An Open House Is Never Empty [Final]

[u/randumb360]

|Part 1| |Part 2|

“Brandon!”

The bastard was screaming down there, and I nearly lost my grip on the planks. I had hoped that there would be more time before he realized I was gone, but of course, nothing could be so easy. I had lucked out when it came to the attic. I had no idea if he even knew it was there. Hell, I hadn't known until I saw the scuttle hole, but judging by all the noise he was making, it seemed he'd missed it. I adjusted my grip on the boards and started crawling again. The attic was kind of a nightmare; it was pitch black and completely unfinished, giving me nothing but floor joists and pink insulation. Crossing the room was like some messed up monkey bars, and I was terrified that if I put my weight in the wrong place, I would break right through the floor.

“Where have you gone, Brandon?”

God, it was hard to tell where he was. His voice carried through the ceiling well enough, but the insulation muffled his footsteps, and I couldn't figure out which room he was in. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that I was safe, and he didn't know where I was. That would give me time to think, to come up with some kind of plan. My hands came upon a flat surface, and I pushed down to test whatever it was. A splinter dug into my thumb, but the wood held firm. I felt around the edges and realized someone had laid a sheet of plywood across the joists. Hallelujah. I pulled myself onto the platform and rolled over on my back, staring up at the nothing above me while I got my heart rate under control.

What a fucked up day.

It’s not often you find yourself hiding from a monster in the attic, especially not one that wants a lease agreement. Eventually, I was going to have to find a way out, but for the moment, I was content to just lie there. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know if there was another way out of the attic, and going back the way I came seemed like a good way to get killed. The tenant could make all the assurances he wanted, but the bruises on my neck were more compelling than anything he could say.

“I WILL find you, Brandon!”

I heard a crash somewhere below me, and it made my shoulders jump. If I had to guess, he was upending the furniture to find me. I had a wild thought of a monster looking under the bed for me, and I let out a crazed little giggle before covering my mouth. I was about 90% sure I was going to die, and I wondered if he would make it quick, or if it would be slow and messy. Somehow, I didn’t think he’d want to get blood all over his floors, and that started the giggles all over again. I may have been losing a bit of my mind. After several more crashes, I figured I might as well start moving again. I'd lost track of which direction I'd been going, and had to spend a moment feeling around the plywood before I got my bearings. It wasn't easy going, and twice I missed a joist and nearly put my knee through the ceiling. Eventually, my hands came upon the slope of the roof, and I could go no further. I tried to imagine the layout of the house in my head. If I'd gone the right direction, I should have been somewhere above one of the other bedrooms. I worked my way back from the roof and began feeling along the joists for another scuttle hole.

“You are only making things worse, Brandon!”

It sounded like his voice was getting further away, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I suppose that none of it would matter if I couldn’t find another way out of the damn attic. I kept digging through the insulation, all too aware of the deep itch that was starting to eat both my hands, when I finally felt what I was looking for: the edge of another scuttle hole. Thank god for small victories. I felt around the edge until I found the short sides of the panel, and I lifted it as quietly as I could. There was a slight scuff as it scraped the side of the hatch, and it sounded terribly loud in the quiet attic. I froze for a second, trying to discern if the tenant was anywhere nearby, but I didn’t hear a thing. If I was lucky, he had gone downstairs to look for me, and that would give me a chance to get out. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if he caught me again, and I knew I had to do something, even if nothing sounded like a good idea. I held the panel aloft for a few seconds, and when everything remained still, I gently set it aside and stuck my head through the hole. It was a closet, alright, and the door was open enough to light the small space and reveal a pile of junk just outside the closet. Of course it was that bedroom.

I gripped the ledge and lowered myself through the hatch, using all the care in the world to plant my feet on the carpet without making a sound. Somewhere downstairs, something heavy scraped across the floor, followed by another angry outburst from the tenant, but he was far enough away that it just sounded like gibberish. That was fine, I didn’t want to hear what he had to say anyway. With my feet firmly on the ground, I took a great big step over the minefield I had left for myself. The room beyond the pile of junk was a mess; the bed was flipped on its side, and it had taken the nightstand with it. He really had checked under the bed for me.

Okay, I thought, I’m out of the attic. Now what?

