaiting for Brandon to return. They waited and waited, and eventually, he hung up his call and reopened the door. As they prepared to ambush him though, Brandon’s arm abruptly popped inside the room, holding a spray bottle and a lighter. With it, he set Rose ablaze before the couple could even register what was happening.
As Rose ran around, screaming aloud from the pain, Marvin tried to run over to help her, only to be kicked down, courtesy of Brandon. He calmly approached his laptop, pulling the stream application up and speaking to his chat. “Sorry for the delay, extra sorry that you missed me setting our dear Rose on fire, but hey, you get to see how I do fire effects now!” The cameras focused on Rose as she ran around, Marvin was helpless to put out the flames thanks to Brandon’s foot placed on his back.
He could only watch, cry, and scream, all the while Rose eventually fell to the floor, succumbing to her injuries and finally passing on. “ROSE, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NOT YOU TOO, NO, GOD DAMMIT!” He cried and cried and cried, completely defeated, as Brandon continued talking to his audience. “Pretty fucking rad, right? Spent so much time making it all look convincing! Although, a fire hazard is a bit too convincing, no? He pulled a fire extinguisher out of the duffle bag and put out the flames that smothered Rose, revealing her charred, nearly unrecognizable corpse.
He couldn’t believe it, first their son, now her, the apple of his eye, the diamond in the rough, one of the only people who gave a damn about him. She saw his inner beauty though, she loved him, and he loved her. Even if they had problems, even if they weren’t perfect, she was perfect to him, no matter what. And yet, one of the last memories they ever had was them fighting. It was all his fault, the bickering, the arguing, them being in this mess, it was him, him, him, him. He broke the family in half and killed his lovely wife and son. All he could do was blame himself, curse himself, damn himself as he looked at the two, Jeffry’s head and Rose’s charred carcass.
“Alright, ladies and gents, let's get to the main course!” Brandon grabbed Marvin by the shirt, slamming him down on the left table as he grabbed a circular saw from the safe, and plugged it in. Brandon stared down at him, wearing that same shit eating grin and expression of pleasure. “I know, I know, Marvin, you wanted to go out with her. But I’m a crowd pleaser, not an individual pleaser, and well, the show must go on, no?”
He smirked, revving up his saw and looking back at the cameras, “ready boys and girls? This one’s gonna be a killer…” As he raised his saw up however, Marvin grabbed the spring out of his pocket and jabbed it into Brandon’s eye with as much ferocity as he could muster. Grueling pain shot through Brandon’s eye as he screamed out “AAGGH, FUCKER!” He blindly swung a punch at Marvin, hitting him in the face. When his fist made impact, the glitching in Marvin’s vision occurred again, but in rapid succession this time, flashing at high speeds until eventually… Everything around him changed. First was Brandon. He was missing his legs, but not as if they were cut off, rather, like he just never had them to begin with. 
His face was fucking hideous, fleshy and gross, and it looked like his face had been cut off and stapled back on. His right socket held a bloodshot eye, in a hollow pit of dark, while his left had been violently cut open, with what looked like cameras pushed inside. His teeth were yellow and decaying, caked in dried blood like the rest of his deformed face. Most noticeable though was his left arm. Not only was he missing his hand, but also, coming out of his elbow area was this contraption.
It resembled an arm, fashioned from metal, steel, and other components, with a circular saw and a makeshift flamethrower at the end. The strangest part though was how small he looked now, as a matter of fact, Marvin was too, everyone in the room minus the two body bag carcasses were dwarfed by their surroundings. Behind Brandon though stood the largest figure in the room, someone who measured up to their surroundings like the body bag corpses, A man, dressed in a white, blood soaked tuxedo, black bow tie, pants, shoes, gloves, and balaclava with a zipper down the center.
In his left hand laid Brandon, like he was a hand puppet or something, and as Marvin looked on in disbelief, he took notice of all the differences that single punch caused. His wife looked the same, with the exception of the star necklace she had instead of her pearls, but then there was Jeffry. He wore a blue bicycle helmet, had a pencil stuffed up his left nostril, the name “JEFFY” messily scrawled across his shirt in what looked to be black sharpie, and was wearing a diaper.
The most noticeable difference however was how their skin looked, Marvin’s included. It was stitched on, caked in blood, and baggy, showing bits of flesh underneath. They looked like stuffed dolls fashioned from skin, they all looked disgusting. Was this a trick, a rouge, what the fuck was going on? As Marvin started to hyperventilate, the man in the suit gazed at him with bloodshot eyes, equal to the one on Brandon. He was perplexed, carefully studying Marvin from head to toe, before finally speaking in a soft voice, vaguely resembling Brandon’s, yet obviously different.
“Fascinating, somehow your head hasn’t imploded yet. Man, I must’ve socked you real good, huh? Or maybe it’s the adrenaline, can’t really tell, nonetheless it is intriguing.” Marvin looked at him, bewildered yet still maddened, “who the fuck are you, what did you do to me, to everyone!” The man in the suit let out a brief chuckle, “oh Marvin, what a shame, I never wanted this. But you stuck your nose where it wasn’t welcome and betrayed my trust, a pity really, you were always my favorite, aside from Brooklyn of course.”
