Dr. Caroll pulled into the house's driveway dressed as none other than James Gatz.
His younger brother's house was a large house, one with every inch covered in colorful, spooky decor. Plastic arms stuck from the house's front yard right next to a large inflatable of Frankenstein's monster which was slowly beginning to tip over. The music was pounding, and Caroll recognized it after only two notes.
As Caroll exited his vehicle securing his self-defense firearm and approached the door, he looked down at himself and began to doubt the cleverness of his costume. It's wasn't that it looked ugly; his pink suit was indeed one of a wonderful hue and even had a matching tie. It was just that it wasn't much of a Halloween costume. Perhaps he simply could've gone in his lab coat.
He rang the doorbell and began to warm up his throat to do his best Gatsby impression. His brother opened the door to see Caroll apparently talking to himself. They both chuckled, but one chuckle was of embarrassment, and the other was of a genuinely comedic sense.
"And you're still a fucking geek," Caroll's brother said in a joking, childish manner.
"Always have been, Trey. Always have been."
"Come on, come inside." Caroll hesitantly followed his brother's advice and stepped through the doorway into a household full of vibrant, pulsing neon lights and at least forty people he's never seen before, all in a costume of some sort.
Trey had a small bar at his house with his bartender for the party being his best friend since their childhood. Caroll and his brother departed as they went their separate ways and Caroll began to make his way to the bar.
He sat down next to a man in a superbly-constructed costume, covered in thick black fur with wings that looked like an actual insect's hanging off of his back and glowing red eyes which Caroll assumed were just goggles laced with LED lights. Caroll didn't really know what the man was supposed to be, but he favored the costume nonetheless.
The bartender made his way over to Caroll. "Roy, right?"
"Yeah."
"Just makin' sure I still remember you right." Caroll didn't understand the statement because they rarely ever talked, even in childhood, so how the bartender could remember Caroll in a manner considered "right" was behind him. "What would you like?" the bartender asked, leaning on the counter.
"Surprise me." The bartender nodded and began to make Caroll's concoction as he turned to the man next to him. He paused, not sure how to approach the individual, but eventually just spoke up and let the conversation carry itself. "What do you think of the party?" The man appeared to ignore him, just staring up at the vibrant lights which would occasionally streak across their faces. He repeated himself and the man slowly turned to him.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, I guess." Caroll began to almost get lost in just how well the costume was. The man observed Caroll up and down, almost like a piece of meat before continuing. "Um, Gatsby, right?"
Caroll smiled. "Thank God someone got it. I didn't think anyone was actually going to realize that this was a costume and not just something I slapped on to look fancy or anything." Caroll took a wild guess at the man's costume. "Mothman, right?" As he finished his sentence, he realized that the man already broke eye contact with him, looking again up to the lights. Asshole, Caroll thought to himself.
The bartender came back with Caroll's drink which was a nice shade of maroon and Caroll took a sip. He couldn't tell what it was, but what he could tell is that he was enjoying whatever it was he was drinking. "Thanks." The bartender nodded and went to the other end of the bar to assist another partygoer.
He turned back to the man who sat next to him to see that in the blink of an eye, the man was gone. Out of pure curiosity, Caroll took another swig of his drink as he stood up, taking it with him. He began to walk around, looking for the man. He was just too curious as to how the man made a costume so accurate and realistic.
After circling the house over and over again all the while keeping an eye out for the man, a woman leaning on the balcony which hovered over a moderately-sized backyard caught his attention. He couldn't see her face, but her body was slim— or, slimmer than average at the very least— and her straight jet black hair fell down to her shoulders, ending in a curl. Caroll decided if he was going to go ahead and try and woo this woman with the charisma that he always believed he had but really didn't, then he should be sure to not drink anymore. The risk of fucking this up was too great, and he hadn't even seen her face yet.