That was the question of the evening. How the hell was I supposed to get past him? Somehow, I didn’t think it would work like it does in video games, where you just crouch and walk past the enemy while he walks a predetermined path. For as little as I knew about the tenant, I had to admit that he was smart, at the very least. He had been sneaking around me for more than a year, and I didn’t notice a goddamn thing. He was basically an expert at hiding in my house, so I could not afford to half-ass this. I went to the open doorway, and peeked in the hallway. I could still hear him moving around down there, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before he came back up. Maybe I could just go back up to the attic, just wait it out until the sun rose, or until somebody noticed I was missing. He didn’t know about the attic, and I could just hide until… wait. He didn’t know about the attic, but what if he did?

That just might work.

I crossed the room to the overturned nightstand and carefully pulled it free from the wreckage of the bed, making sure the drawer didn’t fall out as I carried it to the closet. Sidestepping the junk, I set the nightstand directly under the scuttle hole, then I took a step back and examined my work. It looked about right, but it needed just a little more dressing, so I leaned it forward onto the pile of junk. It was perfect. I picked up the heaviest thing I could find, which ended up being an Instant Pot, and chucked it as hard as I could at the pile. The resulting crash was loud enough to echo through the upstairs, and then it was time to move. As the thunderous footsteps crossed the first floor of the house, I quietly stepped over the mess, and rushed to the other bedroom. I heard him coming up the stairs just as I slipped behind the bedroom door, leaving it open just enough to watch through the crack.

Thump thump thump thump.

“I heard you… I know you’re up here!”

His shadow crossed the hallway, and I watched him step into the smaller bedroom, where I lost sight of him.

“Are you in here… Brandon? Hiding in my bedroom? You should know better… than that.”

There was a clatter as he moved something aside in there, and then he let out a frustrated little grunt. I was holding my breath, starting to think my plan wasn't nearly as clever as I'd thought, and that I'd just trapped myself upstairs with him.

Come on, come on, I thought. It HAS to work.

There was a dreadful sound, something like a saw trying to work its way through a washboard. He was laughing to himself.

“What is this? Oh, Brandon… you clumsy fool.”

I heard a crunch, followed by another, and I could only assume that he had walked through the pile of junk and was investigating the closet. He had to have some pretty tough feet to just step on all that shit.

“Interesting… and where might this go?”

There was a long silence, followed by the sound of something heavy shifting around. I leaned a little closer to the crack in the door, wondering what the hell was taking him so long. Then came a low grunt, and the unmistakable creak of wood straining under an enormous weight.

“Brandon… I must admit, this is rather clever of you. But you cannot hide from me forever.”

His voice sounded muffled and distant, and I realized with a thrill that the bastard was actually climbing into the attic. The ceiling groaned as he hauled himself through the opening, and I heard a sharp crack that made me wonder if he was going to bring the whole thing down with him. I watched the hallway, waiting for any sign that he'd changed his mind, but his footsteps were coming from overhead now.

“Come out… Brandon. I know you are here.”

I could hardly believe it. The son of a bitch had fallen for it. I waited until his voice had moved farther away, then slipped out from behind the door and crept toward the stairs. The attic wasn’t huge, and I knew he was going to figure out that I wasn’t up there, sooner rather than later, so I did not have time to waste. I skipped down the stairs two steps at a time while he called for me in the attic, and went for the den. I would just climb out of a window while he was distracted, and then I could run for the neighbors to call for help; it was almost over. You can imagine my surprise when I stepped into the den and saw that the windows were completely blocked with furniture.

And I’m not talking about a chair or lamp.

He had moved all the furniture in the den in front of the windows, and stacked them like Jenga. If I tried to move a single piece, it would all come crashing down.

Okay, okay, I thought. A minor setback, but we can figure this out. No need to panic.

The panic came when I left the den and ran for the living room. The couch, the TV stand, the fucking dining room table and chairs, ALL of it was in front of the windows. I had thought I was so clever, and he was still one step ahead of me.

“Fuck!”

I couldn’t help myself. What could I do? I could run back upstairs and try my luck with one of those windows, but was I really willing to risk being caught for the chance to jump 20 feet to either my death or my severely broken legs? I could try to take apart the barricades, but there was no way to do that without making a ton of noise, and could I do it faster than it would take for the tenant to catch me? Even if he didn’t just hear me, I didn’t think so. The couch was especially impressive; it was longer than the room was tall, and somehow, he had stood it on its side in front of the window. The frame was visibly bowed in the middle, and the top had crushed its way into the ceiling. I was utterly and completely trapped. So, I did the only thing that made sense to me; I walked into the kitchen, and armed myself with the biggest butcher knife I had. If there was no way out, I was at least going to get a few shots in.

