The Wickham House didn't burn down. It simply sat there, smoldering, as if daring them to come back.
Nobody did.
Instead, the mayor, in his infinite wisdom, decided to investigate the other cursed building nearby: Black Hollow Church.
"Because nothing bad ever happens in abandoned churches," Finn muttered as he, Lira, and three other unlucky villagers trudged through the misty woods.
The trees grew darker the closer they came, bark twisted like writhing flesh. Finally, the church appeared: a crooked spire stabbing at the moon, its roof sagging, windows blacker than night.
The front doors hung open.
And then the bell tolled.
A low, wet clang that rattled their bones.
The sound rolled through the woods, and the villagers immediately panicked.
"It's ringing on its own," one whispered. "The bell's been broken for thirty years…"
Another man, braver than he looked, held up a lantern. "No—look! Something's pulling the rope."
Sure enough, a shape dangled in the shadows above the bell tower. Not a man. Too thin. Too long. Its fingers coiled around the rope like spider legs, yanking it down, over and over.
And the rope—dear gods—the rope was made of braided intestines.
The bell tolled again, spraying black blood like spittle each time it swung.
One villager vomited instantly.
Lira tilted her head. "…Y'know, that's either really metal, or really unsanitary."
Her frill twitched nervously.
---
Inside, the pews were splintered. Scratches gouged the floor. Something had been dragged—no, lots of somethings—toward the altar.
And the altar itself…
It was drenched in blood. Not dried, not old. Fresh. Still steaming.
Finn gagged. "This isn't just a haunted church. It's… it's a slaughterhouse."
The group barely had time to react before the corpses appeared.
They rose from the pews, dressed in shredded choir robes, jaws unhinged too far. Their tongues hung like worms, throats making a sound somewhere between a hymn and a scream.
The dead choir began to sing.
It was wrong. Words in no human language, layered with grinding and moaning, like rusted gears. And with every note, the walls bled more. The crucifix above the altar melted, dripping molten iron.
One of the corpses lunged at a villager, its teeth ripping into his shoulder. He shrieked as blood sprayed across the hymnals. Another was dragged into the pews, vanishing beneath gnashing mouths.
Finn grabbed Lira's arm. "We need to run! NOW!"
But Lira was staring at the bell tower ropes. "Wait… what if the bell's the source? Classic horror trope, right?"
"Classic horror what?!" Finn shouted, yanking her toward the door.
Before they could move, one of the corpses hurled itself at Lira.
She screamed—her frill blasting outward like an explosion of hair. The impact startled the corpse mid-air, flipping it backward into the flaming altar. It ignited instantly, flailing like a torch.
"…See?" Lira wheezed. "Totally on purpose."
---
The surviving villagers bolted for the exit, but the church door slammed shut with a thunderous BOOM. The choir surged toward them, flesh tearing, black bile spraying.
Finn swung his lantern desperately, smashing it over a corpse's head. Fire caught, but more poured forward.
Lira, of course, tripped on the broken floorboards. She went sprawling—straight onto the bell rope.
Her fall yanked the rope so hard the bell tolled with a deafening CRACK, shaking the entire church.
The corpses froze mid-step. Their song broke apart, screeching into static. The burning altar split in two, collapsing as black fire roared up through the cracks in the floor.
And from the shadows above, the long, spidery thing that had been pulling the rope finally dropped down.
It wasn't human.
Its face was just a gaping hole with teeth. Its body was strung together with veins, stretched taut like a marionette. It landed with a crunch and scuttled across the ceiling, head twisting upside-down to stare at Lira.
"…Hi?" Lira squeaked, still holding the rope.
The thing lunged.
But her frill went off again in pure panic, knocking over half a pew. The falling wood smacked the monster out of the air, sending it tumbling directly into the molten altar pit.
The choir shrieked once more, then crumbled into dust.
Silence.
The bell rope snapped free in Lira's hands.
She stood there panting, covered in ash, eyes wide. "…So, uh. Guess mass is canceled?"
Finn just dropped to the floor, trembling. "You're going to kill me before the monsters do."
But somewhere deep below, beneath the broken altar, a new sound stirred.
Not bells. Not hymns.
A heartbeat. Slow. Heavy. Waiting.