Caroll opened the sliding glass door to the balcony, slowly approaching the woman's left. As he continued to take steps towards her, he noticed that she gave off an aura of pure care and comfort. This stopped him in his tracks but not before she already noticed him.
She smiled as soon as they made eye contact, instantly breaking the ice by opening her lips to speak to him. "I like your costume. Gatsby was always one of my favorite books."
Caroll blushed, but not because of the compliment; rather, because of how gorgeous this woman was. She had grey-blue eyes which shined with a passion, her pale skin glistening in the moonlight. She wore a blue dress which looked extremely comfortable. "Yea—" Caroll stopped himself as he realized his voice was cracking, ultimately causing him to blush even harder. He cleared his throat and then continued his sentence. "Thanks."
Her smile only grew friendlier. "You're welcome." There was an awkward pause as Caroll couldn't take his eyes off of her's and she playfully turned left and right, not turning around because she didn't want to break eye contact, either. "Aren't you going to guess mine?" she asked.
"Oh, right, sorry." It took him until he looked down to her wrists and spotted two tattoos; a bird on one and an open cage on the other. He chuckled. "No way! Elizabeth Comstock?"
She giggled. "Well dang. No-one else has got it." Caroll finally approached her side and they leaned on the railing together, only inches apart. They didn't even know each other and yet they both knew there was a bond already beginning to form. "Sarah."
"Roy."
"Well, it's a pleasure, Roy."
"Ditto." Sarah chuckled at Caroll's response despite the fact that it wasn't really humorous in any way, shape, or form. An awkward yet almost warm and romantic silence filled the air following Caroll's Pokemon remark and he took a few steps closer to her. She didn't move and seemed to relax, so Caroll believed that he was on the right track.
Suddenly, a loud yelp of pain seemingly coming from an animal broke the silence. Both Caroll and Sarah jumped and quickly switched their attention to the noise, noticing that it originated from the thick, damp woods which lay beyond the fence. A large portion of the fence has been busted open, appearing to be able to fit an adult deer.
The fuck? Caroll thought to himself. Suddenly, in a panic, his eyes darted to a doghouse which had been flipped over and had been covered in claw marks. All at once, he remembered the innocent little puppy his brother had told him that he got a few weeks back. Caroll's pupils dilated in fear as he took all of this in.
"Oh my God, what is—"
Caroll gave her a friendly shush before saying, "I'll go check it out."
"Roy, you might get hurt." Little did she know, Caroll didn't care. He repeated himself and then walked down the stairs off of the balcony and into the backyard. As he entered the assumed manmade aperture, he reached into his suit and unholstered his pistol.
Despite the fact that he worked for the SCP Foundation and dealt with the paranormal for a living, Caroll never expected anything like this to occur.
He continued in the direction of the yelps as he continued to raise his pistol higher and higher towards the horrid sound's source. He brushed back a few leaves and he froze in shock at what he saw.
Before him, a large, black humanoid covered in fur was hunched over, its insect-like wings fluttering back and forth in apparent pleasure. As Caroll continued to stand there, unable to move a single muscle, he realized that the weakening whimpers were coming from right beneath the monstrosity alongside a slow flow of thick blood which covered the fallen leaves around them.
The dog was dead, and there's nothing he can do about it. The dog wasn't his main point of attention anyway; it was the mysterious figure which stood before him, chowing down on the gory remains of Trey's puppy.
The creature suddenly spun its head around in a 180-degree turn, revealing the man— no, the thing— that he had spoken to at the party. He truly realized it wasn't a costume as soon as the glowing red eyes made direct contact with him and he could see the dark soul of whatever this was peering into his.
Then, it blinked. Caroll quickly aimed down the sights to his pistol and opened fire at the entity's center of mass, all the while hoping for the best.
But what Caroll forgot was that he wasn't some sort of armed agent for a living; he was but a mere doctor who had never had to use that gun before in his life. And that factor was going to affect this situation to an extent which he could not even believe to imagine.

To be continued…