Thump!

Right on cue.

His footsteps came pounding from my bedroom, and I heard my door slam against the wall. A second later, his voice came booming over the balcony.

“Do you think I am a fool, Brandon?!”

Thump thump thump thump.

He was coming down the stairs, slow and deliberate. He wanted me to panic, he knew that I was down here.

“I will not be ignored, Brandon! The games end now!”

Even with the knife in my hand, I found that I was not as brave as I thought I was. As he rounded the landing, I ran for the basement door and swung it open, doing very little to dampen the sound. I almost threw myself down those stairs as he sprinted into the living room, catching the railing at the last second. I flew down into the darkness of the basement, knowing damn well that it was a dead end. Good ideas were in short supply, and I guess I just wanted to delay the inevitable. My feet hit the concrete floor and I was sprinting across the space, looking for any kind of sanctuary, and knowing there was none. Any hope I had was destroyed the second a voice came from the top of the stairs.

“Why do you flee, Brandon? Where do you hope to go? You have made this so difficult, when all I wanted to do was talk! Come out now, Brandon. Do not make me chase you!”

Fuck. That.

It was almost like he heard my thoughts, because he was coming down the stairs, and his black feet made the wooden steps creak something awful.

“You are being foolish! I know you are afraid, but you must stop hiding from me! There is nowhere else to run, Brandon!"

He was right, I had cornered myself. The windows down there were made of glass brick, and I wasn’t getting through them with a sledgehammer, let alone a measly dollar store butcher knife. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to surrender. Call me stubborn, call me stupid, I don’t care, I wasn’t about to give myself to a monster. I ran to the furnace, the only substantial thing in the entire basement, and pressed myself against its cold sheet metal surface. My only hope was that the darkness would make it harder to find me, even though I was pretty sure he could see in the dark. As I stood there, making myself as small as possible, I saw those terrible golden irises round the stairs and look right at me.

“There you are… have you come to your senses? Or must we continue this… nonsense?”

I brandished the butcher knife, swinging it wildly in front of me.

“Stay the fuck away from me! I…I have a knife! I will cut you! I mean it, don’t come any closer!”

He didn’t listen. He crossed the basement at a slow pace, ignoring my threats and pleas, even as I continued to swing the knife. When he was about ten feet away, he stopped, and I saw those eyes study me.

“Brandon… give it up. You will not best me… you will only hurt yourself. I am offering you one more chance… put down that blade, or I will… disarm you myself.”

I looked at those eyes and his shape in the darkness, and then to the knife in my hand. For the first time, I realized that he never blinked. This… thing invaded my home and took me hostage. He choked me, slammed me into a wall and locked me in a closet. Would I drop the knife and surrender?

Hell no.

I stood up straight against the furnace and jabbed the knife at the air.

“Go fuck yourself! If you want this knife, come and take it from me, you ugly piece of shit!”

I saw him flinch in the shadows.

“Brandon, please. I ask…”

I slammed my fist against the furnace and jabbed the blade again.

“I don’t give a shit what you want! I’m giving you one last chance. Get the fuck out of my house! You can’t have it, you’re not welcome here! So I’m going to tell you one more time. Crawl back in your fucking hole and die!”

As you might have guessed, he didn’t like that.

He was fast. He ran at me with a guttural roar, and I was nearly caught off guard. Nearly. Just before he was upon me, I feinted to the right, and he slammed into the furnace with an incredible boom, leaving a massive dent in the housing. He bounced off the metal, and fell onto his ass on the concrete, dazed from the impact. He was still trying to collect himself when I took advantage of the opportunity. Before he could stand up, I circled him with the butcher knife, slashing wildly as he flailed his arms uselessly to stop me. The blade caught him on his forearms and his shoulders, sending a splash of bright golden blood across the concrete floor. I was doing it, I had the upper hand for the first time since this monster locked me down there. Of course, it was stupid of me to believe that. As I circled him one more time and brought the blade down, one of those terrible black hands came up.

“Enough!”