“It’ll be easier to just put you out of your misery than explain anyway, after all, can’t risk your memories staying intact.” He yanked the spring out of Brandon’s eye as he pulled a knife from his pocket and placed it in Brandon’s hand, charging at Marvin. Marvin quickly jumped out of the way and onto the floor. Even if he was smaller, he could still take this bastard down any day. He sprinted towards where he dropped his knife after Brandon’s previous ambush. Now armed, he awaited the right moment to strike, dodging Brandon’s stabs and thrusts with his saw. Eventually, Marvin got an opening and stabbed the tuxedo man in the leg. As he yelped in pain, Marvin attempted to stab him some more, only to get knocked back by Brandon’s saw. He got back to his feet, although had to quickly move out of the way to avoid Brandon’s flamethrower.
“Oh ho, you piece of shit…” The tuxedo man pulled a handgun out of his pocket, firing at Marvin’s knife and knocking it out of his hands. Unarmed, the tuxedo man hoisted Marvin in the air with a firm grip around his arm. He stared at him with crazed, pulsating eyes, and Marvin stared back, pissed off. “You killed my fucking wife, my son, you took EVERYTHING from me!” He shouted, before spitting at him in the face. Unphased, the tuxedo man responded, “Oh, quit your fucking bitching! Little do you, that whore you call a wife and your retard of a son know, I did EVERYTHING for you!”
He shook Marvin violently, his voice raising in intensity as he shouted, “you haven’t got a fucking clue what I’ve done for you, I kept you in one piece, gave you eyes to see with, a mouth to speak with, a brain to fucking think with. I put a roof over your head, put clothes on your back and food on your plate, I’M THE REASON YOU’RE STILL KICKING. And what do you do!? You break my fucking heart, you invade my privacy, and you insult me like a dog! This could’ve been so fucking easy, for all of you! If you shut your damn mouths and LISTENED to me for once, you’d already be back where you belong, BUT NO, you chose to be a thorn in my side, YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU. How dare you, HOW DARE YOU!”
The tuxedo man revved up Brandon’s saw, only to be interrupted by Marvin biting his hand. He fell to the floor, hurt yet still kicking as he got to his aching feet, all the while the tuxedo man screamed and shouted obscenities at him. While he was distracted, Marvin formed a plan in his head, running up to the right table and climbing atop it, searching inside the duffle bag. “Come on, come on, you’ve gotta have what I need…” As he flailed his hands around however, some of the bags contents accidently dumped out.
One of them was a plastic bag, it held a burnt wallet with a barely coherent picture inside. From what Marvin could make out, it was of Myra, the girl from the poster, and a man he didn't recognize, holding hands and smiling in front of a beach during a gorgeous sunset. "W-Wait, this is like our wedding photo..." He got teary eyed, confused why his photo with him and Rose was copied, but... He had no time to linger on it.
Eventually, Marvin found a roll of duct tape, perfect. Marvin carefully jumped back down, and now the tuxedo man got his composure together, more pissed than ever. "Just can't stop taking a piss on my privacy, huh Marv? Oh well, not all secrets are safe anyway, but I'll make you pay for that broken trust another way..."
He pulled his gun out again, firing multiple shots off at him, but thanks to his smaller size, Marvin easily evaded each shot. He then began to wrap the duct tape around the tuxedo man’s legs, carefully avoiding his knife and saw swings. Once his legs were completely wrapped, Marvin picked up his knife off the ground and drove it into the back of the man’s leg, not letting up until he fell to the ground. Now vulnerable, Marvin climbed atop his back and drove the knife into his head for the killing blow.
And as the blade hit the flesh, drove past the skull, and punctured his brain, the man stopped moving. He was dead, finally, he was fucking dead. Even though it brought Marvin no satisfaction, he at least knew, the man who had taken his family from him and many others was finally gone. He would never do the same to anyone else or their loved ones ever again. As Marvin sat down, breathing rapidly, and attempting to reflect on what he had been through, clapping rang from behind, the man’s, his feet unwrapped and standing tall, as if nothing happened. 
“Bravo, bravo my friend! Now THAT, was a performance to die for. Sorry for my little outburst, but hey, you did it! I haven’t had a good show like that for a long while, I am so glad you’re not like the other suckers who bleed out their eyes and ears anytime they see me. That was truly spectacular, even they loved it!” He pointed towards the stream on his laptop as his eyes lit up with joy. 
“The escape room part was gold by itself, but that REALLY stole the show! Man, we need to do this again sometime, maybe when the channel hits another milestone, then we could really go all out! Oh, but that’s for later, you’ve earned a break, Marvin, my favorite.” Without warning, the man pulled out his gun and shot him in the head, with everything going black. 
“Marvin… MARVIN!” Marvin shot awake, being met with the calming face of his wife. 
“AGH! Oh, Rose.” Rose nervously waved, “Hey honey! I just… Well, I just wanted to apologize for the fight-” Marvin stopped her, waving his hand. “No, it’s mine, I shouldn’t have been that nasty to you, I’m so sorry baby.” Rose looked annoyed, “Marvin, we both were at fault, let's agree on that at least, alright?” Marvin sighed, “alright, fine, but only because you asked, I’m still not feeling great about that though-” Before he could finish, Rose kissed him, with the two embracing.
“Alright, how about we watch a movie to cool the nerves?”
“Oooo, a movie sounds great! I’ll go get us some popcorn!” Marvin nodded, sitting on the couch and turning on the TV, eventually finding a cheesy romance movie he knew they’d both like. Rose soon came back with the popcorn, two snuggling up against each other as they watched. Suddenly though, Jeffy came into the room. “Hey daddy, you wanna hear me play my cat piano, I came up with a song for it!”
“Ugh, no Jeffy!”
Category:SML
Category:Super Mario Logan
Category:Longpasta