"Fuck!" He said again and jumped out of the car and started up the long driveway. "Carlie, stay back in the car and call 911!"

He raced up the porch steps, fear and trepidation now making his heart go into overdrive. Different scenarios of what could have happened zinged around his head.

Why was there no sound? Who had screamed?  Had the kids been hurt? Dead? Gutted open with an axe by a psycho in a costume?

He swallowed painfully past the bubble stuck in his throat and rapped loudly on the glass doors.

"Maddie? Jax? Melody? Milo? Where are you guys!" He continued slamming his hands on the door. "Open up! What the fuck is happening? I've called the cops!"

He tried to peer in through the open gaps in door curtains but everything he could see was pitch dark. He reached for the door and and started shove it open when it swung in itself. He almost fell in at this but righted himself just in time and looked up.

An old Caucasian man stood by the door, a fizzing radio held up close to his ear in his shaky hands. Mackey realized the indoor lights had now been turned on. The man looked to be in his late eighties and had on a white shirt and cream suit with no tie. A dark checkered golf hat covered his hair, but he could see gray tufts peeking out from his temples. His leathery, wrinkled feet were very bare.

And the old man looked genuinely startled. "Can I help you, young man?" he asked in a low, scratchy voice that made Mackey's pulse spike up in fear.

Mackey heaved from all the shouting he had done as he tried to wrap his head around what was happening. He had heard screams from the house and had run up, expecting to find a bloodied monster ripping up the kids to pieces.

Not this.

Then where had the shout come from then? More importantly, where were the kids?

"Come in, Mackey," the strange voice said.

Mackey jerked up with a start, regaining his energy. "Where are the kids that entered here?"
He wished he had grabbed a weapon before storming up. "I heard them scream, where the fuck are they? Someone already called the cops!"

In one fluid movement, Mackey stepped in and fisted the old man's lapels.

"They're upstairs, Mackey. They're showing my wife a trick."

Mackey relaxed his hold of the man's shirt and looked up at the staircase that led up. He strode towards it. "Maddie? Milo? Jax? Melody?"

The stairs was coated in a thin layer of dust. But he saw no prints on it; neither of the hand nor foot. The area behind the staircase seemed to veer off to the back of the house and he frowned as his gaze settled on something orange balled up and wadded into a corner. Something was not right here. Why did the man say the kids had gone upstairs if the place looked so abandoned, and why did that orange thing look familiar? Was that red paint trickling out of room in the corner? And that strangely familiar horrible smell that now seemed to permeate the air, what was it?

Something else the man had said registered in his mind. Suspicion and fear settled deep in his core, like a large lump of cold gravy, as he started to turn around. "How the fuck did you know my name?"

On turning around he jumped back with a yelp. The old man had been standing right at his back and he had almost slammed into him. The radio had disappeared from his hand, so had the suit and golf cap. His hair was wet and red and dripping. A drop slipped off his crinkled forehead unto his white shirt and a deep red stain spread over the fabric.

The man smiled. "The sweet kids told me so, Mackey."

"And I was dying my hair when you came," he added, when the boy wouldn't stop staring at his head.

Mackey held out his phone in front of him and started to back up. "Don't come any closer, old man. Where are my siblings? I know you have them. What did you do to them, you fucker!"

The old man red-rimmed blue eyes widened at this. He looked shocked at Mackey's outburst.

Mackey's heart was now beating somewhere in his mouth. He wished again that he had brought a weapon along. What was the man going to do to him? What had he done to his siblings? And Carlie's brother? Carlie! He hoped she had called the cops and stayed away from the house.

On cue, his phone came to life and started to vibrate in his hand.

"Incoming call from Carlie Babes. Incoming call from Carlie Babes."

Startled, he dropped the phone and had started to bend down to retrieve it, when a bare foot smashed down hard on the device. The vibration halted instantly.

Slowly, he raised his head to look at the old man, who now had an evil smile on his face. "What they deserve." he said, in the creepy voice.

"Happy Galloween."

And a sword came swinging down towards him.

A scream rent the air and the old man twisted back to see a girl in a black dress just outside the transparent doors.

"Hah, the Bitch." He kicked the new head away and started towards her with a smile, licking the fresh blood away from his hands.

Carlotta screamed again and started back, falling down on her butt. The old man was still coming at her. She scrambled up in the dark and started to run down the porch steps, barely seeing a thing from the light on her phone.

She could hear footfalls behind her and she continued running, tears streaming down her face.

Oh mi God, oh mi God, oh mi God! The man had killed Mackey! The image of his head being cut clean off was still fresh in her mind. It was too horrific to be true. But the grunts and footfalls behind her was evidence enough. Had the same thing happened to the kids? Oh no! Jax! Maddie! Had they been killed, too?

Reaching the car, she stumbled in and slammed closed the door, locking it. She fumbled to dial the emergency numbers on her phone, at the same time reaching for the ignition. I should have called the fucking cops when Mackey said so!

When Mackey had asked her to call the cops, she had thought he was being overly paranoid, and when he had gone in and not come out, she had started to believe he had been right. But her will to see if they were alright inside had overcome the thought to call the cops.

With shaky hands, she tried to turn the ignition, but her fingers closed around nothing. A sick feeling clawed at her stomach when she remembered dropping the keys in Mackey's pockets.

Oh no!

A loud thud hit her window and the glass fractured to thousands of tiny pieces. Carlotta screamed. The old man was now at her side of the car and was holding the large sword by the hilt. He looked entirely different now. His clothes seemed to have gone completely from his body. The night was dark, and the car burglar alarm lights had come on, but she couldn't see a skin or hide of his body . . . it was like he was clothed in darkness itself. The only part of the body visible was his head. His formally beady eyes were now bigger and warped, like a Snapchat filter. There was a jagged hole where his squishy nose used to be and it had tiny and spiky white teeth protruding out of the cavity, like overbites. He had two more of the holes on either side of his face. His mouth was now bigger and wider . . and didn't seem to have lips. Just a large opening.

He grinned at her, showing off red, dripping teeth and plunged the sword through the sagging web of glass.

The pointed tip of the sword caught her in the shoulder and stabbed in. Carlotta screamed out in pain and scrambled to the other side of the car. The phone had dropped from her hands onto the floor somewhere. Someone was speaking on it, but she couldn't make out what was being said for the pain.

She pushed open the door and scrambled out, falling unto her knees. But she knew the man-monster would soon be on her if she didn't act fast. She stood up and started to run up the street as fast as her legs could carry her. The night was dark and moonless and the only source of light was the car burglar alarm lights. Her wound throbbed like hell and her neck and her chest was sticky with her blood. She knew she was loosing blood fast. If she didn't find help soon, she'd pass out.

She continued to run, away from the house, away from the car. She thought she heard footsteps behind her but she couldn't be too sure.

She reached the end of the street and veered into the highway that led off from it. She didn't know what highway this was, she had droven into the street from the other side from the outskirts of their town.

But what mattered was that there were lights ahead. Street lights. And there had to be cars. The man wouldn't dare chase her here. But Carlotta didn't stop running. She swiped at the tears blinding her and continued to run.

It was still fairly dark as she hadn't yet reached the lights. So she didn't see what hit her in front. She only felt it for a second before everything became black.