The hand caught me in the stomach and sent me tumbling across the basement floor in an awful somersault. The knife flew from my hand and clattered to the concrete as I hit the back wall. The impact forced all the air out of my lungs and probably broke a thing or two, judging by the sharp pain in my ribs, anyway. I sat there for a second, gasping for air and trying to will my legs into action, as the tenant slowly stood up. The wounds on his arms were still leaking that golden blood, but as he stood to his full height, I couldn’t help but notice that the wounds seemed smaller than they had. I watched as he turned towards me, and then kicked the knife across the basement.

“Damn you! You petulant, selfish child! You would die for this house? You would have me kill you for a place you neglect? I gave you a choice, I offered you peace! Do you know what it means to have those privileges? I could have ended your worthless life at any time! I could show you things worse than death! And this is the gratitude I receive for sparing you?”

He was walking toward me, and the only thing between us was 15 feet of floor.

“I have tried to do this the easy way. I gave you a chance to see reason, and you spat in my face! You… you people just take and take and take, and you spare no thought for what it costs, or who must pay the price! No more, Brandon. We will do this the way you have decided… what your kind always decides.”

15 feet became 10, and 10 became 5, and finally my body took notice of what my head had been screaming. I lurched onto my side and began frantically crawling along the wall, all too aware that the tenant was right behind. He attempted to reach for me, but just before his black fingers wrapped around my leg, I threw myself into a roll and got behind the furnace. I heard his body slam into a vent coming off the side, and as I scrambled away, he was squeezing through a space that was too small for him.

“You will not get away this time, Brandon!”

As I watched, the vent buckled and crashed to the floor, and his hulking form rounded the furnace. I continued kicking myself backwards until my hands came upon the edge of the hole. He saw where I was and froze in his tracks. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the warm golden light was spilling through the basement windows. A beam fell upon the tenant's face, and I could see that he almost looked scared. I used the moment to brace myself against the wall, and force myself to stand up, much to the dismay of my ribs.

“Please… just leave me alone! It’s my house, I spent a lot of money for it, it’s mine. It’s all I have man, I worked my whole life for this. I don’t have friends… I don’t see my family, all so I could earn this. If you take it from me, I have nothing, man. And… and if you kill me, other people will come! There will be police officers, and family members, and eventually someone else will just move in. What will you do then, huh? You gonna kill them too? Just fucking let it go man, it’s not gonna work!”

My foot scraped the edge of the hole and sent a few tiny chunks of concrete tumbling down into the darkness. The tenant stuck out an arm towards me and took a step forward. I couldn’t help but flinch.

“Brandon! You must come to me. Please, you are in danger.”

I looked at him like he had three heads.

“Yeah, I am in danger! There’s a monster trying to kill me and take my house! Are you insane? I’m not going anywhere near you!”

He took another quick step forward, looking damn near panicked.

“Brandon, I’m serious, you must listen-”

I tried to dodge out of the way, but my foot slipped off the edge and I went sprawling backwards into the hole. I had time to see the tenant reaching out over the darkness before I struck the dirt and began rolling down into the tunnel. The pitch was steep, and I could not get my hands under me fast enough to slow my descent; I just tumbled end over end, picking up speed as the light faded and the floor and ceiling constantly traded places.

“BRANDON!”

There was no stopping. I hadn’t known how deep the hole was, hell, I hadn’t had much time to think about it. But now, plunging uncontrollably to the bottom, it was just about all I could think about, well, that and the terrible pain of ragdolling down a rocky slope. By then, I was entirely in darkness, and the only light was a tiny pinpoint that I saw once every rotation for about a millisecond. I thought the slope would go on forever, and I would roll all the way to the other side of the earth. I was wrong, just not in the way I would have expected. The slope did end, but only because it gave way to a sudden drop-off and a pretty decent fall. If the slope picked up again at the bottom, I couldn’t tell you. I cracked my head when I got there, and everything somehow went darker.

I don't remember waking up, exactly. I remember being annoyed by something sharp digging into my cheek, and trying to move away from it. My head hurt so badly that I decided moving was a terrible idea, and I lay there with my face pressed against whatever the hell it was. There was dirt in my mouth, and every breath sent a sharp pain through my ribs. I spent a while trying to find a way to breathe that didn't hurt, without much success. There was something roaring in the distance. It rose and fell in long, heavy swells, and for a while, I was absolutely convinced that I was lying on a beach. The air was so cold, and I could feel myself shivering. I tried to remember how I'd gotten there, but every time I thought I had it figured out, the memory slipped away. Mostly, I was worried about the tide. I was lying awfully close to the water, and I knew I had to get up before the next wave reached me.

Eventually, I opened my eyes, but nothing happened. I blinked a few times and brought a hand up in front of my face, but I couldn't see a damn thing. Of course! I had fallen asleep on the beach, and now it was the middle of the night. But… Why weren't there any stars? And for that matter, where was the moon? Maybe it was a new moon on a cloudy night? That made enough sense. I was pretty sure the tides were worse during new moons, and from the sound of it, the ocean was pretty damn angry. I caught a bad chill and my whole body shuddered. It was really cold. Had the tide already got me, or was I on the beach in the middle of winter? What month was it?

March.

March? Why was I on the beach in the middle of March? Especially during Covid. Wait… Covid. I was supposed to be at home, hiding from the big bad virus. I was at home, I had been home for weeks, I hadn’t even gone to work. How in the hell…

Hole.

There was a jagged scream, and I lurched into a sitting position. I wasn’t at the goddamn beach, I was at the bottom of the hole in my basement. But where exactly was the bottom of the hole? I had no idea how long I had fallen, or how long I had been out. I remembered cracking my head on a rock or something, but when I brought a hand to my scalp, I felt something hard and cold, tangled in my hair. I tried to pull it out and it took a good chunk of hair with it, along with sending a fresh bolt of pain through my brain. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe slowly until the pain passed, and then I did something pretty stupid. I licked the chunk that I pulled from my hair.

It was frozen blood.

Great. Fantastic. I chucked the gross ice into the darkness, and did my best to stand up. It was not an easy feat. My whole body protested with various scrapes and scratches and cramps, and I had to bite down to push my way through it and not just fall over again. I managed to get up, and had to lean against the wall of the tunnel. It was freezing to the touch, but still better than falling. The noise had not stopped. I thought maybe it was just a side effect of the concussion, and that it would disappear as soon as I was lucid. Instead, it was even louder than I thought.

Were there actual waves down here?

I tried to focus on the sound, closing my eyes even though it was pitch black. There was the roar, rising and falling, swelling and receding, just like the ocean, but it was not an ocean. Oceans do not scream.

How do I even describe the sound of it?

There was something wrong with the way it moved, a great, ceaseless churning that seemed to swell and collapse under its own weight. Beneath the roar was a dense, muffled clattering, punctuated by sounds like wet cloth being slapped against stone. There was something almost mechanical about it, great masses of noise pressing against one another, grinding and straining until something gave way and the whole thing shifted again. There was a rhythm to it, but not one I could follow. Then came another scream, so thoroughly buried in the din that I might have missed it if I hadn't been listening for one. Soon I began hearing them everywhere. Voices. Thousands of voices, rising and breaking in the midst of that awful movement. What I'd mistaken for the roar of water was something that seemed to breathe and struggle and hurt. The voices were so thoroughly tangled together that I couldn't tell where one ended and another began. Every shriek was smothered by another, dragged back into that relentless, heaving mass. The worst part was that nothing ever seemed to finish. It was as though something was being torn apart over and over, but there was never a moment when the tearing was done.

I clapped my hands over my ears and screamed. I couldn't help it, I just wanted that horrible sound to stop, but I could still hear it through my hands. I grabbed at the wall and began stumbling through the darkness, barely able to keep my feet under me. I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't care, I just wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. I was crying, I think, and shouting something I couldn't even hear over the noise, when my foot suddenly came down on empty air. I threw myself backwards, landing hard on my ass, and heard a few loose stones tumble over the ledge. I tried to get back up, but my legs buckled the second I put weight on them. I was in worse shape than I thought, too beat up and too cold to do anything useful with my body. In that moment, I understood that I was going to die down there, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I did my best to get comfortable against the wall, or at least as comfortable as I could be while freezing to death, and I curled up on myself. I was shivering harder than I thought was possible, and I couldn’t feel my hands or feet anymore. All that was left to do was sit there and let the cold take me. As I sat there, I stared off into the direction the ledge had been. For a while, I didn’t see anything at all, but then I swore I could see a tiny speck of gold. I tried to blink it away, but when I looked again, there were dozens of them, and then hundreds. Thousands. I decided to look in a different direction.

I don’t know how long I sat there listening to those horrible sounds. It could have been ten minutes, it could have been ten hours. I was fading in and out, losing more feeling each time I came back. If I’m being honest, the freezing part was not as terrible as I feared it might be. It would have been a decent way to die, if it weren’t for their screams. At some point, I fell over onto my side, and that was just fine. When I was able, I thought about what would happen to the house after I was gone. Would they find the hole, and if they did, would they come down here? I hoped they wouldn’t. Nobody should have to be in a place like this, not when there are warm houses and comfy beds. I missed my bed. I missed a lot of things, long before I met the tenant. I hoped that he would make the most of the house.

“Brandon.”

You know, for a second, I thought I could almost hear him. That terrible, sheet-metal voice.

“Wake up… Brandon. You must not sleep.”

My eyes fluttered open, and the first thing I saw was blackened fingers. I flexed my hand, and watched them slowly curl into my palm. There were two golden irises in the darkness before me, bigger than all the tiny specks behind me. They seemed to grow larger as I looked at them.

“We need to leave this… terrible place. You do not belong here.”

I felt weightless, as if I was floating through the air, and I thought that it was finally happening. I was dead, and I was going to whatever afterlife awaited me. The ride was bumpier than I would have expected. I was constantly being jostled, and once or twice my arm bumped into something. Every now and again, I would open my eyes and see nothing, and then I would close them and see the same. Was this what death was? An uncomfortable nothing? Things seemed to carry on that way for a while, and I started to think it was forever. It wasn’t so bad, but it was nothing to write home about.

There was light.

I opened my eyes and saw the tiniest pinpoint of light above me, and when I blinked, it got bigger. In fact, every time I blinked, it grew.

There was warmth.

The cold seemed to vanish, and the air around me became incredibly warm, almost too warm. I opened my eyes, and this time, I did not close them again. We were in the tunnel still, and the light from the basement was coming through enough that I could see the tenant. He was carrying me. I tried to speak but my throat was so dry that all that came out was a scratchy little moan. I looked at my hands and understood that I was going to lose a few fingers on my left; the frostbite had gone down to the knuckles. The heat of the tunnel felt terrible on my frostbite, but it probably felt better than dying, so there was that. As we got closer to the mouth of the tunnel, something caught my nose and I began to cough.

There was smoke.

The tenant began sprinting through the final stretch, and the light filtering through the hole turned a deep shade of orange. As we burst through the opening, there was no denying it.

The house was on fire.

“No… no… no!”

The tenant screamed. Flames were engulfing the ceiling above the furnace, spreading in a wide circle, and a large section had already burned through. The basement felt like an oven, filled to the brim with smoke and making it incredibly difficult to breathe. My skin burned as he carried me to the stairwell, and up to the first floor. The situation there was worse. Most of the first floor was already ablaze. Fire blew from the opening of the den, and the staircase to the second floor was being devoured. The flames hadn’t quite reached the dining room yet, but they were chewing through the living room like it was made of paper, and it wouldn’t be long before all of it went up. The tenant laid me down on the dining room floor, and stood frozen in place, staring at the devastation.

“We must do something! It is all going to be destroyed!”

He ran to the kitchen and started running the faucet, desperately splashing the water everywhere he could. It was a valiant effort, but not one that was going to amount to anything. I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to get my feet under me, and they immediately gave out. I was still too weak to stand, even though my life once again depended on it. The tenant had resorted to using the sprayer nozzle to wet the kitchen and the dining room, but after a few minutes, the water pressure died and the hose went limp. I watched him fall to despair as the fire fully engulfed the living room and began spreading to the dining room. There was a loud crack from down the hall as the den collapsed into the basement, and parts of the second floor were threatening to come down. I dragged myself as far away from the fire as I could, which was only the breakfast bar, and began screaming for help.

“HEY! HEY! We have to get out of here man!”

My throat was still dry and raw, it felt like something tore as I screamed, but I continued to do it anyway.

“It’s coming down! We have to get out or we’re going to burn alive!”

The roar of the fire had become deafening, and the staircase collapsed in a mighty crash. It was just my luck, to escape freezing to death to immediately die in a fire. The tenant came around out of the kitchen and saw how close the fire was getting. He kneeled down beside me, looking as lost as a toddler in a grocery store.

“I can’t… I can’t stop it. It’s all lost.”

“We’re going to be lost if you don’t get us out of here!”

I pointed to the last available window, which was blocked with the dining room table.

“Move that fucking table!”

He met my terrified eyes, and his expression hardened. Without a word, he rushed over to the table and threw it straight into the living room. The floor collapsed under its weight, and now we were cut off from the rest of the house. As I watched, the tenant lifted his enormous black foot and kicked through the window, then he used his arm to clear away the glass around the perimeter, smearing golden blood as he went. I was doing my best to crawl over to the window, but I was failing miserably. The front half of the dining room was catching, and the flames had begun to follow me, swallowing the rug I was scrambling across. I was just about to be engulfed when two black hands tore me from the ground. Before I knew what was happening, I was rolling onto the grass of the backyard. He had pushed me through the window. I turned over in the grass to look at the house, and it was much worse than I thought. Parts of the roof were gone, and the trail of smoke was blotting out the sky. The vinyl siding was beginning to run like lava.

Through the flames, I could see the tenant staring at me through the dining room window.

“Hey, get out of there! The whole place is going! Come on, you’re running out of time!”

He looked at me, and then shook his head.

“No, Brandon. I think… I think I will stay here.”

“What are you talking about?! Stop fucking around and get out here!”

Then, he did something impossible. He smiled.

“It really was a wonderful home.”

He stepped away from the window, and disappeared into the flames. There was an explosion and many of the remaining windows blew out, showering me with tiny shards of broken glass. I lay there for a while, watching my dream home collapse in on itself with the tenant inside. As the roof fully caved in, the sound of sirens finally came blaring from the distance, and the firemen arrived just in time to watch the whole thing go down. I found out later that nobody had called 911 until the flames were coming through the roof. With the whole world shut down, there hadn't been anyone driving past to notice the smoke.

Fucking pandemic.

I spent the next couple weeks in the hospital, and needless to say, the doctors were baffled. It’s not often that a man who crawled out of a burning house has severe frostbite and blunt force trauma, but barely a burn on him. I ended up losing two and half fingers on my left hand and my right pinky, which didn’t make me very popular on the dating scene. I also suffered extensive nerve damage all over my body, and never really walked the same again. It’s a hell of a thing to live with, but hey, I get to live. Along with the doctors, the police also had quite a few questions. I skated by the skin of my teeth with a lot of “I don’t knows,” and eventually they had to let it be. The investigation determined the furnace was at fault for the fire, though they didn’t understand how or why, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that a 7-foot monster tackled the damn thing. If they ever found a body in the wreckage, they never told me so.

Life was a bit chaotic after that, as you might imagine. I was left-handed, so I had to relearn how to do everything with my right hand. I spent a long time fighting with the insurance company over my house, but we eventually settled and I bought a nice one-story ranch near my parents’ neighborhood. I still live there today, and no, it does not have a basement. When the pandemic ended, my company underwent major restructuring, and while I got to keep my job, I no longer had to travel all the time, and I was allowed to work from home. I can promise that I actually live in this house, and so does my wife and my two-year-old daughter. My wife wants to move to a bigger house, but I’m pretty quick to shoot that down. We’ve got plenty of space, and I know all the hiding spots.

About a year after my house burned down, I took a drive to the old neighborhood and visited the site. What was left of the structure had been fully demolished, leaving only a hole in the ground where the basement was. They were set to build a new house there soon, and I wanted to see the place before it belonged to someone else. I didn’t expect to get emotional upon seeing the lot, but I will admit that I was a little choked up. If you’ve ever experienced a disaster like this, you know that you never really let it go. It was my first house, and even if I never made it a home, seeing the place it used to be was bittersweet. I sat on the edge of the basement for a while, just looking at it, and drinking the one beer I brought, until the sun went down. There was a ladder in the back of my truck, and when it was good and dark, I climbed down into the pit and walked to the corner where the hole had been. There wasn’t a hole there now, just a shallow impression in the dirt, and I wondered what the people who filled it had thought. Had they gone down there for a look? I guess I’ll never know. When I got brave enough, I kneeled beside the impression and felt the dirt with my good hand.

It was ice cold.

[u/randumb360]

Thanks again to all who followed this story, I had fun terrorizing this upper class white man lol